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ST. CLOUD, Minn. — After drawing even on Friday in double overtime, No. 2 St. Cloud State ran away with a 3-1 victory over North Dakota in a border battle of attrition at the Herb Brooks National Hockey Center.
“It was back and forward great hockey,” said St Cloud coach Bob Motzko. “There was no space, and I really felt they were an outstanding defensive team. I thought defensively we did what we had to do and the power play answered us when we needed it to. We also needed to make a statement in a big game and we didn’t on Friday.”
The 2016 NCAA champions, North Dakota, could not match the intensity and physicality that proved difficult to cope with for St. Cloud on Friday. David Hrenak got the start in goal and stonewalled his opponents with 34 saves. The saves sufficed to beat out Cam Johnson’s 15 saves. Johnson put in a solid 58:12 minutes of ice time before UND opted for the empty net to end the game.
“I’m just really thankful I could play the game,” said Hrenak. “I can say that this was the hardest game for me in my entire hockey career. Before the game, I told myself just have fun because a lot of guys probably want be in the net. I found out this morning I was going to be.”
With just 0.06 seconds left in the second frame, Cole Smith answered for the Fighting Hawks with a hard-fought goal that was grinded out in front of Hrenak. The goal did much more than bring the game within two (3-1); it prevented the Huskies from peeling away with the margin and spring boarding to meet their goals-per-game average of 4.36.
“There was about five, seven minutes there in the second period where we kind of got away from our game,” said Smith, who has scored a goal in three straight games. “A high-scoring offense like that, they took advantage of it. That’s something in the second half we’re going to have to take out of our game if we want to win these big ones. We just got away from doing the little things right.”
Sophomore forward Mike Eyssimont scored his second goal of the night and on the power play at 8:33 to make it 3-0 once he tamed a Jacob Benson centering feed from the left sideboards. Eyssimont crossed the crease and slid the puck with his backhand to beat Cam Johnson low on the glove side.
“It was a scramble play and they came flying; they overloaded the puck,” said Motzko. “He [Benson] made a strong play to keep it in and he got the puck back quickly. It wasn’t a pretty power-play goal, but we found the open guy.”
The fate of the second goal (2-0) was in the hands of the referees, and with the help of technology, Eyssimont began his two-goal night at 7:33. Blake Lizotte was pushed into the net without impeding Johnson’s ability to defend his crease all while Eyssimont capitalized on his open net look. Freshman forward Kevin Fitzgerald extended his consecutive point streak to five games with the assist.
After corralling a rebound subsequent to a blue line shot at 2:09, Robbie Jackson notched the initial goal that opened the gates and erupted the sellout crowd of 5,676.
The first period concluded to a scoreless stalemate in which both ends turned over the puck just as much as the other. A congested neutral zone made it difficult to break through, and SCSU was not itself when it came to puck movement. Broken passes and misreads by the Huskies enabled North Dakota’s best chances in the opening frame.
Having said that, North Dakota sustained the majority of the pressure throughout before St. Cloud found its forecheck. UND Senior forward and St. Cloud native Austin Poganski had the clearest opportunity to open the scoring midway through the first after he hit iron off a snap shot from inside the circle to the left of Hrenak.
The Huskies improve their record to 12-2-1 and are officially in first place. North Dakota snapped St. Cloud’s unblemished home record on Friday, drawing in double overtime and winning in the shootout.
NCHC roundup
No. 1 Denver 1, at Colorado College 1 (OT)
Colorado College played Denver to a tie at the Colorado Springs World Arena in a game that saw each team scoreless on the power play. Denver went 0-for-3 on the power play, while CC went 0-for-4 before a crowd of. Liam Finlay evened the score at 0:17 of the third period with helpers from Henrik Borgström and Jake Durflinger. The scarcity of goals took root in the second period, as neither team could find the back of the net. Trevor Gooch scored the first goal of night at 18:03 of the first period on assists by Christiano Versich and Kristian Blumenschein. The battle between Tanner Jaillet of DU and Alex Leclerc of CC extended into the overtime period despite CC’s 24 shots and DU’s 38 shots. DU earned the extra NCHC point on a goal by Liam Finlay during the three-on-three second OT.
No. 17 Minnesota Duluth 6, at Nebraska-Omaha 2
Minnesota Duluth scored three unanswered goals to end the game on the efforts of Riley Tufte’s unassisted goal at 18:51 of the third, Scott Perunovich at 2:24 of the third, and Tufte, again, at 12:09 of the second period. Mason Morelli scored UNO’s second goal at 11:37 of the second period, but they were not able to rally after that. Blake Young found the game-winning goal at 9:50 of the second period. Just under a minute into the second period, about 53 seconds in, Karson Kuhlman eased the score to 2-1 after the power play gave each team a boost. UNO scored on a power play at 16:18 to tie the game. This came 10 minutes after Joey Anderson opened the scoring at 6:12 of the first frame.
No. 11 Western Michigan 4, Miami 3 (OT)
With the game going to overtime, Western Michigan won on a goal by Wade Allison, who completed a hat trick night with his overtime heroics. Allison ended the game with his goal at 3:53 in overtime. Allison had scored for WMU in the third period at 15:58, and his first goal of the night was shorthanded in the second period at 11:32 with assist from Cam Lee and Scott Moldenhauer. Coincidentally, Miami netted three unanswered goals before WMU could rally back. Gordie Green, Louie Belpedio and Grant Hutton scored for Miami; however the two-goal lead did not deter the individual and collective efforts of WMU and Wade Allison. Trevor Gorsuch relieved Western Michigan goalie Ben Blacker in the second period.
