Sioux dismantle Gophers 6-3 in St. Paul

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ST. PAUL, Minn. – For the first 30 minutes of play, the Minnesota Gophers were the best team on the ice tonight. Someone forgot to tell the Gophers that hockey games are 60 minutes long.

Tonight, it was a tale of two games.

The Gophers were able to get the first goal of the game at the 12:37 mark of the first period with a Kyle Rau power play goal that was the freshman’s 17th of the season.

Minnesota limited the Fighting Sioux’s time and space and got in the shooting lanes, bottling up the Fighting Sioux in their own end.

Getting scored on first is not uncommon for the Fighting Sioux. They have had the first goal scored on them in 20 of 38 games this season. During those 20 games the Fighting Sioux have a record of 8-10-2.

Make that record 9-10-2 with the win tonight.

The Gophers scored two more goals during the second period with a power-play goal by forward Jake Hanson that was his 13th goal of the season. The Gophers would get an even strength goal from junior forward Zach Budish at the 10:01 mark of the second period.

Then a funny thing happened. The Gophers took the foot off of the gas and the Sioux raced on by them.

The Fighting Sioux called a time out with 5:53 left in the second period, then took over the game. The Fighting Sioux seized the momentum and beat the Gophers at their own game.

Derek Forbort would break the run of three Golden Gopher goals with a blast from the right point at the 14:51 mark of the second period. That was the second goal of the year for the sophomore defenseman.

The Fighting Sioux started methodically chipping away at the Gophers lead in the third period.
They got two quick goals when Michael Parks and Brock Nelson scored 30 seconds apart to tie the game 3-3. They never looked back.

The Fighting Sioux outscored the Golden Gophers 5-0 in the third period and also outshot the Golden Gophers 17-2 in the stanza to send 16,378 hockey fans home in disbelief.

North Dakota was led by senior captain Mario Lamoureux’s two goals and three points. When Lamoureux scores a goal for the Fighting Sioux they have a record of 14-0-0.
The Captain savored the win against the Golden Gophers.

“It was definitely a special win for us,” Lamoureux said. “I think once we went into the intermission in the third period, we just said, let’s go out and give it everything that we got, let’s try and pop an early one in, Parksy did that. We just kind of rolled with the momentum and I think once we got that first one, we got a little confidence in ourselves. Once that happened that game became a little more fun, it wasn’t so frustrating playing in your own end and once you’re out there having fun making things happen, it’s a pretty easy game.”

After the game, Fighting Sioux coach Dave Hakstol was proud of his hockey team.

“Tale of absolutely two worlds tonight,” Hakstol said. “Obviously, we had no gas in the tank the first 30 minutes, we didn’t make any plays and we couldn’t get ourselves going. Its little things in this game and you find a way to survive, when you’re going through some points in the hockey game, our guys did a good job of that tonight. One good thing happened. We got a good bounce in the second period tonight, that gave us a chance and I heard Mario [Lamoureux] talking about it. Let’s just go out and see what we can do and let’s get one and see where it goes. This is where it went. I am proud of our hockey team.”

With the win tonight the Fighting Sioux improve to 24-12-3. North Dakota will try for the Final Five three peat tomorrow night against their heated rival Denver.

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Sioux grind out 4-1 win against Huskies

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ST. PAUL, Minn. – The Saint Cloud State Huskies are always a tough draw; they have only been swept once all season long. The Huskies managed to get points every single weekend this season.

Tonight was no different, as the Fighting Sioux had to work hard to get the win against the Huskies. One can markup tonight’s game as another hard fought epic battle tonight as well.

Coming into tonight’s game, Huskies’ junior goalie Mike Lee has never won a game against the Fighting Sioux in his three seasons with the Huskies, going 0-5-1 during that run. With the 4-1 loss tonight, Lee’s record drops to 0-6-1.

While his junior goalie has yet to win a game against the Fighting Sioux, Saint Cloud State coach Bob Motzko described his goalie, “as a big time goaltender.”

The Huskies and the Sioux play a similar style of play as both teams like to limit the other’s time and space and get into the passing lanes making it difficult to generate scoring opportunities. That rang true tonight. At times the Huskies frustrated the Sioux by clogging up the neutral zone and they also did a good job getting the shooting lanes.

The Fighting Sioux also got in the passing lanes, took away the Huskies time and space and frustrated them as well.

Corbin Knight broke the defensive stalemate at the 7:40 mark of the first period, when the junior center curled in front of the net to center the puck. It went off of the SCSU defenseman Sam Zabkowicz and into the net past Lee.

With Knight in the box for charging, junior forward Ben Hanowski made the Fighting Sioux pay with his 23rd marker of the season.

Fighting Sioux sophomore forward Brock Nelson had been a little bit snake bitten as of late, but was able to get off of the snide with his 24th goal of the season as he snapped a shot over Lee’s blocker.
Motzko was impressed with Nelson’s first goal of the game.

“He’s coming down on his off side, a pretty good hockey player to, I think that’s the player in our league that you’re going to watch play in the NHL for a long time,” Motzko said. “He was able to cut back in the middle of the rink and that is where is he is going to go he is on his offside, kind of one on one and you can keep him on his back hand and you keep him down there, and he was perfect. Our guy crossed his feet over and he stepped back into the middle and was able to make a shot.”

The pesky Huskies wouldn’t go away quietly into the night.

With the Huskies goalie out of the net and pressing hard down low, Nelson would get his second goal of the game and his 25th goal of the season to ice it.

Fighting Sioux junior goalie Aaron Dell played well, and was the difference in the game stopping 28 of 29 shots.

When it was all said and done, this was a very even game and either team could have won. Motzko agreed.

“It was an extremely hard fought hockey game,” Motzko said. “It was a tough grinding game; it was a great game down on the bench. I don’t know if there were a ton of plays being made…”

With the win tonight, the Fighting Sioux improve to 23-12-3 and jump up to ninth in the PairWise Rankings.

The Fighting Sioux will play the top-seeded Minnesota Gophers in the semifinal game at 7:07 p.m. tomorrow night.

Coach Dave Hakstol seemed excited about the prospects of playing the Minnesota Gophers again.
“I said it yesterday, we are in the greatest venue possible for post season play in college hockey,” Hakstol said.“Saint Paul… the entire town is electric, this building is an awful lot of fun with the number of fans that are in the building, we have an opportunity to play a rival tomorrow night. If you like competition, you will like the game tomorrow.”

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Fighting Sioux Finish off the Bemidji State Beavers 4-3

Grand Forks, ND – In hockey they say that it’s hard to end another team’s season, especially if you are playing an up-tempo team the like BSU Beavers.  The Beavers put up a good fight and didn’t give up until the final horn.

The University of North Dakota Fighting Sioux has come full circle since November 20, 2011 when the Fighting Sioux had just lost a lack-luster game to the Bemidji State Beavers 1-0 in Bemidji.  That was the first loss for the Fighting Sioux to the Beavers in over 41 years.

After the loss to the Beavers the Fighting Sioux had a lack-luster record of 4-7-1 and they sat in 11^th place of the WCHA standings.

Since that game the Fighting Sioux have gone an eye-popping 17-5-2.

With the win tonight, the Fighting Sioux improve to 18-5-2 after an exciting 4-3 win against the Beavers tonight.

For this season’s Fighting Sioux hockey team, nothing has come easy.  This game was no different as the Fighting Sioux survived a late third period surge that saw the Beavers  score two goals in 19 seconds, and they were able to hold on to eliminate the Bemidji State Beavers 4-3.

With the win tonight, the Fighting Sioux will advance to the Final Five for a league leading 10^th time and will play their first game on Thursday (game time to be determined).  Fighting Sioux head coach Dave Hakstol is excited to be moving on to the Final Five.

“We’re excited!”

“It’s such a great weekend to go there and be a part of it” Hakstol said. “Our guys have worked; it’s a nice reward for a lot of the work our guys have put in this weekend and even the way this game tonight went, it’s kind of indicative of our year.”

“We really can’t do things in an easy way.  We find a way to get it down and I think that’s the best compliment I can pay our guys. They find a way to win.  It’s a nice reward to head to Saint Paul.”
Tonight, three Fighting Sioux seniors played their final game of their hockey career at Ralph Engelstad Arena.  For Mario Lamoureux (Grand Forks, North Dakota), Brad Eidsness (Chestermere, Alberta), and Ben Blood (Plymouth, Minnesota), it’s the end of a four year hockey career.

Fighting Sioux Captain, Mario Lamoreux, reflected on his last game at Ralph Engelstad.

“It’s sad…kind of took a last little look before I skated off the ice and tried to soak it all in,” Lamoureux said.

“It’s been a great four years  and a lot of good memories can’t be more appreciative of the fans and all the people that support this program.  It’s absolutely first class in every way and it makes me extremely proud to be able to be part of this program and represent everything about it and it’s a good way to go out.”

Hakstol had this to say on his senior class’ last game at Ralph Engelstad. Arena.

“I wish it would have been a little less exciting than it was”, Hakstol said.

“A great night.  Brad Eidsness answered the bell again.  He has done it, he did it last Saturday, on senior’s night…he answered the call again tonight.  He was great for his teammates.  Mario and Ben were a huge part of this win tonight, and not just what you saw on the ice.

“This day of preparation starts really after last night’s game and obviously it gets into full swing when you get to the rink in the morning.  I thought our leaders did a good job of having our team ready to play tonight.”

“The last three minutes was a little bit sloppy and a little bit ugly for about a 20 second span.  You know what, we locked it down after that and we didn’t give up anything and did a great job with a one goal lead.”

With the win tonight, the Fighting Sioux improve to 22-12-3.

With the loss tonight, the Bemidji State Beavers fall to 17-18-3.  The loss also eliminates the Bemidji State Beavers from NCAA post season play.  Beaver Coach Tom Serratore had this to say about his team’s season.

“I thought it was a great season.  Everyone gauges their season differently, but I mean, this is a tough league, we know it’s a tough league.  We had 17 wins.  We were over five hundred in the regular season. We had more points than we had last year.  Those are the things we have look at right there.  Again, we made progress and we were hard to play against.  Again, I thought it was a great season.  Obviously we didn’t want it to end this way.  We wanted to advance to the WCHA Final Five, but it didn’t happen. But, that didn’t take anything away from the season we had.”

Box Score

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Eidsness and Sioux shutout the Mavericks 3-0

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Grand Forks, ND – The start of the game was delayed by a broken glass pane behind the Fighting Sioux net. One of the Fighting Sioux players had broken the glass with a hard shot during the pregame warm-ups.

After the game, Fighting Sioux goalie Brad Eidsness said that ‘the pucks being made of a harder composite rubber has been the cause of many broken glass panes in arenas all over the WCHA.’

The Fighting Sioux have broken three panes themselves in the last week, however, the delay to the start of the game didn’t seem to faze senior Fighting Sioux goalie Brad Eidsness. He was stellar all night in stopping all 29 shots that he faced, leading the Sioux to a 3-0 shutout of the Minnesota State Mavericks on “Senior Night” in Grand Forks.

Many of Eidsness’ saves were of the grade “A” variety down low. Eidsness stopped six shots from the slot in the third period alone to ice the Mavericks.

Over the years, UND has had some amazing senior classes.

Last year’s senior class was highly heralded and included the likes of all-Americans like Chay Genoway and Matt Frattin. While there might not be any all-Americans, this year’s senior class is the epitome of the lunch pail group. They go to work and do whatever it takes to win the game.
Tonight, it was Eidsness that stood tall in his final regular season game.

While this season’s Fighting Sioux senior class might only have three members, the trio of Brad Eidsness (Chestermere, Alberta), Ben Blood (Plymouth, Minnesota) and Mario Lamoureux (Grand Forks, North Dakota) have been part of some amazing teams that have won two MacNaughton Cup championships (2010-11, 2008-09) and two Broadmoor Trophies (2010-11, 2009-10).

This year’s senior class, has also made the NCAA tourney every season that they have played at UND and last season they were part of a team that went to the Frozen Four.

Last night, junior goalie Aaron Dell was stellar in the win stopping 25 of 27 shots that he faced and you had to wonder, who coach Hakstol would start in net on Saturday’s night.  It was the senior Eidsness that got the nod on Saturday.

It appears that the Fighting Sioux head coach Dave Hakstol made the right game time decision; in picking senior goalie Brad Eidsness as his starter.

After the game, Hakstol explained his decision on picking Eidsness as his starter.

“I wouldn’t say that we exactly split them, but each guy has gotten quite a bit of time in the net and each played well with that rotation,” Hakstol said. ”We have two goaltenders that are playing well. We have to win the best two out of three series next weekend. We need to have players in all positions playing well.”

With the shutout, Eidsness is now ranked fifth all time on UND’s shutout list tying him with former fighting Sioux goalie Aaron Schweitzer (1996-1998).

An emotional Brad Eidsness was pleased with the shutout after the game.

“It was pretty special,” said Eidsness.

“It’s a good way to cap off a pretty good weekend and a pretty good senior weekend. I don’t know. It’s kind of something you look at and I think I will cherish it for a very long time”

A choked up Eidsness continued, “senior night is kind of a celebration of your four years here. I certainly had a lot of great memories here.”

The night was also a milestone game for Fighting Sioux head coach Dave Hakstol whose teams have won 20 or more games in each of his first eight seasons.

Junior forward Danny Kristo (Eden Prairie, Minnesota) paced the Fighting Sioux with two assists on the night.
Incidentally, sophomore forward Brock Nelson (Warroad, Minnesota) won the WCHA goal scoring title with an open net goal to ice the Mavericks. That open net goal, helped Nelson beat Denver Sophomore forward Jason Zucker 20-19 in the goal scoring department.

With the win tonight, the Fighting Sioux improve their record to 20-12-3 and 16-11-1 WCHA. Next weekend the Sioux will either play the Bemidji State Beavers.

With the loss tonight, the Minnesota State Mavericks drop to 12-22-2 and 8-18-2 WCHA. The Mavericks will play the Minnesota Duluth Bulldogs in the first round of the WCHA playoffs.

BOX SCORE

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Dell backstops Sioux to a 4-2 victory over Mavericks

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Grand Forks, ND – Minnesota State University came into this series as one of the hotter teams in the WCHA. Coming into the game the Mavericks had gone an impressive 6-3-1 in their last ten games.

While they started the season with a dismal 3-13 record and are currently the 11th-placed team in the WCHA standings. But the Mavericks aren’t as bad as their record shows as the start of their season was decimated by a rash of injuries. Those players have returned and the Mavericks have improved as the season has gone along, going 9-8-1 in their last 18 games.

The North Dakota Fighting Sioux have been hot themselves 6-3-1 in the last 10 games, making tonight’s game a contest of two in-form teams.

The Mavericks are led offensively by a pair of prolific freshman players in Jean-Paul Lafontaine (Oxford, MI) and Matt Leitner (Los Alamities, CA). This dynamic duo lead the team in points, but tonight the duo would be held to just a single point.

The Mavericks came out of the gates fast and were on the scoreboard early, with Leitner scoring the first goal at the 01:37 mark of the first period.

The early marker against didn’t rattle the Fighting Sioux.

As the season has progressed, this year’s Fighting Sioux hockey team have become accustomed to giving up the first goal of the game.  If anything it’s been a recurring theme.

The Fighting Sioux have given up the first goal in 20 out of 33 games that they have played this season. But by the same token, the Fighting Sioux have a record of 8-3-2 at Ralph Englestad Arena when giving up the first goal of the game.

“It’s not the first time that we have given up the first goal in the first five minutes or so of the game,” UND forward Michael Parks said.  “A couple months ago we wouldn’t have responded the way we did tonight, but we have matured quite a bit as a group, and we came out and responded really well to giving that first one early.”

After the Maverick’s first goal, the Fighting Sioux would score three unanswered goals of their own, and would not surrender the lead the rest of the game.

The second period was a little less dramatic than the first period as both teams had some good chances and the Mavericks appeared to have more jump in their step. Both goalies played well and gave neither team anything.

The Mavericks would outshoot the Fighting Sioux 9-7 in the second period and would get many great chances that were repelled by Fighting Sioux junior goalie Aaron Dell.  With the win tonight, Dell was able to record his 44th win of his career tying him for 10th all-time at UND.

“He [Dell] played great,” junior forward Danny Kristo said of his goalie’s performance. “He made three or four saves that could have been goals.

“Awesome for him. He has been sick and battling injuries for the last two weeks, so he came in to night and played good. Everyone is happy for him.”

The third period was more action packed, as both teams were able to light the lamp and give the home team fans something to cheer about and the Fighting Sioux were able to gut out a 4-2 win.
Fighting Sioux head coach Dave Hakstol was pleased with his team’s effort.

“I thought our ability to answer back after giving up the first one early in the game was very important,” Hakstol said.

“We got a couple of grinding goals down low on the crease, after that. Once they [Mavericks] made it a one-goal game in the third period, we had a couple of guys that made a big play to extend it to a two goal lead again.”

With the loss tonight, the Mavericks dropped to 12-21-2, 8-17-2 WCHA record. The Mavericks remain in 11th place of the WCHA standings and they travel to Minnesota Duluth for the first round of the WCHA playoffs.

With the win, the Fighting Sioux secured fourth place in the WCHA standings and will play the ninth-placed team in the first round of the WCHA playoffs, the Fighting Sioux improve to 19-12-3, 15-11-1 WCHA.

The same two teams play tomorrow night.

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Tech and Sioux skate to a 1-1 Tie.

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Grand Forks, ND – They say that a goalies best friend is the goal post. 

Fighting Sioux goalie Brad Eidsness had to like his goal post tonight after the Michigan Tech Huskies hit the iron three times (2 posts and a cross bar) during the first period. 

When the puck didn’t hit the iron Eidsness was there to make the save for the Fighting Sioux.

In explaining the lucky bounces in the first period Eidsness kind of brushed it off.

“Sometimes the game just goes that way and maybe I had a horse shoe stuck on my rear end, but I want to think that I just didn’t give them anything else to shoot at,” Eidsness said. 

Goal post aside, the Fighting Sioux outshot the Huskies 9-8 in the first period and neither team was able to put a puck in the twine as both goalies played exceptional and they gave neither team’s fans anything to cheer about for most of the game. 

Tonight, Fighting Sioux senior goalie Brad Eidsness was playing in his 100 game of his college hockey career.  

At the beginning of the weekend, Eidsness was inserted into the starting lineup after starting goalie Aaron Dell sustained an undisclosed injury. Dell is listed as day-to-day.

Eidsness made the most of his opportunity and didn’t disappoint as he stopped 42 of 45 shots on the weekend. Eidsness’ strong play helped his team take three of four points from the upstart Michigan Tech Huskies this weekend. 

Edisness also made a case that he deserves to play more down the stretch for the Fighting Sioux as he played well all weekend long and made many big saves at key times during the games.  

The game was a bit of a boring grind it out defensive battle. The second period could have been described as being less than exciting, as both teams had to fight for every inch. The Fighting Sioux and the Huskies each put six shots on net and gave the fans little to cheer about.  

Finally, after playing 46:06 minutes of scoreless and uneventful hockey, Fighting Sioux junior forward Corbin Knight put the Fighting Sioux on the board, with a bit of a fluky goal from the end line.

“I would lie to you and tell you that I meant to do that, but obviously that wasn’t true,” Knight said. “I saw Nelson back door there back door there and I thought a quick turnaround play and kind of catch them off guard. Luckily enough it went off a skate and went in.”

“I will take it. It’s one of the greasier ones [goals] that I have had.” 

The Huskies would answer the Fighting Sioux goal with a shorthanded marker from Huskie senior forward Jordan Baker (Chestermere, Alberta), who ironically had hit a crossbar and a post in the first period.

Coming into the game the Fighting Sioux had won 12 straight games against the Michigan Tech Huskies, that winning streak would come to an end with a 1-1 tie, however, the Fighting Sioux are still 12-0-1 in the last 13 games against the Huskies.  

Coming into this game Carter Romney had scored six goals in three games, that streak would also come to an end tonight as the line of Rowney, Michael Parks and Mark MacMillan was held off of the score sheet. 

Tonight wasn’t about the forwards and the defenseman; the two goalies stole the show. 

“Josh Robinson kind of said to me in the line that was fun, Eidsness aid.  “Sometimes goalie duals are fun, we are both seniors and we have played each other in our careers. I don’t know sometimes a tie and isn’t always what you want, its fun to go against a guy that is playing well.”

When Eidsness was asked how felt about his game he had this to say. 

“I feel pretty good.” 

“It’s been a long road back from last year, but I think I have cleared up some things, there were some hairy moments,” Eidsness said. “The first period was interesting to say the least.   I feel pretty confident in the way that I am playing right now.”

“I think a lot of that has to be with the way our team is playing in front of us. We are playing pretty well in front of both me and [Aaron] Dell.”  

Fighting Sioux head coach Dave Hakstol didn’t seem that disappointed about the tie tonight. 

“It was a good point for us, at the end of the day, both teams worked real hard,” Hakstol said. “we were obviously were not at our best, but we emptied the tank tonight.”

“We were not nearly as sharp to start the game as we would to have liked to have been. But as the game wore on we got a little bit better, the third period was a real battle. Both teams gave everything that they had.  It came down to a one to one tie, as we came in wanting four points here at home, it’s a point in the standing and we will move forward.”

With the tie tonight the Fighting Sioux (17-11-3, 13-10-1 WCHA) are in a three way tie for fourth place in the WCHA. 

With the tie tonight, Michigan Tech (13-15-4, 10-10-4 WCHA) is sitting alone in seventh place.

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Eidsness leads UND past MTU 4-2

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Grand Forks, ND – The Fighting Sioux hockey team has been decimated by injuries this season and the last healthy scratch for UND was sophomore forward Taylor Dickin back in December of 2011, so the theme for the Fighting Sioux during the second half of the season has been all in. 

Everyone that has been healthy is in the lineup for the Fighting Sioux hockey team. With all of the injuries, there are no extra skaters for the Fight Sioux hockey team, and barring any more injuries the rest of the season, there will “only” be 12 forwards, six defense and two goalies. That’s it, there is no one else left. 

Unfortunately, Fighting Sioux junior goalie Aaron Dell was the latest Fighting Sioux hockey player to get bitten by the injury Ninja. Dell was a scratch for tonight’s game with an undisclosed injury and is listed as day to day.   

With Dell out of the lineup, two time all-WCHA goalie Brad Eidsness would take Dell’s spot in the starting lineup and get a rare start. 

After starting out the first period by giving up two soft goals that Eidsness would probably like the have back, the senior goalie settled down and played very well the rest of the way, leading the Fighting Sioux to a 4-2 conference win over the upstart Michigan Tech Huskies. 

After being the backup goaltender for the better part of two seasons, the senior goalie from Chestermere, Alberta is making the coaching staff’s line up decisions more difficult, but also giving them options between the pipes.  

Eidsness is finishing his senior season strong and sporting some pretty impressive numbers. With the win tonight, Eidsness has 5-2-0 record and has a 2.07 goals against average and a .922 save percentage.  

The senior Fighting Sioux goalie Brad Eidsness was upbeat about his role after the game. 

“I try to not to look at myself as a backup goalie the last couple of years, Eidsness said. “I always had confidence in my abilities.” 

Certainly it’s nice to get in there and play a little bit more and maybe prove to everybody else; that I can still play and still help the team win.” 

There has been another re-occurring them for the Fighting Sioux hockey team. Fighting Sioux junior forward Carter Rowney has been red hot and has scored nine goals in nine games. 

Rowney also has had a shot at a hat trick in three straight games, but has yet to score a third goal in any of those three games.  When Rowney was asked if he was ever going to bury a third goal in a game to secure the hat trick, the junior forward said this.   

“The boys in the locker room giving me a lot of heck on that one,” Rowney said. 

“I don’t know, I will just keep working hard and maybe it will come one day or maybe it won’t. I don’t know. I will just keep working my hardest.” 

For the past three seasons the Michigan Tech University Huskies have been a very bad hockey team and went 15-85 during that time period.  

Fast forward to this year, the Michigan Tech Huskies are a much improved hockey team and coming into tonight’s game had a record of 13-14-3 overall record, much better than the squad that went a dismal 4-30-4 last season. 

Tonight, the Michigan Tech Huskies proved to be a hard team to play against. The Huskies gave the Fighting Sioux all they could handle and in the third period had the Fighting Sioux on their heels for about a three minute period. 

In the end the Fighting Sioux would prevail to secure the win with a pair of power play goals. That would be the 12^th game in a row that the Fighting Sioux have won against the Michigan Tech Huskies.

The last time the Michigan Tech Huskies beat the Fighting Sioux was at the Great Lakes Invitational on December 28, 2008.  

MTU head coach Mel Pearson was asked about his teams play after the game. 

“It was a good hockey game; it was very entertaining for the fans,” Pearson said. 

“It was a hard fought game, obviously two desperate teams trying to get points in the standings. I thought out goaltender Josh Robinson gave us a chance to win and he made some big saves at critical times.  I thought their guy [Eidsness] made his best saves in the third period when we pressed a little bit.”

After the slow start in the first period Fighting Sioux made adjustments and were able to overcome a 2-1 deficit by scoring three unanswered goals; two on the power play. 

Head coach Dave Hakstol seemed pleased that his team was able to recover from the rough start and win the game with a pair of power play goals in the second period. 

Coach Hakstol was also asked about the importance of having two power play units clicking at this time of the year.   

Extremely important! 

“We had an early power play earlier in the game we didn’t accomplish very much that is something that we have to improve on,” Hakstol said. 

“Latter in the game, the power play did come through with some big plays for us. It’s important specialty at this time of year, this is playoff hockey, specialty teams, goaltending a lot of little things make big differences.” 

 With the win tonight, UND improves to 17-11-2, 13-10-0 in the WCHA. UND has won five out of the last six games and is sitting in 5^th place in the WCHA standings. 

The Huskies with the loss drop to 13-15-3, 10-10-3 in the WCHA and currently sit in 7^th place in the WCHA standings. MTU has lost two games in a row and is 1-3-1 for the month of February. 

Same two teams’ faceoff tomorrow night at 7:07 pm.

Related articles

• MTU vs. UND series Notes (ndgoon.blogspot.com)
• Michigan Tech vs. North Dakota Series Notes (insidehockey.com)