Derek Forbort to sign with Kings soon

Source says Derek Forbort signing with Kings is imminent. Could happen as soon as today. Three-year deal.
— Schlossman (@SchlossmanGF) April 5, 2013

I don't think this is a big shock to any of us that follow the UND hockey team, first round draft choices don't usually stay more than two to three seasons. As Grand Forks Herald beat writer Brad Schlossman had said in a recent blog post, the Kings don't want to take the risk of losing their first round draft choice.


The Mass exodus continues in Minneapolis.

So far the Gophers have lost Alt, Bjugstad, Schmidt, Budish to the pros and Larson who is transferring out.… Haula is most likely next.
— GPL (@GopherPuckLive) April 5, 2013

Related articles

• Some interesting tweets from today - early departures and signings (ndgoon.blogspot.com)

UND 2012-13 hockey season post-mortem

For UND hockey fans, the end of every season is always tough, especially for the last 13 years.  UND hockey fans don’t take losing well and UND hockey is a way of life, much like football is in Nebraska or Texas.

But I digress.

If you would have asked me how I thought this year would have ended, I would have said anything is possible including this ending.  Although, I was thinking that the Green and White’s season would have ended in a trip to Pittsburgh, PA culminating in their eighth NCAA title.

I thought this team had the “potential” to take it all the way to Pittsburgh, but in the last month, those expectations were quietly dampened as they had trouble getting sweeps against the likes of Bemidji State and Michigan Tech.

This year’s team was hard to put a finger on.  They never really clicked defensively or offensively.

The coaching staff was still messing around with line combinations up until the end of the season. Some of that was a result of UND’s incredible depth this season. There was also, for the most part, no major injuries so there were many combinations to play with.

Players that played poorly on the ice found themselves sitting in the stands the next game.

There never seemed to be a lot of great chemistry among the forward lines except for the top line and the energy line.

A great hockey mind told me earlier in the season; that if your team is still screwing around with the forward lines in late January, your season wasn’t going last very long. Hum…those words of wisdom, now proved to be very true. It’s not really rocket science per see, but it’ makes a lot of sense. Just seems like there was no continuity to this hockey team.

This year’s team never really had that killer instinct, they never seemed to have to have ability to put a team away and they had a propensity to let bad teams hang around longer than they should have.

That being said, this team wasn’t a bunch of talentless hacks either.

The 2012-13 version of the UND hockey team was still a pretty decent hockey team that at times looked like they could beat the best teams in the country and played one of the toughest schedules in the country.  They didn’t rack up 22 wins playing the weak sisters of the poor.

On the negative side of things, UND had two league sweeps all season long, UNO and MTU and both of these sweeps were on the road. UND swept one team at home, and that was nonconference foe Holy Cross.

The 2012-13 UND hockey team finished with a 22-13-7 record and also finished one win away from sharing the McNaughton Cup with Minnesota and Saint Cloud State.

Let this one sink in for you, this is the first time in 10 years that the UND hockey team isn’t going to go to the Frozen Four or win a Broadmoor Trophy or McNaughton Cup.  I didn’t even realize this until I read Brad Schlossman’s post game report in the Grand Forks Herald.

There are going to be those that will say that this UND hockey team didn’t meet expectations. There will be others that will say that this team lacked grit and heart.

Secondary scoring was an issue with this team and after Danny Kristo (26-g-26a—52pts), Corban Knight (16g-33a—49pts) and Rocco Grimaldi (13g-23a—36pts), there was a drop off of in scoring after the top line.

Next season, the junior class of Mark MacMillan (13g-12a—25pts) and Michael Parks (7g-1a—8pts) along with Roco Grimaldi are going to be expected to lead the way for UND.  Michael Parks was slowed this season by an injury and he never really seemed to regain his rhythm that he had from the previous season.

Fire Hakstol

As always, expectations are pretty high, especially when your team resides in Grand Forks, North Dakota, almost to a point of fanaticism. When the season ends prematurely without a NCAA title, some in the fan base begin to call for the coach’s head.

I can tell you right now that there is zero chance that head coach Dave Hakstol gets fired, he’s not going anywhere.  Not going to happen, first-off Hakstol just signed a long term deal and you would require a very big buy out.  If I had to guess, a buyout it’s in the $800,000.00 – $1,000,000.00, so no, coach Hakstol is going anywhere, unless someone is going to step forward to write the University of North Dakota a huge check and I don’t see that happening.  Nor am I suggesting that this should it happen.  The next quesition would be, who do you replace him with? Replacing him doesn’t mean the program succeeds either.

Lastly, Dave Hakstol is a very good hockey coach and has done a good job with the UND hockey program.  UND just won 20 plus games for the ninth year in a row and I think it’s just a matter of time before he leads UND to a national title. Then the naysayers will be running to catch up with the Hakstol bandwagon.

Cross-Posted at the Hockey Writers Combine.

UND vs. C.C. lines Final Five

UND Forward Lines

21 Brendan O’Donnell–10 Corban Knight (A) –7 Danny Kristo (A)
19 Rocco Grimaldi–27 Carter Rowney (A)–15 Michael Parks
25 Mitch MacMillan–16 Mark MacMillan–13 Connor Gaarder

Drake Caggiula 9–28 Stephane Pattyn–17 Colten St. Clair

UND Defensive Parings

2 Andrew MacWilliam (C)–18 Dillon Simpson
4 Derek Forbort–24 Jordan Schmaltz
5 Nick Mattson –20 Joe Gleason

UND goalies

33 Clarke Saunders

31 Zane Gothberg
35 Tate Maris

Not In the lineup: 11 Derek Rodwell , Andrew Panzarella (22), Dan Senkbeil (8), Coltyln Sanderson (26),  Bryn Chyzyk (29).

Colorado College’s Tigers forward lines

16 Alexander Krushelnyski–13 Rylan Schwartz (A)–17 Charlie Taft
12 Archie Skalbeck–25 Scott Winkler–27 William Rapuzzin (C) 
11 Hunter Fejes–10 Cody Bradley–15 Andrew Hamburg
22 Peter Maric–21 Jeff Collett–24 Jared Hanson

Colorado College Tigers defense pairings

6 Peter Stoykewych–28 Mike Boivin
5 Aaron Harstad–7 Eamonn McDermott
20 Ian Young–4 Joe Marciano

Colorado College Tiger goalies

31 Joe Howe
39 Josh Thorimbert
29 Courtney Lockwood

Referees: Don Adam, Timm Walsh Linesmen: Nick Bradshaw (94), Sam Shikowsky (81)

UND Hockey: Slugs out win against Tech

Grand Forks, ND –What a difference a year makes, a year ago it was near 65 degrees sunny and devoid of snow.

Fast forward to March 15, 2013, 10,571 fans braved  near white out conditions to attend  tonight’s game and outside it looked more like a January 15 game; than a game being played in the middle of March.

UND is 14-1-2 when scoring four or more goals this season. Make that 15-1-2 with the 5-3 win tonight.  What is even more impressive, UND has also won 14 straight WCHA playoff game with the win tonight.

That being said, it wasn’t UND best effort tonight.  The win didn’t come easy.

“It was a tough hockey game to find any flow,” UND head coach Dave Hakstol said. “We need to play better and return our focus to doing that tomorrow night.”

UND was outshot 43-24 by the upstart Huskies and they gave the UND forwards fits by getting in the shooting lanes and taking away UND’s time and space.

At the 12:30 mark of the first period UND defenseman Andrew MacWilliam was assessed a five minute major and a game misconduct for contact to the head of Michigan Tech forward David Johnstone.  After further review of the play, it was apparent that the on ice official Marco Hunt had made the wrong call.  Johnston suffered a broken collar bone on the hit.

The five minute major to MacWilliam threw UND off of their rhythm and it took a while for the Green and White to regain the upper hand. UND coach Dave Hakstol expounded on it a little more after the game.

Michael Parks
Eric Classen, UND Sports

“The five minute major knocked us back,” Hakstol said. “We survived it and recovered. I guess it was the story of the night. We hit a few bumps in the road, but we found a way to win.”

The Tech Huskies took the game to UND until the 15:45 mark of the middle frame when fourth line forward junior forward Derek Rodwell scored his second goal of the year unassisted.

“The Rodwell goal was a big one for us,” Hakstol said.  When the head coach was asked where that goal came from? Hakstol continued, “Derek does that really well. He took the puck wide, drove wide little bit. Pulled it to the middle and snapped it hard at the net. It was well out from, 40-feet out – he put it bar down – it was good timing to get his second (goal) of the year.

Junior forward Derek Rodwell had this to say about his goal. “It was a just kind of a broke play down the center-ice,” Rodwell said. “I saw a little bit room and tried to shoot through the screen, just happened to get a good bounce that happened to go in.”

Senior forward Danny Kristo had a monstrous night on the ice for UND tonight recording (2g-1a—3pts) pushing his season point total to (23g-25a—48pts) three points off of the national leaders Ryan Walters and Greg Carey.

Dillon Simpson
Eric Classen, UND Sports

Danny Kristo was there to answer bell every time the Tech Huskies would score to tighten the game up.  The Senior forward didn’t seemed all that pleased with his team’s effort tonight.

“Friday night is the biggest game of the series,” Kristo said. “I think that we played very average tonight, we didn’t do the things we need to do to keep playing this time of year, but we’re going to move on, and forget this one. We’ll take the win and get ready for tomorrow, it’s going to be tough to end a team’s season, because Tech is playing good hockey – proud of the win – but we got to be better tomorrow.”

Kristo is right, UND is going to have to be better if UND wants to end Tech’s season tomorrow night. Game 2 is set for tomorrow night at the Ralph Engelstad Arena at 7:07 p.m. central.

Cross-posted at the Hockey Writers Combine. 

Series ticket packages for first round of WCHA playoffs on sale Tuesday

Western Collegiate Hockey Association logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

GRAND FORKS, N.D. – Series ticket packages for the University of North Dakota's Western Collegiate Hockey Association (WCHA) first-round playoff series will go on sale to the general public and UND students on Tuesday, March 6, at 10 a.m. Central.

Student tickets will be available online only at Ticketmaster.com. General public ticket packages can be purchased by calling 1-800-745-3000, logging on to Ticketmaster.com or by visiting the UND Ticket Office at the Ralph Engelstad Arena. The ticket office is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

UND students will receive an e-mail with a keyword needed to purchase a series ticket package. Student ticket packages will be held for students until the student pre-sale ends on Thursday, March 7 at 5 p.m. All unsold student tickets will then be released to the general public at 10 a.m. on Friday, March 8. Students may purchase up to four reserved seating student tickets per UND student ID.

Series ticket packages are $40 for adults and $20 for students and youth.

Single-game WCHA first-round playoff tickets will go one sale on Friday, March 8 at 10 a.m. Single-game tickets are $20 for adults and $10 for students and youth. Single-game tickets are subject to availability.

The first round of the WCHA playoffs take place March 15, 16 and 17 (if necessary). Game times are 7:37 p.m. on Friday and 7:07 on Saturday and Sunday. All times Central. UND's first-round opponent has not yet been determined.

UND clinched home ice for the first round of the WCHA playoffs with a 2-2 overtime tie Saturday night against Bemidji State. It is the 11^th straight year UND will host the first round, the longest active streak in the league.

(Video) UND 4 - BSU 2

Here is the video of the goals from Friday's game. The McMillan boy's were on fire this weekend, and chipped in a lot offensively. Bemidji State did not have an answer for their speed.

I thought SCSU Fans said that Mitch MacMilllan couldn't play hockey. That's (2g-1a--3pts) in the last game and a half.
— Eric J. Burton (@goon48) March 3, 2013

CONFIRMED: UND has officially clinched home ice for the first round of the WCHA playoffs.
— North Dakota MHockey (@UNDMHockey) March 3, 2013

Related articles

• UND and BSU slug out a 2-2 tie (thehockeywriters.com)
• This Week in the WCHA: Series Previews (thehockeywriters.com)

UND Women’s Hockey; Lamoureux sisters Lasso Mavericks 8-1

Western Collegiate Hockey Association logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Grand Forks, ND – All good things must come to an end.

Last night, I came home after the men’s game between UND and BSU and told my wife that I couldn’t miss today’s game between the UND women and Minnesota State Mavericks.

The reason I wanted to go to the game today – this was going to be a historic event – this was going to be an end of an era, sort of.

It was the last chance for me and 1259 in attendance to watch Jocelyne and Monique Lamoureux play hockey at Ralph Engelstad Arena, ever, barring an unforeseen meltdown and the UND hockey team would send their fans home with something to cheer about.

That meltdown did not happen, as the UND women ran around and through the Minnesota State Mavericks out of the Ralph Engelstad Arena 8-1.

During their time in the green and white the Lamoureux twins have racked up a lot of goals and gave goalies around the WCHA fits.

The twins paced UND with 10 points among them, leaving the sister tandem ranked 1-2 all-time in the WCHA for points Jocelyne Lamoureux (125g-158a—284pts) and Monique Lamoureux (112g-152a—264Pts).  Today, with her (2g-4a—6pts) Monique also passed former Wisconsin Badgers forward Hillary Knight (143g-119a—262pts).  That’s no small accomplishment since Monique is a defenseman and Hillary Knight is a forward.

If you haven’t watched them play, the twins are worth the price of admission. They’re electric, dynamic and they’re world class players that are part of an exciting line-up that comes to work every day and gives their best effort.

Like yesterday, the UND women came out with a bit of an edge and it appeared as if they had something to prove and pushed the lead to 5-1 after one period of hockey outshooting the Minnesota State Mavericks 23-10.

And of course, UND chased Mavericks goalie Erin Krichiver at the 15:40 mark of the first period, after putting four goals past her, Deanielle Butters replaced her in the Maverick net  and she received roughly the same treatment from a UND hockey team as well, as she let in four goals as well.

After the game, Jocelyne Lamoureux came out to the postgame press conference still wearing her game jersey, and you could tell that the senior forward was taken back by the moment.

“It’s pretty sad you know,” Jocelyne said. “We took the last lap as seniors together. It’s sad that it’s over, we found our parents in the crowd, gave them a wave.  It’s hard to believe that it’s over, here, at the Ralph. I haven’t taken my white jersey off yet, we’re going blacks (jerseys) the rest of the way, were going to be away for the rest of the season. Hopefully we can make some good things happen, but right now we’re going to take it all in and appreciate everything that I got here, while I’ve got it.”

Jocelyne’s sister Monique came to the press conference after and she was also affected by the moment as well.

“You can probably see that I was crying 10 minutes ago,” Monique said. “I am usually the first one out of the locker room. There were three or four of us that just sat there in our equipment for a little bit. It’s sad that it’s over here, but hopefully we have five more games left [NCAA Playoffs].”

The irony is, UND is known for taking penalties and at times playing undisciplined hockey and having a parade to the penalty box. Today, UND had one minor penalty called against them, after the game, UND head coach Brian Idalski was asked if he ever thought that he would see his team only get called for one minor penalty.

“No, honestly, what do we average 14 minutes a game,” Idalski said. “You talk about Jocelyn and Monique and I think they get a bad rap, but they’ve been great and very disciplined here down the stretch and penalty free. A solid effort, that discipline goes a long way.

UND will now travel to the Minneapolis to play in the Final Face-Off next weekend at Ridder Arena.  With the win, UND remains in the eighth position of the pairwise ranking of the pairwise rankings

MacMillan (X2) lead UND past BSU 4-2

Seal of the University of North Dakota (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Grand Forks, ND – Coming into tonight’s game, UND senior forward Danny Kristo had never scored a goal, or recorded a single point in six career games against the Bemidji State Beavers.

No, you don’t need to check your eyes.

During his four year career at the University of North Dakota, Kristo had racked up an impressive (62g-91a—153pts) in a 148 games, but had never scored a single point in his four year career against the Bemidji State Beavers.

Wait, what? Not a single one.

In his seventh game against the Bemidji State Beavers, Kristo finally was able to record a single assist on UND’s third goal that was scored by UND defenseman Joe Gleason.

Apparently, Kristo’s pointless streak against the Beavers was a point of discussion during this week in practice. 

Unlike Danny Kristo, Mark MacMillan has little trouble during his two seasons at UND scoring against the Bemidji State Beavers, coming into tonight’s game, MacMillan had recorded (1g-4a—5 pts) in four games against the Beavers.  Mark added (2g-1a—3pts) to his point total and was awarded the game’s first star of the game as he lead UND (18-9-6, 13-6-6 WCHA) to a 4-2 over the Bemidji State Beavers (6-17-7, 5-13-6 WCHA).

Mark’s brother Mitch MacMillan also chipped in a (1g-1a—2pts) as that line seemed to give BSU fits all night long. One has to wonder if the MacMillan boys are finding their magic they had when they played together in juniors back in Alberni Valley of the BCHL, in British Colombia.

“Hopefully, it seemed to work out well tonight,” Mark MacMillan said.  The chemistry between us is slowly starting to come back. Obviously the college game is little different than junior hockey.”

The University of North Dakota is 8-4-4 when the opposition scores the first goal. That is the second game in a row that the opposition has scored the first goal of the game that UND has come back to win.

The game was tired 1-1 going into the third period, before UND scored four straight goals. BSU head coach Tom Serratore seemed upbeat after the game, even though his team lost.

First off, I thought it was a good hockey game,” Serratore said.  “You know what, you go into third period in this building tied 1-1,  to me it was where we wanted them at that particular time.  Obviously, the second and third goals were killers. We probably could have prevented those goals.”

I don’t think it would be an understatement to say that tonight’s game wasn’t all that entertaining. It was a gut-it-out gritty style of game. The Beavers are a tough team to play against, they get in the shooting lanes and they play a high pressure game. Some like to incorrectly call the Beavers style of play a trap. The head coach of the Beavers agreed that it was tough sledding, out on the ice.

“Tonight, I thought the game was pretty much a turf war,” Serratore said.

When asked if he thought the game was a turf war, head coach Dave Hakstol was hesitant to use the term, he said, “you can call it what you want. It was a hard fought hockey game. At times there wasn't a lot of flow to it.”

 Cross-posted a the Hockey Writes Combine. 

UND Women run OSU out of the building

United States forward Jocelyne Lamoureux in a game against the ECAC All-Stars on January 3, 2010. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Grand Forks, ND – The University of North Dakota women’s hockey team has been on a bit of a role as of late, winning six in a row and seven of the last eight games that they played in.

Senior forward Jocelyne Lamoureux came into tonight’s game on a hot streak of her own. This past week, Lamoureux broke the existing league record for career points of 262 held by Wisconsin’s Hilary Knight (2007-12). The Record fell, when Lamoureux recorded seven points during last weekend series (0g-7a—7pts) against the Bemidji State Beaver, giving her a collegiate career total of 266 points (120g -146a—266pts) in 140 games played.

Tonight, a couple of hot streaks continued as the Green and White extended their winning streak to seven straight games, beating the Ohio State University Buckeyes 5-2.

With the win tonight, UND also clinched home ice for the WCHA playoffs, but the head coach didn’t seemed satisfied with that fact.

“For a long time, it was one of our goals [home ice] every year,” Head Coach Brian Idalski said. “That hasn’t changed, but I think it’s a smaller goal, and there’s still a lot of work to be done and I think we understand that. We got a big game tomorrow we got to turn around and be ready, that club has a lot of pride, their well coached and you have to show up and be ready to go.”

Senior forward Jocelyn Lamoureux remained smoking hot, as she added two more points to her already impressive career point’s total. Tonight, she chipped in (1g-1a—2pts). Not to be out done, Jocelyn’s twin sister Monique had an impressive night of her own, as she added three helpers (0g-3a—3pts).

Junior forward Michelle Karvinen who missed the first 12 games of the season with an undisclosed injury, continue her torrid pace as she chipped in two more markers. Karvinen now has (14g-26a—40pts). Tonight, Karvinen also recorded her 100 career point in just her 55^th game and this is what she had to say on getting her 100^th career point.

“It’s very special,” Karvinen said. “I am happy it’s not just like a rebound or something and it was a little nicer, it was great.”

The Ohio State Buckeyes actually took a 2-1 lead with a couple of goals from Captain Hokey Langan (Chatham, Ontario). That was all the closer the game would get as UND would blow the game open with three goals five minutes apart.

After the game, head coach Brian Idalski was asked about the explosion in the second period.

“I just thought we executed a little better,” Idalski said. “I thought we were a little hungry as far as getting pucks to the net and being the first to jump on rebounds. You have to out work them – they’re so good at playing with energy and competing and they’re very strong on pucks. You had to turn it up a notch to match that.”

Same two teams tomorrow night at 07:07 pm.

With the win tonight, UND currently sits in 8^th of the Pairwise Rankings, UND would need to 8^th or above to make the NCAA tourney.

(Video) UND vs. UNO

At the beginning of the video, I included the hit that Derek Forbort put on a UNO Maverick at the beginning of last night's game. There have been some that said that the UND defense is soft. I don't know if that is the case. Last night, I thought that Forbs was awesome during last night's game, and I also thought that Schmaltz played a solid game as well.

For the past three games, the UND defense has given up a grand total of one goal per game.

Also, I included all three goals by both teams as well as the Andrew MacWillam save at the end of the game. That was a big play to keep the game 2-1 in the waning minutes of the game. According to the post game interview on the radio, MacWillam was given the hard hat award by freshman goalie Zane Gothberg for that save.

Tony Turgeon hit on Dan Senkbeil

At the two minute mark of the second period, Omaha Maverick defenseman Tony Turgeon was given a five minute major for contact to the head when he hit UND forward Dan Senkbeil with this check. Turgeon was also assessed a two minute minor penalty for crosschecking and a given a game misconduct. I don’t know, I don’t think this was the right call. What do you think? I don’t like the fact that the WCHA is taking the big hits out of the game.

To be honest with you, the way that Jimmer was dancing around, at first, I thought he took one under the belt, if you know what I mean?

What a terrible call in Omaha against Tony Turgeon. Just brutal. Instant replay if you think someone might warrant ejection.
— John Buccigross (@Buccigross) February 9, 2013

(Video) Marvelous North Dakota Hockey

This is a nice video that was taken by Marv Leier, during last weekend's game between Wisconsin and North Dakota. Leier films the game footage for Midco from his perch between the players benches. I bet he could tell us a story or two about some of the things that he has seen and heard.

North Dakota stomps Wisconsin 4-1

Grand Forks, ND – The Wisconsin Badgers came into tonight’s game smoking hot, the Badgers had one loss (Miami) since November 24, 2012. During that same time frame, the Badgers had an impressive record of 10-1-4 (.800).

Coming into the game, North Dakota was a team going the other direction. The Green and White hadn’t won in five games (0-2-3), and they were looking for their first win since January 12, 2012.

Historically, North Dakota is known for their impressive second half records after the first of the year.  So far during the second half of this season, UND’s record is a mediocre 3-3-2.

With the win tonight, that streak would improve to 4-3-3. Also, with the win, UND was also able to stop a five game winless streak (0-2-3).

Tonight, North Dakota wasted no time getting on the board as freshman forward Rocco Grimaldi drew a penalty 30 second into the game.

UND would cash in on the power-play with a goal from Mark MacMillan 15 seconds later. That was MacMillan’s ninth goal of the season.  Assisting on MacMillan’s goal was Rocco Grimaldi and Jordan Schmaltz.

Twelve minutes later, North Dakota would push the lead to 2-0 with another power-play goal by Joe Gleason. Drawing the assists on Gleason’s goal were Danny Kristo and Corban Knight.  With the assist, Kristo scored his 144^th point of his career tying him with former fighting Sioux forward Jay Panzer, Jim Archibald and Jeff McLean.

After the game, UND Head coach Dave Hakstol talked about the importance of getting those two power play goals early in the game.

“I thought the first power play goal was key,” Hakstol said. “The second one was nice to get at as well. But bigger than that for me was the penalty kill that we had right back-to-back with our first power play goal.”

UND would push the score to 4-0, with two even strength goals, eight minutes apart from Sophomore Michael Parks.

After the game, Michael Parks’ line mate Carter Rowney, who assisted on both of Park’s goals, was excited to see him bury a few goals.

“I was really excited for Parks to get a couple few goals tonight,” Rowney said.  “Since we have been playing with each other we’ve been a little snake bitten. We’ve had our opportunities, but it wasn’t coming, but I think we tried to stick with it and tried to stay loose around the net. It was lucky enough to come in today.”

One Michael Parks’ goals came on a wraparound goal. This is what the sophomore forward had to say about his highlight goal.

“Oh finally,” Parks said. “A bit of a relief I think if anything – good play by Rowney – put it off the pad and it was really easy with the goalie being on the other side of the net.”

UW would great the shutout with a goal from Wisconsin junior forward Mark Zengerle at the 13:30 mark of the third period.

That was all of the scoring the rest of the way.

UND was strong defensively all weekend long, as the UND back end only give up two goals all weekend long. UND has only give up

“I would give us defensively, I would give us a B-plus,” Hakstol said. “I thought we were pretty responsible. Last night we created some of our own problems. On two or three occasions in a tight game like that, two or three opportunities against is a big deal. I thought we did little things well. I thought it was a weekend where we blocked shots well, which is something that we have been working to be better at. I liked that area of our game. I liked our over-all commitment to the defensive side“

Cross Posted at the Hockey Writers - Combine... 

UND vs. UW lines game two

North Dakota Forward Lines

19 Rocco Grimaldi–10 Corban Knight (A) –7 Danny Kristo (A)

9 Drake Caggiula  –27 Carter Rowney (A)–15 Michael Parks
25 Mitch MacMillan – 16 Mark MacMillan - 17 Colten St. Clair

8 Dan Senkbeil–28 Stephane Pattyn– Derek Rodwell

North Dakota Defense Pairings

2 Andrew MacWilliam (C) – 18 Dillon Simpson

4 Derek Forbort – 24 Jordan Schmaltz

Nick Mattson – 20 Joe Gleason

North Dakota Goalies

31 Zane Gothberg

33 Clarke Saunders

35 Tate Maris

Not in the lineup: 13 Connor Gaarder, 29 Bryn Chyzyk, 22 Andrew Panzarella, 26 Coltyn Sanderson, 21 Brendan O’Donnell

WCHA Officials: Referees: Tom Sterns (8), Matt Ulwelling (23), Linesman: Andy Carton (92), Nathan Freeman (78).

Wisconsin Badgers Forward Lines

16 Joseph LaBate–9 Mark Zengerle–25 Michael Mersch
17 Nic Kerdiles–14 Jefferson Dahl–7 Tyler Barnes
20 Ryan Little (A)–21 Brendan Woods–18 Sean Little
26 Brad Navin–12 Keegan Meuer–8 Matt Pappe

Wisconsin Badgers Defense Parings

28 Kevin Schulze–55 John Ramage (C)
22 Eddie Wittchow - 24 Joe Faust

19 Jake McCabe–27 Frankie Simonelli (A)

Wisconsin Badgers Goalies

30 Landon Peterson

33 Joel Rumpel

Kristo's assist was his 144th career point, tying him with Jay Panzer, Jim Archibald and Jeff McLean for 28th all-time at UND.
— North Dakota MHockey (@UNDMHockey) February 3, 2013

UND scratches out tie again Huskies

Seal of the University of North Dakota (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Grand Forks, ND – Last night, the University of North Dakota came out flat and stood around and watched the Saint Cloud State University Huskies make plays and were on the short end of a 3-1 game. Through two periods of hockey they had an unimpressive 8 shots on net.

Tonight, it was a different game as UND would outshoot the Huskies 36-18, but they were still only able to garner a single point in the standing with a 2-2 tie.

After last night’s game, North Dakota head coach Dave Hakstol was not pleased with his teams play, and he let it be known in his post game comments.

“We didn’t play very well tonight,” Hakstol said. “We got our tails kicked in our own building.

Tonight, while his team played better, the head coach still didn’t seem all that pleased with the end results.

“Disappointed to come out of the weekend with one point,” Hakstol said. “Yet in terms of our team, and our team play, the performance and effort that we put out tonight, I think we feel good about that. But to come with one point it’s hard to feel good about anything.”

After last night’s game, you had to figure that there would be changes to the lineup, and there was.

Tonight, the North Dakota hockey team came out with more energy and were able to put 15 shot net, and take a 2-1 lead into the first intermission with goals by senior forwards Danny Kristo and Corban Knight.

UND would relinquish that lead at the 01:59 mark of the second period with a goal by Husky senior forward Ben Hanowski on the delayed penaly. That goal was Hanowski’s 11th of the year for the senior forward from Little Falls, MN. UND would again out-shoot the Huskies during the second period 9-4.

That would be all of the scoring for the rest of the evening as neither team was able to dent the twine again. UND would get the better of the opportunities, but they were unable to put the puck past sophomore goalie Ryan Faragher who was tough in net all weekend long.

The Huskies head coach Bob Motzko seemed pleased with his team’s effort this weekend

“We will be pleased,” Motzko said. They came out hard tonight, and fought like mad. We made some critical mistakes early, and they capitalized on them. Bad penalties again, which is uncharacteristic, and we let the heat of the moment get to us again. But then Ben Hanowski there’s one of our captains taking over again. Got the first one – got the second one – it was all determination to start the second period there. Then we lost for about six minutes and then I thought we hunkered down. Our goalie had to make a couple of big saves. Their guy had to make a couple [saves]. We got the one off of the pipe from Brodzinski there. It was just a classic WCHA battles.”

While a tie is better than a loss in the WCHA standings, it would appear that the tie left a bad taste in the mouths of the UND players. A subdued senior forward Danny Kristo shared his feeling after the games.

“Definitely stings,” Kristo said. “I thought we deserved a better outcome. I thought we outplayed them for all three periods. That’s just the way it goes sometimes.”

Senior forward Corban Knight seemed to echo Kristo’s sentiments.

“Right now, it’s still pretty fresh,” Knight said. Obviously we left a point out there on a Saturday night at home – important game – I don’t think anyone is satisfied in that room right now. So, it’s defiantly something that is frustrating right now.”

While the tie leaves UND 3-3-2 in eight games to start the year, the team still controls its own destiny. Because of the strength of their schedule, and who they have left on the schedule these types of games will prepare UND for the playoffs.

UND head coach Dave Hakstol expounded on that fact.

“The reality of this stretch is we play good team’s week in and week out,” Hakstol said. “Our schedule is very difficult. That’s going to make us better. That’s going to stress us, and its going make going to make points harder to come by, but it’s going to make us better. We became a better team this weekend, but we didn’t walk away with the number of points that we wanted.”

Next weekend, UND plays another good team that is coming into Ralph Engelstad Arena having won seven of the last eight games, and 10-1-2 in their last 13 games.

Cross posted at the Hockey Writers - Combine...

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