UND Sweeps Omaha in Omaha, a Night of Firsts

How sweep it is. Here are my thoughts from this past weekend. UND traveled to Omaha for its first National Collegiate Hockey Conference road series of the season. 

Mission accomplished. UND returned home with six conference points. 

What a difference a year makes. On Saturday night, after Omaha scored the goal to make it 2-1, last year's team might have crumbled and lost the game. The 2025-26 UND hockey team has a much better mental makeup. They seem to thrive on adversity. Nodak would score two more goals to give UND the win and an impressive (7-2 W, 4-1 W) sweep of Omaha. 

Not that it matters, but UND is sitting atop the NCHC standings after two weekends of conference play. Obviously, it's early, and there are 22 more conference games to go. UND has improved, but still has a lot of work to do. 

I posted this on Sioux Sports: I don't know about y'all, but I never felt that UND was going to lose last night's game. Was it a tight game? Of course. UND frustrated the Mavericks throughout the weekend. There is definitely a difference in talent level between UND and Omaha. I saw many things this past weekend that gave me hope. This team is one of the younger ones in college hockey, and they're making great strides. I have been impressed with the CHL kids, as well as the freshmen, such as Kernan and Zellers. Are there things that need to be cleaned up? Yes, 100 percent. Mac Swanson is starting to excel and make plays. 

Two-Headed Goalie Rotation

If UND has a two-headed monster in the net, that would be a good thing, too. We should find out over the next month what UND has in net. Okay, I am guilty, after I saw the lineup was posted for Saturday's game, I tweeted this. Okay, maybe it didn't age well. 

I am a little puzzled that Gibson Homer gets the start tonight after Jan Spunar was awesome in net last night. pic.twitter.com/aON6lNSOlg

— Eric J. Burton (@goon48) November 9, 2025

Gibson Homer has appeared in seven games and is (4-3-0, 2.74 GAA, and a .890 save percentage). Looking at his career numbers, this is by far his worst in his three-year career. Counting this year, he has two years of eligibility left, but the word is that he's going to turn pro after the season is over. His victory on Saturday broke a three-game losing streak. 

Jan Spunar has appeared in three games (3-0-0, 1.01 GAA, and a .951 save percentage). Spunar has let in three goals in 178.09 minutes of play. That's impressive. 

Night of Firsts

Yes, it was a night of firsts. Freshman forward Jack Kernan scores the first goal of his collegiate career. It will be the first of many to come.   

Kernan gets his first and it's a big one! #UNDproud | #LGH pic.twitter.com/8aRBOVzIF9

— North Dakota Hockey (@UNDmhockey) November 9, 2025

Entering the season, I expected more from Anthony Menghini, the junior forward from Baxter, Minnesota. I was also excited that he was signed by UND. First, he entered the season having scored 20 goals in 72 games. This year, my excitement had faded. Through the first eight games, he's been almost invisible until Saturday night, when he scored his first goal of his UND hockey career in his ninth game. That was also his first career point with UND. Hopefully, this is the first of many for Gino.  

First in a UND sweater for Menghini! #UNDproud | #LGH pic.twitter.com/kY7TppPc1k

— North Dakota Hockey (@UNDmhockey) November 9, 2025

CHL Alumni Take Center Stage 

We've heard a lot about the CHL players being eligible to play in NCAA hockey. Now, all of a sudden, the NHL media has spent more time taking a look at NCAA hockey. Albeit, they have foamed and slobbered all over Penn State and Gavin McKenna. What the writers are discovering is that Division 1 college hockey is challenging. There are no nights off. 

When Friday’s game was over, he’d scored what would stand as Penn State’s lone goal of the weekend, finished plus-1, registered a game-high seven shots (nearly a third of the 25 his team registered) and played a game-high 23:57.

And yet the gathering collection of scouts and hockey folks weren’t kind to him leaving the rink, with multiple NHL scouts commenting to The Athletic over the course of the weekend on his work rate off the puck, a number of backchecks he appeared to give up on, pucks he didn’t stop on and an ongoing desire for more effort. (Link) 

With development of CHL players getting to play in college hockey, this has also changed how teams in the NCAA have recruited. This season, UND has four players who have come over from the WHL; these players are making an impact. After 10 games, forward Cole Reschny has scored (2g-8a--10pts), and he's also a minus-one. He's averaging 16:48 minutes a game.

It's hard to believe that Keaton Verhoeff is 17 years old. The freshman defenseman from Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta has scored (4g-2a--6pts) and is plus-two. He's scored one goal on the power play and is probably going to be a top-five draft pick. 

While everyone is ranting and raving aobut Gavin McKenna, there are other players in college hockey that should be grabbing everyones attention. The aforementioned Reschny has 10 points in 10 games, McKenna has played two more games and is only four points ahead (4g-10a--14pts).  

Last weekend, Ollie Josephson (2g-4a--6pts), had a breakthrough weekend, scoring (2g-2a--4pts), Friday night, he added an assist to his points total. Unfortunatley, his three-game points streak came to an end on Saturday night.  Nodak has won four straight over Omaha and four straight at Baxter Arena, and they have won five of the last six games they've played against the Mavericks. Nodak is 6-4-0 in he last 10 games they've played against Omaha.  

Finally, freshman Josh Zakreski was having a good season, until he suffered a serious lower-body injury. Until his injury, the Portland Winterhawks Alum was playing a significant role.  In six games, the Saskatoon, Saskatchewan native scored (1g-2a--3pts). He's listed as month-to-month. Hope he can return before the season is over.       

Senior Forward Dylan James 

During his collegiate career, senior forward Dylan James has scored 37 goals, nine (.243) of them have come against Omaha. Three of them were scored this past weekend.

Omaha goalie Simon Latkoczy has now played UND 14 times in his 5-9 and has lost four out of the last five games against UND. One final stat, as we mentioned earlier James has scored goals agianst Omaha, six of his nine goals have come against Latkoczy. 

Monday Morning Blues: A Few Links to start the Week

Good morning. Finally, I am back at it after a week long vacation.

There are a couple of nice articles about the Danny Kristo trade over on the Blue Seat Blog.

The inside track on the Kristo trade

Astute trade gave Rangers fine prospect

This may have an effect on UND’s goalie situation. Subban Ready to Step Up

The UAA Seawolves have a new assistant coach; Thomas names Ciocco new assistant

This could mean more de-commitments from NCAA Hockey; Canadian Hockey League to ban all Imports?

Former UAA forward Justin Bourne gives his perspective; On the differences between playing on Olympic and NHL-sized ice sheets

My stance against banning fighting

There is a lot of talk about eliminating fighting from the game of hockey. In fact this call is at an all time high right now. Unless you live in a vacuum, you will know that there are a fair number of  hockey pundits (most of which have never played the game of hockey) that are racing to jump on the eliminate fighting from all levels of hockey, band wagon. It's getting crowded fast. 

I for one am not a big fan of this idea. I think it's highly flawed, short sighted and flat out wrong.

Here is why. I believe that there are a lot of “Rats” in hockey, you know the ones, these are the gutless pukes that have no regard for their opponents, players like Matt Cooke, Max LaPierre, Jordin Tootoo, Jarkko Ruutu, Alexandre Burrows and they will run wild, if left unchecked, especially if they don’t have to face the music or look over their shoulder.

These types of players will flourish and morph, if they know they don't have to face the music and don’t have something to keep them honest.

I am dead serious, you will also see more of these “Rats” surface "if" hockey is transitioned to non-fight sport. 

If fighting is eliminated from hockey, this will be the direct cause of a lot of gratuitous. unneeded and brutal violence. Eliminating fighting will cause injuries will spike as well.

This is because a player won’t be able to settle differences on the ice like men and you will see also see a lot more of the dangerous checking from behind and boarding incidents, many of which will lead to serious injury.

One could make the argument that this is the reason you see some many of the dangerous hits in the NCAA, which is a non-fight league. I guarantee that you would see a lot less of the extra after the whistle garbage from the agitators in the NCAA, if these players had to answer for their antics on the ice, once in a while.

How many times have we seen a game where there is a fight and after the fight the games settles down and the teams play hockey again.

As we have seen this past season, we can not count on the NHL to protect the players and most of the concussions that players have suffered this season are as a result of dangerous dirty and or high hits.

I broke it down recently in this blog post with my favorite team, the Boston Bruins, which currently has 3-4 players currently out with symptoms that would suggest that they have post concussion syndrome. None of these guys were injured in fights but injured with high hits. So what next eliminate checking from hockey?

I don’t agree with Bob Boughner on a lot of things. But I do think he is right in this situation.

We’re on a very, very dangerous slope,” Boughner said. “We’re preparing guys for the next level and if you toughen the rules and get rid of it (fighting) in the game, it would have to coincide with the NHL and AHL. “If they’re not doing it, then you’re putting kids (looking to go pro) in a tough situation.” Taking fighting out of amateur hockey might also take away an enforcer’s ability to battle for an NHL roster spot [The Windsor Star].

I also think before we run off and drastically make unneeded changes to the game of hockey maybe they need to talk to the hockey people first.

“When you eliminate the opportunity for players to quote-unquote defend themselves, there’s significantly more stickwork, significantly more bullying or verbal abuse, where a player knows if he does something he can get that other player out of the game,” said Kelly McClintock, who as general manager of the Saskatchewan Hockey Association is in charge of amateur hockey in the province. [New York Times]