(UND Athletics/Russell Hons)
OMAHA, Neb. (UND Athletics)– No. 8 North Dakota flexed its muscles on Friday night, cruising to a 7-2 victory over Omaha from Baxter Arena in Omaha, Neb.
UND (6-3-0, 2-1-0 NCHC) exploded for a season-high seven goals in the victory to jump into first place in the NCHC standings with seven points and grab its third straight victory in Baxter Arena.
The night was once again headlined by Ben Strinden, as the senior forward struck for his first career two-goal game and added an assist to give him a three-point night and eight points over his last three contests. Sophomore forward Mac Swanson also notched a trio of points with a goal and two assists while junior defenseman Jake Livanavage was the third Fighting Hawk with three points – dishing out a hat trick of helpers.
Freshman forward Will Zellers also notched a pair of goals for the first time his collegiate career while senior forward Dylan James continued to haunt the Mavericks (4-3-0, 2-1-0 NCHC) with two tallies to give him eight in his career against goaltender Simon Latkoczy.
Rookie netminder Jan Špunar was solid once again between the pipes, improving to 3-0-0 in his young career with 22 saves on 24 shots against.
The first period was defined by special teams, with each side earning multiple power plays in the frame. North Dakota struck first on the man advantage, with James tapping home a tic-tac-toe passing play at the side of the net from Keaton Verhoeff and Cole Reschny to give the Hawks a 1-0 lead just five minutes into the game.
Omaha struck back as the frame wore on, knotting the contest at 1-1 with a power play goal of its own on an abbreviated 5-on-3 advantage to send the teams to the locker room even.
NoDak took control in the middle frame, potting a trio of goals to grab the momentum from the hosts. Swanson gave the lead back to UND just over five minutes into the period when the sophomore wired home a perfect centering pass from Ollie Josephson for his fourth of the season.
Strinden started to take over towards the end of the middle stanza, first picking off a pass in the defensive zone, chipping a pass to Cody Croal to send his linemate on a rush before jumping into the play himself and finishing off the return pass from Croal to increase the lead to 3-1.
The NoDak power play struck again late in the period, as Swanson pushes a terrific stretch pass to Strinden to start an odd-man rush. Strinden feeds Zellers cutting down the slot and the rookie finishes his fourth goal of the season and pushed the lead to 4-1 in the second.
After Omaha cut the deficit to 4-2 in the dying seconds of the second period, UND stretched the advantage back to three near the midway point of the third on another tally from Strinden off a second sweet puck retrieval and dish to make it 5-2 Hawks.
The game turned into a penalty fest over the last 10 minutes, with UND taking full advantage on the power play. The Hawks potted two more tallies, one from Zellers and one from James, with the man advantage to close out the 7-2 victory.
North Dakota will look for the sweep on Saturday night at 7:00 p.m. on NCHC.tv and the Fighting Hawks Radio Network.
Postgame Notes
- UND improves to 40-23-2 all-time against Omaha and 21-11-1 in Omaha
- The seven goals are the most in a game this season
- UND has now won five of its six games this season by at least three goals
- Ben Strinden scored two goals for the first time in his career and had three points
- Strinden now has eight points (3G, 5A) over his last three games
- Will Zellers recorded his first-career game with two goals
- Zellers also extended his point streak to three straight (3G, 1A)
- Mac Swanson scored and dished out two assists for his second three-point game of his career
- Dylan James scored two goals for the second time this season and sixth time in his career
- Cody Croal had his second multi-point game of his career – dishing out two helpers
- Ollie Josephson notched an assist to give him five points (2G, 3A) over his last three games
- Jake Livanavage recorded three helpers for is fifth three-point game of his career and second this season
- Cole Reschny tallied his second multi-point game of the season with a pair of assists
- Jan Špunar finished with 22 saves on 24 shots to improve to 3-0-0 this season
- The seven goals are tied for the second-most at Baxter Arena for UND
- UND went 4-for-8 on the power play while Omaha was 1-for-4
- NoDak rolled with the exact same lineup from last Saturday vs. Minnesota Duluth
- Shots were 27-24 UND
- Faceoffs were 31-23 Omaha – marking the first time this season that UND lost the faceoff battle
How It Happened
First Period:
05:00 | UND – Dylan James (4, PP) from Keaton Verhoeff (2) and Cole Reschny (5)
15:02 | OMA – Jacob Guevin (2, PP) from Luke Woodworth (5) and Trevor Wong (4)
Second Period:
05:23 | UND – Mac Swanson (4) from Ollie Josephson (4) and Jake Livanavage (4)
12:15 | UND – Ben Strinden (3) from Cody Croal (1)
16:32 | UND – Will Zellers (4, PP) from Strinden (8) and Swanson (4)
19:55 | OMA – Marc Lajoie (2) from Tyler Rollwagen (1) and Samuel Huo (1)
Third Period:
10:08 | UND – Strinden (4) from Croal (2) and Livanavage (5)
15:29 | UND – Zellers (5, PP) from Abram Wiebe (5) and Swanson (5)
16:52 | UND – James (5, PP) from Reschny (6) and Livanavage (6)
Game Recap: Men’s Hockey | | Alec Stocker Johnson, FightingHawks.com
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