Fighting Hawks fall to 4-1-0-0-0-0 in NCHC play, teams meet tomorrow night at 6:07 p.m.
GRAND FORKS, N.D. (UND Athletics)– The No. 6 ranked University of North Dakota men’s hockey team had a couple of major problems Friday night at sold-out Ralph Engelstad Arena (11,686) that proved to be too difficult to overcome.
One was a strong No. 4 ranked Minnesota Duluth Bulldog team coming off an appearance in the NCAA Frozen Four a year ago.
The other problem for the Fighting Hawks were themselves. Already down four players due to a variety of reasons, UND gave the Bulldogs six power plays, allowed one power-play goal and lost center Louis Jamernik for the game late in the first period with a major penalty for direct contact to the head.
All told, the Bulldogs connected on 1-of-6 power plays with 12 shots on goal. In contrast, with power-play quarterback Jake Sanderson one of the missing players, UND was 0-6 on the power play with just four shots.
UND scored first on senior wing Gavin Hain’s second goal of the season to cap a 3-on-1 rush just 2:30 into the game. UND has won six of the last seven times it has scored first in a game this season, but the early goal didn’t lead to overall success tonight.
Minnesota Duluth answered Hain with a power-play goal, the first of two for Miami transfer Casey Gilling, at 10:13 to tie it at 1-1. That goal came just six seconds after a Tyler Kleven penalty for interference set up the power play. Rookie Dominic James then sniped the top far corner on UND goalie Zach Driscoll at 12:02 to put the Bulldogs ahead to stay at 2-1.
Gilling drove a loose puck in front of the net past Driscoll in the second period and Warroad product Kobe Roth scored into an empty net with 1:55 left in the game to ice it.
Discipline, or the lack thereof, was on the mind of UND coach Brad Berry at the post-game press briefing.
“I thought we came out and had good jump, scored the first goal, that’s what we wanted,” Berry said. “Then we took penalty, penalty, penalty…and penalty. Not a good recipe…then you just run out of gas from guys who play key minutes.”
UND wing Judd Caulfield put it this way. “We know, yeah, we’re missing a few guys,, but it’s about the 23 (healthy) guys in the locker room. We’re just a band of brothers. It’s next man up mentality. It doesn’t matter who’s in the lineup. We have to stick to our game plan.”
And the game plan certainly didn’t include losing a player (Jamernik) with a major penalty.
“We were definitely pumped up for this game,” Caulfield said. “It was just a little lack of discipline there,” a reference to the string of penalties.
“Tomorrow we’ve got to have that discipline,” Berry said. “We’ve got to work hard. I thought we worked hard, but we didn’t work hard and smart tonight. We took some undisciplined penalties in the first period.”
Hain is the only player in the UND lineup who now has more than one career goal against Duluth (he has two in 10 games against them).
“We got off to a pretty good start, then we kind of got away from our game,” Hain said. “Then we took those penalties, and it kind of kills the momentum of the whole team.”
Berry said he will know more Saturday morning if Sanderson, Matteo Costantini and Dane Mongomery have recovered enough to play in the rematch at 6:07 from the Ralph.
NOTES: UND did have an edge in faceoff wins (35 to 25), paced by Connor Ford (20 of 31) and Jake Schmaltz (eight of 12). . . Named the three stars of the game by the media were Gilling, James and Hain, in that order . . . Minnesota Duluth came into the series ranked No. 1 in the unofficial Pairwise ratings while UND is No. 4 . . . Minnesota Duluth goalie Ryan Fanti (23 saves) had his string of three straight shutouts end on Hain’s goal. UND’s Driscoll had 23 saves as well . . . Riese Gaber had 6 shots on goal to pace UND while Gilling had 5 to lead the Bulldogs.
Game Recap: Men’s Hockey | 11/19/2021 11:35:00 PM | Virg Foss, FightingHawks.com