Month: February 2018

Over the first four seasons of the NCHC, Miami has averaged a fifth-place finish (8th, 2nd, 5th, 7th), with a combined league record of 34-53-9-7 (.410).

When the National Collegiate Hockey Conference was formed, Miami appeared positioned to be a dominant program. Prior to the 2013-14 season (their inaugural campaign in the NCHC), the RedHawks had made eight consecutive NCAA tournament appearances, with consecutive Frozen Four bids in 2009 and 2010. Since joining the NCHC, Miami has just one NCAA tournament appearance (2015), and that ended quickly with a first-round loss to eventual national champion Providence.

For comparison, North Dakota has finished 2nd, 1st, 1st, and 4th in the first four seasons of the new league.

This season, UND (14-10-8 overall, 8-8-4-2 NCHC) is tied with Duluth for third place in the league standings, two points clear of fifth-place Western Michigan and four points better than Coorado College. Meanwhile, the RedHawks (10-17-3 overall, 5-13-2-0 NCHC) are dead last, seven points behind seventh-place Omaha.

Enrico Blasi’s crew has hit the skids in the second half, losing their last five games and being shut out in the past three. Over the past six weekends, Miami is 2-9-1 against Denver, Omaha, Colorado College, Western Michigan, St. Cloud State, and Duluth. The RedHawks scored 30 goals in those twelve games (2.5 goals scored/game) but allowed 53 (4.42 goals allowed/game). Skewing those numbers somewhat was an 11-7 loss at Omaha on January 12th.

Over the same stretch of games, it’s been up and down for North Dakota. Since January 1st, UND has gone 4-5-3 and scored 37 goals (3.08/game) while allowing 32 (2.67/game) against Omaha (four games), Bemidji State, Duluth, Denver, and Colorado College. One could argue that the Fighting Hawks deserved a better fate in a handful of those ties and losses, but the margin of error is so small for this team.

Out of conference, North Dakota had decent success (6-2-4, .667) against Alaska Anchorage, St. Lawrence, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Union, and Bemidji State. The league as a whole went 47-22-15 (.649) in non-conference play and could easily place five or even six teams in the NCAA tournament field. If the season ended today, St. Cloud State (1st), Denver (t-4th), and Duluth (t-8th) would all easily make the tourney, with North Dakota (13th), Omaha (14th), and Western Michigan (15th) on the bubble. College (23rd) and Miami (28th) are on the outside looking in and probably need to secure the league’s autobid as NCHC Frozen Faceoff champions to advance to the NCAAs.

Fighting Hawks’ freshman forward Grant Mismash has been nearly invisible over the past fourteen games. Mismash started the season with a line of 5-9-14 through his first seventeen games in a UND uniform (including two goals in a 6-2 victory over Colorado College in October) but has been held to two goals and two assists in his past thirteen appearances and was a healthy scratch on January 6th vs. Omaha.

On the injury front, North Dakota finally appears to be getting healthy after losing 74 man-games due to injury, illness, suspension, or the Olympics this season. UND has used a different lineup in 31 of 32 games this season, including 57 different line combinations at forward and eleven different defensive pairings. Expect head coach Brad Berry to keep the line of junior Rhett Gardner centering junior Shane Gerisch and senior Austin Poganski together. In their past five games as linemates, the trio combined for 20 points and four victories.

If UND hopes to make a deep playoff run, Gersich (11-13-24) and Poganski (10-7-17) will need to continue their recent scoring prowess. The two combined for 33 goals and 29 assists during the 2016-17 season but struggled to find open ice in the first half of this year. From October through December, Poganski went 4-2-6 and Gersich added 5-6-11 in twenty games each. In the past twelve games, the two have scored twelve goals and added twelve assists.

It is worthy of note that Poganski has scored one goal and notched four assists in ten career games against the Mavs while Gersich has enjoyed similar success (1-2-3 in seven career games). Rhett Gardner leads all active UND players with six points in seven career games against Miami.

According to KRACH, Omaha has played the third-toughest schedule in the country this season; North Dakota’s slate of games ranks 12th.

UND leads the nation in faceoff efficiency (56.0 percent); Omaha is 21st at 51.2 percent. Of the top fifteen faceoff men in the NCHC (minimum 100 attempts), five wear a Fighting Hawks jersey:

1. Nick Jones (60.5 percent)
3. Collin Adams (59.1 percent)
6. Rhett Gardner (58.3 percent)
9. Johnny Simonson (55.9 percent)
14. Ludvig Hoff (53.6 percent)

Hoff has just returned to the team after representing his native Norway at the 2018 Winter Olympics (Pyeongchang, South Korea). Hoff and Canadian defenseman Chay Genoway became the 28th and 29th UND players to compete in men’s hockey at the Olympic Games.

On the other bench, Miami boasts one centerman among the top fifteen:

7. Casey Gilling (57.5 percent)

Last weekend, North Dakota reached the 1,500-win plateau all-time as a program. UND has more wins over the past eleven seasons (304) than any other program in the country, with Boston College (300) and Denver (286) rounding out the top three.

UND’s senior class of Cam Johnson, Trevor Olson, Austin Poganski, and Johnny Simonson (98-42-18, .677) needs two more victories to become the fifteenth consecutive recruiting class to win at least 100 games.

The Fighting Hawks have eight ties already this season, one shy of the school record set by the 2000-01 national runner-up squad that went 29-8-9. With only twelve victories and eight regular-season games remaining before the NCHC playoffs, it is possible that UND will finish the 2017-18 campaign with fewer than twenty wins. The last time a North Dakota men’s hockey team fell below that number was in 2001-02, when a Dean Blais-led group went 16-19-2 (.459) and missed the NCAAs.

North Dakota has gone just 7-8-5 (.475) over the last ten weekends of hockey after beginning the year 7-2-3 (.708), and Brad Berry’s squad will need a victory or two this weekend in order to solidify their place in the NCAA tournament.

According to Jim Dahl (collegehockeyranked.com), UND would most likely move to 9th or 10th in the Pairwise rankings (which mimic the tourney selection process) with two wins this weekend, settle in at 12th or 13th split, and drop to 14th or 15th with two losses. Due to autobids and tournament upsets, teams with postseason aspirations hope to be no lower than 12th or 13th after the final games have been played on Saturday, March 17th.

North Dakota has made the tournament for fifteen consecutive seasons (every year since 2001-02), the longest active streak in Division I men’s ice hockey. If Brad Berry can lead the program to its sixteenth-consecutive NCAA tournament appearance, North Dakota would be placed in the 2018 West Regional (Sioux Falls, South Dakota) as the host school. The 2018 NCAA Frozen Faceoff will take place at Xcel Energy Center (St. Paul, Minnesota).

Miami Team Profile

Head Coach: Enrico Blasi (19th season at Miami, 385-285-70, .568)

Pairwise Ranking: 28th of 60 teams
National Rankings: NR/NR

This Season: 10-17-3 (.383) overall, 5-13-2-0 NCHC (8th)
Last Season: 9-20-7 (.347) overall (missed NCAA tournament), 5-14-5-3 NCHC (7th)

Season Statistics:

Team Offense: 2.77 goals scored/game – 37th of 60 teams
Team Defense: 3.43 goals allowed/game – 53rd of 60 teams
Power Play: 24.3% (33 of 136) – 7th of 60 teams
Penalty Kill: 80.2% (105 of 131) – 38th of 60 teams

Key Players: Sophomore F Gordie Green (12-16-28), Junior F Josh Melnick (8-17-25), Junior F Kiefer Sherwood (6-14-20), Freshman F Phil Knies (10-7-17), Senior D Louie Belpedio (9-17-26), Junior D Grant Hutton (10-10-20), Sophomore G Ryan Larkin (10-15-3, 3.12 GAA, .884 SV%, 1 SO)

North Dakota Team Profile

Head Coach: Brad Berry (3rd season at UND, 69-32-15, .659)

Pairwise Ranking: 13th of 60 teams
National Rankings: #12/#12

This Season: 14-10-8 (.563) overall, 8-8-4-2 NCHC (t-3rd)
Last Season: 21-16-3 (.562) overall (NCAA West Regional semifinalist), 11-12-1-1 NCHC (4th)

2017-18 Season Statistics:

Team Offense: 2.91 goals scored/game – 27th of 60 teams
Team Defense: 2.38 goals allowed/game – 12th of 60 teams
Power Play: 19.9% (27 of 136) – 23rd of 60 teams
Penalty Kill: 81.7% (107 of 131) – 27th of 60 teams

Key Players: Junior F Shane Gersich (11-13-24), Junior F Nick Jones (9-12-21), Freshman F Grant Mismash (7-11-18), Senior F Austin Poganski (10-7-17), Junior F Rhett Gardner (6-11-17), Junior D Christian Wolanin (9-17-26), Sophomore D Colton Poolman (7-13-20), Senior G Cam Johnson (9-6-5, 2.08 GAA, .909 SV%, 2 SO)

By The Numbers:

Last Meeting: November 11, 2017 (Grand Forks, ND). In a back-and-forth affair, North Dakota spotted the visitors two goals before scoring three straight to take a 3-2 lead with less than four minutes remaining. Miami’s Josh Melnick knotted the game with 84 seconds remaining on the clock to send the game to overtime. After a scoreless five-minute session, it took four rounds of a shootout before UND’s Christian Wolanin blasted one past Ryan Larkin. Fighting Hawks netminder Peter Thome made his fourth consecutive start in place of the injured Cam Johnson. North Dakota won 4-1 on Friday night behind two goals from Nick Jones.

Last Meeting in Oxford: March 4, 2017. After a scoreless first period, North Dakota’s Tucker Poolman led the way in the final forty minutes with two goals and two assists as UND downed Miami 5-2. The Fighting Hawks outshot the RedHawks 27-11 on the night (and 68-27 on the weekend). In Friday’s opener, North Dakota got a rare unassisted shorthanded tally from Trevor Olson with 100 seconds remaining to win 3-2.

Most Important Meeting: March 6, 2015 (Oxford, OH). North Dakota claimed the Penrose Cup with a 2-1 road victory over Miami. UND fell flat the following night, losing 6-3 in the final game of the regular season.

Last Ten: UND has picked up seven wins and a tie in the past ten contests, outscoring Miami 36-27 over that stretch of games. The RedHawks have only hosted four of the past ten meetings between the schools.

All-time Series: North Dakota leads the all-time series 13-5-2 (.700), including a 4-2-0 (.667) record in games played in Oxford, Ohio. The teams first played in 1999 (Badger Showdown, Milwaukee, WI).

Game News and Notes

North Dakota is unbeaten (4-0-1) in the past five meetings with Miami. The Fighting Hawks lead the nation in average attendance (11,475 per home game), while the RedHawks are 33rd (2,449 per home game). UND is 5-2-0 in one goal games this season, while Miami is 4-5-0 in those situations.

Media Coverage

Friday’s game will not be televised, but Saturday’s rematch is available on FOX College Sports Pacific. A high definition webcast of both games will be available to NCHC.tv subscribers. All UND men’s hockey games (home and away) can be heard on 96.1 FM and on stations across the UND Sports Network (as well as through the iHeart Radio app). Follow @UNDMHockey for real-time Twitter updates, or follow the action via live chat at UNDsports.com.

The Prediction

Miami may not win another game this season, as it looks like the RedHawks have packed it in and will take the road to face either Denver or St. Cloud State in the first round of the league playoffs. North Dakota will put it all together this weekend, but Friday’s opener will be a struggle. UND 3-2, 5-1.

As always, thank you for reading. I welcome your questions, comments, and suggestions. Follow me on Twitter (@DBergerHockey) for more information and insight. Here’s to hockey!

Omaha has gone just 7-11-0-0 in conference play, which currently has them in 7th place in the eight-team NCHC. Despite that sub-par mark, #13 UNO is tied for 9th in the Pairwise Rankings thanks to a 7-2-1 non-conference record (against UMass-Lowell, Arizona State, Notre Dame, Northern Michigan, and Union).

On the plus side, Omaha is scoring 3.61 goals per game, the fourth-highest scoring offense in the country.

On the minus side, Omaha is allowing 3.96 goals per game, the worst scoring defense in the country.

Out of conference, North Dakota had decent success (6-2-4, .667) against Alaska Anchorage, St. Lawrence, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Union, and Bemidji State. The league as a whole went 45-22-13 (.644) in non-conference play and could easily place five or even six teams in the NCAA tournament field. If the season ended today, St. Cloud State (1st), Denver (4th), Omaha (10th), Duluth (11th), and North Dakota (13th) would all make the tourney, with only Colorado College (24th) and Miami (27th) on the outside looking in.

Fighting Hawks’ freshman forward Grant Mismash has been nearly invisible over the past twelve games. Mismash started the season with a line of 5-9-14 through his first seventeen games in a UND uniform (including two goals in a 6-2 victory over Colorado College in October) but has been held to two goal and two assists in his past eleven appearances and was a healthy scratch on January 6th vs. Omaha.

Omaha has been dealing with the loss of junior forward Mason Morelli (4-10-14 in 16 games). According to the Omaha World-Herald, Morelli tore his ACL in a freak accident over the winter break and is lost for the season.

On the injury front, North Dakota finally appears to be getting healthy after losing 67 man-games due to injury, illness, or suspension this season. UND has used a different lineup in every game this year, including 55 different line combinations at forward and ten different defensive pairings. Expect head coach Brad Berry to keep the line of junior Rhett Gardner centering junior Shane Gerisch and senior Austin Poganski together. In their past three games as linemates, the trio combined for 17 points and three victories.

If UND hopes to make a deep playoff run, Gersich (9-13-22) and Poganski (10-7-17) will need to continue their recent scoring prowess. The two combined for 33 goals and 29 assists during the 2016-17 season but struggled to find open ice in the first half of this year. From October through December, Poganski went 4-2-6 and Gersich added 5-6-11 in twenty games each. In the past ten games, the two have scored ten goals and added twelve assists.

It is worthy of note that Poganski has scored two goals and notched eight assists in fourteen career games against the Mavs while Gersich has enjoyed similar success (2-5-7 in nine career games).

According to KRACH, Omaha has played the second-toughest schedule in the country this season; North Dakota’s slate of games ranks 13th.

UND leads the nation in faceoff efficiency (56.2 percent); Omaha is 24th at 50.8 percent. Of the top fifteen faceoff men in the NCHC (minimum 100 attempts), five wear a Fighting Hawks jersey:

1. Nick Jones (60.2 percent)
3. Collin Adams (58.6 percent)
5. Rhett Gardner (58.3 percent)
9. Johnny Simonson (56.6 percent)
15. Ludvig Hoff (53.6 percent)

Hoff is currently representing his native Norway at the 2018 Winter Olympics (Pyeongchang, South Korea).

On the other bench, Omaha boasts two centermen among the top fifteen:

10. Luke Nogard (55.6 percent)
14. Teemu Pulkkinen (54.1 percent)

North Dakota enters this weekend’s series needing just one more win to reach the 1,500-win plateau all-time as a program. UND has more wins over the past eleven seasons (303) than any other program in the country, with Boston College (298) and Denver (285) rounding out the top three.

UND’s senior class of Cam Johnson, Trevor Olson, Austin Poganski, and Johnny Simonson (97-41-18, .679) needs three more victories to become the fifteenth consecutive recruiting class to win at least 100 games.

The Fighting Hawks have eight ties already this season, one shy of the school record set by the 2000-01 national runner-up squad that went 29-8-9. With only twelve victories and eight regular-season games remaining before the NCHC playoffs, it is possible that UND will finish the 2017-18 campaign with fewer than twenty wins. The last time a North Dakota men’s hockey team fell below that number was in 2001-02, when a Dean Blais-led group went 16-19-2 (.459) and missed the NCAAs.

North Dakota has gone just 6-7-5 (.472) over the last nine weekends of hockey after beginning the year 7-2-3 (.708), and Brad Berry’s squad will need a victory or two this weekend in order to solidify their place in the NCAA tournament.

According to Jim Dahl (collegehockeyranked.com), UND would most likely stay at 8th in the Pairwise rankings (which mimic the tourney selection process) with two wins this weekend, drop to 10th with a split, and drop to 14th with two losses. Due to autobids and tournament upsets, teams with postseason aspirations hope to be no lower than 12th or 13th after the final games have been played on Saturday, March 17th.

North Dakota has made the tournament for fifteen consecutive seasons (every year since 2001-02), the longest active streak in Division I men’s ice hockey. If Brad Berry can lead the program to its sixteenth-consecutive NCAA tournament appearance, North Dakota would be placed in the 2018 West Regional (Sioux Falls, South Dakota) as the host school. The 2018 NCAA Frozen Faceoff will take place at Xcel Energy Center (St. Paul, Minnesota).

Omaha Team Profile

Head Coach: Mike Gabinet (1st season at UNO, 14-13-1, .518)

Pairwise Ranking: t-9th of 60 teams
National Rankings: #13/#13

This Season: 14-13-1 (.518) overall, 7-11-0-0 NCHC (7th)
Last Season: 16-16-5 (.500) overall (missed NCAA tournament), 9-13-2-0 NCHC (6th)

Team Offense: 3.61 goals scored/game – 4th of 60 teams
Team Defense: 3.96 goals allowed/game – 60th of 60 teams
Power Play: 27.0% (34 of 126) – 2nd of 60 teams
Penalty Kill: 77.7% (101 of 130) – 51st of 60 teams

Key Players: Senior F David Pope (19-19-38), Senior F Tyler Vesel (10-16-26), Sophomore F Zach Jordan (13-9-22), Senior F Jake Randolph (5-17-22), Junior F Fredrik Olofsson (6-14-20), Senior D Joel Messner (5-15-20), Sophomore D Ryan Jones (1-8-9), Junior G Evan Weninger (12-10-0, 3.65 GAA, .888 SV%)

North Dakota Team Profile

Head Coach: Brad Berry (3rd season at UND, 68-31-15, .662)

Pairwise Ranking: 13th of 60 teams
National Rankings: #9/#10

This Season: 13-9-8 (.567) overall, 7-7-4-2 NCHC (t-3rd)
Last Season: 21-16-3 (.562) overall (NCAA West Regional semifinalist), 11-12-1-1 NCHC (4th)

2017-18 Season Statistics:

Team Offense: 2.90 goals scored/game – 33rd of 60 teams
Team Defense: 2.33 goals allowed/game – 10th of 60 teams
Power Play: 19.5% (25 of 128) – 24th of 60 teams
Penalty Kill: 82.9% (102 of 123) – 19th of 60 teams

Key Players: Junior F Shane Gersich (9-13-22), Junior F Nick Jones (9-12-21), Freshman F Grant Mismash (7-11-18), Senior F Austin Poganski (10-7-17), Junior F Rhett Gardner (5-11-16), Junior D Christian Wolanin (9-16-25), Sophomore D Colton Poolman (7-10-17), Freshman G Peter Thome (5-3-3, 2.15 GAA, .917 SV%, 1 SO)

By The Numbers:

Last meeting: January 6, 2018 (Grand Forks, ND). One night after Evan Weninger made 34 saves in a 4-1 road victory, the Fighting Hawks exploded for seven goals and freshman netminder Peter Thome stopped all fifteen shots he faced. In the second period alone, North Dakota scored three goals and outshot the Mavericks 19-1 (32-15 for the game). UND senior forward Austin Poganski had a three-point night with an assist on junior Rhett Gardner’s first-period goal and two third-period tallies of his own, while Gardner added two assists to match Poganski in the scoring column.

Last Meeting in Omaha: January 7, 2017. North Dakota got to UNO netminder Evan Weninger early and often in cruising to a 7-3 victory and the weekend sweep (UND crushed the Mavericks 9-1 in Friday’s opener). Tyson Jost collected four points on the weekend after his emotional return from the World Juniors. Specialty teams were huge for the visitors, as the Fighting Hawks scored six power play goals and a shorthanded goal on the weekend while allowing Omaha just one goal with the man advantage in the two-game series.

Most memorable meeting: The game that UND fans will long remember is the outdoor game played at TD Ameritrade Park (Omaha, Nebraska) on February 9th, 2013. One day after winning a tight 2-1 contest indoors, North Dakota throttled UNO 5-2 on a sunny, melty afternoon. Mavericks netminder John Faulkner was pulled after allowing three goals on five shots in just ten minutes of game action. In my opinion, this hockey weekend solidified the notion that for UND hockey, it’s always a home game.

Last ten: North Dakota has won seven of the last ten contests between the schools, outscoring the Mavericks 46-23 over that stretch. Maverick goaltender Evan Weninger made 56 combined saves in two road victories (February 2017 and January 2018).

All-time: UND leads the all-time series 16-9-1 (.635), including an impressive 9-3-0 (.750) record in games played in Omaha.

Game News and Notes

In 2015, both North Dakota and Omaha advanced to the Frozen Four but neither team made the championship game. UND fell to Boston University 5-3, while the Mavericks were upended 4-1 by eventual national champion Providence. Fighting Hawks juniors Joel Janatuinen and Christian Wolanin will both appear in their 100th career NCAA contest on Friday night in Omaha. The Mavs are 10-3-1 at home this season and 4-10-0 on the road. North Dakota is 8-4-5 at home and 5-5-3 on the road.

Media Coverage

Friday’s opener (6:38 p.m. CT) will be telecast nationally on CBS Sports Network, with Saturday’s rematch (7:07 p.m. CT) available on YurView. Saturday’s game will also be streamed live in high definition via NCHC.tv.

UND men’s hockey games (home and away) can be heard on 96.1 FM and on stations across the UND Sports Radio Network (as well as through the iHeart Radio app). Follow @UNDMHockey for real-time Twitter updates, or follow the action via live chat at UNDsports.com.

The Prediction

After this weekend, North Dakota travels to Miami (10-15-3 overall, 5-11-2-1 NCHC) before hosting St. Cloud State (19-6-3 overall, 13-4-1-0 NCHC) on the last weekend of the regular season. According to collegehockeyranked.com, three victories in the last six games should keep North Dakota on the correct side of the playoff bubble. Assuredly, it will be easier to pick up wins against Omaha and Miami on the road than it will be to accomplish the same feat at home against SCSU. A split is the minimum from this weekend’s games, and that’s the result. The Mavericks are much stronger in series openers (10-4-0) than finales (4-9-1), so I’ll go with that. UNO 4-2, UND 5-1.

As always, thank you for reading. I welcome your questions, comments, and suggestions. Follow me on Twitter (@DBergerHockey) for more information and insight. Here’s to hockey!

After winning just twenty total games over his first three seasons behind the CC bench, head coach Mike Haviland has already won eleven games during the 2017-18 campaign and has his Tigers just four points out of a home-ice playoff spot ahead of this weekend’s league series against North Dakota.

Colorado College (11-11-4 overall, 5-8-3-2 NCHC) has struggled in the National Collegiate Hockey Conference, winning just sixteen conference games combined over the first four seasons of the league’s existence. Of the eight teams in the conference, the Tiger have finished last in each of the past three campaigns after a seventh place finish in 2013-14.

The feeling among the Tiger faithful has always been that new blood behind the bench would eventually translate into new life on the ice, and CC fans are finally being rewarded for their patience. Colorado College is averaging 3.04 goals per contest this year after averaging just a shade over two goals per game (215 goals in 107 games) over the past three seasons.

This season, a trio of Tiger forwards (Mason Bergh, Trey Bradley, and Nick Halloran) are leading the way offensively, scoring almost half (45.4 percent) of their team’s points. Halloran (16-23-39 in 26 games played) won NCHC Player of the Month honors in both December and January and is tied for the nation’s scoring lead on a points/game basis (both he and Northeastern junior forward Adam Gaudette [20-22-42 in 28 gp] are averaging 1.50 points per game). UND expects Mike Haviland to keep those three forwards together, and with the last line change, Brad Berry will most likely match with his top defensive pair (Colton Poolman and Christian Wolanin) and either the Rhett Gardner line or the Dixon Bowen line. Gardner is returning to the Fighting Hawks lineup after missing the past five games due to injury. UND did not win a game during Gardner’s absence (0-2-3).

The future is also looking up for Colorado College, as Mike Haviland does not have a senior on his roster this season. Former Wisconsin commit Grant Cruikshank and former Denver commit Erik Middendorf committed to CC this week, and former UND forward Chris Wilkie will be eligible to play next season (he’ll be a junior) after transferring back in May and sitting out this year under NCAA transfer rules.

Fighting Hawks’ freshman forward Grant Mismash has been invisible over the past ten games. Mismash started the season with a line of 5-9-14 through his first seventeen games in a UND uniform (including two goals in a 6-2 victory over Colorado College in October) but has been held to one goal and one assist in his past nine appearances and was a healthy scratch on January 6th vs. Omaha.

If UND hopes to make a deep playoff run, junior forward Shane Gersich (8-12-20) and senior forward Austin Poganski (9-5-14) will need to continue their recent scoring prowess. The two combined for 33 goals and 29 assists last year but struggled to find open ice in the first half of the season. From October through December, Poganski went 4-2-6 and Gersich added 5-6-11 in twenty games each. In the past eight games, the two have scored eight goals and added nine assists.

It is worthy of note that Poganski has scored three goals and notched seven assists in fifteen career games against the Tigers while Gersich has enjoyed similar success (5-2-7 in ten career games).

According to KRACH, Colorado College has played the 17th-toughest schedule in the country this season; North Dakota’s slate of games ranks 13th. The Fighting Hawks lead the country in faceoff percentage at 56.2 percent. CC clocks in at 44.4 percent (worst in the nation).

Of the top fifteen faceoff men in the NCHC (minimum 100 attempts), five wear a Fighting Hawks jersey:

1. Nick Jones (60.2 percent)
7. Johnny Simonson (57.2 percent)
8. Rhett Gardner (56.9 percent)
9. Collin Adams (56.6 percent)
15. Ludvig Hoff (53.6 percent)

With Hoff representing his native Norway at the 2018 Winter Olympics (Pyeongchang, South Korea) and Jones out with an injury, Brad Berry will rely heavily on the trio of Simonson, Gardner, and Adams in the faceoff circle. Gardner and Jones were both out of the lineup during UND’s last series against Denver, which left Simonson (20-18, .526), Adams (14-11, .560), and Hoff (18-13, .581) to do the heavy lifting at the drop of the puck.

North Dakota enters this weekend’s series needing just two more wins to reach the 1,500-win plateau all-time as a program. UND has more wins over the past eleven seasons (302) than any other program in the country (Boston College [297] and Denver [285] round out the top three).

UND’s senior class of Cam Johnson, Trevor Olson, Austin Poganski, and Johnny Simonson (96-40-18, .682) needs four more victories to become the fifteenth consecutive recruiting class to win at least 100 games.

The Fighting Hawks have eight ties already this season, one shy of the school record set by the 2000-01 national runner-up squad that went 29-8-9. With only twelve victories and eight regular-season games remaining before the NCHC playoffs, it is possible that UND will finish the 2017-18 campaign with fewer than twenty wins. The last time a North Dakota men’s hockey team fell below that number was in 2001-02, when a Dean Blais-led group went 16-19-2 (.459) and missed the NCAAs.

North Dakota has gone just 5-6-5 (.469) over the last eight weekends of hockey after beginning the year 7-2-3 (.708), and Brad Berry’s squad will need two victories this weekend in order to solidify their place in the NCAA tournament.

According to Jim Dahl (collegehockeyranked.com), UND would most likely stay at 8th in the Pairwise rankings (which mimic the tourney selection process) with two wins this weekend, drop to 12th with a split, and drop to 15th with two losses. Due to autobids and tournament upsets, teams with postseason aspirations hope to be no lower than 12th or 13th after the final games have been played on Saturday, March 17th.

North Dakota has made the tournament for fifteen consecutive seasons (every year since 2001-02), the longest active streak in Division I men’s ice hockey.

Colorado College Team Profile

Head Coach: Mike Haviland (4th season at CC, 31-90-13, .280)

Pairwise Ranking: 24th of 60 teams
National Rankings: NR/NR

This Season: 11-11-4 overall (.500), 5-8-3-2 NCHC (7th)
Last Season: 8-24-4 overall (missed NCAA tournament), 4-16-4-1 NCHC (8th of 8 teams)

2017-18 Season Statistics:

Team Offense: 3.04 goals scored/game – 24th of 60 teams
Team Defense: 3.27 goals allowed/game – 49th of 60 teams
Power Play: 18.4% (26 of 141) – 30th of 60 teams
Penalty Kill: 73.0% (81 of 111) – 60th of 60 teams

Key players: Sophomore F Nick Halloran (16-23-39), Junior F Mason Bergh (15-19-34), Junior F Trey Bradley (5-20-25), Junior F Westin Michaud (9-10-19), Junior F Trevor Gooch (10-6-16), Sophomore D Kristian Blumenschein (2-11-13), Junior D Ben Israel (1-8-9), Junior D Andrew Farny (1-7-8), Sophomore G Alex Leclerc (11-9-4, 3.18 GAA, .903 SV%, 2 SO)

North Dakota Team Profile

Head Coach: Brad Berry (3rd season at UND, 67-30-15, .665)

Pairwise Ranking: 8th of 60 teams
National Rankings: #8/#8

This Season: 12-8-8 (.571) overall, 6-6-4-2 NCHC (t-4th)
Last Season: 21-16-3 (.562) overall (NCAA West Regional semifinalist), 11-12-1-1 NCHC (4th)

2017-18 Season Statistics:

Team Offense: 2.86 goals scored/game – 32nd of 60 teams
Team Defense: 2.32 goals allowed/game – 10th of 60 teams
Power Play: 20.0% (23 of 115) – 23rd of 60 teams
Penalty Kill: 81.6% (93 of 114) – 29th of 60 teams

Key Players: Junior F Nick Jones (9-12-21), Junior F Shane Gersich (8-12-20), Freshman F Grant Mismash (6-10-16), Senior F Austin Poganski (9-5-14), Junior F Rhett Gardner (5-10-15 in 23 gp), Junior D Christian Wolanin (8-14-22), Sophomore D Colton Poolman (6-10-16), Senior G Cam Johnson (8-6-5, 2.14 GAA, .906 SV%, 1 SO)

By The Numbers

Last Meeting: October 28, 2017 (Colorado Springs, CO). North Dakota freshman forward Grant Mismash netted two goals and paced UND to a 6-4 victory over the Tigers. Colorado College won Friday’s opener 2-1 behind 26 saves from Alex Leclerc and one goal apiece from Mason Bergh and Nick Halloran.

Last Meeting in Grand Forks: March 12, 2016. Mike Haviland chose to start a clearly-injured Jacob Nehama in net, and it did not go well for the Tigers. Nehama allowed four goals on fourteen shots in the first period before giving way to Derek Shatzer. Nick Schmaltz had three goals and three assists in the weekend sweep for UND, which won the first playoff game by a final score of 7-1. The Fighting Hawks went 5-0-1 against Colorado College during their most recent national championship season, outscoring the Tigers 29-10 in the six meetings.

Most Important Meeting: March 27, 1997. UND defeated Colorado College, 6-2, in the Frozen Four Semifinals in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Two nights later, North Dakota downed Boston University, 6-4, to claim its sixth NCAA Championship. North Dakota and Colorado College also met in the 2001 East Regional (Worcester, Mass.), with UND prevailing, 4-1.

All-time Series: UND leads the all-time series, 156-82-11 (.649), including a sparkling 100-21-7 (.809) record in games played in Grand Forks. The teams first met in 1948.

Last Ten: North Dakota has seven wins and a tie in the last ten meetings between the teams, outscoring CC 41-21 over that span. UND had gone unbeaten in 14 straight (13-0-1) against the Tigers until the two most recent series in Colorado Springs (January 2017 and October 2017) ended in splits.

Game News and Notes

These two coaching staffs coached against each other at the AHL and NHL levels prior to the NCHC. The Fighting Hawks are 7-3-5 (.633) at home this season; the Tigers are 4-7-1 (.375) on the road. Colorado College has won two national titles (1950, 1957). Since 1957, the Tigers have appeared in the NCAA tournament thirteen times (most recently in 2011) and advanced to three Frozen Fours (1996, 1997, 2005).

Media Coverage

Both games this weekend can be seen live on Midco Sports Network, with Saturday’s rematch also available on FOX College Sports Central. A high definition webcast of the games is also available to NCHC.tv subscribers. All UND men’s hockey games (home and away) can be heard on stations across the UND Sports Network (as well as through the iHeart Radio app). The flagship station for the network is 96.1 FM (The Fox). Follow @UNDMHockey for real-time Twitter updates, or follow the action via live chat at UNDsports.com.

The Prediction

North Dakota has several advantages in this series: more size, more depth, and all of the home ice perks – last line change, a partisan crowd, and a narrower sheet of ice. Colorado College won’t make things easy, but the Fighting Hawks will earn their first sweep in over two months. UND 4-2, 3-2.

As always, thank you for reading. I welcome your questions, comments, and suggestions. Follow me on Twitter (@DBergerHockey) for more information and insight. Here’s to hockey!