Bulldogs hang on to top Denver 4-3
Denver University coach George Gwozdecky called Minnesota-Duluth “the best last-place team I’ve seen.” And that was BEFORE the Bulldogs rose up to bite the Pioneers 4-3 before 3,798 fans at the Duluth Entertainment and Convention Center.
Afterwards, there could be no doubt. The Bulldogs led 2-0 early, saw the Pioneers rally to gain a 2-2 tie in the third period, but battled back themselves. Jeff Scissons set up the tie-breaking goal by Derek Derow and then Scissons scored himself for a 4-2 UMD cushion, which was entrusted to goaltender Brant Nicklin. He came through, his fourth breakaway chance in the final minute, amid 30 saves.
“They played well, and Nicklin played very well,” said Gwozdecky. “They took advantage of some of our breakdowns early in the game. But we had our chances. I can’t remember many games where we’ve had so many breakaways that we didn’t score on.”
The Pioneers (6-8-1) hadn’t won in Duluth since Dec. 3, 1933, but the Bulldogs (3-10-2), languishing in last place, have scored the fewest goals in the league, and hadn’t won a WCHA game in five tries at the DECC until Friday.
“That was a good hockey game,” said UMD coach Mike Sertich. “And that’s a pretty good hockey team Denver has. We moved the puck well, and we came up with some big goals when we needed them.”
Freshman defenseman Kent Sauer got UMD started when he moved in boldly from the point to put away a pass from behind the net by Ryan Homstol after only 2:19 had elapsed. “I got there just at the right time, and I didn’t aim, for once,” said Sauer, a 6-1, 225-pounder, who scored his first college goal to celebrate homecoming for his older brother, Craig Sauer, who is a linebacker with the Atlanta Falcons, who are in Minnesota to play the Vikings in the NFC title game on Sunday.
At 6:21, freshman center Tom Nelson stationed himself in the slot while Colin Anderson passed in from the right boards to Curtis Bois behind the net, and Nelson quickly deposited the relay from Bois to the lower left for a sudden 2-0 headstart. It was his first goal, too. “I feel relieved,” said Nelson, who is from across the bay in Superior, Wis., where he led his team to three consecutive Wisconsin state high school hockey titles. “We had some nice plays, and played well overall. And it’s a good thing Nicklin stood on his head.”
The Bulldogs kept the pressure on, generating a half-dozen other promising scoring chances that either misfired or were stopped by goaltender Stephen Wagner. But after 15 minutes of being dominated, Denver got its offense untracked.
Nicklin had stopped Mark Rycroft on a 3-on-2 rush midway through the period, and also saved a Kelly Popadynetz breakaway later in the period. It took the Pioneers fourth line to connect for a goal when Bryce Wallnutt fed out from behind the net and Joe Ritson scored while being checked at 15:52.
Denver had the edge in chances in the scoreless second period, as Rycroft couldn’t quite reach a late return feed from Paul Comrie on a 2-on-1, and Gavin Morgan zoomed in on two successive breakaways, only to be foiled by Nicklin. Jon Newman just missed on a power play when his shot from the left circle glanced up and away off the crossbar.
The Pioneers got the equalizer at 7:46 of the third period, with each team a man short. Comrie made use of the extra portion of room on the ice, carrying from the right boards across the slot, holding the puck patiently until he could use a defender as a screen and then drilling his shot into the lower right.
At that point, it looked a lot like a number of UMD games where the ‘Dogs played well enough to win, but found a way to lose. But Derow’s goal rejuvenated the ‘Dogs. And Scissons exchanged passes with Ryan Coole, 1-timing the return to score the ultimate winner.
Comrie waltzed in from the right to score his second goal with 1:44 remaining, but Nicklin and the Bulldogs managed to hang on. Of course, it took one more breakaway, when Bjorn Engstrom intercepted Mark Carlson’s pass and sailed in alone. Nicklin stood his ground, gave him nothing, and Engstrom’s shot missed the net.
“Everyone thinks I saved it,” said Nicklin. “I’ll take it.”
Denver University 1 0 2 — 3
Minnesota-Duluth 2 0 2 — 4
First Period: 1. UMD–Sauer 1 (Homstol, Derow) 2:19. 2. UMD–Nelson 1 (Bois, C. Anderson) 6:21. 3. DU–Ritson 2 (Wallnutt, Veres) 15:52. Penalties–Sauer, UMD (hooking) 2:28; Engstrom, DU (hooking) 10:48; Coole, UMD (hooking) 18:13.
Second Period: No scoring. Penalties–Kidd, DU (high-sticking) 6:01; Coole, UMD (roughing) and Ritson, DU (roughing) 9:41; Patterson, DU (roughing) 13:01; Coole, UMD (interference) 15:25; Rycroft, DU (roughing) 20:00.
Third Period: 4. DU–Comrie 11 (Rycroft, Kurulak) 7:46. 5. UMD–Derow 7 (Scissons, Coole) 12:00. 6. UMD–Scissons 12 (Coole, Bois) 16:33. 7. DU–Comrie 12 (Hacker, Morgan) 18:16. Penalties–Pogreba, UMD (holding) and Patterson, DU (roughing) 7:28; Pogreba, UMD (high-sticking) and Kurulak, DU (high-sticking) 15:19.
Saves: Wagner, DU 8 11 8–27; Nicklin, UMD 8 12 10–30 . Attendance–3,798. Referee: Mike Riley; assistant referees: Brett Klosowski, Marco Hunt.
Sioux stun Bulldogs 4-3 in final minute
In a season of cruel reversals and setbacks, this was the cruelest one of all.
The UMD Bulldogs played their best game of the season, and got a superlative 47-save performance from goaltender Brant Nicklin, but the North Dakota Fighting Sioux scored two goals in the final 25 seconds to steal a 4-3 victory from the stunned ‘Dogs Friday night at the DECC.
Maybe it shouldn’t have seemed surprising. The Sioux now have won seven straight games, they are now 10-0-1 on the road and 15-1-1 atop the WCHA, with a 20-2-1 overall record that is good for the No. 1 national ranking. The Bulldogs are now 3-14-2 in last place in the WCHA and 6-19-2 overall.
But with 4,822 fans at the DECC standing, stomping and cheering them on, the Bulldogs took a 3-2 lead after two periods on a pair of goals by Ryan Homstol and one by Derek Derow. Then they entrusted it to Nicklin, who seemed eager for the task, after making 15 first-period saves that bordered on larceny, yielding only Lee Goren’s power-play deflection — itself a cruel bounce off defenseman Mark Carlson’s stick. He made 12 more stops in the second period, with Jason Blake’s power-play goal the only Sioux score against the three UMD tallies.
And Nicklin was never better than in the third period, when he came up with 20 more saves as the Sioux outshot the Bulldogs 51-22 for the game. It was the last three that hurt the worst.
With 25 seconds left, and goalie Andy Kollar pulled for a sixth attacker, Jay Panzer scored from the left side. It was an amazing confrontation, because Nicklin was down in the crease, but Panzer didn’t shoot right away.
“That’s one of the best goaltending performances against us all year,” said North Dakota coach Dean Blais. “Panzer said he had stopped him so many times when he’d shot quickly, that if he got another chance, he was going to wait.”
As he waited, Nicklin went down. “I tripped and fell,” Nicklin said. “I realized if I tried to get up, he’d shoot, so I tried to time when he was going to shoot and go for it. I got a piece of it with my stick.”
The crowd, more boistrous than it has been all season, stopped in silence. But at least they had overtime to look forward to. Then the Sioux struck again.
With two seconds left, Jason Blake tried to stuff a wraparound at the right post, and it mostly got through. “I saw it, and it wasn’t all the way in,” said Nicklin. “I went down to smother it, but Calder beat me to it.”
The clock showed 1.4 seconds left, which meant the winning goal was scored officially at 19:58. That didn’t make it any easier.
“That was pretty gut-wrenching,” said UMD coach Mike Sertich. “That was the cruelest of all. We tried a lot of new things, and our guys executed everything exactly as I asked them to. And I’ve seen Brant have a lot of great games, but not like that; he was spectacular.”
Homstol, who scored at 0:14 of the second period on the rebound after Derow set up Jeff Scissons at the crease for a 1-1 tie, and added a power-play goal at 6:16 of the second period to forge a 2-2 tie after Scissons had set up Bert Gilling for a point-blank shot, spoke for the whole team in the subdued locker room.
“We played well,” Homstol said. “Brant stood on his head, and we got nothing for it.”
Gasparini, Bulldogs tie Sioux 2-2
Goaltender Tony Gasparini was the unlikely hero of UMD’s unlikely performance Saturday night, and the only thing more difficult than the challenge Gasparini faced was to realize it was a 2-2 tie Saturday night — not the victory that it seemed to be for the Bulldogs, nor the loss it seemed to be to the North Dakota Fighting Sioux.
Gasparini was thrown into the nets at 5:39 of the first period, after ace goalie Brant Nicklin sprained his left knee twisting on his second save of the game. Nicklin had been the hero Friday night, making 47 saves to almost beat the Sioux, but UMD the tying goal with 25 seconds left, and the game-winner with 1.4 seconds showing and fell 4-3 to the first-place, and No. 1 ranked Sioux.
It seemed impossible that the Bulldogs could revive themselves for another big effort after the crushing end to Friday night’s series opener, but they actually led 1-0 and 2-1 on goals by Ryan Homstol and Curtis Bois, and Gasparini made 17 of his 28 saves against a mounting third-period barrage to hold the Sioux to their lowest goal output of the season.
“I’m proud of these guys,” said Gasparini, the little-used senior netminder from, of all places, Grand Forks, N.D. “I didn’t have to make the saves Brant made last night. I hope Brant isn’t hurt bad, and gets better by next weekend. But it was fun to play against North Dakota…it was fun to play.”
Sioux coach Dean Blais was philosophical after his team’s record went to 15-1-2 atop the WCHA and 20-2-2 overall — compared to UMD’s 3-14-3 and 6-19-3.
“If we’d have won tonight, it might have sent a false message to our guys,” Blais said. “Give UMD credit. I thought they’d be a little down after the first game, but they played hard and executed well.
“Our guys are acting like they lost. But we’ve had six very emotional games in a row, two at Colorado College, two with the Gophers last weekend, and now these two. We’d have liked to have won, but we didn’t lose.”
Coach Mike Sertich revised some lines, inserting the rarely used Jeremy Zahn, and even more rarely used Ryan Nosan as fourth-line wings, and the ‘Dogs came out howling in their new ceremonial gold jerseys, but without the controversial Gopher-like block “M,” which has been removed and replaced by the lettering “Minnesota-Duluth” arching across the top and bottom, with a small number in between. There had been some criticism when the jerseys were unveiled, about the obvious similarity to the hated Gophers, and athletic director Bob Corran ordered the revision.
Gasparini came in and immediately made a couple of big saves, on Jay Panzer and Jesse Bull, and the Bulldogs rallied in front of him to gain a 1-0 lead on a goal by Homstol at 11:54. Homstol was at the left side when Derek Derow tried to barge out from behind the net. DerHe made it, but lost the puck in traffic, and Homstol slammed it past Karl Goehring.
The Sioux got a 1-1 tie at 18:19 when David Hoogsteen had a clean breakaway, but shot just wide to the right. That was no cause for the ‘Dog defense to relax, becaue in a flash, Tom Philion was on the puck in the right corner and passed to the slot, where Jeff Ulmer scored on Gasparini with a one-timer.
Gasparini stopped everything in the second period, but everything was a mere five shots as the Sioux missed the net with several good chances, and the Bulldogs came at them hard enough to keep them on defense. At 15:43 of the middle period, Shawn Pogreba prevented the puck from leaving the Sioux zone on the right side and whipped a quick pass back in, finding Curtis Bois alone on the left. Bois closed in on Goehring, and beat the WCHA’s top netminder with a short-side wrist shot that glanced in off the crossbar.
The 2-1 lead pumped renewed life into the fans, who may also have figured Friday’s performance would be hard to match. But the 2-1 lead stood until the third period, when, at 3:46, Gasparini made two big saves but was victimized when the Bulldogs failed to clear, and Jason Ulmer finally drilled a third try through a tangle of bodies and into the upper right.
The Sioux came hard after that, outshooting the Bulldogs 18-6 through the third period, but Gasparini was solid and the Bulldogs blocked shots and dived to clear loose pucks, drawing appreciative cheers from the crowd.
North Dakota 1 0 1 0 — 2
UMD 1 1 0 0 — 2
First Period: 1. UMD–Homstol 10 (Derow, Carlson) 11:54, Power Play. 1. ND–Jeff Ulmer 9 (Philion, Hoogsteen) 18:19. Penalties–Medak, UMD (holding) 5:53; Schneekloth, ND (interference) 10:44; Homstol, UMD (hooking) 19:02.
Second Period: 2. UMD–Bois 6 (Pogreba) 15:43. Penalties–Jeff Ulmer, ND (roughing) 10:34; Williamson, ND (hooking) 18:18.
Third Period: 2. ND–Jason Ulmer 5 (DeFauw, Armbrust) 3:46. Penalties–Reierson, UMD (holding) 6:03; Fibiger, UMD (slashing) 8:20.
Overtime: No scoring. Penalties–none.
Saves: ND–Goehring 9 9 6 4–28; UMD–Nicklin 3 x x–3; Gasparini 4 5 17 2 — 28. Power plays: ND 0-4, UMD 1-3. Referee: Mike Schmitt; assistant referees: Gregg Wohlers, Bill Vollbrecht. Attendance–5,247.
Bulldog resilience pays off against Sioux
Everybody in a UMD uniform had a hand in tying No. 1 ranked North Dakota 2-2 on Saturday night in the DECC. Most prominent in subduing the Fighting Sioux with the fewest goals in their 20-2-2 season was backup goaltender Tony Gasparini, who relieved ace Brant Nicklin at 5:39 of the first period, and made 28 saves — 17 of them in the third period.
Equally prominent were Ryan Homstol, who scored his third goal of the weekend to stake UMD to a 1-0 lead, and Curtis Bois, who scored for a 2-1 lead that ultimately held for the tie for the ‘Dogs. Bois, a senior winger, had all sorts of feelings tumble through his mind after the goal, and they described him and his team’s season.
It was a spectacular goal, coming at 15:43 of the second period, after Shawn Pogreba had stopped an outlet attempt and fed Bois at the left corner circle. Bois moved in, wide open, against Karl Goehring, the best goaltender in the league.
“As I moved in, I noticed that both top corners were open,” said Bois. “I looked low to the far side, made a little move that way, then shot high to the short side.”
The puck glanced off the crossbar, down and in. “It was a perfect shot, nothing I could do,” said Goehring.
It should have felt good, the way any goal feels to any proven goal-scorer. But it felt different.
“It felt funny,” Bois said. “It felt good, then I thought, ‘Wait a minute! I can’t feel this good about a goal that’s only my sixth goal of the season. I should have about 16, not six. It’s been a brutal way to end my college career.”
True, the way Bois snapped that shot in, it appeared he should have scored every game. But goals have been hard to come by for the ‘Dogs, and victories have been fewer. But the Bulldog attitude has been as tenacious as their nickname.
Only three times in 20 WCHA games have the 3-14-3 Bulldogs tasted victory, and yet, disappointment after excruciating disappointment, they keep coming back with amazing cameraderie and determination.
The most crushing of the 14 losses came on Friday night. You can’t lose in a more devastating fashion than when you lead by a goal until yielding a goal with 25 seconds remaining, then giving up the winner at 19:58 — actually, with 1.4 seconds showing.
It doesn’t matter that the opponent was No. 1 nationally ranked league-leader North Dakota. It had to be devastating, and the silence in the UMD locker room left the question about how the Bulldogs could possibly come back for Saturday night’s second game.
“I was really impressed,” said Goehring, the diminutive Sioux goaltender who once broke a lot of Duluth hearts when he backstopped Apple Valley to a four-o vertime state tournament victory over Duluth East with a record number of saves. “I thought they’d be pretty disheartened after last night, when they played so well and Nicklin had such a great game. But they came at us with a lot of fight.”
Sioux coach Dean Blais said: “Give ’em credit. I thought they’d be a little down afte rthe first game. We played pretty well, but give Duluth credit, they played hard and executed well.”
The remarkable resilience of these Bulldogs gave them only a token point as reward for playing well enough to win all four games against the powerful Sioux this season. It also drew a Friday night crowd of 4,822 and a Saturday turnout of 5,247 — best since the 5,286 who came out for the Wisconsin game during the home-opening series in November, back when hopes of a contending season were still high.
Homstol had scored for a 1-1 tie in the first period and a 2-2 tie in the second during Friday’s game, when Nicklin’s 47-save performance was the primary reason for UMD’s hope. When Nicklin twisted his knee on his second save Saturday, Gasparini, the little-used but obviously capable senior backup, went into the game eagerly.
Homstol smacked in a power-play goal for a 1-0 lead in the first period, but Jeff Ulmer tied it for the Sioux. Bois got his masterpiece at 15:43 of the second, and it’s possible that every soul among the 5,247 and a regional television audience, plus those on both benches, might have wondered just how the Bulldogs would find a way to lose this one.
After all, the Sioux had come from behind in four of their last five games with third-period charges. That includes three goals in the last six minutes at Colorado College two weeks ago, and overturning a 5-3 third-period deficit against Minnesota one week ago.
This time, the Bulldogs, who had turned up their intensity to aid their compatriot in the nets, were quite efficient in their own end except for one sequence of two botched clearing tries early in the third period. Sure enough, the Sioux capitalized, when Jason Ulmer knocked in a third rebound for the 2-2 tie.
However, the ‘Dogs refused to cave in, battling to survive as the Sioux outshot them 18-6 in the third period. But Gasparini blocked everything, and the ‘Dogs actually outshot the Sioux 4-2 in the scoreless overtime.
Typically, Gasparini tried to give the credit, rather than receive it.
“I’m proud of these guys,” said Gasparini, who is from Grand Forks, N.D., and works out with a lot of the current Sioux players in the sumertime. “I didn’t have to make the saves Brant made last night, but it was fun to play against North Dakota…it was fun to play.”
Blais saw his team lose for the first time after seven straight victories, but was philosophical. “If we’d have won tonight, it might have sent a false message to our guys,” Blais said. “Our guys are acting like they lost. We’d have liked to have won, but we didn’t lose.”
‘DOGS NOTES: The Bulldogs need a couple of victories, soon, to retain any hope of escaping from last place…Next up for UMD is a trip to Alaska-Anchorage this weekend, then a return to the DECC to face Michigan Tech. After that comes a weekend off, then the final home series against Minnesota, and the final season series at Colorado College.
Coach Mike Sertich revised some lines, inserting the rarely used Jeremy Zahn, and even more rarely used Ryan Nosan, as fourth-line wings…The ‘Dogs came out howling Saturday night in their new ceremonial gold jerseys, but without the controversial, Gopher-like, block “M,” which has been removed and replaced by the lettering “Minnesota-Duluth” arcing across the top and bottom, with their individual number in between. There had been some criticism when the jerseys were unveiled, about the obvious similarity to the hated Gophers, and athletic director Bob Corran ordered the revision.
Bulldogs finally win at home — and lose ground
The good news was that UMD’s hockey Bulldogs won their first home WCHA game of the season by beating Denver 4-3 on Friday, which made the split, after losing 4-2 on Saturday, seem a little easier to take.
The bad news was that despite the split, the ninth-place Bulldogs (3-11-2) lost ground to eighth-place Michigan Tech. The Huskies, victimized twice by the Bulldogs in a series at Houghton earlier, swept St. Cloud State for the second time this season. So not only is Tech no longer in eighth place, but now is battling with Denver, Alaska-Anchorage and Wisconsin for third place in the WCHA.
On the other hand, the silver lining there is that St. Cloud State is now only four points ahead of UMD, and is also the next Bulldog opponent in a home-and-home series this weekend, with the Friday game at the DECC. The flip side there, however, is that St. Cloud State swept a similar series from UMD earlier.
UMD was not helped Saturday when Derek Derow missed the game with a flu-like infection, and Tommy Nelson — who scored his first collegiate goal on Friday — left midway through the game Saturday with a possible concussion.
The Bulldogs didn’t help themselves in the third period Saturday, when the game was on the line, and Denver capitalized for two goals and the victory.
“As coaches, you can analyze things like this until you go insane,” said Sertich. “You can work on things to correct them on the ice, but when you make bad decisions, it’s tough. We got down 2-0, then came back to make it 2-2 going into the third period. At that point, it’s up to the players to decide the game. And they did.”
Denver’s Paul Comrie impressed everyone at the DECC with his strong weekend. He scored two goals Friday and set up two on Saturday, and he mesmerized the Bulldogs with his puck-handling.
After Comrie scored two goals in UMD’s 4-3 first-game victory, Sertich said: “I’d say he and Brian Swanson of Colorado College are the best two players in the league.”
On Saturday, Comrie’s line had three of the Denver goals. “Personally, I’d say Comrie is the best player in the league,” said UMD captain Bert Gilling. “I got a chance to play with him last summer, and I’ve got the utmost respect for him. He’s got speed, agility, great hands and great imagination. And he’s a competitor too; when he gets agitated, he just turns his game up a notch.”
With 3,991 fans at the DECC Saturday night, Comrie set up the first of two goals by Mark Rycroft to open the game, and he made a big play to set up James Patterson’s clinching goal, when it was 3-2 midway through the third period.
“I thought Comrie had a lot more support tonight,” said DU coach George Gwozdecky. “Rycroft and Patterson played much better tonight. Last night, Paul was all alone.”
As big a factor as their offense was, the Pioneer penalty killers shared the spotlight, because Denver was almost equally adept at taking penalties and killing them. But they shackled the Bulldogs to 1-for-9 on the power play while Denver was 0-for-2.
The first period was the reversal of Friday’s 4-3 UMD victory, when UMD took a quick 2-0 lead, only to have Denver cut it to 2-1 and later tie it 2-2. This time, it was the Pioneers who jumped off to a 2-0 lead, and the Bulldogs who cut it to 2-1 before the first period ended.
UMD goalie Brant Nicklin made 39 saves as Denver outshot the Bulldogs 43-29, but Nickli.n couldn’t hold off the Pioneers indefinitely. After 11:28 had elapsed in the first period, Rycroft scored at the crease when Joe Ritson and Comrie collaborated to lure Nicklin to the right side and isolate Rycroft.
DU defenseman Erik Adams fired a 30-footer past Nicklin for the 2-0 lead, but 52 seconds later, UMD got back in the game when Ryan Homstol picked off the puck and shot immediately into the short side on Stephen Wagner from the right.
That aroused the Bulldogs, who got a 2-2 tie at 4:25 of the second period when freshman defenseman Mark Carlson strolled in from the left point and shot through a screen of bodies on a UMD power play. UMD had a 2-man power play for a 1:23 span later in the middle period, but Wagner and the penalty killers avoided danger. “Right there, if we could have scored we could have changed the momentum,” said Sertich.
Instead, it stayed 2-2 until Rycroft broke the tie at 3:08 of the third period with his second goal of the night when he slipped behind the defense to the far blue line to catch a 100-foot pass, skate in on the left side and beat Nicklin low to the far side.
Comrie came up with his coup de gras play at 8:12. when UMD defenseman Jesse Fibiger got possession behind his own net, but as he whirled to escape, Comrie was coming from the other direction and swatted the puck right off his stickblade and onto the blade of Patterson, out front. The play happened so suddenly, that Nicklin was completely relaxed, unaware that Patterson had the puck. As Patterson teed it up, Nicklin tried to recover, but too late, and the senior from Wayne, Mich., had his 16th goal of the season.
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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