Goalie: Its Jordan/NCAA Time.

Goalie

This weekend the Fighting Sioux will play in the West Regional against the CCHA’s Michigan Wolverines. This time the game will be in the Fighting Sioux house the Ralph Englestad Arena. This will be the first time that Michigan plays in the new Ralph. One of the major cogs in the Fighting Sioux’s Success this season is the Goaltender Jordan Parise. The numbers are staggering.

The Stats

Parise's impressive save percentage is a whopping.932 that is third in the country, one point off the leader Wisconsin’s Brian Elliot. Jordan is also tied for the national lead in shutouts (six), and he's also ranked in the top six nationally in goals-against average (2.12) and winning percentage (22-8-1, .726) (statistics from the Grand Forks Herald).

Jordan Parise is a big time goalie and a huge asset for his hockey team but it goes a little further than that. The Fighting Sioux have won 9 out of 11 games with Jordan Parise in net for all of them. Last year Jordan won 11 straight games before losing in the title game of the NCAA championship game. Jordan also out dueled Gopher starting goalie Kellen Briggs in two games during the 2005 playoffs winning both games 4-2.


What makes this special is that when Jordan first came to the Fighting Sioux there was a lot of scuttlebutt basically saying that Jordan was only here because of his brother Zach Parise. Many also pontificated that Jordan would be disposed of in the Red River as soon as his brother Zach was gone. Well the Nay Sayers have been proven wrong. Jordan has the numbers to be one of the best goalies of all time at UND. I am just hoping that he will stay for next season.