“It was a hard fought playoff game and we came up one goal short,” head coach Dave Hakstol said. Well two if you believe the video replay that was shown on television monitors the Ralph Engelstad Arena press box.
We only got one look at “shot” in question and then it was gone from the screen, for some reason we didn’t get a second look at the no-goal in question.
USCHO Blogger Timothy Boger has a gif on his blog that proves otherwise, I guess that is up to you to decide.
We can discuss whether or not Michigan Tech (13-19-4) scored a goal on their first power play of the night, the fact remains that the officiating was equally poor all weekend long for both teams and wasn’t a factor in the game.
Both teams will have to play through it tomorrow night, obviously, and one teams is going to advance to the Final Five next week.
The crowd was barely seated when the Tech Huskies were able to dent the twine first at the 00:20 mark of the second period, with a goal from Tanner Kero.
UND came into the game with a 9-4-5 record when the opposition scores first, you can make that 9-5-5 with the 2-1 loss to the Michigan Tech Huskies.
This was UND’s first loss to the Michigan Tech Huskies since January 28, 2008, when UND lost 2-1 to Michigan Tech in the Great Lakes Invitational.
The game was a carbon copy of the Bemidji State series from a couple of weeks ago. The Huskies collapsed around their net and played a defensive style brand of hockey and made it tough for UND (20-11-7) to generate any offense whatsoever.
Finally, senior forward Danny Kristo was able to break through and got the equalizer at the 14:57 mark on a nice shot. “It was just a good play,” head coach Dave Hakstol said. “He came up with the puck; he got a quick shot to the net. I don’t know where it went in, it found a hole. We didn’t find a lot of holes on him [Phoenix Copley] tonight.”
As always, the electrifying, but recently snake bitten Rocco Grimaldi, had a breakaway and a glorious opportunity to take a lead in the game, but was hooked at the last second by a Tech defender, causing him to miss a glorious opportunity.
Michigan Tech Huskies turned a UND turnover into the game winning goal at the 17:58 mark of the third period when C.J. Eick scored the game winning goal sending the fans to the exits and spoiling the UND fans plans for Sunday evening.
Tonight’s game was summed up best by this frank statement. “Its playoff hockey and if you don’t bring your best you won’t like the outcome, senior defenseman Andrew MacWilliam said. We kind of lulled there in the second period and it came back to bite us. We have to regroup and be ready to play tomorrow.”
“It was a hard fought game,” senior defenseman Joe Gleason said. “We kind of shot ourselves in the foot in the second period; we didn’t have a very good period. We had a great response in the third period. Definitely our best period of the night, if we can play like that for 60 minutes tomorrow it should be a good outcome for us tomorrow night.”
Nonetheless, UND ended up losing a heart breaker to pesky Michigan Tech Huskies and pushed the series to a game three. The same two teams will face-off tomorrow night at 7:00 p.m. central, at the Ralph Engelstad Arena.
Cross-posted at the Hockey Writers Combine.
