Category: UND Athletics

U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame Game Preview: North Dakota vs. Minnesota

The 2018 U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame Game.

The Duel In The Desert.

The reason fans from 41 states, four provinces, and four countries have descended on Las Vegas this weekend (h/t to Brad Schlossman of the Grand Forks Herald).

Or, quite simply: North Dakota vs. Minnesota, a hockey rivalry unlike any other.

North Dakota is two years removed from its eighth national championship but missed the NCAA tournament last season for the first time since 2002.

Minnesota has only advanced to the NCAAs five times in the last ten seasons and is stuck on five national titles, the most recent in 2002 and 2003.

More to the point…

The Golden Gophers played from 1947-1973 without a title (26 seasons).

Head coach Herb Brooks led Minnesota to three NCAA championships in a six year stretch (1974, 1976, and 1979).

The Golden Gophers then played from 1979-2001 without a title (22 seasons).

Head coach Don Lucia won back-to-back titles in 2002 and 2003.

This year will mark the sixteenth anniversary of Minnesota’s most recent NCAA crown.

North Dakota has been relevant in every decade, with head coaches Bob May, Barry Thorndycraft, John “Gino” Gasparini, Dean Blais, and Brad Berry all lifting college hockey’s most coveted trophy.

Here is a closer look at the thirteen combined national titles won by these two storied programs.

Despite only nine tournament victories since Minnesota’s last title (UND has 22 in that same span), Gophers’ head coach Don Lucia was inexplicably given a two-year extension that was supposed to keep him behind the bench through the 2018-19 campaign. After the Gophers sputtered to a 19-17-2 record last year, Lucia was replaced by former St. Cloud State bench boss Bob Motzko.

Thankfully for fans of college hockey’s greatest matchup, this weekend’s game marks the third of seven consecutive seasons in which the teams are guaranteed to meet:

October 27, 2018: Orleans Arena (Las Vegas, Nevada) *Hall Of Fame Game*
2019-20: 3M Arena at Mariucci (Minneapolis, Minnesota)
2020-21: Ralph Engelstad Arena (Grand Forks, North Dakota)
2011-22: 3M Arena at Mariucci (Minneapolis, Minnesota)
2022-23: Ralph Engelstad Arena (Grand Forks, North Dakota)

Minnesota can no longer lay claim to having a roster made up exclusively of the State of Hockey’s “Pride On Ice”, with players hailing from Anchorage (Alaska), Grand Rapids (Michigan), Mississauga (Ontario), Newport Beach (California), River Falls (Wisconsin), Scottsdale (Arizona), and Naantali (Finland).

#17 North Dakota split at home against Minnesota State last weekend and now sits at 1-2-1 on the young season. With that less-than-stellar start, tonight’s game is critical for North Dakota’s postseason aspirations. After going 9-1-2 (.833) in non-conference play in 2015-16 and 7-2-2 (.727) out-of-conference in 2016-17, Brad Berry’s squad went just 6-2-4 (.667) last season and snapped its streak of fifteen consecutive NCAA tournament appearances. UND’s other non-conference opponents during the 2018-19 campaign will be Wisconsin, Alaska Anchorage, and Canisius.

This season, the Golden Gophers opened with an impressive weekend against defending national champion Minnesota Duluth, skating to a 1-1 tie at Amsoil Arena before throttling the Bulldogs 7-4 at home. Over the past two Saturdays, #5 Minnesota played a pair of exhibition contests (at US Under-18 Team, vs. Trinity Western), winning each game by a final of 7-1.

Minnesota Team Profile

Head Coach: Bob Motzko (1st season at Minnesota, 1-0-1, .750)

National Rankings: #5/#5
This Season: 1-0-1 overall, 0-0-0-0 Big Ten
Last Season: 19-17-2 overall (missed NCAA tournament), 10-12-2-1 Big Ten (5th of 7 teams)

2018-19 Season Statistics:

Team Offense: 4.00 goals scored/game
Team Defense: 2.50 goals allowed/game
Power Play: 20.0% (1 of 5)
Penalty Kill: 70.0% (7 of 10)

Key Players: Senior F Tyler Sheehy (1-0-1), Senior F Tommy Novak (0-1-1), Junior F Rem Pitlick (1-1-2), Sophomore F Brannon McManus (2-1-3), Senior D Jack Sadek (0-1-1), Sophomore D Clayton Phillips (0-4-4), Junior G Mat Robson (1-0-1, 2.40 GAA, .936 SV%)

North Dakota Team Profile

Head Coach: Brad Berry (4th season at UND, 73-37-18, .641)
National Ranking: #17/#NR
This Season: 1-2-1 overall, 0-0-0-0 NCHC
Last Season: 17-13-10 overall (missed NCAA tournament), 8-10-6-1 NCHC (4th of 8 teams)

2018-19 Season Statistics:

Team Offense: 2.50 goals scored/game
Team Defense: 3.25 goals allowed/game
Power Play: 18.8% (3 of 16)
Penalty Kill: 61.5% (8 of 13)

Key Players: Senior F Nick Jones (0-4-4), Sophomore F Grant Mismash (2-0-2), Senior F Rhett Gardner (0-0-0), Sophomore F Jordan Kawaguchi (0-3-3), Sophomore D Gabe Bast (2-1-3), Freshman D Jacob Bernard-Docker (0-2-2), Freshman G Adam Scheel (1-1-1, 2.23 GAA, .878 SV%)

By The Numbers

Last meeting: October 22, 2017 (Grand Forks, ND). One night after the Gophers bested North Dakota in a tight 2-1 contest, the Fighting Hawks rolled by a 4-0 score behind 22 saves from senior netminder Cam Johnson. Defenseman Christian Wolanin scored two power play goals to help UND go 3-for-9 with the man advantage. Minnesota was powerless on six power play opportunities.

Most important meeting: March 24, 1979 (Detroit, MI). North Dakota and Minnesota met to decide the national championship, and the Gophers prevailed, 4-3. Neal Broten scored the game-winning goal for the U of M, and Steve Janaszak was named the Most Outstanding Player of the tournament.

All-time: Minnesota leads the all-time series by an eleven-game margin, 142-131-15 (.519). The teams first met in 1948.

Last ten: The Gophers have gone 6-2-2 in the last ten meetings between the schools, outscoring UND 34-26 in those games.

Game News and Notes

Tonight’s game was announced over 27 months ago (July 26th, 2016). The U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame Game is a regular-season game played each season to raise money for the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame and Museum (Evelyth, Minnesota); Ralph Engelstad Arena purchased the rights to this season’s event. For additional information about the game, please visit www.vegas18.com. The number eight is greater than the number five. In an effort to alleviate parking concerns, Minnesota fans are asked to park at Hoover Dam and walk to Orleans Arena.

Media Coverage

Tonight’s game can be seen on Midco Sports Network as well as on various cable outlets in Minnesota. The opening faceoff is set for 7:07 p.m. Pacific Time (9:07 p.m. Central Time). The games will also be streamed live in high definition via NCHC.tv. 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

There will certainly be a buzz at Orleans Arena tonight, with the crowd almost entirely in North Dakota’s favor. This rivalry has shown that whichever side handles the pressure and energy better will emerge victorious. I see UND coming out a bit too amped up for this one with the Gophers taking advantage early. The oddsmakers have Bob Motzko’s side as a fairly heavy favorite, but I see this game as a one-goal contest either way. College hockey is typically a race to three goals; however, this one will take more than that. The Fighting Hawks will overcome a slow start with a thrilling third-period comeback and some overtime heroics. North Dakota 4-3 (OT).

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!

North Dakota vs. Minnesota: A College Hockey Rivalry Like No Other

Which team do you consider North Dakota’s biggest rival?

I have Minnesota at the top of my list, along with Boston College, Boston University, Denver, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Combined, North Dakota and these six rivals have won 46 national titles, while all of the other college hockey teams in existence have won just 25.

And what makes some rivalries so intense? For some of the above-mentioned schools, it’s conference affiliation. Wisconsin joined the WCHA in 1969 and was a part of some of the most intense extra-curricular activities in UND hockey history – the pre-game brawl, the water bottle incident, and the line brawl in Madison.

Denver and UND have been in the same conference since 1951, and the two schools have been battling it out for league titles ever since (DU has 12, North Dakota, 17). Minnesota could make that same claim until the Gophers bolted for the Big Ten (along with UW), creating a scheduling void that few wanted to see (but more on that later). For the Pioneers, the Badgers, the Gophers, and the team formerly known as the Fighting Sioux, familiarity bred contempt.

But why else? Why are Boston College, Boston University, and Michigan on my list? And why has Denver become such a bitter feud while Wisconsin has cooled a bit? It all boils down to tournament time.

Since 1997, UND has met 21 different teams in NCAA tournament action, and of those twenty-one, nine have at one time or another ended North Dakota’s season. The Fighting Sioux avenged a loss to Michigan in 1998 with playoff wins in 2006, 2007, and 2016, but the Wolverines took out one of the most talented North Dakota team in recent memory at the 2011 Frozen Four in St. Paul. Denver had UND’s number at one point, defeating the Sioux in 2004 and 2005, although the boys from Grand Forks got some revenge in 2011 and again on their 2016 championship run.

Ferris State bounced North Dakota from the 2003 tournament, but the 2014 double overtime regional final in Cincinnati evened the score. Yale twice ended UND’s season (2010 and 2013), and the 2009 overtime loss to New Hampshire was especially heartbreaking, as North Dakota led that game with three seconds remaining in regulation. UND took out Boston University in the 1997 national title game and again in the 2005 tournament, but the Terriers bested UND in the 2015 Frozen Four semis and outlasted North Dakota in the 2017 West Regional (Fargo, ND).

The seven tournament games between Boston College and UND (1999, 2000, 2001, and 2005-2008) are well-documented, with the Eagles holding a commanding 5-2 edge in those contests. North Dakota won its seventh national title with a victory over BC in 2000, and Dave Hakstol earned his only postseason victory over Jerry York in the 2005 East Region final (Worcester, MA).

Other teams UND has defeated in the NCAAs during that same span include Cornell (1997), Colorado College (1997, 2001), Niagara (2000, 2013), Maine (2000), Michigan State (2001), Holy Cross (2004, 2006), Princeton (2008), Renssalaer (2011), Western Michigan (2012), Northeastern (2016), St. Cloud State (2015), and Quinnipiac (2015, 2016). These rivalries are not as intense as the schools listed above, and it is my opinion that it is because these schools have not ended UND’s season on the biggest stage that they are not regarded as such.

In other words, postseason games against Boston College, Boston University, Denver, and Michigan seem to generate more interest because there is more postseason history, with victories on both sides of the ledger to keep things interesting. Of the others mentioned, Yale and Ferris State have some chance of becoming bigger rivalries down the road, provided the teams continue to meet in the NCAAs. If UND were to meet a conference foe such as Minnesota Duluth or St. Cloud State on the national stage, those games would generate quite a bit of interest as well.

Up until 2008, Wisconsin and North Dakota had not met in the national tournament since the 1982 title game (a UND victory). The Green and White downed the Badgers in the 2008 regional final (Madison, WI) and in the opening round of this season’s NCAA tournament.

And that leaves us with Minnesota. The 1979 title game between North Dakota and Minnesota, which Minnesota won 4-3, would set off a 25 year span (1980-2004) during which the two schools would not meet in the NCAA tournament. That’s astounding. During that time, Minnesota advanced to the national tournament 20 times (winning titles in 2002 and 2003), and North Dakota advanced to the national tournament 12 times (winning titles in 1980, 1982, 1987, 1997, and 2000), and yet they never played each other.

North Dakota has somewhat atoned for the 1979 title game loss with NCAA victories over Minnesota in 2005 and 2007. The Gophers returned the favor twice in a three-year span, bouncing UND from the 2012 national tournament with a 5-2 victory in the West Regional final in St. Paul and again with less than one second remaining in the 2014 national semifinal.

With four NCAA tournament tilts since 2005, the rivalry has certainly gone to a new level. But the question remains: why, for those 25 years, did the two fan bases continue to circle Sioux/Gopher weekend on their calendars? What was it about these two programs that caused every regular season matchup to feel like a playoff game and every WCHA Final Five tilt to feel like the Super Bowl? And that’s saying nothing about my heart rate during overtime of the 2007 West Regional Final or the 2005 Frozen Four Semifinal.

There are a few schools of thought about why the games between UND and Minnesota are so contentious. The teams recruit many of the same players, and some of that spills over onto the ice. Crowds are at fever pitch before the puck is dropped, and to some extent both teams try to live up to what they think the fans want.

Another way to compare rivalries is to list players and coaches from each team under consideration. In other words, I have no doubt that fans of North Dakota hockey can name head coaches Jerry York (Boston College), Red Berenson (Michigan), and Don Lucia (Minnesota). How many other coaches come to mind? Mike Eaves (Wisconsin)? George Gwozdecky of Denver (before he left/was shown the door)?

Which other coaches come to mind? How about former coaches?

The ability to name coaches from years past is definitely a measure of how long a school has been a bitter rival. Without looking, I could name former Minnesota coaches Doug Woog, Brad Beutow, Herb Brooks, and Don Lucia. And I’m certain that Gopher fans can easily remember Dean Blais, Gino Gasparini, and Dave Hakstol. The more important the rivalry, the more we pay attention.

Think of all of the goaltenders from years past who have stolen victories or let pucks in from 180 feet: Adam Hauser, Steve DeBus, Alex Kangas, Kellen Briggs, Jeff Frazee, Kent Patterson, and Adam Wilcox. Players who have scored big goals against North Dakota in important games: Brian Bonin, Johnny Pohl, Jordan Leopold, Thomas Vanek, Grant and Ryan Potulny, Phil Kessel, Blake Wheeler, Jacob Cepis, Erik Haula, and Justin Holl.

And it’s important to remember that this works both ways. Fan of the Maroon and Gold still remember which two UND players crushed Kevin Wehrs into the same corner of Ralph Engelstad Arena (Matt Frattin and Brad Malone). Or how much it stung when Zach Parise chose North Dakota. The handshake lines, jersey pulls, more handshake lines, incredible goals, and crucial timeouts become a part of the story, and each game writes a new chapter.

The two schools resume the rivalry Saturday night at Orleans Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. After that tilt, the schools are scheduled to meet in non-conference action in each of the next four seasons (through 2022-23), beginning with an as-yet-unscheduled weekend series next year at 3M Arena at Mariucci in Minneapolis.

This schedule agreement is good for the fans, it’s good for each program, and it’s good for the sport.

It’s also good for the players. It is my opinion that every four-year player at North Dakota and Minnesota should have the experience of playing in this rivalry, both home and away.

I asked the Twitterverse about this rivalry, and here are some of the responses:

@AlexBerger_Fake:

2012 Final Five Semifinal UND 6 – Minnesota 3. I was 11 years old, but I vividly remember Corban Knight scoring the 5th goal on the PP and hearing my Grandma yell from the other room “They scored again?!?!?”

@goon48:

The Handshake Game Finley and Wheeler.

@nhaug1129:

Wehrs getting blown up, both times! Also, Bina scoring from 185 feet away.

@SchaumannTanya:

I remember a series back in ‘96 when UND had cancelled classes on Friday due to the extreme cold. Goofs came in with a 19-game unbeaten streak. The Sioux crowd was raucous. Students started chanting, “Warm up DeBus!” when MN’s starting goalie was getting throttled. UND won 8-2.

@uptownjesusRS:

The ‘timeout’ game.

@zambonijabroni:

Bina’s bouncing puck for a goal.

Trupps baseball swing OT winner

Porters wrap around OT winner

What do you think? I’d like to hear your thoughts. Your stories. Your memories of the Sioux/Gopher rivalry. Please leave comments about your favorite games and ones you’d like to forget. It’s your turn. It’s your time. It’s North Dakota and Minnesota, on the ice once again. And we wouldn’t have it any other way.

Weekend Preview: North Dakota vs. Minnesota State

Five full seasons have come and gone since the college hockey landscape changed forever. With Minnesota and Wisconsin departing the Western Collegiate Hockey Association for the Big Ten after the 2012-13 season, several other conference schools created the National Collegiate Hockey Conference and left Alaska Anchorage, Bemidji State, Michigan Tech, and Minnesota State behind in a watered-down WCHA.

It is abundantly clear that the NCHC has been the premier hockey conference since its inception, and particularly over the past four seasons. The eight teams in the league have gone 209-105-40 (.647) in non-conference action since the start of the 2014-15 season and sent seven teams to the Frozen Four (UND and Omaha in 2015, UND and Denver in 2016, Denver and Duluth in 2017, and Duluth in 2018) over that four-year stretch. Conference members North Dakota, Denver, and Minnesota Duluth have won the last three national titles.

The last time that Minnesota State (then known as Minnesota State University – Mankato) played North Dakota was at the tail end of UND’s last season in the WCHA, a split in Mankato in March 2013. The Mavericks last played at Ralph Engelstad Arena on the last weekend of the 2011-12 regular season, a series which saw the Fighting Sioux clinch home ice for the first round of the playoffs with a 4-2 victory on Friday night and follow that up with a 3-0 victory on Saturday night.

After #16 North Dakota’s less-than-stellar showing in last weekend’s home and home series against Bemidji State (2-1 loss in Bemidji; 1-1 [OT] tie in Grand Forks), these next three weekends of out-of-conference games are critical for North Dakota’s postseason aspirations. After going 9-1-2 (.833) in non-conference play in 2015-16 and 7-2-2 (.727) out-of-conference in 2016-17, Brad Berry’s squad went just 6-2-4 (.667) last season and snapped its streak of fifteen consecutive NCAA tournament appearances. UND’s other non-conference opponents during the 2018-19 campaign will be Minnesota, Wisconsin, Alaska Anchorage, and Canisius.

One week ago, #7 Minnesota State fashioned an excellent start to the season with a home sweep (4-3, 5-3) over #8 Boston University. The Mavericks are also scheduled to face Minnesota and Minnesota Duluth (plus either Clarkson or Arizona State) during the non-conference portion of their 2018-19 campaign.

Last season was another magnificent one for head coach Mike Hastings. His Mavericks breezed through the regular season with a mark of 26-7-1 (.779) before dispatching Alaska (8-2, 6-2) in the first round of their conference tournament. Things were going according to form the following weekend with a 2-1 victory over Michigan Tech in Game One of that playoff series, but the Huskies roared back with a pair of playoff wins to end Minnesota State’s hopes of a second league playoff title (2015).

The Mavs had an extra week to prepare for the opening round of the national tournament, but it wasn’t quite enough. Minnesota-Duluth needed overtime to best their in-state rivals by a final of 3-2 after trailing 2-0 for much of the contest. The Bulldogs won all four of their games in the 2018 NCAAs by one goal each.

Less than a week after that heartbreaking loss, unrestricted free agent defenseman (and Hobey Baker finalist) Daniel Brickley gave up his final season of eligibility to sign a two-year entry level contract with the Los Angeles Kings of the National Hockey League. Brickley (20-57-77 in 107 career NCAA games played) appeared in one NHL game last season and is currently assigned to the Ontario Reign (AHL).

North Dakota was not immune to the early departure bug during the 2018 offseason, as defenseman Christian Wolanin (12-23-35 in 2017-18, 22-50-72 in 109 career games at North Dakota) and forward Shane Gersich (13-16-29 in 2017-18, 43-34-77 in 117 career games at North Dakota) each gave up his senior season to sign a pro contract (Wolanin with Ottawa, Gersich with Washington).

And the previous three summers haven’t been any easier for fans of the Green and White, as multiple players have left eligibility on the table to join the professional ranks (years of eligibility remaining at the time of signing):

2017: Forward Brock Boeser (2), Forward Tyson Jost (3), Defenseman Tucker Poolman (1)

2016: Forward Luke Johnson (1), Forward Nick Schmaltz (2), Defenseman Paul LaDue (1), Defenseman Troy Stecher (1), Defenseman Keaton Thompson (1)

2015: Defenseman Jordan Schmaltz (1), Goaltender Zane McIntyre (1)

In 2014, forward Rocco Grimaldi left after his sophomore campaign to sign with the Florida Panthers (NHL). In 2013, defenseman Derek Forbort signed with the Los Angeles Kings after his junior year. North Dakota also lost two players (Brock Nelson and Aaron Dell) to early departures in 2012 and two others (Jason Gregoire and Brett Hextall) in 2011.

Minnesota State Team Profile

Head Coach: Mike Hastings (7th season at MSU, 153-72-19, .666)
National Ranking: #7/#8
This Season: 2-0-0 overall, 0-0-0-0 WCHA
Last Season: 29-10-1 overall (NCAA Regional Semifinalist), 22-5-1-0 WCHA (1st of 10 teams)

2018-19 Season Statistics:
Team Offense: 4.50 goals scored/game
Team Defense: 3.00 goals allowed/game
Power Play: 8.3% (1 of 12)
Penalty Kill: 87.5% (7 of 8)

Key Players: Junior F Parker Tuomie (2-2-4), Junior F Marc Michaelis (1-2-3), Sophomore F Jared Spooner (0-2-2), Sophomore D Riese Zmolek (1-2-3), Sophomore F Jake Jaremko (0-1-1), Sophomore D Connor Mackey (1-1-2), Junior D Ian Scheid (0-0-0), Freshman G Dryden McKay (2-0-0, 3.00 GAA, .891 SV%)

North Dakota Team Profile

Head Coach: Brad Berry (4th season at UND, 72-36-18, .643)
National Ranking: #16/#NR
This Season: 0-1-1 overall, 0-0-0-0 NCHC
Last Season: 17-13-10 overall, 8-10-6-1 NCHC (4th of 8 teams)

2018-19 Season Statistics:
Team Offense: 1.00 goals scored/game
Team Defense: 1.50 goals allowed/game
Power Play: 0.00% (0 of 8)
Penalty Kill: 75.0% (3 of 4)

Key Players: Senior F Nick Jones (0-2-2), Sophomore F Grant Mismash (1-0-1), Senior F Rhett Gardner (0-0-0), Sophomore F Jordan Kawaguchi (0-1-1), Junior D Colton Poolman (0-0-0), Sophomore D Gabe Bast (1-0-1), Senior D Hayden Shaw (0-0-0), Freshman G Adam Scheel (0-0-1, 0.93 GAA, .938 SV%), Sophomore G Peter Thome (0-1-0, 2.07 GAA, .889 SV%)

By The Numbers

Last Meeting: March 9, 2013 (Mankato, MN). Mavericks forward Brett Knowles netted the game-winner 202 seconds into overtime to send most of the 5088 in attendance at Verizon Wireless Center into celebration mode. Danny Kristo scored North Dakota’s only goal just over a minute into the game. MSU-M netminder Stephon Williams stopped 30 of 31 shots on goal in the contest.

Last Meeting in Grand Forks: March 3, 2012. Senior goaltender Brad Eidsness pitched a 29 save shutout on Senior Night and Brock Nelson added an empty-netter with 90 seconds to play as UND rolled the Mavericks 3-0. North Dakota won Friday’s opener 4-2 on the strength of a three-goal first period.

All-time Series: UND leads the all-time series, 38-11-7 (.741), including a 23-6-3 (.766) record in games played in Grand Forks.

Last ten: North Dakota has a sparkling 8-2-0 record in the last ten contests, outscoring the Mavericks 32-23 over that stretch of games.

Game News and Notes

North Dakota led the entire country in faceoff efficiency (55.5 percent) last season and is fifth in the country this season (58.3 percent). Nick Jones (59.3 percent last season), Rhett Gardner (58.6 percent), and Ludvig Hoff (54.5 percent) are all back inside the circle for the Fighting Hawks. Gardner won 29 of his 41 draws last weekend (70.7 percent) and is now in third place on UND’s all-time list for faceoff wins (behind only Corban Knight and Chris VandeVelde). Minnesota State has never won an NCAA tournament game (0-5).

The Prediction

If college hockey is indeed a race to three goals, North Dakota needs to improve its offensive pace (two total goals through the first two games of the 2018-19 season) and score a goal or two on the power play (0-for-8 thus far) this weekend. I anticipate the Fighting Hawks breaking through in Friday’s opener, with Minnesota State powering back for the weekend split. UND 3-1, MSU 4-2.

Ticket Information (from fightinghawks.com)

Single-game seats remain available for this weekend’s series against Minnesota State. Tickets can be purchased at the UND Box Office at Ralph Engelstad Arena or online at FightingHawks.com/tickets.

Media Coverage

This weekend’s games will be telecast live on Midco Sports Network and also streamed live in high definition via NCHC.tv. All UND men’s hockey games, home and away, can be heard on 96.1 FM (The Fox) and on stations across the UND Sports Home of Economy 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.

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!

Weekend Preview: North Dakota vs. Bemidji State

Five full seasons have come and gone since the college hockey landscape changed forever. With Minnesota and Wisconsin departing the Western Collegiate Hockey Association for the Big Ten after the 2012-13 season, several other conference schools created the National Collegiate Hockey Conference and left Alaska Anchorage, Bemidji State, Michigan Tech, and Minnesota State behind in a watered-down WCHA.

It is abundantly clear that the NCHC has been the premier hockey conference since its inception, and particularly over the past four seasons. The eight teams in the league have gone 209-105-40 (.647) in non-conference action since the start of the 2014-15 season and sent seven teams to the Frozen Four (UND and Omaha in 2015, UND and Denver in 2016, Denver and Duluth in 2017, and Duluth in 2018) over that four-year stretch. Conference members North Dakota, Denver, and Minnesota Duluth have won the last three national titles.

After winning the WCHA in 2016-17 with a stellar 20-6-2 conference record, Bemidji State took a step back last season (13-9-6 WCHA, 16-14-8 overall), finishing in fourth place in the ten-team league.

North Dakota will play a home and home series against Bemidji State, with Friday’s opener in Bemidji and Saturday’s rematch at Ralph Engelstad Arena. These out-of-conference games are critical for North Dakota’s postseason aspirations. After going 9-1-2 (.833) in non-conference play in 2015-16 and 7-2-2 (.727) out-of-conference in 2016-17, Brad Berry’s squad went just 6-2-4 (.667) last season and snapped its streak of fifteen consecutive NCAA tournament appearances. UND’s other non-conference opponents during the 2018-19 campaign will be Minnesota State, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Alaska Anchorage, and Canisius.

Goaltender Michael Bitzer (65-54-19, 1.98 goals-against average, .921 save percentage, and 21 shutouts as a four-year starter at BSU) is no longer between the pipes for the Beavers, and that leaves Tom Serratore with junior Jack Burgart (0-1-0, 3.49 GAA, and an .896 SV% in 86 minutes of game action) and sophomore Henry Johnson (0-0-0, one save on one shot in 20 minutes of game action) from last year’s squad. Sophomore netminder Zach Driscoll transferred to BSU after having spent his freshman season at St. Cloud State.

Another huge loss on the back end for Bemidji State was the early departure of defenseman Zach Whitecloud, who gave up his final two seasons of eligibility to sign a three-year entry level contract with the NHL’s Vegas Golden Knights. Whitecloud recorded seven goals and 29 assists in 77 career college games.

North Dakota was not immune to the early departure bug during the 2018 offseason, as defenseman Christian Wolanin (12-23-35 in 2017-18, 22-50-72 in 109 career games at North Dakota) and forward Shane Gersich (13-16-29 in 2017-18, 43-34-77 in 117 career games at North Dakota) each gave up his senior season to sign a pro contract (Wolanin with Ottawa, Gersich with Washington).

And the previous three summers haven’t been any easier for fans of the Green and White, as multiple players have left eligibility on the table to join the professional ranks (years of eligibility remaining at the time of signing):

2017: Forward Brock Boeser (2), Forward Tyson Jost (3), Defenseman Tucker Poolman (1)

2016: Forward Luke Johnson (1), Forward Nick Schmaltz (2), Defenseman Paul LaDue (1), Defenseman Troy Stecher (1), Defenseman Keaton Thompson (1)

2015: Defenseman Jordan Schmaltz (1), Goaltender Zane McIntyre (1)

In 2014, forward Rocco Grimaldi left after his sophomore campaign to sign with the Florida Panthers (NHL). In 2013, defenseman Derek Forbort signed with the Los Angeles Kings after his junior year. North Dakota also lost two players (Brock Nelson and Aaron Dell) to early departures in 2012 and two others (Jason Gregoire and Brett Hextall) in 2011.

Bemidji State Team Profile

Head Coach: Tom Serratore (18th season at BSU, 282-270-78, .510)
National Ranking: NR/NR
This Season: 0-0-0 overall, 0-0-0 WCHA
Last Season: 16-14-8 overall, 13-9-6 WCHA (4th of 10 teams)

2017-18 Season Statistics:
Team Offense: 2.71 goals scored/game
Team Defense: 2.50 goals allowed/game
Power Play: 21.7% (31 of 143)
Penalty Kill: 86.5% (115 of 133)

Key Returning Players (2017-18 statistics): Junior F Adam Brady (8-18-26), Senior F Jay Dickman (15-8-23), Sophomore F Charlie Combs (13-7-20), Senior D Justin Baudry (9-10-19), Senior D Dan Billett (1-9-10), Junior G Jack Burgart (0-1-0, 3.49 GAA, .896 SV%)

North Dakota Team Profile

Head Coach: Brad Berry (4th season at UND, 72-35-17, .649)
National Ranking: #13/#12
This Season: 0-0-0 overall, 0-0-0-0 NCHC
Last Season: 17-13-10 overall, 8-10-6-1 NCHC (4th of 8 teams)

2017-18 Season Statistics:
Team Offense: 2.92 goals scored/game
Team Defense: 2.38 goals allowed/game
Power Play: 21.5% (37 of 172)
Penalty Kill: 82.8% (130 of 157)

Key Returning Players (2017-18 statistics): Senior F Nick Jones (15-15-30), Sophomore F Grant Mismash (9-13-22), Senior F Rhett Gardner (7-13-20), Sophomore F Jordan Kawaguchi (5-14-19), Junior D Colton Poolman (7-22-29), Senior D Hayden Shaw (3-10-13), Sophomore G Peter Thome (5-4-3, 2.31 GAA, .910 SV%, 1 SO)

By The Numbers

Last Meeting: January 13, 2018 (Grand Forks, ND). In a microcosm of UND’s year, the Fighting Hawks outshot the Beavers 32-20 but could manage only a 2-2 tie (one of ten ties on the season). Bemidji State rallied twice from a goal down, the second time off of a deflection midway through the final frame.

Last Meeting in Bemidji: January 12, 2018. North Dakota senior forward Austin Poganski scored just eighteen seconds into the contest and UND dominated the third period, turning a 1-1 tie into a 5-1 blowout. Junior Nick Jones and Poganski each potted two goals, and Cam Johnson made 28 saves in the road victory.

Most Important Meeting: October 15, 2010 (Bemidji, MN). In the first game played at the BREC, North Dakota spotted BSU the opening goal less than two minutes into the contest and then steamrolled the Beavers 5-2. The Fighting Sioux outshot their fellow Green-and-Whiters 38-14.

Last Ten: North Dakota is 6-1-3 (.750) in the last ten meetings between the teams, outscoring the Beavers 32-24 over that stretch of games. Six of the last ten tilts have been decided by a goal or less, with Bemidji State going 0-3-3 in those games.

All-time Series: UND leads the all-time series, 31-3-5 (.865), including a 21-2-3 (.865) record in games played in Grand Forks and a 10-1-2 (.846) mark in Bemidji, Two of BSU’s three wins over North Dakota have come in the past six seasons (November 2011 and October 2014). Bemidji’s other victory over UND came in 1970.

Game News and Notes

North Dakota led the entire country in faceoff efficiency (55.5 percent) last season and returns Nick Jones (59.3 percent), Rhett Gardner (58.6 percent), and Ludvig Hoff (54.5 percent). Johnny Simonson graduated after winning 53.7 percent of his faceoffs a year ago. Bemidji State has not appeared in the NCAA tournament since moving to the WCHA (eight seasons). In eleven seasons as members of the CHA, the Beavers made four NCAA tournament appearances, including a Frozen Four run in 2008-09. Friday’s opener will be played at Sanford Center (capacity 4,373) in Bemidji, Minnesota.

Set the Expectation (from fightinghawks.com)

The University of North Dakota is honored to host Brenda Tracy at Saturday’s game and all weekend long as part of her “Set the Expectation” campaign to end sexual violence.

Tracy, herself a sexual assault survivor, is making her second visit to the UND campus after having initially brought her message to UND’s student-athletes back in February.

The Fighting Hawks will be sporting both decals on their helmets and patches on their game jerseys for Saturday’s game in support of Tracy’s campaign.

For more information on Brenda Tracy and the Set the Expectation campaign, please visit BrendaTracy.com.

The Prediction

This weekend will not be an easy one for North Dakota. Watch for the Beavers to jump out to an early lead on Friday, with UND needing to mount a late comeback to take the contest to overtime. The Fighting Hawks will showcase their depth and talent in Saturday’s rematch. 2-2 tie, UND 4-1.

Ticket Information (from fightinghawks.com)

Single-game seats remain available for Saturday night’s game. Tickets can be purchased at the UND Box Office at Ralph Engelstad Arena or online at FightingHawks.com/tickets.

Media Coverage

Friday’s opener can only be seen via webcast at WCHA.tv ($8.99 for a one-day pass), with Saturday’s rematch telecast live on Midco Sports Network and also streamed live in high definition via NCHC.tv. All UND men’s hockey games, home and away, can be heard on 96.1 FM (The Fox) and on stations across the UND Sports Home of Economy 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.

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!

NCHC Frozen Faceoff Preview: North Dakota vs. St. Cloud State

It took St. Cloud State three games to dispatch Miami last weekend in the first round of the NCHC playoffs, as the RedHawks took Game 2 of the series with a 3-2 overtime victory. The two teams also went to overtime in Sunday’s Game 3, with SCSU prevailing on Mikey Eyssimont’s game-winner.

Overall, St. Cloud State was on the ice for 196 minutes of game action last weekend, while North Dakota defeated Omaha in two games (4-0, 4-3 OT) and was on the ice for 121 minutes of game action.

Last Saturday’s loss was the Huskies first since January 26th, when SCSU fell 5-1 at Duluth. Bob Motzko’s crew is 10-1-3 over their last fourteen games, while North Dakota is just 4-6-4 over that same stretch.

The top two seeds in the NCHC Frozen Faceoff (#1 St. Cloud State and #2 Denver) are guaranteed to be playing in the national tournament next weekend. #3 Minnesota-Duluth faces Denver in the second Friday semifinal, and the Bulldogs would make the NCAA tourney in 89 percent of scenarios in which they go 0-2 at Xcel Energy Center and would lock up a tournament bid with a single win this weekend (according to collegehockeyranked.com).

And that leaves North Dakota, which is currently 14th in the Pairwise and in a precarious position, given the number of autobids yet to be determined in other conferences. UND could of course earn the league’s autobid with two victories and a Frozen Faceoff championship. Collegehockeyranked.com puts Brad Berry’s crew at a 25 percent chance of an at-large bid with one win and at 14 percent with zero wins.

St. Cloud State earned the Penrose Cup as 2017-18 NCHC champions, their third regular-season league championship in the past six seasons (2012-13 WCHA, 2013-14 NCHC).

Last season, North Dakota and St. Cloud State battled six times, with UND clearly having the better of it and earning the UND/SCSU Challenge Cup with three regular-season victories in four meetings:

NCHC Regular Season
November 18, 2016 (St. Cloud): UND 4, SCSU 0
November 19, 2016 (St. Cloud): UND 3, SCSU 0

NCHC Regular Season
February 3, 2017 (Grand Forks): SCSU 3, UND 1
February 4, 2017 (Grand Forks): UND 2, SCSU 1 (OT)

NCHC First Round Playoff Series
March 10, 2017 (Grand Forks): UND 5, SCSU 2
March 11, 2017 (Grand Forks): UND 6, SCSU 5 (OT)

St. Cloud State earned the Challenge Cup for 2017-18 with two victories and two ties against North Dakota.

It’s been up and down for the Huskies in the first five seasons of the NCHC. After winning the Penrose Cup in the inaugural season of the new league (2013-14) with an overall record of 22-11-5 (.645), St. Cloud State made the NCAA tournament again in 2014-15 with a relatively pedestrian mark of 20-19-1 (.512). At the end of that season, SCSU had the unfortunate circumstance of facing and falling to North Dakota in the West Regional final (Fargo, ND), a virtual home game for the Green and White.

SCSU captured the NCHC Frozen Faceoff championship and another NCAA tourney bid in 2015-16 with a sparkling record of 31-9-1 (.768) but unfortunately suffered an overtime loss in the opening round of the national tournament. St. Cloud State, the top seed in the NCAA West Regional (Xcel Energy Center, St. Paul, MN), rallied to tie #18 Ferris State in the third period, but the Bulldogs scored just 18 seconds into the extra session to knock off the Huskies (who were ranked #2 in the country heading into the NCAAs) by a final of 5-4.

Thirty-win seasons are extremely rare in today’s college hockey landscape, with more parity and more ties taking away the opportunity to rack up victories. Since I started traveling to St. Cloud for the UND/SCSU games back in 1998, the Fighting Sioux/Hawks and the Huskies have both reached the 30-victory plateau on multiple occasions. Remarkably, St. Cloud State posted identical marks of 31-9-1 (.768) in their milestone seasons (2001 and 2016).

1997-98 North Dakota (30-8-1)
1998-99 North Dakota (32-6-2)
1999-00 North Dakota (31-8-5)
2000-01 St. Cloud State (31-9-1)
2003-04 North Dakota (30-8-3)
2010-11 North Dakota (32-9-3)
2015-16 North Dakota (34-6-4)
2015-16 St. Cloud State (31-9-1)

With a record of 24-7-6, it is possible but unlikely that St. Cloud State will reach the thirty-victory mark this year. A Frozen Faceoff championship and a national title would put SCSU at 30-7-6 for the season.

For more on the rarity and importance of a thirty-win season, follow this link.

Last season was far from a milestone season for Bob Motzko’s squad, as the group sputtered to a record of 16-19-1 (.458) and missed the NCAAs for the first time since the 2011-12 team finished at .500 (17-17-5). North Dakota has made fifteen consecutive NCAA tournament appearances, the longest active streak in Division I men’s ice hockey and the second-longest streak of all time (Michigan appeared in 22 straight NCAA tourneys from 1991 to 2012).

North Dakota ended St. Cloud State’s 2016-17 campaign with a home sweep in the first round of the NCHC playoffs. UND cruised 5-2 in the opener before besting the Huskies in a 6-5 overtime thriller. As I have said before, we have come to expect close matchups in NCHC playoff games played on Saturdays (and often Sundays), as the visiting team is almost always playing to extend their season.

Last month, North Dakota reached the 1,500-win plateau all-time as a program. UND has more wins over the past eleven seasons (306) than any other program in the country, with Boston College (304) and Denver (289) rounding out the top three.

With two victories last weekend, UND’s senior class of Cam Johnson, Trevor Olson, Austin Poganski, and Johnny Simonson (100-44-20, .667) became the fifteenth consecutive recruiting class to win at least 100 games. North Dakota’s juniors have collected 71 wins over the past three seasons and will need a strong playoff run and a very successful senior campaign to keep the streak alive.

The Fighting Hawks have ten ties already this season, breaking a school record set by the 2000-01 national runner-up squad that went 29-8-9. With only sixteen wins on the season, it is certainly likely that UND will finish the 2017-18 campaign with fewer than twenty victories. 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 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).

St. Cloud State Team Profile

Head Coach: Bob Motzko (13th season at SCSU, 275-190-49, .583)

Pairwise Ranking: 1st of 60 teams
National Rankings: #1/#1

This Season: 24-7-6 (.730) overall, 16-4-4-1 NCHC (1st)
Last Season: 16-19-1 (.458) overall (missed NCAA tournament), 10-13-1-0 NCHC (5th)

2017-18 Season Statistics:

Team Offense: 3.76 goals scored/game – 2nd of 60 teams
Team Defense: 2.46 goals allowed/game – 14th of 60 teams
Power Play: 23.5% (39 of 166) – 9th of 60 teams
Penalty Kill: 80.3% (98 of 122) – 36th of 60 teams

Key Players: Junior F Robby Jackson (15-27-42), Sophomore F Ryan Poehling (12-17-29), Junior F Mikey Eyssimont (17-21-38), Junior F Patrick Newell (5-20-25), Junior D Jimmy Schuldt (10-28-38), Sophomore D Jack Ahcan (3-18-21), Junior D Will Borgen (2-12-14), Freshman G David Hrenak (12-5-2, 1.93 GAA, .926 SV%, 3 SO)

North Dakota Team Profile

Head Coach: Brad Berry (3rd season at UND, 71-33-16, .658)

Pairwise Ranking: 14th of 60 teams
National Rankings: #12/#13

This Season: 16-12-10 (.553) overall, 8-10-6-3 NCHC (4th)
Last Season: 21-16-3 (.562) overall (NCAA West Regional semifinalist), 11-12-1-1 NCHC (4th)

2017-18 Season Statistics:

Team Offense: 2.92 goals scored/game – 27th of 60 teams
Team Defense: 2.39 goals allowed/game – 12th of 60 teams
Power Play: 21.0% (34 of 162) – 20th of 60 teams
Penalty Kill: 82.2% (125 of 152) – 23rd of 60 teams

Key Players: Junior F Shane Gersich (12-16-28), Junior F Nick Jones (14-13-27), Freshman F Grant Mismash (9-13-22), Senior F Austin Poganski (10-8-18), Junior F Rhett Gardner (7-13-20), Junior D Christian Wolanin (12-22-34), Sophomore D Colton Poolman (7-20-27), Senior G Cam Johnson (11-8-7, 2.16 GAA, .907 SV%, 3 SO)

By The Numbers

Last Meeting: March 3, 2018 (Grand Forks, ND). North Dakota clinched home ice for the first round of the NCHC playoffs with a 2-2 tie on the last night of the regular season. In the 3-on-3 overtime, NCHC defensive forward of the year Rhett Gardner took a pass from Christian Wolanin and put one past Hrenak for the extra conference point. UND lost two-goal leads to St. Cloud State on both nights of the series.

Most Important Meeting: NCAA West Regional Final in Fargo, ND (March 28, 2015). North Dakota scored three unassisted goals over the final two periods of the hockey game to defeat St. Cloud State 4-1 in the West Regional Final and advance to the NCAA Frozen Four. Jimmy Murray got the Huskies on the board less than 90 seconds in to the hockey game, but that did nothing to quiet the partisan crowd of 5,307 at SCHEELS Arena. Four different players scored for UND, while Zane McIntyre made 19 stops to earn his 29th and final victory of the season.

All-Time Series: North Dakota leads the all-time series, 71-42-14 (.614). Aside from their 2015 NCHC Frozen Faceoff semifinal victory, the Huskies also defeated North Dakota in the 2001 WCHA Final Five championship game. The teams have been squaring off regularly since the 1989-90 season, but have only met once in the NCAA tournament (2015).

Game News and Notes

St. Cloud State has outscored opponents 61-29 in third periods this season. North Dakota has made the second weekend of the conference tournament (WCHA Final Five/NCHC Frozen Faceoff) for sixteen consecutive seasons.

Media Coverage

Both Friday semifinals and Saturday’s championship will be available live on CBS Sports Network, with all four games streamed in high definition on 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.

A Personal Note

The North Dakota Champions Club is hosting a pre-game event at McGovern’s Pub (225 7th Street West in St. Paul) beginning at 12:30 p.m. on Friday, March 16th. For more information about McGovern’s, please visit www.patmcgoverns.com. Here’s to hockey!

The Prediction

Let’s get this out of the way first: St. Cloud State is a better team than North Dakota this season. However, UND needs wins this weekend and has some intangibles in its favor, including a smaller ice surface and a virtual home crowd at Xcel Energy Center. The Fighting Hawks will play with a sense of urgency and come out with a huge effort on Friday afternoon. UND 4-2.

Bonus Prediction

In the second Friday semifinal, I’ve got Duluth prevailing over Denver by a score of 4-3.

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!

NCHC Playoff Preview: North Dakota vs. Omaha

In an NCHC quarterfinal series that will determine the postseason fate for both teams, here are two reasons why North Dakota will advance:

1. UNO is just 5-11-0 on the road this season, with power play (20.6 percent) and penalty kill (73.5 percent) numbers far worse than their home splits (12-4-2 record, 29.8 percent power play, 81.8 percent penalty kill). The Mavericks have been outscored 65-38 on the road while being outshot 553-448.

2. Omaha’s senior class has never advanced to the NCHC Frozen Faceoff (1-6 overall in NCHC playoff games) despite an NCAA Frozen Four appearance as freshmen (2015). In fact, since joining the WCHA in 2011, the Mavs have never reached the Twin Cities for the second weekend of the conference tournament despite having home ice in three of those seven years.

And here are two reasons why Omaha will advance:

1. Mavericks junior netminder Evan Weninger has been playing much better as of late. Coming into the North Dakota series last month, Weninger had a goals-against average of 3.65 and a save percentage of .888. Over the past six games (vs. UND, vs. Colorado College, at Minnesota-Duluth), Weninger went 3-2-1 with a goals-against average of just 2.14 and a save percentage of .939.

2. North Dakota has blown two-goal leads five times in the last eleven games, including once against Omaha.

No matter which way the best-of-three series goes, it will almost certainly be decided on Sunday night:

Since 2010, UNO and North Dakota have played fourteen regular-season series, and most of them have resulted in splits. Omaha has never won more than one game in any series, while North Dakota has mixed in three sweeps and one win/tie.

In the past fifteen first-round league playoff matchups, UND has put the home fans at ease by winning Friday’s opener thirteen times (including the last eleven straight). Saturday’s games have been more difficult, as seen by the following breakdown:

Average goals scored/goals allowed in first-round home playoff games (2003-2017):

Friday: 5.00 goals scored/1.60 goals allowed (thirteen wins, two losses)
Saturday: 3.40 goals scored/2.33 goals allowed (eleven wins, four losses)
Sunday: 3.67 goals scored/1.17 goals allowed (six wins, zero losses)

Despite North Dakota’s Friday home playoff success over the past fifteen seasons, this year’s version of the Omaha Mavericks has fared far better in series openers (13-4-0) than in series finales (4-11-2). To further complicate matters, the last time North Dakota won back-to-back games was on January 6th (vs. Omaha) and January 12th (at Bemidji State), and the Fighting Hawks only accomplished two weekend sweeps all season (October 13th and 14th vs. St. Lawrence; December 1st and 2nd vs. Western Michigan).

Omaha went just 10-13-1-0 in conference play this season, which was good for fifth place in the eight-team NCHC. Despite that sub-par mark, #13 UNO is ahead of North Dakota in the Pairwise Rankings (Omaha 14th, UND 15th) 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 3.47 goals per game, the sixth-highest scoring offense in the country.

On the minus side, Omaha is allowing 3.71 goals per game, the worst scoring defense in the country.

And those statistics are even worse on the road, with Omaha scoring 2.38 goals per game (43rd) and allowing 4.06 (59th).

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 four or even five teams in the NCAA tournament field. If the season ended today, St. Cloud State (1st), Denver (5th), Duluth (9th), Omaha (14th) and North Dakota (15th) would all make the tourney, with Western Michigan (t-20th), Colorado College (23rd) and Miami (29th) on the outside looking in.

Fighting Hawks’ first-year forward Grant Mismash has had an up-and-down freshman campaign. 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 was held to two goals and two assists from December 8th, 2017 through February 17th, 2018 (a stretch of thirteen games) and was a healthy scratch on January 6th vs. Omaha. To be fair, the Nashville Predators draft pick (Round 2, #61 overall) from Edina, Minnesota notched a goal and assist two weekends ago at Miami and duplicated that scoring effort last weekend against St. Cloud State to give him a line of 9-13-22 for the season and a spot on the NCHC 2017-18 All-Rookie Team.

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.

If UND hopes to make a deep playoff run, junior forward Shane Gersich (11-16-27) and senior forward Austin 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 sixteen games, the two have scored twelve goals and added fifteen assists.

It is worthy of note that Gersich has scored four goals and notched five assists in eleven career games against the Mavs while Poganski has enjoyed similar success (2-8-10 in sixteen career games).

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

Since January 1st, UND has gone just 4-7-5 and scored 47 goals (2.94/game) while allowing 44 (2.75/game) against Omaha (four games), Bemidji State, Duluth, Denver, Colorado College, Miami, and St. Cloud State. 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.

Three weekends ago, 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 (302) and Denver (287) rounding out the top three.

UND’s senior class of Cam Johnson, Trevor Olson, Austin Poganski, and Johnny Simonson (98-44-20, .667) needs two more victories to become the fifteenth consecutive recruiting class to win at least 100 games. That streak is on the line this weekend in Grand Forks.

The Fighting Hawks have ten ties already this season, breaking a school record set by the 2000-01 national runner-up squad that went 29-8-9. With only fourteen wins on the season, it is becoming increasingly likely that UND will finish the 2017-18 campaign with fewer than twenty victories. 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 7-10-7 (.438) over the last twelve weekends of hockey after beginning the year 7-2-3 (.708), and at the minimum, Brad Berry’s squad will need to win this weekend’s best-of-three series in order to solidify their place in the NCAA tournament. Of course, if UND advances to the NCHC Frozen Faceoff (Xcel Energy Center, St. Paul, Minnesota) and wins both games next weekend, they would secure the league’s autobid. The loser of this series will be unlikely to earn an at-large bid to the tournament when the bracket is announced on Sunday, March 18th.

According to Jim Dahl of collegehockeyranked.com, UND is most likely to end up ranked 14th or 15th in the Pairwise with two victories this weekend, with an outside chance at being ranked 13th or 16th. In almost all of those scenarios, the Fighting Hawks would need to avoid two losses net weekend in St. Paul.

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.

Omaha Team Profile

Head Coach: Mike Gabinet (1st season at UNO, 17-15-2, .529)

Pairwise Ranking: 14th of 60 teams
National Rankings: #13/#13

This Season: 17-15-2 (.529) overall, 10-13-1-0 NCHC (t-5th)
Last Season: 16-16-5 (.500) overall (missed NCAA tournament), 9-13-2-0 NCHC (6th)

Team Offense: 3.47 goals scored/game – 6th of 60 teams
Team Defense: 3.71 goals allowed/game – 60th of 60 teams
Power Play: 25.7% (39 of 152) – 5th of 60 teams
Penalty Kill: 78.2% (122 of 156) – 46th of 60 teams

Key Players: Senior F David Pope (20-20-40), Senior F Tyler Vesel (11-20-31), Sophomore F Zach Jordan (16-12-28), Senior F Jake Randolph (6-19-25), Sophomore F Tristan Keck (10-12-22), Senior D Joel Messner (5-18-23), Sophomore D Ryan Jones (1-11-12), Junior G Evan Weninger (15-12-1, 3.31 GAA, .900 SV%)

North Dakota Team Profile

Head Coach: Brad Berry (3rd season at UND, 69-34-17, .646)

Pairwise Ranking: 15th of 60 teams
National Rankings: #14/NR

This Season: 14-12-10 (.528) overall, 8-10-6-3 NCHC (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 – 29th of 60 teams
Team Defense: 2.44 goals allowed/game – 13th of 60 teams
Power Play: 20.5% (32 of 156) – 22nd of 60 teams
Penalty Kill: 81.6% (120 of 147) – 27th of 60 teams

Key Players: Junior F Shane Gersich (11-16-27), Junior F Nick Jones (11-13-24), Freshman F Grant Mismash (9-13-22), Senior F Austin Poganski (10-7-17), Junior F Rhett Gardner (7-12-19), Junior D Christian Wolanin (11-21-32), Sophomore D Colton Poolman (7-16-23), Senior G Cam Johnson (9-8-7, 2.21 GAA, .905 SV%, 2 SO)

By The Numbers:

Last meeting: February 17, 2018 (Omaha, NE). UND led by a narrow 1-0 margin after two periods of play before Johnny Simonson’s third-period tally gave the visitors some breathing room. North Dakota’s Rhett Gardner added an empty-net goal with 104 seconds remaining, the Hawks’ fourteenth shot on goal of the period (to just four for the Mavs). In Friday’s opener, Omaha scored four second-period goals to erase an early 2-0 deficit and defeat the Fighting Hawks 6-3. The Mavericks went 3-for-4 with the man advantage and got 38 saves from Evan Weninger. UND outshot Omaha 78-52 on the weekend.

Last Meeting in Grand Forks: January 6, 2018. 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.

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 44-24 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 17-10-1 (.625), including a slight 7-6-1 (.536) edge in games played in Grand Forks. The teams first met on November 19, 2010.

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. UND junior defenseman Christian Wolanin (11-21-32) leads all Fighting Hawks scorers and is seeking to become the first blueliner to lead UND in scoring since James Patrick (12-36-48 in 1982-83, his second and final college season). The Mavericks won ten league games this season, two more than North Dakota.

Media Coverage

This weekend’s NCHC playoff action will be shown live on Midco Sports Network, with a high definition webcast also available to subscribers 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

Both teams have been prone to inconsistency throughout this season, and I expect momentum to shift back and forth throughout the weekend. North Dakota has not shown the ability to protect leads, and that will come back to haunt them in at least one game of this series. All signs point to hockey in Grand Forks on Sunday night. UND 3-2, UNO 4-2, UND 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!

The First-Round League Playoff Series: Why Is It So Difficult To Sweep?

This is the 16th consecutive season that North Dakota has hosted a first-round playoff series, and UND has fared extremely well on home ice, advancing to the second weekend of the conference tournament in each instance.

North Dakota has put the home fans at ease by winning Friday’s opener in each of the past eleven series. Over the past fifteen series, Saturday’s games have been more difficult, as seen by the following breakdown:

Average goals scored/goals allowed in first-round home playoff games (2003-2017):

Friday: 5.00 goals scored/1.60 goals allowed (thirteen wins, two losses)
Saturday: 3.40 goals scored/2.33 goals allowed (eleven wins, four losses)
Sunday: 3.67 goals scored/1.17 goals allowed (six wins, zero losses)

The way this has played out in the past is that North Dakota has typically hosted a team from the bottom third of the league (Michigan Tech five times, Colorado College three times, MSU-Mankato twice, and once each for Bemidji State, Denver, Minnesota, Minnesota-Duluth, and St. Cloud State). Friday’s openers have been blowouts, with UND winning thirteen of its last fifteen openers by an average score of 5.54 – 1.31.

So why is it that six of the past fifteen home series have gone to a third and decisive game?

The main reason that the Green and White have played much closer games on Saturday night (ten one-goal games) is that in every case, North Dakota was playing to extend its own season and/or end another team’s season. Elimination games bring out the best in both teams, and the results are tightly contested matches. Remarkably, UND played host to five overtime playoff contests from 2003-2008 but only two (a Game Two overtime loss to Colorado College in 2014 and last season’s 6-5 overtime victory against St. Cloud State) since that time.

And not coincidentally, the last time North Dakota was on the road for the first round (2002), they demonstrated similar results. Playing at eventual national champion Minnesota in the opening round of the WCHA playoffs, UND took the Gophers to overtime on Saturday night (losing 4-3) after getting destroyed 7-2 in Friday’s opener.

The boys from Grand Forks have only given up seven total goals in six Sunday home playoff games. Two recent Game Threes went into the books as blowouts (4-1 vs. Minnesota [2010] and 6-0 vs. Michigan Tech [2013]), but the 2014 rubber match against the Tigers went right down to the wire. CC scored an extra-attacker goal with 90 seconds remaining but could not find the equalizer and fell by a score of 4-3.

North Dakota’s most recent championship season (2016) featured two blowout wins (7-1, 5-1) vs. Colorado College in the first round of the NCHC tournament. The only other playoff series in the current stretch that did not feature at least one close game was in 2005. North Dakota destroyed Minnesota-Duluth 8-2 and 6-1, with Rory McMahon (2 goals, 5 assists) and Rastislav Spirko (3 goals, 3 assists) leading the way for the Fighting Sioux. Colby Genoway added three goals and two assists, and netminder Jordan Parise turned away 34 of 37 Bulldog shots to earn two victories and the series sweep.

Here are the complete results for the last 36 home conference playoff games:

Year Opponent Game One Game Two Game Three
2017 St. Cloud State 5-2 6-5 (OT)
2016 Colorado College 7-1 5-1
2015 Colorado College 5-1 3-2
2014 Colorado College 4-2 2-3 (OT) 4-3
2013 Michigan Tech 5-3 1-2 6-0
2012 Bemidji State 4-1 4-3
2011 Michigan Tech 8-0 3-1
2010 Minnesota 6-0 2-4 4-1
2009 Michigan Tech 5-1 4-3
2008 Michigan Tech 4-0 2-3 (OT) 2-1
2007 Mankato State 5-2 2-1
2006 Mankato State 2-3 (OT) 4-1 3-0
2005 Minnesota-Duluth 8-2 6-1
2004 Michigan Tech 6-2 4-3 (OT)
2003 Denver 1-4 3-2 (OT) 3-2 (OT)

So what will this weekend’s series between North Dakota and Omaha play out? Will the teams be playing a decisive third game on Sunday evening? Please follow this link for a full series preview and prediction.

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!

Weekend Preview: North Dakota vs. St. Cloud State

Last weekend, St. Cloud State clinched the Penrose Cup as NCHC champions with a win and a tie against Denver, their third regular-season league championship in the past six seasons (2012-13 WCHA, 2013-14 NCHC).

North Dakota certainly has more to play for this weekend than their rivals from central Minnesota, as SCSU has the #1 seed and home ice for the first round of the playoffs locked up while UND is trying to stay ahead in the race for the final home-ice playoff spot:

1. St. Cloud State (15-4-3-1, 49 points)
2. Denver (11-6-5-4, 42 points)
3. Minnesota Duluth (12-10-0-0, 36 points)
4. North Dakota (8-9-5-2, 31 points)
5. Colorado College (7-11-4-3, 28 points)
5. Omaha (9-12-1-0, 28 points)
5. Western Michigan (9-12-1-0, 28 points)
8. Miami (6-13-3-1, 22 points)

UND could finish as high as third or as low as seventh in the final NCHC conference standings. Here’s a look at the other league matchups this weekend:

Miami at Denver
Omaha at Duluth
Western Michigan at Colorado College

Last season, North Dakota and St. Cloud State battled six times, with UND clearly having the better of it and earning the UND/SCSU Challenge Cup with three regular-season victories in four meetings:

NCHC Regular Season
November 18, 2016 (St. Cloud): UND 4, SCSU 0
November 19, 2016 (St. Cloud): UND 3, SCSU 0

NCHC Regular Season
February 3, 2017 (Grand Forks): SCSU 3, UND 1
February 4, 2017 (Grand Forks): UND 2, SCSU 1 (OT)

NCHC First Round Playoff Series
March 10, 2017 (Grand Forks): UND 5, SCSU 2
March 11, 2017 (Grand Forks): UND 6, SCSU 5 (OT)

With a win and a tie back in December 2017, St. Cloud State would earn the Challenge Cup for this season with at least one victory this weekend in Grand Forks.

It’s been up and down for the Huskies in the first five seasons of the NCHC. After winning the Penrose Cup in the inaugural season of the new league (2013-14) with an overall record of 22-11-5 (.645), St. Cloud State made the NCAA tournament again in 2014-15 with a relatively pedestrian mark of 20-19-1 (.512). At the end of that season, SCSU had the unfortunate circumstance of facing and falling to North Dakota in the West Regional final (Fargo, ND), a virtual home game for the Green and White.

SCSU captured the NCHC Frozen Faceoff championship and another NCAA tourney bid in 2015-16 with a sparkling record of 31-9-1 (.768) but unfortunately suffered an overtime loss in the opening round of the national tournament. St. Cloud State, the top seed in the NCAA West Regional (Xcel Energy Center, St. Paul, MN), rallied to tie #18 Ferris State in the third period, but the Bulldogs scored just 18 seconds into the extra session to knock off the Huskies (who were ranked #2 in the country heading into the NCAAs) by a final of 5-4.

Thirty-win seasons are extremely rare in today’s college hockey landscape, with more parity and more ties taking away the opportunity to rack up victories. Since I started traveling to St. Cloud for the UND/SCSU games back in 1998, the Fighting Sioux/Hawks and the Huskies have both reached the 30-victory plateau on multiple occasions. Remarkably, St. Cloud State posted identical marks of 31-9-1 (.768) in their milestone seasons (2001 and 2016).

1997-98 North Dakota (30-8-1)
1998-99 North Dakota (32-6-2)
1999-00 North Dakota (31-8-5)
2000-01 St. Cloud State (31-9-1)
2003-04 North Dakota (30-8-3)
2010-11 North Dakota (32-9-3)
2015-16 North Dakota (34-6-4)
2015-16 St. Cloud State (31-9-1)

With a record of 21-6-5, it is possible but unlikely that St. Cloud State will reach the thirty-victory mark this year. A sweep this weekend plus a Frozen Faceoff championship and a national title would put SCSU at 31-6-5 or 31-7-5, depending on whether their first round series would go two or three games.

For more on the rarity and importance of a thirty-win season, follow this link.

Last season was far from a milestone season for Bob Motzko’s squad, as the group sputtered to a record of 16-19-1 (.458) and missed the NCAAs for the first time since the 2011-12 team finished at .500 (17-17-5). North Dakota has made fifteen consecutive NCAA tournament appearances, the longest active streak in Division I men’s ice hockey and the second-longest streak of all time (Michigan appeared in 22 straight NCAA tourneys from 1991 to 2012).

North Dakota ended St. Cloud State’s 2016-17 campaign with a home sweep in the first round of the NCHC playoffs. UND cruised 5-2 in the opener before besting the Huskies in a 6-5 overtime thriller. As I have said before, we have come to expect close matchups in NCHC playoff games played on Saturdays (and often Sundays), as the visiting team is almost always playing to extend their season.

Since January 1st, UND has gone just 4-6-4 and scored 42 goals (3.00/game) while allowing 38 (2.71/game) against Omaha (four games), Bemidji State, Duluth, Denver, Colorado College, and Miami. 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 (8th) would all easily make the tourney, with North Dakota (14th) and Omaha (15th) on the bubble. Western Michigan (t-19th), Colorado College (t-23rd) and Miami (t-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 sixteen 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 three goals and three assists in his past fifteen appearances and was a healthy scratch on January 6th vs. Omaha. To be fair, the Nashville Predators draft pick (Round 2, #61 overall) from Edina, Minnesota did notch a goal and an assist last weekend at Miami.

On the injury front, North Dakota finally appears to be getting healthy after losing 76 man-games due to injury, illness, suspension, or the Olympics this season. UND has used a different lineup in 33 of 34 games this season, including 60 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 (11-15-26) 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 fourteen games, the two have scored twelve goals and added fourteen assists.

It is worthy of note that Gersich has scored six goals and notched two assists in nine career games against the Huskies while Poganski has enjoyed a modest amount of success (3-5-8 in sixteen career games). Rhett Gardner has also collected eight points (3-5-8) in his ten career games against St. Cloud State.

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 (55.7 percent); St. Cloud State is 2nd at 55.4 percent. Of the top fifteen faceoff men in the NCHC (minimum 100 attempts), five wear a Fighting Hawks jersey:

1. Nick Jones (60.3 percent)
4. Collin Adams (59.1 percent)
6. Rhett Gardner (57.8 percent)
12. Ludvig Hoff (54.9 percent)
13. Johnny Simonson (54.7 percent)

Hoff recently 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, the Huskies boast two centermen among the top fifteen:

5. Blake Winiecki (58.5 percent)
7. Judd Peterson (57.1 percent)

Two weekends ago, 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 (302) 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 nine ties already this season, tying a school record set by the 2000-01 national runner-up squad that went 29-8-9. With only fourteen and two regular-season games remaining before the NCHC playoffs, it is very 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 7-9-6 (.455) over the last eleven 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 10th or 11th in the Pairwise rankings (which mimic the tourney selection process) with two wins this weekend, settle in at 14th with a split, and drop to 16th or 17th 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).

St. Cloud State Team Profile

Head Coach: Bob Motzko (13th season at SCSU, 272-189-48, .582)

Pairwise Ranking: 1st of 60 teams
National Rankings: #1/#1

This Season: 21-6-5 (.734) overall, 15-4-3-1 NCHC (1st)
Last Season: 16-19-1 (.458) overall (missed NCAA tournament), 10-13-1-0 NCHC (5th)

2017-18 Season Statistics:
Team Offense: 3.81 goals scored/game – 2nd of 60 teams
Team Defense: 2.44 goals allowed/game – 14th of 60 teams
Power Play: 21.9% (32 of 146) – 12th of 60 teams
Penalty Kill: 81.3% (87 of 107) – 30th of 60 teams

Key Players: Junior F Robby Jackson (15-20-35), Sophomore F Ryan Poehling (8-17-25), Junior F Mikey Eyssimont (14-19-33), Junior F Patrick Newell (5-19-24), Junior D Jimmy Schuldt (7-26-33), Sophomore D Jack Ahcan (2-13-15), Junior D Will Borgen (2-10-12), Freshman G David Hrenak (9-4-1, 1.75 GAA, .935 SV%, 3 SO)

North Dakota Team Profile

Head Coach: Brad Berry (3rd season at UND, 69-33-16, .653)

Pairwise Ranking: 14th of 60 teams
National Rankings: #13/#14

This Season: 14-11-9 (.544) overall, 8-9-5-2 NCHC (4th)
Last Season: 21-16-3 (.562) overall (NCAA West Regional semifinalist), 11-12-1-1 NCHC (4th)

2017-18 Season Statistics:

Team Offense: 2.88 goals scored/game – 29th of 60 teams
Team Defense: 2.41 goals allowed/game – 13th of 60 teams
Power Play: 20.0% (29 of 145) – 21st of 60 teams
Penalty Kill: 82.6% (114 of 138) – 20th of 60 teams

Key Players: Junior F Shane Gersich (11-15-26), Junior F Nick Jones (10-12-22), Freshman F Grant Mismash (8-12-20), Senior F Austin Poganski (10-7-17), Junior F Rhett Gardner (6-11-17), Junior D Christian Wolanin (10-19-29), Sophomore D Colton Poolman (7-15-22), Senior G Cam Johnson (9-7-6, 2.15 GAA, .907 SV%, 2 SO)

By The Numbers

Last Meeting: December 9, 2017 (St. Cloud, MN). One night after UND grabbed the extra league point with a 2-2 tie and a shootout win, the Huskies scored three goals on six shots in the second period to take a 3-1 home victory. North Dakota outshot SCSU 35-18 in Saturday’s rematch but went scoreless on the power play (0-for-3) while allowing Mikey Eyssimont’s power play tally (his second in one minute of game action) in the middle frame. Huskies netminder David Hrenak made 34 saves.

Last Meeting in Grand Forks: March 11, 2017. North Dakota finished off St. Cloud State in a wild contest that featured eleven goals, six lead changes, and an overtime winner by junior forward Trevor Olson. UND sophomore defenseman Christian Wolanin tied the game at 5-5 with just over four minutes remaining to send the game to an extra session. SCSU sophomore blueliner Will Borgen was ineligible to play in the first two games of the playoff series due to his suspension for physically abusing an official in a game against Colorado College. Had the Huskies held on to defeat the Fighting Hawks, Borgen would certainly had an impact in a decisive Game Three.

Most Important Meeting: NCAA West Regional Final in Fargo, ND (March 28, 2015). North Dakota scored three unassisted goals over the final two periods of the hockey game to defeat St. Cloud State 4-1 in the West Regional Final and advance to the NCAA Frozen Four. Jimmy Murray got the Huskies on the board less than 90 seconds in to the hockey game, but that did nothing to quiet the partisan crowd of 5,307 at SCHEELS Arena. Four different players scored for UND, while Zane McIntyre made 19 stops to earn his 29th and final victory of the season.

All-Time Series: North Dakota leads the all-time series, 71-41-13 (.620), including a 35-17-6 (.655) record in games played in Grand Forks. Aside from their 2015 NCHC Frozen Faceoff semifinal victory, the Huskies also defeated North Dakota in the 2001 WCHA Final Five championship game. The teams have been squaring off regularly since the 1989-90 season, but have only met once in the NCAA tournament (2015).

Last Ten: UND holds a 6-3-1 (.650) edge in the last ten meetings between the teams, outscoring the Huskies 29-25 over that stretch of games.

Game News and Notes

St. Cloud State has outscored opponents 54-27 in third periods this season. North Dakota leads the nation in attendance once again this season (11,475/game) and is bidding to lead the NCAA in total attendance for the seventh consecutive year and in average attendance for the fourth consecutive year. SCSU clocks in 16th in the country, with an average of 4307 fans per game.

Media Coverage

Both games will be streamed in high definition on NCHC.tv and available live on Midco Sports Network. Saturday’s rematch will also be shown live on FOX College Sports Central. 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.

A Personal Note

All North Dakota and St. Cloud State hockey fans are invited and encouraged to attend an informal pre-game social on Saturday, March 3rd beginning at 3:00 p.m. at El Roco (1730 13th Avenue North) in Grand Forks. Guests will enjoy free appetizers, door prizes, a chance to view the Challenge Cup, and a bus to Ralph Engelstad Arena and back. Due to the venue, all those in attendance must be 21 years of age or older. Come and meet fans on both sides of this rivalry – here’s to hockey!

The Prediction

Let’s get this out of the way first: St. Cloud State is a better team than North Dakota this season. However, UND has some intangibles in its favor, including playoff positioning, a home ice crowd, a smaller ice surface, and Senior Night on Saturday night. The Fighting Hawks will play with a sense of urgency this weekend, and while a better result is certainly possible, I’m going with a split. UND 3-2, SCSU 4-2.

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!

UND/SCSU pre-game event set for Saturday, March 3rd

Please join us for the UND/SCSU pre-game social, an annual event which provides an opportunity for fans of the University of North Dakota and St. Cloud State University to gather, celebrate the great sport of hockey, and view the Challenge Cup, a traveling trophy which is presented to the team which collects more points in the four regular-season games between the schools. North Dakota earned the trophy last year with a pair of shutout wins (4-0, 3-0) in St. Cloud and a home overtime victory in Grand Forks.

St. Cloud State has the upper hand in this season’s race with a home win and a tie back in December.

social1

This event will be held on Saturday, March 3rd from 3:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. at El Roco Bar and Grill (1730 13th Avenue North) in Grand Forks. El Roco is smoke-free, and the event is free and open to the public (due to the venue, guests must be 21 years of age or older). A free appetizer bar will be provided, everyone in attendance will have the opportunity to win door prizes, and a hockey bus will take fans to Ralph Engelstad Arena and back again after the game.

SiouxSports.com is the title sponsor for this event. Other sponsors and donors include:

Buffalo Wild Wings
Doc’s Grill
El Roco Bar & Grill
University of North Dakota Bookstore

Fans of both teams enjoy the camaraderie at these social events and regularly comment that the connection between the two fan bases is among the best in college hockey.

Please click here for a full preview of this weekend’s games. We hope that you will mark your calendars and join us for this event!

Weekend Preview: North Dakota at Miami

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!