GRAND FORKS, N.D. – There wasn’t quite the ultimate celebration party at Ralph Engelstad Arena late Saturday night, but there was still plenty of reasons to appreciate and honor the accomplishments of this year’s University of North Dakota hockey team.
On Senior Night when the four seniors on the team were honored, No. 7 UND moved to within a win of clinching its third straight National Collegiate Hockey Conference regular season championship with a 5-2 win over the sixth-ranked Western Michigan Broncos to complete a weekend sweep of the team that swept UND earlier this season in Kalamazoo, Mich.
UND had a chance to win the Penrose outright Saturday night, if Denver had lost at Omaha. But the Pioneers rallied from a 2-0 deficit to defeat Omaha 5-2 and remain four points behind the Fighting Hawks going onto the final weekend of the regular season.
NCHC commissioner Josh Fenton flew in to be on hand to present the Penrose Cup to UND if Denver had lost after the Fighting Hawks won, and the UND team stayed on the bench to watch on the giant scoreboard as Denver rallied to keep hopes alive.
Any combination of a UND win at Omaha next weekend or a Denver lost to Colorado College will give UND the outright championship, becoming the first team in the nine-year history of the NCHC to win three straight titles.
UND jumped to a 3-0 lead 22 minutes into the game, aided greatly by two goals accidentally shot into their own net by Broncos’ defenders and credited to Louis Jamernik (his 9th) and Judd Caulfield (his 8th, and first of two on the night). UND had rallied the largest crowd of the season (12,088) behind it early on freshman defenseman Luke Bast’s power-play goal just 2:34 into the game.
The sweep was most impressive in that UND played without top defensemen Jake Sanderson and Ethan Frisch, along with leading scorer Riese Gaber and all-around standout Gavin Hain, all sidelined with injuries.
In their absence, 11 players stepped up to contribute either a goal or an assist, led by Caulfield with two goals and Jamernik with a goal and one assist.
“You always get a bump on Senior Weekend,” UND coach Brad Berry said. “Having Hain, Ford, Driscoll and Senden, you knew that the seniors were going play their best,” Berry said. “But now it was incumbent of the rest of the players to give it their best effort tonight.”
They did, in spades.
Driscoll, for example, made what might be the save of the year five minutes into the second period, with UND leading 3-1.
A puck kicked off the plexiglass behind Driscoll’s net and came back over the top of the net and hit him square in the back. He seemed to sense the puck hit his back, reached his left hand behind his back, and somehow trapped the puck while turning his body away from the goal line. That sensational save had some fans in the stands standing and bowing down to Driscoll.
Caulfield scored his second shorthanded goal of the season at 7:39 of the second period for his sixth goal against the Broncos in four games this season to stretch the lead to 4-1.
Josh Passolt split two UND defensemen to score on a backhand at 8:21 of the third period to make it 4-2, but Carson Albrecht capped a 2-on-1 rush with Senden by potting a great feed from Senden at 13:42 for the final margin of 5-2. It was the second career goal for Albrecht, the junior wing playing in his 37th career game.
The victory moved UND (16-5-1-0-1-1 NCHC, 21-11-1 overall) to No. 5 in the Pairwise Rankings, which mimic the process to select the 16-team NCAA tournament field in March. Western Michigan (12-9-1-1-0-1 league, 20-10-1 overall) slipped to 6th after coming into the weekend at No. 4.
The hoped-for post-game celebration with the Penrose Cup didn’t materialize for UND, but that was not an issue.
“That would have been nice,” Berry said, “but I think it’s still in our destiny here. We have control of it. We’ll have to go into Omaha, a tough place to play, and try and accomplish that. I know our guys will have a hunger to do that.”
The road ahead may add some new pavement. Berry said there is a chance that Sanderson, Gaber and Frisch all could be ready to play in Omaha.But as good of a season as UND has experienced, it has benefited greatly from less-heralded players such as Albrecht, Nick Portz, Griffin Ness, Jackson Kunz, Luke Bast, Cooper Moore, Brent Johnson and Dane Montgomery, among those who have made key contributions on this run to the Penrose Cup.
It hasn’t gone unnoticed by the coaching staff. “It talks about the trust and care that’s in our group here,” Berry said. “Guys are willing to do anything for each other. We had over 20-some (23) blocks in the game tonight, giving your body up, sacrificing, whatever you have to do. Doing whatever you can in your role to help win a game, and I think our guys are maximizing their roles right now.”
Having lost twice to Western earlier this season wasn’t forgotten by UND. “We went into Western, and we battled hard, but we didn’t come up with any wins,’ Caulfield said. “So, we knew we owed them a couple of games here at the Ralph.”
Signed, sealed, and delivered in impressive fashion over the weekend.
Next up, Omaha, and perhaps the hat trick of Penrose Cups.
“It would have been nice to get it here in front of our fans,” Caulfield said. “But we know it’s in our control. We need to go down there and play hard, win both games. We’re not just going for one.”
NOTES: Defenseman Daniel Hilsendager and forward Cole Gallant were the WMU players to accidentally deflected pucks into their own net while trying to break up a UND play around the net in the first period. . . Caulfield led UND in shots on net with 5, while Moore and Bast had 3 each . . . WMU played without leading goal scorer Ethan Frank, injured in Friday’s contest . . . UND was 2-6 on the power play with 7 shots, WMU 1-4 with just 2 shots . . . Named three stars of the game by the media were Caulfield, Jamernik and Driscoll, in that order . . . Connor Ford won 20 of 27 faceoffs to lead UND to a 43-27 advantage in that important statistic.
Virg Foss covered UND hockey for 35 seasons for the Grand Forks Herald, including 5 NCAA title teams, before his retirement. Since his retirement, he’s written about UND hockey games exclusively for FightingHawks.com. This marks his 52nd season since he began covering UND hockey in 1969.
Game Recap: Men’s Hockey | 2/27/2022 12:17:00 AM | Virg Foss, FightingHawks.com
