FARGO, N.D. — Thanks to another solid performance from Zane McIntyre, North Dakota is ready to move on from last week — and last season — and is returning to the Frozen Four.
Colten St. Clair scored and had an assist, McIntyre made 19 saves and North Dakota recovered from a slow start to beat St. Cloud State 4-1 Saturday and win the West Regional championship.
[scg_html_w2015]UND will be in the Frozen Four in two weeks in Boston, where it will take on a hometown team in Boston University, which beat Minnesota-Duluth in the Northeast Regional.
“Great team effort by everybody,” said North Dakota coach Dave Hakstol. “It was a great battle. Highly competitive.”
Last year, North Dakota barely got into the NCAA tournament, but McIntyre made the saves when they counted as UND got past Wisconsin and Ferris State in the Midwest Regional. In Philadelphia, UND lost to archrival Minnesota in heartbreaking fashion.
This weekend, despite the loss of leading scorer Mark MacMillan in February, UND scored when it needed to, and its defense was strong. And of course, McIntyre was solid between the pipes.
He’s looking forward to another shot at the national championship.
“It feels pretty special,” McIntyre said. “Going back to last year, we had a strong core of players coming back. Collectively as a group, it feels incredible.”
Jimmy Murray scored to give the Huskies an early edge, but that was all they got as SCSU fell just short of the Frozen Four for the second straight season.
“It’s a little frustrating right now,” said Huskies coach Bob Motzko. “We could’ve had a little better fate tonight without the critical mistakes we made.”
Despite suffering an ankle injury Friday night, Jonny Brodzinski was able to tough out the pain and was in the lineup Saturday. The Huskies’ leading goal scorer didn’t appear to be at 100 percent, but he seemed to get into the flow of the game as it went on.
“Waking up this morning, it was extremely stiff,” Brodzinski said. “Overall, it felt better in the second and third period.”
St. Cloud State came flying out of the gates, controlling play in the first five minutes and drawing first blood on Murray’s fifth goal of the season 1:29 into the game.
[photoshelter-gallery g_id=”G0000Vjeui.1NvbM” g_name=”20150328-St-Cloud-NoDak” f_show_caption=”t” f_show_slidenum=”t” img_title=”casc” pho_credit=”iptc” f_link=”t” f_bbar=”t” fsvis=”f” width=”500″ height=”375″ bgcolor=”#AAAAAA” bgtrans=”t” btype=”old” bcolor=”#CCCCCC” crop=”f” trans=”xfade” tbs=”4000″ f_ap=”t” linkdest=”c” f_fullscreen=”f” f_constrain=”f” twoup=”f” f_topbar=”f” f_bbarbig=”” f_htmllinks=”f” f_enable_embed_btn=”f” f_show_watermark=”f” f_send_to_friend_btn=”f” f_smooth=”f” f_mtrx=”f” f_up=”f” target=”_self” wmds=”llQ6QNgpeC.p1Ucz7U.f22AHktcpsgA2GwXPPEVNZQxJi2D3cyhqnWaXPx6YggNoJAiCew–” ]However, North Dakota woke up soon after and tied the game seven and a half minutes after Murray’s tally, with Andrew Panzarella’s first goal of the season.
Panzarella was an emergency start for North Dakota’s defense after Keaton Thompson was scratched late due to an illness. Hakstol declined to elaborate on the exact illness; he only mentioned a few other players were affected by it.
UND grabbed the lead at 6:49 of the second period when Drake Caggiula scored his 18th goal of the season.
With about five minutes left in the middle frame, SCSU finally started putting more pressure on McIntyre, but the Hobey Baker Award finalist made some great saves as the period was winding down to show exactly why he’s one of the nation’s best goaltenders.
In the third period, North Dakota got a huge early insurance goal, in one of the flukiest ways you can imagine. Luke Johnson flipped the puck up in the air and it ended up dropping behind Lindgren for a goal, making it 3-1 about three minutes into the third.
The sudden turn of events seem to take the life out of St. Cloud State, and it never threatened McIntyre again.
Colten St. Clair’s empty-net goal with 40.2 seconds remaining seemed to blow the roof off Scheels Arena, and now North Dakota (29-9-3) is advancing to its seventh Frozen Four in 11 years under Hakstol.
The Huskies (20-19-1), meanwhile, saw their season end in the West Regional championship game for the second year in a row. But despite the inconsistencies that plagued the team early on, it was able to make plays down the stretch when it needed to and advanced to the NCAA tournament for the third year in a row, thanks in large part to the team’s seniors.
“We’re so proud of our seniors and our leadership,” Motzko said. “We hung in there — that was leadership. We got back to where we believe our program should be.”
St. Cloud State, which defeated North Dakota in the NCHC semifinals last weekend, finished 2-4 on the season against UND.
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