UMD, WMU Split Battle of Contenders; Denver, North Dakota Sweep
CHN Staff Report
With three teams in the top six of the NPI and defending national champ Western Michigan lurking not far behind, it’s hard to find a series in the NCHC each weekend that isn’t “big.” That’s especially true as a number of teams are enjoying resurgent seasons.
The defending champs had their hands full with Minnesota Duluth at Lawson Arena this weekend. The Bulldogs continued their scorching play on Fridays (9-0 to open series) in taking down WMU, with Max Plante scoring his 14th and Scott Truman adding two power-play goals. At 13 wins, UMD has equaled its total from last season, and surpassed that of two years ago. “Resurgence” has been an understatement in the first half for a team that was a national power just a few years ago.
It was the fourth home loss of the season for Western; it had just two all of last year.
But the Broncos were able to get off the deck and get an overtime win Saturday, after never having led the whole game. William Whitelaw scored his second goal of the game for the game winner. The junior third-round pick is on his third team in as many NCAA seasons, but is putting up his best season to date.
“Hopefully we keep putting ourselves in those positions,” UMD coach Scott Sandelin told the Duluth News-Tribune. “Like I told the guys, this is all learning. This is why you play these and this is what you go through. At the end of the year when it really matters, we’re going to be a good team that’s going to be in those situations, and figure out how exactly you need to win hockey games each and every night.”
Bulldogs goalie Adam Gajan made 27 saves in the loss. The resurgence word could certainly apply to him this year so far as well.
“(Gajan) was good, but we didn’t help him a lot,” Sandelin said to the Duluth News-Tribune. “I thought defensively we were better last night. They’re a good team. It was two good teams going at it. We took a couple punches in the second period, got a big goal from Cal. We got got to build on that into our favor.”
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North Dakota is another team where the word resurgence applies. After sweeping St. Cloud State on the road, the Hawks are 12-4 and No. 5 in NPI. They have won eight out of nine, and four straight.
A massively important factor has been the emergence of freshman goaltender Jan Spunar, who played both games this weekend and has a .929 save percentage. He stopped 37 shots Saturday, and held the Huskies to 1-for-6 on the power play.
“I think we’ve done an unbelievable job of sticking to our game and playing to our identity,” North Dakota’s Abram Wiebe said to the Grand Forks Herald. “We’re kind of going on a roll right now and we’re just excited to celebrate this win. Then, on Monday, we’ll come in and focus on Omaha and get ready to have a big weekend before Christmas break.”
North Dakota has tried a revolving door of transfer goalies the last few years, and were figuring to do it again this season, for the most part, with Gibson Homer. But his save percentage is under .900 while Spunar has risen to the forefront.
The biggest play in the game, however, was the shorthanded effort from defenseman Jake Livanavage. A loose puck caused by a three-player collision allowed an odd-man rush for North Dakota, and Livanavage went in and buried one with 7:04 left in regulation, breaking a 2-2 tie. He added an empty netter.
“That was high-end,” UND coach Dane Jackson said to the Grand Forks Herald. “Sometimes, when you have guys that are penalty killing, you have guys who are maybe not your high-end offensive guys. But we have everybody (killing penalties). That’s the advantage of when you get a chance and it’s not your grinders there. It’s your high-end guys with the vision and skill and ability to make the next play and one-time pucks.”
Conversely …
“It’s one of the most disappointing losses I’ve been a part of since I’ve been here,” St. Cloud State coach Brett Larson said. “The team feels that way, too. To play that well all weekend and not come up with any points is tough to take.” Denver comes into town next weekend. “We’ve proven that we can play with anybody. But now we need to prove that we can win both games like this.”
North Dakota had to also kill off a five-minute major in the second period, when freshman defenseman Keaton Verhoeff took an — ill-advised — butt-ending penalty and was ejected.
“If we had gotten that second one at the end of the second (period), what a difference that would have made,” Larson said to the St. Cloud Times.
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Denver took care of business this weekend against Miami at home, winning 4-0 and 5-2. Friday’s game, however, was closer than that would indicate.
The first half has been one where Miami builds up wins, which is outstanding for a program where wins have been few and far between the last few years. The schedule wasn’t the most challenging yet, however, so this was an opportunity to step up in class and see where it stood.
Friday, with the team coming off its win at the Friendship Four tournament in Northern Ireland, wasn’t representative of that. But Saturday, Miami hung in with the Pioneers for the most part, helped by two disallowed goals. A shorthanded goal by Denver’s Brendan McMorrow late in the second period, however, was a bit of a backbreaker, as Denver owned the third.
“I thought we had more moments tonight of being ourselves. I didn’t think we were ourselves at all (Friday),” Miami coach Anthony Noreen said. “We’re a young and inexperienced team. We have 19 guys in the lineup that weren’t part of the team last year. And we made some catastrophic mistakes — you can’t give up the shorthanded goal, you can’t give up the 4-on-4 goal, and the game was still there at the end. We need to feel that, we need to be in these tight games. They kinda wait for you to make a mistake and they pounced on it.
“Every team is challenging, but these guys are the class of college hockey. I think you learn a lot about yourselves when you play games like this. This is what we need to do, we need to learn, we gotta go back to work. .. If you handle it the right way going into practice, you can learn a lot from this week and be better prepared next time.”
Denver was coming off that barnburner of an OT loss to Minnesota in last weekend’s U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame Game at Ball Arena. At this point, though, it sits 11-5-1, sixth in NPI, and hasn’t lost a game in regulation since Oct. 25.
“It was good to the show the resiliency when we had the lead,” Denver coach David Carle said. “We have had to do it a few times this year coming from behind. Obviously, three disallowed goals on the weekend, a lot could deter our mindset, but I thought we did a great job sticking with it. Loved our commitment to team defense in the third, we blocked a lot of shots – probably about 7 or 8. They were really big blocks by everybody on the ice. Great to get six points and our first sweep at home of the year.
“We knew coming into this game that they would want to bounce back from yesterday and that they’d come a lot faster and more physically. So we talked about keeping an even head and just playing the game and continuing to play our game.”