Nelson’s late goal, Anderson’s goaltending gain UMD 1-1 tie
When a hockey game is high-scoring, the coaches always suggest that it was the type of game fans might like, but coaches hate. That should have meant that Friday night’s 1-1 WCHA tie between Denver and Minnesota-Duluth was a game that only coaches could love.
Instead, while UMD coach Scott Sandelin appreciated his team’s play, which improved throughout the game and was climaxed by Tom Nelson’s game-tying goal with 5:26 remaining in the third period. But Denver coach George Gwozdecky disliked the game from the second period on.
The Pioneers came into the game with a 6-0-1 streak, and the realization that a sweep of the series could propel a move into second place in the WCHA, but slipped to 7-5-1 (8-7-2 overall). UMD came in only 1-9 in WCHA play, and improved to 1-9-1 (4-12-1 overall).
Nelson’s equalizer came after Judd Medak forechecked deep on the right side of the net to retrieve the puck, and came out to try a wraparound shot, but goaltender Wade Dubielewicz played him perfectly. “I saw the goalie had me blocked, and I saw something white coming down the slot,” said Medak.
Nelson said: “Judd made a great hustle play and the puck came right to me. I just happened to be in the right place at the right time, and rapped it in.”
Sandelin acknowledged that his Bulldogs seemed flat at the start. “Once we got our legs moving, I was real happy,” he said. “Denver got that early goal, and sometimes you get shocked into playing. We started pursuing the puck, and got better as the game went on.”
The sparse crowd, announced at 3,039, had reason to anticipate a shootout, both because both teams had scored 19 goals in their last four games, and because Denver jumped ahead with a goal after only 1:36 of the first period had expired. On the second shift of the night, Connor James got the puck behind the net from Chris Paradise and relayed a pass out front, where Lukas Dora’s quick shot beat goaltender Rob Anderson. Simple as that, the Pioneers led 1-0.
But that was it, in entirety, for the game’s scoring — and scoring chances — for the next two-plus periods. The best chance overtime by Denver came when Chris Paradise was set up on a goal-mouth pass, but Anderson went down and threw his leg up to block the shot. “It was a big save, but that’s my job,” said Anderson.
Denver outshot UMD 18-10 in the first period, but Anderson’s goaltending held the Bulldogs in the game. Both teams clamped down defensively in the second period, with UMD holding a 6-5 edge in shots, and the two goalies successfully dueling to maintain the 1-0 count. Shots grew to 10-10 in the third period, and Denver outshot UMD 34-29 for the game.
“I thought Rob Anderson played a strong game,” said Gwozdecky, but his stern demeanor indicated he was not pleased.
“I thought we were as careless with the puck in the second and third periods as we’ve been all year. Disgustingly so. Either you want to make it difficult or easy for your opponent to get the puck when you’ve got it on your stick, and we made it very easy for them. We were fortunate to get the one point.
“In the first period, we did a decent job and played the way we wanted to,” Gwozdecky added. “But if you’re going to be successful, you cannot force the puck into traffic, and we did that too many times, in all zones. When you do that, it doesn’t matter if you’re playing Duluth or the New Jersey Devils, you’re going to give up good scoring chances.”
Denver University 1 0 0
Minnesota-Duluth 0 0 1
First Period: 1. Den—Dora 4 (James, Paradise) 1:36. Penalty–Hardwick, UMD (tripping) 16:06.
Second Period: No scoring. Penalties–Adams, Den (interference) 4:13; Reinholz, UMD (interference) 11:08; Weber, Den (interference) 17:34.
Third Period: 2. UMD–Nelson 9 (Medeak) 14:34. Penalties–none.
Overtime: Penalty–Coole, UMD (holdiing) 0:38.
Shots on goal: Denver 18 5 10 2–35; UMD 10 6 10 3–30. Goalie saves: Dubielewicz, Den (30 shots, 29 saves); R. Anderson, UMD (35-34). Referee: Tom Goddard; linesmen Jon Elvy, Joe Romano. Attendance: 3,039.
Sikio scores twice as UMD women whip New Hampshire 3-0
The University of New Hampshire provided a stiff test for UMD’s women’s hockey team Saturday afternoon, for a variety of reasons, and the Bulldogs passed with flying colors, recording a dominant 3-0 victories behind two goals from Hanne Sikio.
Erika Holst assisted on the three UMD goals, setting up Sikio in the first period, feeding Michelle McAteer who relayed it to Sikio in the second period, and setting up McAteer in the third, as Tuula Puputti recorded the shutout with the Bulldogs outshooting the Wildcats 34-18.
This weekend’s pair of 2 p.m. games against UNH represents the first time an established elite eastern power has visited the DECC to play UMD. And New Hampshire was the team that ended UMD’s Cinderella unbeaten start to their first season a year ago. The Bulldogs had soared through 22 victories and two ties before a trip to Durham, N.H., brought two slaps upside the helmet.
Those were figurative slaps, of course. As for actual slaps upside the helmet, the Bulldogs had to play sophomore forward Jenny Hempel and freshman forward Sanna Peura, both of whom were held out because of concussions they suffered at Ohio State in last Friday’s 7-1 UMD romp. “They both got concussions, and both were from crosschecks to the head,” said coach Shannon Miller. “We had been told Sanna was definitely out for two or three weeks, but we thought Jenny could play this weekend until a neurosurgeon said she shouldn’t play this weekend and maybe next.”
UMD was beaten 2-0 the day after winning 7-1 at Ohio State last wekeend, so two-game consistency in today’s rematch is a greater incentive than revenge for the Bulldogs.
“I don’t know what happened last weekend,” said Sikio. “We came back for the second game, had a lot of shots, against the same goalie, the same everything, but nothing would go in. I’m sure New Hampshire will come out much stronger in the second game. But today was how we can play — should play — every game. We skated well and we played very well.”
UNH is in a rebuilding term, but the loss of Hempel and Peura put UMD into an instant rebuilding process too, so Miller shook up her forward lines for the UNH series. “Sometimes lines just get a little stale,” she said. “So I asked different players who they’d like to play with. Hanne said she’d like to play with Erika, so we put that line together with McAteer.”
Good move. After just 1:08 had passed at the start of the game, “Erika gave me a breakaway pass,” Sikio said. She caught the pass at full flight up the left side, buzzed the defense and zoomed in to beat goaltender Jen Huggen with a close-range deke for a 1-0 lead.
UMD outshot UNH 14-4 in that opening period, and came back for a 12-5 edge in the second, but struggled before Sikio struck again. “Mac gave me a great pass that time,” Sikio added. The play started when Holst fed an outlet pass up the left boards to McAteer, who took off with a 2-on-1 chance and passed quickly to Sikio on the right side. The two closed in, and Sikio had time to consider her options.
“I didn’t know if I should pass it back to her or what,” said Sikio. The solution was a good shot from the right circle at 10:36 of the middle period for a 2-0 lead.
Still, 2-0 was hardly a fair reward for a 26-9 edge in shots and a large difference in scoring chances. The Wildcats had an early power play opportunity to get back in the game at the start of the third period. But Puputti held firm, and the Bulldogs went back to the attack at 5:41, when Holst stickhandled out of the right corner and sent a perfect pass across the goal-mouth that McAteer smacked in for the 3-0 count.
“During the week, we worked on direct attacks, and we scored some nice goals, all on direct attacks,” said Miller. “But we also worked on going to the net aggressively to try to get some ugly goals in traffic. We still didn’t do that.”
Bulldog women win 8-1 to complete historic sweep over UNH
The UMD women’s hockey team completed one of its most significant weekends Sunday, when the Bulldogs beat New Hampshire 8-1 for a series sweep that was not only the most impressive performance of this season, but can only compare in magnitude to last year’s top achievements, a sweep at Minnesota and the Women’s-WCHA tournament championship.
This one didn’t offer any league rewards, but it was filled with historic accomplishments. Maria Rooth scored both of the game’s third-period goals to give her a hat trick, and 15 goals for the season, Hanne Sikio scored two goals, to give her 16, and Leah Wrazidlo, often a spare-duty player, came through with her first two goals of the season, while freshman defenseman Satu Kiipeli also scored a goal.
Coupled with Saturday’s 3-0 victory, Sunday’s matinee triumph was the Bulldogs’ response to coach Shannon Miller’s demands. First and foremost, the coach wanted the Bulldogs to prove they could play with full intensity through both games of a weekend set. Second, she stressed scoring not only on direct attacks but by crashing the net for the kind of working-class goals they have lacked.
The ‘Dogs (11-4-1) picked the perfect time to do it all, coming against a UNH team that is probably the No. 1 women’s program in the nation. The Wildcats came into the series having lost 2-1 to Northeastern and 4-3 to Providence last weekend, and they had never lost four games in a row in their 24-year history. Until now, when the double loss to UMD drops the ‘Cats to 9-6. In only its second season, it was impressive for UMD to dominate a team like UNH, which has won the equivalent of 10 eastern or national championships 10 times, and has never had season worse than 14-10-3. That was in 1993-94, the year of UNH’s worst-ever losing margin, seven, in a 9-2 loss to Concordia. UMD put itself in the UNH record book by tying that margin Sunday.
“Duluth is a great team, and if you make a mistake against them, they put it away,” said Karen Kay, who is in her ninth season at UNH. “Players like Sikio and Rooth are really quality players; they’re so good that I think some of our young defensemen might have gotten caught admiring them.”
Coach Kay said UMD compares with No. 1 ranked Dartmouth, which whipped Minnesota 5-1 and 4-0 over the weekend, and she acknowledged UMD was missing six top players when it lost twice at Minnesota. “Dartmouth is deep, big and physical,” said Coach Kay. “When the top teams their whole teams and are on their game, UMD is right up there. There’s so much parity in women’s hockey now, but from a physical standpoint, Dartmouth and Duluth both have the best size, especially up front. Harvard is another team in that class, and the Harvard-Duluth series should be a good one.”
That’s next weekend, also at the DECC, where the Bulldogs seemed to reach a higher plateau than anytime earlier in the season. On Saturday, Sikio’s two goals and one by Michelle McAteer all came on direct rushes, but on Sunday, only Kiipeli’s screened shot from the blue line came on anything other than determined treks to the goal.
“We got a lot of shots, but not too many when we went to the net yesterday,” said Rooth. “Today we wanted to go to the net.”
Rooth went to the net for an unassisted breakaway from the blue line in and started the Bulldogs on a 3-0 first-period run after only 19 seconds had elapsed. “It’s always good to get a goal right away, because I’ve been having a little ‘down’ period lately,” Rooth said. “For me, it doesn’t have to be a goal, just so I can start with something that works.”
Wrazidlo, a sophomore who helped lead the Duluth Dynamite to a state tournament two years ago, got her first goal of the season when she smacked the puck that seemed to take forever to flutter past goaltender Jen Huggon at 3:55. “I shot it, it hit the goalie and bounced up, and I hit it again out of the air,” Wrazidlo said. “It finally went in, about an hour later.”
Sikio banged in her first of the game from in front, on a power play at 17:04, moments before winding up sprawled to the left of the cage. Another power play had expired by only one second when Sikio scored at 11:55 of the second period. It was a remarkable goal, because Sikio broke hard for the net on the left side when Rooth spotted her. Stationed on the right boards, Rooth had to fire a hard pass to get it through the slot, and Sikio one-timed it, almost casually, into the open net for a 4-0 lead.
When Michelle Thornton scored what turned out to be UNH’s only goal on Tuula Puputti all weekend, on a power play at 13:24 of the middle period, Kiipeli countered at 14:13 to make it 5-1, and Wrazidlo scored again at 16:45. “Maria’s shot hit my leg and went in,” said Wrazidlo, unintentionally underscoring Coach Miller’s reason for wanting her players to go to the net.
Rooth also went to the net to score twice more in the third period, first shooting in her own second rebound after Brittny Ralph’s power-play blast had clanked off the right pipe at 10:00, then completing her hat trick by skating to the goal-mouth and flicking in a rebound with 15 seconds remaining.
Bulldogs survive wild last minute to subdue Bemidji State 5-3
The whole team played hard, every shift, and pulled its goaltender to score a dramatic tying goal, only to get burned for a late goal and a disheartening loss. Sound like a familiar scenario for the UMD men’s hockey team? Well, on Saturday night, it happened again — only this time it happened to somebody else, the Bemidji State Beavers, as UMD escaped with a 5-3 victory for a nonconference sweep at the DECC.
The game had settled into a pattern, after Tommy Nelson’s power-play goal opened the third period by putting UMD ahead 3-2. But instead of ending that way, it erupted in the final minute of play. With Bemidji State goaltender Grady Hunt on the bench for a sixth attacker, Ryan Bachmeier scored with 51 seconds remaining to tie the game 3-3. But as the Beavers (1-14) celebrated their chance at avoiding defeat, the Bulldogs were reinforcing their focus.
“When they tied it up, we knew we were still going to win,” said Judd Medak. “We talked about it, and we had the feeling we were going to go right back down and score.”
Sure enough, the Bulldogs (4-12) went right down the ice. “Nellie chipped it to me,” said Medak, “and I got it down to Carlie.”
Carlie is Mark Carlson, the defenseman converted to winger who has found a home on a line with Nelson and Medak. When Medak passed it to Carlson, he whirled and was behind the defense. He broke to the net and scored on Hunt with 40 seconds left — a mere 11 seconds after Bemidji State’s tying goal — and the Bulldogs, not the Beavers, celebrated.
“Last weekend against Wisconsin, I had the same kind of chance to win the game,” said Carlson. “But the puck bounced over my stick and I couldn’t handle it. This time, I had plenty of time. Judd saw me, and his eyes got big, he passed it down to me and I went in, waited for the goalie to move, and went low with the shot.”
With time running out, Bemidji State again pulled Hunt, and this time, Medak fired a 65-footer into the open net for the clinching goal. It was Medak’s second goal of the game and gave the line four goals out of UMD’s five, with Nate Anderson accounting for the other one — his 10th goal in the last 10 games after going 52 consecutive games over three seasons without a single goal.
The victory gave the Bulldogs the first sweep of Scott Sandelin’s coaching term, and doubled their victory total. “We won 7-2 last night, but tonight Bemidi played much better. They played harder and played a smart road game. It was good for us, because it was 2-2 and we had to find a way to win it in the third period.”
To say nothing of the final minute.
UMD’s victory spoiled an impressive game by Bemidji State defenseman Rico Fatticci, a sophomore from Hibbing, who jumped up into the offense and scored two goals. His first one came shorthanded in the first period to give Bemidji State a 1-0 lead. His second staked the Beavers to a 2-1 lead in the second session.
“They have 10 juniors and seniors, and we have two,” said Bemidji State coach R.H. (Bob) Peters, who hadn’t even counted up the fact that UMD’s juniors scored all five goals.
At the start, it appeared there might have been something of a carryover from Friday’s 7-2 victory, because it took the Bulldogs awhile to get rolling. Fatticci’s goal came on a simple enough play, as Daryl Bat got the puck and broke in 2-on-2 against UMD’s power play unit. For some reason, both UMD defenders moved to take Bat, and Fatticci was left unchallenged to close in on the right side and snap his shot past Adam Coole at 7:31.
The Bulldogs got untracked with a flurry of shots to end the first period, and while they didn’t score, it seemed to send them into the second period in a higher gear, and Medak scored the tying goal at 2:04. However, the Beavers kept battling, even though outshot 11-4 in the middle period, and Fatticci moved up the left boards from the point and scored with a wide-angle 40-footer at 6:46 to regain the lead at 2-1.
“There was just a small opening on the far side, and I went for it,” said Fatticci.
The Bulldogs tied it again before the second period ended, when Nate Anderson swiped the puck and rushed up the right side of a 2-on-1, waiting until Hunt anticipated a pass and then shooting from the circle for the 2-2 goal at 16:11. It took a penalty to Bat early in the third period to help UMD gain its first lead, with Nelson coming through after some constant pressure on the right side for a power-play goal that made it 3-2.
The last 16 minutes seemed to drone along with that 3-2 count appearing to be the inevitable finish. That, however, would have been the easy way, and nothing is easy for the Bulldogs this season.
Two mystery Badger goals wrench victory from UMD’s grasp
When UMD’s Bulldogs start stringing some hockey victories together — and witnesses to the large improvement over the first third of the season as assurance it’s “when” and not “if” — they may look back on the weird bounces that prevented earlier victories as harsh stepping stones to success.
If so, the cruel twists that turned a near-victory into Saturday night’s 4-3 overtime loss to Wisconsin will remain the harshest.
On Friday night, UMD (1-9) had led 1-0 and 2-1, then fell behind 5-2, but rallied furiously for goals by Mark Carlson and Nate Anderson nine seconds apart in the final 1:45, only to lose 5-4. That was nothing, compared to the end of the second game.
UMD also had 1-0 and 2-1 leads on Saturday night, and the ‘Dogs went one better when Nate Anderson, the red-hot junior winger from Deerwood, Minn., who had scored the first and last goals Friday, scored two more on Saturday. His second goal — ninth of the season — staked UMD to a 3-2 lead early in the third period. That inspired the Bulldogs to a strong third period, after they had taken vast stretches of the first two periods without so much as a shot, entrusting their fate to sophomore goaltender Rob Anderson.
Rob, who is from Superior, is no relation to Nate, but his role was even more prominent for UMD. Wisconsin had a 10-1 edge in shots midway through the first period, but couldn’t score on Rob Anderson. Goals by Alex Brooks and Dany Heatley offset Jon Francisco’s goal and left the teams 2-2 after two periods, but Francisco’s goal, at 16:33, was only the second UMD shot in the last 15 minutes of the second period. Heatley’s goal came 20 seconds later, but wasn’t much to show for a 21-4 Badger advantage in shots in the session.
But UMD made a spirited bid to hold that 3-2 lead through the third period, being outshot only 13-12, all of which made the finish that much more excruciating. Judd Medak was called for holding with 1:47 remaining, a call by referee Mike Schmitt that UMD coach Scott Sandelin found outrageous. “I don’t want to say anything about the officiating, but I’m allowed to disagree with a call, aren’t I?” asked Sandelin. “The puck was thrown into the corner, and Judd followed in and took his man. He called that a penalty, and I disagree, because I disagree with them being the difference in the game.”
Rob Anderson and the Bulldogs were doing a hectic but effective job of killing the penalty through the last minutes of regulation time, and Wisconsin coach Jeff Sauer pulled goalie Roland Melanson with a minute to go. Rob Anderson made a couple more big saves, and was all set when Heatley got the puck wide to the right, near the goal line. He really had no shot, and nobody was open for a pass, so Heatley shoveled the puck toward the crease.
“They always tell everybody to throw it on net, and everybody crashes, and something can happen,” said Heatley. “I didn’t think there was any chance of scoring from there. He [Rob Anderson] had made a lot of saves, but this one got caught between his skates. I saw it go in.”
Rob Anderson was asked by several people about being bombarded by Wisconsin’s game-total 51-23 shot advantage.
“I wouldn’t say bombarded,” Anderson said. “It’s fun, the more shots you get. My job is to stop the puck, and if I would have stopped one more, we’d have won.
“That was the flukiest goal ever, though,” he added. “I saw it all the way, and it was bouncing and bouncing. I went to grab it, but it hit my hand; I reached again, and it hit my stick. I had it, then I didn’t have it. I was down, so I squeezed my legs together. Somehow it got through.”
That gave the Badgers a despearation 3-3 tie, with only 32 seconds to play. Still, the Bulldogs had another chance, in the 5-minute sudden-death overtime. To start with, they also had a power play, because Matt Doman took a silly roughing penalty at the third-period buzzer. But the Bulldogs failed to muster even one shot on the two-minute power play, and the Badgers came back for one final flurry of shots.
Again, Anderson withstood five of them. In the final minute of overtime, the puck bounced out to Dan Boeser, a freshman defenseman from Savage, Minn., who played junior hockey in the USHL for Green Bay, when Rob Anderson was the Green Bay goaltender. Boeser, who had one goal through the first 17 Wisconsin game, moved in, held the puck alertly and stepped around a sliding defender, then closed in toward the left circle. Anderson came out of the net, straight for Boeser, to cut down the angle.
Boeser tried to shoot the puck past Anderson, and did so, although the puck appeared headed wide of the net. Suddenly, almost magically, the puck was fluttering into the upper right corner of the net, and Boeser was mobbed by his teammates as the Bulldogs sank to the ice in disbelief, 4:06 into overtime.
“I was out so far, he couldn’t possibly have hit the net from where he shot,” said Anderson. “I turned around and all I saw was the puck about elbow-high, heading down and into the net.”
Nate Anderson, one of two Bulldogs stationed off to the right of the net helping to defend, apparently was hit by the puck, and it glanced and floated into the mesh.
“I played with Dan at Green Bay,” said Anderson. “He was a forward then, but coach Mark Osiecki is known for moving guys to defense. I feel bad about how we lost, but if we had to lose, I feel good for him that he got the goal.”
However, Anderson was not exactly offering congratulations when Boeser stayed on the ice after the handshake line to talk briefly.
“He was asking me how it went in, because he didn’t know, either,” said Anderson.
About the Author
John Gilbert is a lifetime Minnesotan and career journalist, specializing in cars and sports during and since spending 30 years at the Minneapolis Tribune, now the Star Tribune. More recently, he has continued translating the high-tech world of autos and sharing his passionate insights as a freelance writer/photographer/broadcaster. A member of the prestigious North American Car and Truck of the Year jury since 1993. John can be heard Monday-Friday from 9-11am on 610 KDAL(www.kdal610.com) on the "John Gilbert Show," and writes a column in the Duluth Reader.
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