Goon's Takeaway: Not Their Weekend, UND Swept 7-1, and 6-2

On Saturday, the UND hockey team looked to avenge their 7-1 loss from the previous night. UND came out, pushed the pace, and took a 2-1 lead into the first intermission with goals from Abram Wiebe and Cameron Berg. In the first period, UND played well, but Kaiden Mberko stood tall in the net and was almost impenetrable. UND also benefited from a five-minute major penalty and a 5-on-3 power play opportunity. In the end, the Hawks could only score once on the power play, failing to put the Tigers away when they had the chance. The Tigers tied the game in the second period with a goal from Evan Werner. 

The game got away from the Hawks in the third period. They gave up four goals in eight minutes and 41 seconds with goals from Logan Will, Gleb Veremyev (X2), and Noah Laba. We all know the end result, a 6-2 loss.

Waking up on Sunday morning, some in the NoDak Nation hockey fanbase are unhappy. Some are questioning the coaching staff and player's efforts. Some appear to be in panic mode. While the wins were not there this past weekend, not all is lost. Despite two resounding defeats, UND is "still" sitting third in the Pairwise Rankings and leading the NCHC by one point. What they do from here on out is up to them. 

When the ink dries on the UND hockey team's 2023-24 season, the final line and box scores will read. UND was swept (7-1 L, 6-2 L) by the Colorado College Tigers. Will this be a defining moment for UND's season? Will it be a blip on the radar? During the 2015-16 season, UND traveled to Denver on February 12-13, 2016, and was swept (4-1 L, 6-4 L). UND would return home, go 12-1-1, and win a national title. Looking at the schedule and the record, it's eerily similar. Is this the same kind of team as the 2015-16 team? I don't know. UND has a team to make a run. I wonder if they have the mental makeup to do it. They have the talent. 

The goaltending has to be better, but it's not all Ludvig Persson's fault; I thought his d-corp left him out to dry a few times. He also needs a better save percentage than .899, which isn't good enough for the NCAA playoffs. 

The post-game comments from the team are subdued, but they know what they have to do. 

"There was a little desperation trying to get that next goal," Berry said. "We played a pretty good game. That kid at the other end made 43 saves and had a career-high in saves to win a game, and I thought he was the difference tonight." 

The Players echoed their coach's sentiments. 

"I thought we had breakdowns; honestly, when we had those breakdowns, it ended up in our net," Jake Schmaltz said. "We had a lot of looks -- we had a lot of shots, but they weren't going in. It's just frustrating. We got to protect Ludvig a little better." 

 "We got a few things to work on, Garrett Pyke said. "Friday night, we didn't come out, we didn't have our legs, and we didn't execute like we wanted to. Today was a better game, but we will watch the film and learn from a few things. We're going to keep on growing." 

"Our program has high expectations," Berry said. "Our players expect a lot. Our fans expect a lot. We got to stay positive and work on the things we need to work on to get better, which we will do this week. There's no room for negativity in our group. We've done a lot of good things with a body of work together with positive attitudes, and the guys are working extremely hard. The main thing is the 25 guys in that locker room staying together and believing in each other."

Goon's Takeaways: Not Their Night, CC 7 UND 1

On Friday, the University of North Dakota hockey team had their record-tying regulation unbeaten streak end. It wasn't pretty; UND looked slow, rattle, and disjointed. The Hawks had no answer for the Tigers. Both UND goalies were left to fend for themselves as the Hawks players were pedestrian watching the Tigers make plays. 

When the UND players got a shot on the Tigers net, the puck would hit the iron, or CC's All-Conference goalie Kaidan Mbereko (stopped 23-of-24 shots) was there to make the save. It wasn't a good night for UND. You'd have a hard time finding any positives from UND's 7-1 loss to the Tigers. Someone tweeted on X that it's better to get this out of the way now than have it happen in March or April. There's a lot of truth to that. There's no need to panic. 

There is a positive; even with Friday's stumble, UND is still sitting at No. 2 in the all-important Pairwise rankings. 

After being the conference doormat for many seasons, it was a historic night for the CC. Entering the 2023-24 season, the Tigers were 90-227-30 (.302) since the inception of the National Collegiate Hockey Conference. This season, the resurgent Tigers (17-9-1, 11-6-0 NCHC) are suddenly in third place in the NCHC standings. 

Friday's loss was a beating UND hadn't seen since the mid-1990s. The six-goal margin of victory was the biggest over UND since October 30, 1994. Moreover, the Tigers last won three straight games over UND in 1995. Granted, if you play a team long enough, you're going to lose. It's the law of averages. Nonetheless, the 7-1 loss still stings. 

For comparison's sake, CC won the special teams play. The Tigers went 4-for-5 on the power play. UND was 1-for-4. UND will have to be better in game two if they want to bring home some points. Friday was the first time UND allowed four power play goals in a game since February 11, 2012, at Minnesota Duluth, when UND lost 5-4 to the Bulldogs. 

"They're sour, and I'm sour," head coach Brad Berry said. "Not many times can I remember North Dakota giving up seven goals. There's pride in that locker room, and there's going to be a push tomorrow. It was a big wake-up call tonight that we got to be better. Everybody's got to bring it tomorrow, not just a few guys. Our PK has to be better."

"It starts with urgency," Captain Riese Gaber said. "We got outworked. It doesn't matter how good of a team you are. It all comes down to puck battles - puck races. In that department, we got beat pretty bad tonight."

"They just outworked us," Louis Jamernik said. "We got into trouble with the penalties. They did a great job on their power play and capitalized on our mistakes. It came down to will and they had more will than us. It's disappointing, but this is the same feeling we felt when we lost in OT. We want to win every single game. It doesn't matter whether it's regulation or not. We had a good chat with the leadership speaking out, and we know what we need to do tomorrow."

Friday night, a couple of point streaks ended. Sophomore forward Jackson Blake saw his 10-game point streak come to an end. That was the second-longest streak of his two-year career. Junior forward Cameron Berg was held without a point for the first time in seven games.

The highlight for the Tigers was freshman forward Zaccharya Wisdom, who scored (4g-1a-5pts), pushing his season point total to (10g-4a-14). On a positive note, Tigers forward Noah Laba was held goalless. The sophomore forward has scored seven goals in the last eight games. 

If you must, I embedded the highlights below. 

 

Goon's Takeaways: CC Beat UND 3-2 in OT

Friday night in Grand Forks, the University of North Dakota hockey team opened their two-game conference series against the Colorado College Tigers. This is the last series before the new year. UND would take a two-goal lead with goals from Dylan James and Louis Jamernik V. Then the momentum swung in CC's favor. 

At the 18:10 mark of the second period, UND was the power play when graduate forward Hunter Johannes took an ill-advised, undisciplined penalty in the O-Zone to negate UND's power play. Head coach Brad Berry was unhappy with the undisciplined play in the post-game press conference. It was a bad penalty to take. 

"When you're on a power play trying to score a goal, that's not the time to take a penalty," Berry said. "That's not being team first." It was a bad night for the hometown team; they were a step slow and looked out of sorts. 

"We got away from our game, our identity at North Dakota, Louis Jamernick V said. "That's playing hard, fast, winning puck battles."

 "It kind of got away from us as far as our game," Berry said. "It crept into the second for sure. Not enough guys going tonight. The Jamernik, Schmaltz, and James line were very good for us; they were our top line tonight and played a simple north game. They played fast and played direct, and I didn't think enough of our guys did." 

The Tigers scored three unanswered goals by Noah Laba and Max Burkholder to win 3-2 in OT. It was UND's second straight 3-2 loss in overtime and the first time this season they've dropped back-to-back games. The frustrating thing for the UND players and their fans is that UND held CC to zero shots in the final 22 minutes of the contest (third period and OT) until CC's Laba scored the game-winning goal. 

The Tigers 3-2 OT win snapped a 15-game unbeaten streak for UND, who hadn't lost to the Tigers since Mar. 1, 2019. 

You can watch the highlights below if you haven't seen the game. 

             

CC fans don’t’ have to purchase three game packages

English: Denver Pioneers logo. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I was reading Joe Paisley’s blog yesterday and I got to thinking. I am also wondering if anyone else is thinking the same thing as well. I would imagine that you can probably expect other schools to do the same thing to the UND fans as well. So, do other NCHC schools expect UND to carry their water for them? Is DU taking advantage of a fan base, knowing that they will buy tickets and fill their arena? One must ask the question, is DU having trouble filling their arena? Maybe REA and UND should do the same thing to school that do these kinds of questionable things UND’s fans. Turnabout is fair play. Right?

Joe Paisley, Colorado Springs Gazette -- Denver single-game tickets go on sale at 9 am. Friday and the Pioneers are now requiring only North Dakota fans to purchase three games. CC fans are not required to do so, according to the ticket office.

North Dakota fans, who already pay $10 more for the premium game (CC is $8 more), will be required to buy two tickets to one of the following seven games: the Merrimack series, Nebraska-Omaha series, Western Michigan series and the single game against Brown.

Do you think that UND should make Denver fans that want to buy tickets to UND's games pay extra or buy tickets to other games? I mean seriously, this seems like a petty policy. I guess Denver also sees UND as a bigger rival than Colorado College as well.