Tonight, UND improved that record on Saturdays to 1-3-1 with a 4-3 overtime win.
This was the first win for UND in overtime since March 1, 2009 when
Darcy Zajac scored in overtime to beat Colorado College 4-3.
If last night’s game wasn’t wild enough for you; tonight’s game didn’t disappoint either.
Tonight’s game was like a 10 round heavy weight title fight where neither fighter was able to put the other away until the end of the fight.
During the opening five minutes of the first period, it looked like the game was going to be a track meet where strong goalie and defensive play was optional.
UMD senior forward Jake Hendrickson scored his first goal of the year and before the public address announcer could announce UMD’s he first goal – UND senior forward
Danny Kristo was burying the puck in the Duluth goal for his 5
th goal of the year and his third goal on the weekend.
Kristo would finish the weekend with three goals and two assist for five points.
But we weren’t done yet; UMD would score again 32 seconds later with a goal from UMD senior forward
Mike Seidel. If you’re bad at math – like I am – that’s 3 goals in forty five seconds.
UND would go into the first intermission down 3-1 and the easy choice would have been to pull the freshman goalie Zane Gothberg and go with the veteran junior goalie Clarke Saunders but head coach
Dave Hakstol stuck with his freshman goalie Gothberg and it proved to be the right move, as Gothberg would settle down and stop 28 of 31 shots to improve his record to 2-1-0.
Hakstol was asked if he had considered pulling the young goaltender after the first period.
“You know… the goals that were scored on if you really evaluate it – it’s hard to fault our goaltender,” Hakstol said. "I know the second one kind of took the wind out of the building a little bit but it was a tip play in front – yeah maybe you would like to see a goaltender down and big and have that – but it was tipped directly in front of him down between his legs. So, there were three tough plays for him – he battled through that the remainder of that period – he made some good saves through the remainder of the period and obviously settled in the rest of the game.”
Tonight, UND head coach Dave Hakstol moved sophomore forward Mark MacMilan up to the top line with Danny Kristo and Corbin Knight.
That move would pay off as MacMilan would score the equalizer 05:53 mark of the third period and then would get the
game winning goal 04:26 mark of overtime to ice the win for UND.
“They made some plays,” Hakstol said. “Chemistry is hard to explain. They showed that they had a little bit tonight. The plays that they made – the goals that they scored – they were good solid hockey plays, Hakstol said. They didn’t cheat for any of their offense tonight; they made a lot of good plays that resulted in some good positive results. I thought that they’re the ones that are on the score sheet the most, but I thought we had a good four line effort tonight. Were everybody grabbed hold of the rope and did a little bit and resulted in a good win for our team.”
After the game the sophomore forward looked exhausted but seemed to savored moment as he described the game winning goal.
“I don’t really know what happened, MacMilan said. Dan got the puck right around at the top of the circle and it kind of opened up. Dan made a great play to me and I just tried to get it off as quick as I could and it just happened to go in.
Danny Kristo described what he saw on the game winning goal.
“Just a chip in,” Kristo said. “Just kind of read the play to the Duluth d – rimmed it – beat the guy to the puck and luckily beat the guy off of the wall. Originally, looked shot then I saw Mark out of the corner of my eye and he was opened up for a one-timer so just tried to make a good pass and it went through and he buried it.
Next weekend, North Dakota travels to South Bend, Indiana to play the Notre Dame FIghting Irish in a two game series.
Originally posted at
the Hockey Writers - Combine
