Grand Forks, ND – North Dakota and Minnesota have played in some epic battles over the years. One could compare UND vs. UMN Hockey to the famous Hatfield’s and McCoy’s feud, every game is highly contested and usually has a lot of drama. Tonight was no different, as the UND hockey team beat the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers 2-1.
Historically, when the two team’s face off the score sheets tend to fill up with penalty minutes, this game would prove to be highly contested, but not quite as many penalty minutes were called tonight. The games between Minnesota and North Dakota tend to be close games and even series and over 45 seasons of hockey between UND vs. UMN, there have only been five season series sweeps.
Adding to the epic battles over the years, this weekend’s series is also historic; because it will be the last time that UND and UMN will play in a WCHA regular season series in the Ralph Englestad Arena.
After the 2012-13 season, North Dakota will leave the WCHA for the National Collegiate Hockey Conference. Minnesota will leave the WCHA for the Big Ten Hockey Conference. Starting during the 2013-14 season WCHA will look very different than it does today. With the reshuffling of the hockey conferences its unknown how much the two teams will play each other in the future after next season. The UND and UMN hockey series is one of the best college hockey series.
At the 18:59 mark of the first period the Gophers would get a five minute power play, UND junior forward Danny Kristo hit Gopher defenseman Ben Marshall from behind into the boards with an elbow to the back of the head and Marshall would crumple to the ice.
Coach Hakstol was asked about how his team responded to the Kristo penalty, "we responded as we have to any bit of adversity that we have run into in the last couple of months, you suck it up and find a way to do the job.” “Mike Parks went up with Knight and Nelson and did a solid job and Taylor Dickin stepped into the fourth line role and did a solid job with his line mates and that’s what guys are expected to do.”
UND would kill off the Kristo major penalty as Minnesota was unable to generate any good scoring opportunities on the power play. North Dakota was able to generate a scoring opportunity shorthanded, but Brock Nelson was stopped by Minnesota goalie Kent Patterson.
Minnesota and North Dakota would trade goals in the second period as Minnesota’s Kyle Rau scored on a nice pass from his line mate Zach Budish.
UND answer the Minnesota goal with nine seconds remaining in the second period. UND defenseman Andrew MacWillam would score the first goal of his UND Hockey career, in his 102nd game, with a howitzer from the point Mario Lamoureux drew the assist on MacWilliams goal.
After the game UND captain Mario Lamoureux was asked about Andrew MacWilliam’s goal, “I always knew Mac would come up with a big time [goal]. I was just glad that I was the one that passed it to him and he buried it, and I was pretty ecstatic when it went in, and it couldn’t have came to a better guy, he is a heart and soul guy and he plays on the edge every single night and brings it every 100 percent effort, pretty proud to see him get it especially in game like this.”
Brock Nelson would get the game winning goal at the 16:25 mark of the third period. After the game Brock Nelson was asked about the game winning goal and had this to say, "[Michael] Parks started it off with a one on one battle in the corner, the puck kind of bounced out, I just wanted to get a puck on net, I had a couple of chances earlier in the game that didn’t go in, so I was just trying to create a chance, saw a couple guys out front and luckily it went in."
North Dakota head hockey coach Dave Hakstol had this to say after the game about the win against the rival, “it was a high energy, hard fought hockey game, obviously when you come out on the good side of those, it was a great win for our team, it was an entertaining high paced game”
Minnesota head coach Don Lucia had this to say about the game, “like all three of the games it was hard fought, they made a play tonight late in the game to win it.” “There wasn’t much space on the rink tonight, both teams battled hard and goaltenders played well and made some timely saves and there wasn’t a lot of offensive chances tonight and it became a cautious game.”
When asked about his team’s trouble scoring against UND on the power play. Lucia said, “They’re a good team, their goaltender played well and we didn’t have a lot of rhythm on the power play. “
Both teams play again tomorrow night at 07:07 pm as UND will look to get the series sweep and attempt to tie the season series 2-2.
Box Score
Cross Posted at INSIDE HOCKEY.
Box Score
Cross Posted at INSIDE HOCKEY.
