History will remember the 2014-15 Robertson Cup Champion Minnesota Wilderness as the first team from the State of Hockey to win a North American Hockey League championship, as well as the victor of the longest game in the 39-year history of the Tier II junior league.

What head coach Corey Millen of Cloquet will remember most is the “epic” run his hometown team went on in the postseason to win the franchise’s first NAHL title in just its second year in the league.

“The boys have just been unreal,” Millen said Sunday upon his and the team’s return to Cloquet. “I can’t express how great this has been.

“What we have done is unprecedented and incredible in my mind.”

The Wilderness began the 2014-15 NAHL playoffs with a pair of losses at home in Cloquet on April 10-11, but after that rattled off 10 straight wins to capture the league title.

The final two victories were this weekend in Austin and included the 2-1, four-overtime win in Game 1 followed by a 4-0 victory in Game 2 to clinch the series.

Billy Exell was the hero of Game 1, scoring approximately five and a half hours after the 7:05 p.m. puck drop on Friday - or 13:03 into the fourth overtime period.

On Saturday, the Wilderness picked up two goals from Brett Heikkila, who scored both after separating his shoulder in the first period.

“Friday, winning in four overtimes, that definitely gave us momentum,” said Wilderness forward Aaron Miller of Superior.

“Both teams ... were obviously physically exhausted, but us winning and them losing, they were mentally exhausted, too, from losing it. Going that far in a game, you have to win to get momentum.”

Seven of the Wilderness’ 10 consecutive playoff wins were on the road, including the final five. Of those final five games, the Wilderness trailed for only 18 minutes, 49 seconds.

That deficit came during Game 3 of a second-round series at Fairbanks. The defending Robertson Cup champion Ice Dogs took a 3-0 lead in the first period, but the Wilderness rallied to score six unanswered goals in the second and third periods to win the game and sweep the series.

“This team’s resilience is incredible,” Millen said. “I’ve been in this game for 45 years and I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a run like this. Obviously it’s not the Stanley Cup, but it is an epic run for these guys. They were unbelievable.”

The following weekend - when the NAHL playoffs moved from best-of-five first and second-round series to best-of-three for the final two rounds - the Wilderness won a pair of 2-1 games at the home of the NAHL regular-season champion Janesville Jets with the second game of the series needing an additional 68 seconds of overtime. Tyler Cline finished off the second of three-straight series sweeps for the Wilderness by scoring 1:08 into the first OT.

Cline, Heikkila and Exell were three of the 14 Wilderness players who were credited with goals this postseason. Five different players contributed to the Wilderness’ six goals in the championship series and none were the team’s leading postseason goal scorers.

Those honors went to Darian Romanko, who scored a league-leading 19 points off seven goals and 12 points, and Dan Litchke, who had seven goals and four assists. Romanko and Litchke’s seven goals tied three others for most in the postseason.

“To me the most important part of it was we have been the best team the whole way,” Millen said. “Every game I felt we’ve been the best team. It wasn’t because we were lucky, we were the best team and I’m happy about that.”

Millen didn’t want to single out any one player, but it was tough for him and his players not to heap praise on the team’s goaltender, Brock Kautz, who after losing Game 1 and sitting out Game 2 against Coulee Region was in goal for all 10 wins.

Kautz, who was traded by Janesville to the Wilderness in June, led all NAHL goaltenders in the postseason with 11 games played, 712 minutes, 10 wins, a 1.43 goals against average, a .944 save percentage and 288 total saves.

This weekend he stopped 47 of the 48 shots he faced in the four-overtime win, then followed it up with his one shutout of the postseason to help his team clinch the Robertson Cup.

“Going into Janesville, we knew he was probably going to play his best games and from there he kept going,” Miller said. “He was hot. He was a big part of our team for sure.”