Showing posts with label Ralph Engelstad Arena. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ralph Engelstad Arena. Show all posts

Thursday, November 28, 2013

UND Hockey: The Weekend Ahead (11/29 -11/30)

This weekend, the University of North Dakota entertains St. Lawrence Saints of the ECAC in a non-conference series at Ralph Engelstad Arena. Last weekend, UND lost and tied (1-3 L, 3-3 T) in their non-conference series with the Boston University Terriers at Agganis Arena.
Matchup: North Dakota (4-6-2, 3-5-0 NCHC) vs. St. Lawrence (7-5-2, 2-3-0 Hockey East).
Date: November 29-30, 2013.
Time: 7:37 p.m. Friday / Saturday 7:07 p.m.
Radio: UND 96.1 (KQHT-FM)  The Fox
Webcast: undsports.com

Series History

UND leads the All-time series 11-1-0 (.917). In Grand Forks, ND: UND leads the series 6-0-0 (1.000). In Canton, New York: UND leads the series 2-1-0 (.667). At neutral sites: UND leads the series 3-0-0 (1.000). Under coach Dave Hakstol UND owns a 1-0-0 (1.000) record against SLU. Last 10 games against SLU: UND leads the series 9-1-0 (.900). The two teams didn’t play last season.

Players to watch

North DakotaForwards: Rocco Grimaldi (4g-7a—11pts), Michael Parks (3g-6a—9pts), Drake Caggiula (4g-4a—8pts), Luke Johnson (1g-4a—5pts), Brendan O’Donnell (3g-2—5pts).Defense:  Dillon Simpson (1g-5a—6pts), Nick Mattson (1g-5a—6pts),  Troy Stecher (1g-3a—4pts), Jordan Schmaltz (2g-2a—4pts), Paul Ladue (1g-3a—4pts).  Goaltenders: Clarke Saunders 2-1-0, GAA 3.50 and .910 save percentage, Zane Gothberg 2-5-2, 2.84 GAA and .906 save percentage.
UND injuries: Colten St. Clair, Mark MacMillan, Derek Rodwell.
St. Lawrence SaintsForwards: Greg Carey (9g-15a—24pts), Matt Carey (8g-9a—17pts), Jeremy Wick (5g-9a—14pts), Patrick Doherty (5g-6a—11pts). Defense: Justin Baker (4g-9a—13pts), Gavin Bayreuther (4g-7—11pts). Goaltenders: Matt Weninger 5-4-2, 3.57 GAA, .872 save percentage, Tyler Parks 2-0-0, 3.02 GAA, .862 save percentage.
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Sunday, November 24, 2013

UND ties Boston University 3-3

Seal of the University of North Dakota
Seal of the University of North Dakota (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Last night, the University of North Dakota put a season high 58 shots on the Boston University net, but still had to settle for a 3-3 tie. Standing in the way of a UND victory, was Terrier goalie Matt O’Connor. The sophomore goalie was nothing short of amazing, as he stopped a career-high 55 shots. Many of his saves were of the spectacular variety. Yes, I am cuing the hot goalie storyline.

I didn't know that was a crime? 

If it wasn’t for O’Connor, the game “probably” would’ve been very one sided, as UND attacked the BU net in waves. It was one of UND’s best efforts of the season, as they held a 58-31 shot advantage over the Terriers.

“He’s a good goalie,” UND junior forward Stephane Pattyn said.

According to the UND SID Jayson Hadju, that’s the most shots that UND has put on net in a game since December 30, 2000, when UND put 65 shots on the goal, to beat Princeton 4-1.  

Did I mention the play of the BU goalie? So did UND’s head coach Dave Hakstol.

“That’s the game of hockey,” Hakstol said. “Their guy (Matt O’Connor) played well in net.”
“We played a better game tonight than we did last night,” Hakstol said. “As usual when you come out on an eastern swing you usually run into different challenges. Obviously, we ran into some challenges this weekend, but we probably got better as a hockey team.”  

While some will look at this weekend as a lost weekend, I think you can look this weekend as a building block, moving forward. UND came out last night and was on their toes for most of the game. Rocco Grimaldi was the best player on the ice for UND. Second best player for UND was junior forward Brendan O’Donnell, who looked really good in his return to the lineup, after missing five games due to injury.

I think he was the difference in the game for UND. I would imagine that UND should get Mark MacMillan back soon. Moving forward, I wonder, if we will see the all junior line of Mark MacMillan, Michael Parks and O’D? That line seemed to have some chemistry together before the run of bad luck and injuries took hold for UND.

Stats, stats, stats

On Saturday night, UND was one-for-seven on the power-play, and had 19 of its 31 shots on the power-play. UND was one-for-nine (.10%) on the power-play for the weekend.
After writing an article about UND forward Rocco Grimaldi and Drake Caggiula,  Grimaldi had a six game point streak snapped last night and Caggiula was kept off of the score sheet all weekend long.
After last night’s game, Zane Gothberg’s season numbers 2-5-2, 2.84 GAA, .906 save percentage.
After this Friday’s game, Clarke Saunder’s season numbers 2-1-0, 3.50 GAA, save percentage .910.
This season, UND is 1-1-2 against Hockey East this season.

Looking ahead to next weekend 

With the tie the University of North Dakota is (4-6-2, 3-5-0 NCHC) and entertains ECAC opponent St Lawrence (7-5-2, 2-2-2 ECAC) at the Ralph Engelstad Arena, in an important two game nonconference series. 
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Saturday, November 02, 2013

Saint Cloud sweeps North Dakota

English: Ralph Engelstadt Arena at the Univers...
English: Ralph Engelstadt Arena at the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks, North Dakota. *Personally photographed by the undersigned May 8, 2007. Elcajonfarms 03:46, 3 July 2007 (UTC) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
“People like to label us as a young team, but that’s not an excuse now, we’ve been here two months,” North Dakota defenseman Troy Stecher on being swept at home by the Saint Cloud State Huskies.
Let’s say that it wasn’t a good weekend of hockey for the University of North Dakota, as they were swept at home for the first time in almost four years (January 29-30, 2010, against the University of Denver). There’s no way to sugar coat it, Saturday’s 3-1 loss was downright ugly. UND was outshot 29-17 by the Huskies, and they generated little offense. There where times during the game were UND was flatfooted, standing around, watching the Huskies make plays.
Defensively, the Huskies were air tight, and it was tough for the UND to generate much of anything in the way of offense. The Huskies pushed the pace and they were very good in all three zones on the ice.
“We didn’t generate enough,” head coach Dave Hakstol said. “We didn’t make enough plays coming out of our zone, through the neutral zone, to give us that speed to have some opportunities off of the rush.”
When the Huskies defensemen didn’t block another UND shot, get in the passing lanes, or stifle another UND offensive opportunity, their goaltender Ryan Faragher was there to thwart them once again. It has been the story of his career against UND.
UND has had no success against SCSU’s junior goalie Ryan Faragher who has been nothing short of amazing at the Ralph Engelstad Arena, record 4-1-1, .957 save percentage and a 1.50 goals against average.
“Tonight, we were getting them on target,” Hakstol said. “I think they blocked some and Faragher made some good saves. When we did get some opportunities… opportunities were pretty hard to come by both directions.”
Junior assistant captain Steph Pattyn didn’t pull any punches when he talked to the media after the game.
“They have a good team,” Pattyn said.  “Very good team in that locker room…energy wise, maybe we were strong, but we weren’t doing the right things. We didn’t get very many pucks on net today. Didn’t get much traffic in front of him today, we have to get in front of his eye and we didn’t do that today.”

Not a lot of positives taken from the weekend

If you were a UND hockey fan, there wasn’t a lot of bright spots and positives to take away from this weekend. There is one bright spot, UND’s penalty kill, UND has killed off 28 of 29 opposition power plays. Also, UND has killed off 28 straight opposition power plays and that leads the nation. On the flip side UND’s power play has not been as good, but they did go 1/2 on the power play tonight and are now 5/27 (.187) for the season. UND has lost three games in a row and travel to Omaha, Nebraska next weekend to play the University of Nebraska Omaha Mavericks in an important two game series.
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Thursday, October 31, 2013

UND Hockey: The Weekend Ahead (11/01-10/02)

The front entrance to Ralph Englested Arena in...
The front entrance to Ralph Englested Arena in Grand Forks, ND. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
This weekend, the University of North Dakota entertains Saint Cloud State University Huskies at the Ralph Engelstad Arena. This is the first NCHC home series for UND, this is also the first ever series NCHC for the SCSU Huskies.
Matchup: UND (2-1-1, 1-1-0 NCHC) vs. SCSU (3-0-1, 0-0-0 NCHC)
Date: November 1-2, 2013.
Time: 7:37 p.m. Friday / Saturday 7:07 p.m. Central.
Radio: UND 96.1 (KQHT-FM) – The Fox, Saturday Night: 100.3 Cat Country.
Webcast: undsports.com.
TV: Midco Sports Net (HD channel 622, SD channels 27 & 322).
Series History: UND leads the all-time series 60-33-12 (.629). In Grand Forks, ND UND leads the series 30-14-6 (.660). In St. Cloud, MN UND leads the series 24-18-6 (.563). At Neutral sites UND leads the series 6-1-0 (.857). Last 10-games UND leads the series 5-4-1 (.550). Last year SCSU went 2-1-1 against UND, including a 1-0-1 record at Ralph Engelstad Arena.
Players to watch:
North DakotaForwards: Rocco Grimaldi (2g-3a—5pts), Brendan O’Donnell (3g-1a—4pts), Drake Caggiula (2g-2a—4pts), Michael Parks (1g-3a—4pts), Luke Johnson (0g-3a—3pts), Mark MacMillan (1g-1a—2pts). Defense:  Nick Mattson (1g-1a—2pts), Gage Ausmus (1g0a—1pts),Jordan Schmaltz (0g-1a—1pts), Dillon Simpson (0g-1a—1pts). Goaltenders: Clarke Saunders 0-0-0, GAA 5.06 and .881 save percentage, Zane Gothberg 2-1-1, 2.60 GAA and .917 save percentage.
Huskies ForwardsNic Dowd (3g-1a—4pts), Jonny Brodzinski (1g-3a—4pts) Kalle Kossila (1g-2a—3pts). Defense: Niklas Nevalainen (1g-2a—3pts), Ethan Prow (0g-3a—3pts), Kevin Gravel (1g-1a—2pts). Goaltenders: Ryan Faragher 3-0-0, 2.33 GAA, .912 save percentage, Charlie Lindgren 1-0-0, 1.86 GAA, .905 save percentage.
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Wednesday, October 30, 2013

More good news: Drake Caggiula Practicing

From the press conference today the update on sophomore forward Drake Caggiula.

“He practiced on a limited basis yesterday, head coach Dave Hakstol said. “He’s making great strides. So, we haven’t made any decision for the weekend yet. Those final decisions, I think will be another 48 hours away.”




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Monday, October 28, 2013

Nothing new to report on Drake Caggiula

Nothing new to report on Drake Caggiula's status, will see if there is anything new to report after the Wednesday press conference, which I "should" be attending. If I hear anything, or read anything I will put it up. Now, I am off to the Twin Cities on some personal business. I will return tomorrow evening.


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Saturday, October 26, 2013

UND Hockey: Update on Drake Caggiula - (UPDATE)

UND sophomore forward Drake Caggiula has movement and feeling in his extremities and will under go more testing tonight.

Update: Drake Caggiula has been released from hospital and all tests came back negative.


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Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Edit: Weekend ahead against Miami

Miami University (Ohio) logo
Miami University (Ohio) logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
This weekend, the University of North Dakota plays Miami University in the first ever National Collegiate Hockey Conference game between the two teams on October 18-19, 2013 in Oxford, Ohio. All-time, UND is 2-0-1 against the Miami RedHawks, but the two teams haven’t played on the ice since November 11-28-2009, when UND and Miami skated to a wild 5-5 finish at the Ralph Engelstad Arena. 

Recently, UND head coach Dave Hakstol talked about the upcoming series with the Miami RedHawks. There’s a building excitement surrounding the new league and the match-up with the RedHawks.

“We will be starting off the NCHC in mid-October,” Hakstol said. “Out in Miami, that should be a heck of series. We’ll generate an instant rivalry (with them), in my opinion.

So, Miami is currently an unknown to the UND hockey team and their fans. Nobody on the 2013-14 UND hockey team, except senior goalie Clarke Saunders, has played against the Miami RedHawks.

This should be a good matchup, Miami and UND were picked to finished first and second in the NCHC Media Poll. According to UND head coach Dave Hakstol, UND is a balanced team, and this is one of the more balanced teams that UND has had in his 10 years as head coach.

“We got tremendous balance within our team’” Hakstol said. “That’s the one thing that we know, we don’t know a lot of specifics, but we do know that we have a tremendous amount of balance on our hockey team.”

UND Top Line

10 Adam Tambellini (1g-1a—2pts) – 9 Drake Caggiula (2g-2a—4pts)  – 19 Rocco Grimaldi (2g-3a—5pts)

UND Top Defense Pairing

Dillon Simpson (0g-0a—0pts) and Jordan Schmaltz (0g-1a—1pts)

UND Top Goalie

Zane Gothberg 1-0-1, 1.21 GAA, .0955 save percentage.

Prediction on the weekend

I predict that this series will end in a split. That’s my best guess. But, any result other than that won’t surprise me either. 
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Saturday, October 12, 2013

UND Hockey vs. Vermont Catamounts Lines game two

UND forward Lines

21 Brendan O’Donnell – 27 Luke Johnson – 15 Michael Parks (A)
10 Adam Tambellini – 9 Drake Caggiula – 19 Rocco Grimaldi
28 Stephan Pattyn (A) – 13 Connor Gaarder – 17 Colton S. Clair
25 Mitch MacMillan –16 Mark MacMillan – 7 Wade Murphy

UND Defense Pairing

18 Dillon Simpson © – 24 Jordan Schmaltz
Nick Mattson – 6 Paul LaDue
4 Keaton Thompson – 2 Troy Stecher

UND Goalies

33 Clarke Saunders
31 Zane Gothberg
Scratches for UND:, 11 Derek Rodwell,  20 Gage Ausmus , 22 Andrew Panzerella,
26 Coltyn Sanderson, 29 Bryn Chyzyk, 30 Matt Hrynkiw  UND goalies

Vermont Forward Lines 
20 Brendan Bradley – 17 Jake Fallon – 3 Chris McCarthy
23 Connor Brickley – 11 H.T. Lenz © - 6 Colin Markison
22 Brady Shaw –19 Matt White – 7 Tom Forgione
8 Jonathan Turk – 18 Robert Polesello – 29 Malcolm McKinney

Vermont Defense Pairings

26 Caylen Walls – 2 Michael Paliotta
5 Rob Hamilton – 4 Nick Bruneteau
24 Chris Muscoby – 15 Yvan Pattyn

Vermont Goalies
1 Mike Santaguida

30 Pat Feeley





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Friday, October 11, 2013

UND completes comeback against Vermont

English: Ralph Engelstadt Arena at the Univers...
English: Ralph Engelstadt Arena at the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks, North Dakota. *Personally photographed by the undersigned May 8, 2007. Elcajonfarms 03:46, 3 July 2007 (UTC) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
This season, the National Collegiate Hockey Conference begins its inaugural season of play. We were told back in May, that the NCHC would be pioneering an innovative standard for their on-ice officials. So, fans wanted to know what that actually meant. Tonight, University of North Dakota and the University of Vermont Catamounts were whistled for 21 minor penalties.
That’s not a misprint. Seriously!
“I thought we created some of our problems with some penalties early,” head coach Dave Hakstol said. “I thought it lead to us wasting the first 10 minutes of each of the first and second periods. We found a way to battle back and win a game, so that’s a real positive.”
At first, it looked like it was going to be a rough night for the home team. Vermont had just taken a 3-1 lead on a goal by UVM freshman defenseman Rob Hamilton. UND head coach Dave Hakstol had seen enough and made the change in net. Hakstol replaced senior goalie Clarke Saunders with sophomore goalie Zane Gothberg. The rest is history. UND would rally by scoring four unanswered goals and would skate to a 5-3 win. After the game, head coach Dave Hakstol talked about his goaltending change.
“I thought he (Zane Gothberg) did a good job,” Hakstol said. “I thought he did his job in that situation. You have to have the door slammed at that point in time. If one more (goal) goes in, it’s pretty hard to dig your way out. Some nights you make a goaltending change, it’s a goaltending issue. Tonight, I felt like tonight was a team issue. I felt that third goal against was a little bit of evidence of that and we needed to get going a bit.”
And going they did, the Green and White were led by junior forward Mark MacMillan (1g-1a—2pts) and sophomore forwards Rocco Grimaldi (1g-3a—4pts) and Drake Caggiula (1g-1a—2pts). Rocco Grimaldi downplayed his quite four point night.
“Yeah I think it was too,” Grimaldi said. “Obviously, a couple of five on three points, those aren’t extremely noticeable. When you have a five on three you’re supposed to score, you have a big advantage. So, I just did what I could, to get this team a win. I tried to do everything I could for my line mates, kind of helped them out and pushed the pace. Obviously, we had a rough start a little bit and we came back kicking at the end. So, it’s a good two points for our team.”
With all of the penalties, the game lacked flow. UND would kill 10/11 Catamount power plays and would go 2/7 on the man advantage. That being said, the game lacked flow with all of the penalties and Mark MacMillan agreed with this assessment after the game.
“Obviously, there were a lot of penalties each way,” MacMillan said. “So, when there’s a lot of a special teams, it’s hard to get some flow to the game. Parts of the game we stared to get some flow into the game.  Started to get some five on five shifts going – couple of big shifts from some guys – started getting that flow going.”
It was evident that once UND slowed their march to the penalty box, they were able to take the game over and over power the Catamounts.
UND will go for the sweep tomorrow night as the same two teams face off at 7:07 p.m. at the Ralph Engelstad Arena.
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Watching the UND game while driving



Don't try this at home folks. A UND hockey fans watching the game as he commutes home.
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UND Hockey: The Weekend Ahead (10/11-10/12)

This weekend, the University of North Dakota entertains the Vermont University Catamounts in an non-conference series at the Ralph Engelstad Arena on October 11-12, 2013.
Matchup: UND (0-0-0, 0-0-0 NCHC) vs. Vermont (0-0-0, 0-0-0 Hockey East)
Date: October 11-12, 2013.
Time: 7:37 p.m. Friday / Saturday 7:07 p.m. Central.
Radio: UND 96.1 (KQHT-FM) – The Fox.
Webcast: undsports.com
TV: Midco Sports Net (HD channel 622, SD channels 27 & 322)
Series History: All-time: UND leads the series against the Catamounts 2-0-0 (1.00). UND vs. UVM in Grand Forks: None.  UVM vs. UND in Burlington, VT: None.
Players to watch:
North DakotaForwards: Rocco Grimaldi (13g-23a—36pts), Mark MacMillan (13g-12a—25pts), Drake Caggiula (8g-8a—16pts). Defense: Dillon Simpson (5g-19a—24pts), Nick Mattson (3g-12a—15pts), Jordan Schmaltz (3g-9a—12pts). Goaltenders: Clarke Saunders 13-9-4, GAA 2.30 and .917 save percentage, Zane Gothberg 9-4-3, 2.46 GAA and .920 save percentage.
Vermont Forwards: Chris McCarthy (13g-18a—31pts), Jake Fallon (9g-13a—22pts), Matt While (6g-11a—17pts). Defense: Nick Luukko  (3g-7a—10pts), Michael Paliotta (1g-9a—10pts), Yvan Pattyn (3g-4a—7pts), Caylen Walls 2g-5a—7pts). Goaltender: Michael Santaguida 29-10-3, 2,28 GAA, .933 save percentage (Surrey Eagles, BCHL).
Vermont Injuries: Forward Kyle Reynolds (9g-11a—20pts) (out for the year injury), Goaltender Brody Hoffman 11-9-6, 2.86 GAA and .904 save percentage (injured did not make trip).
Fun fact: UND freshman forward Adam Tambellini played with Vermont goalie Michael Santaguida when they played for the Surrey Eagles of the British Columbia Hockey League.
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Sunday, October 06, 2013

UND Hockey: UND slips past Manitoba

Interior of Ralph Englested Arena during a hoc...
Interior of Ralph Englested Arena during a hockey game. The arena is located in Grand Forks, North Dakota. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Tonight, The University of North Dakota kicked off the 2013-14 season with an exhibition game against the Manitoba Bison (Canadian Interuniversity Sport). The Bison entered tonight’s game with a 0-2-0 record and were outscored 9-0 on the weekend by the Alberta Golden Bears of Canada West. Things didn’t get any better for the Bison tonight. When Manitoba left Grand Forks, ND they had been outscored 12-0 on the weekend, and were still winless after losing 3-0 to UND.
The game was choppy at times and the hometown team looked a little bit rusty. UND came into game with only one official practice under their belt, but the green and white still managed to put 39 shots on net. Despite the high shot total, UND was only able to put three past Manitoba goalies Joe Caliguri and Deven Dubyk.
The game featured three players from the greater Grand Forks Area (Gage Ausmus, Luke Johnson and Paul LaDue). One of the local players, Luke Johnson made an immediate impression on the home town folk, scoring UND’s third goal at the 03:26 mark of the third period. After the game, the freshman was asked about his debut in a UND uniform.
“It was incredible,” Luke Johnson said. “Growing up here, I always dreamed of being on the ice with that caliber of player. So, it was nice to get out there and get the first one.”
The rust showed on special teams and the power play went 0-8 on the evening. Johnson was asked about his impression of the power play.
“We have worked on it a little bit the past week, but were going to need some work on it,” Johnson said.
The UND head coach concurred with his freshman forwards assessment of the power play and had this to say about his team’s first game.
“I thought we did a lot of good things,” Hakstol said. “I will get a little more specific than that. I thought we really started out the game trying to play with some structure. I thought as we got moving through the game, our five-on-five play improved as we went through the game. As I expected, I thought we were a little rocky on our specialty teams.  We scored the shorthanded goal, we were a little out of sync on the PK, but we got the job done.   Our power play was a little out of sync, but I think we still got 14 or 15 shots on goal.”
Last season, during the exhibition game against Manitoba, UND forward Michael Parks suffered a lower body injury and missed 17 games. After missing all but one game during the first half of the season, Parks returned to the lineup and scored (7g-1a—8pts) in 25 games. Tonight, Parks was one of the forwards that stood out. Parks scored at the 11:38 mark of the second period to give UND a 2-0 lead. After the game the sophomore forward seemed pleased with his game.
“I think we had a real strong game as a team,” Parks said. “I think it’s good that we got the first one out of the way, because we got a lot of young guys in there. We had what seems to be a pretty long preseason here.  Then with working really had at practice, we were really excited to get on the ice in a game.”
The regular season starts for real next weekend (October 11-12, 2013 ) when UND plays the University of Vermont Catamounts in a two game series at Ralph Engelstad Arena.
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