UMD women whip St. Cloud 7-3 to tie Gophers for WCHA lead
ST. CLOUD, MINN.—It’s risky business, playing down the homestretch and hoping some other teams in your league will offer a helping hand, but that’s the way the UMD women’s hockey team is forced to do it, and, after a shaky start, everything worked to perfection for the Bulldogs Friday night.
First, taking care of their own business, the Bulldogs survived a weird start and overran St. Cloud State 7-3 at the National Hockey Center, as Maria Rooth — sporting a new “Beyond Blond” hairdo — scored twice and assisted on two others, and Joanne Eustace had four assists. The victory extended UMD’s unbeaten streak to 15 games (13-0-2), but more importantly, it thrust the Bulldogs into a tie for first place with Minnesota — thanks to Ohio State’s 1-0 victory over the Gophers Friday in Columbus, Ohio.
“I didn’t hear them announce the score,” said UMD coach Shannon Miller. “I didn’t hear about it until after the game.”
The Bulldogs, who outshot the Huskies 55-28, are now 22-4-3, with a 14-4-3 record in the WCHA, which is worth 31 points. That’s the same number the Gophers (15-3-1) have, although Minnesota has two games in hand, facing Wisconsin next weekend while UMD is idle, before the two meet at the DECC in two weeks. But Friday’s Minnesota loss means that the regular season title could well be on the line for that final series.
Goaltender Tuula Puputti, who was shaky last weekend in 7-6 overtime and 7-5 victories over Ohio State, got off to a startlingly shaky start against St. Cloud, when Roxanne Stang, a hustling freshman from Princeton, Minn., dashed up the left side on the game’s first shift, slid the puck through Navada Russell’s feet and darted inside to beat her, regain control, and zoom in alone to score with a shot into the lower left at 0:22.
“We expected a good game from Tuula, especially after last weekend,” said Miller. “But it was actually good for us to start that way. For a long time, I’ve been telling our team I wanted them to go D-to-D with the puck, get to the red line and put it in deep into their end after the opening faceoff. So what happens? They decide not to listen. They went D-to-D but then they lost it, and they came in and scored.
“It gave me the chance to tell them how important it is to do what we planned, and I started a different defensive pair after that.”
It took six minutes before the Bulldogs got untracked, but when they did, they rolled. Hanne Sikio, who narrowly missed an early chance, scored by deflecting Satu Kiipeli’s point shot past goaltender Laura Gieselman at 6:21. Two minutes later, Michelle McAteer carried up the right side, cut to the slot, and fired a 45-footer past Gieselman for a 2-1 lead, and the Bulldogs were in front to stay.
Jenny Hempel scored a power-play goal from the right edge at 13:29, and when the Huskies drew another penalty, Brittny Ralph crossed the blue line and cut loose with a 50-foot slapshot at 14:28, and UMD led 4-1.
Still, there were still more lessons to be given. The UMD defense disappeared and left
Fiona McLeod, a transfer from UWS, all alone on the right side. She made a move, deked to her backhand, and scored at the right post at 15:48, drawing St. Cloud State closer at 4-2.
That was a lot of scoring for the first period, but the teams were scoreless in the second, although Erika Holst hit a post, and the Bulldogs forced Gieselman to make 20 saves in the middle session.
The third period was taken over by Maria Rooth, who scored two goals and assisted on one by Sanna Peura between them, before Amanda Mathison’s power play goal at 16:46 gave St. Cloud too little, too late.
Rooth and Holst, both from Sweden, showed up with their hair bleached stark white — Beyond Blonde — in a move that might wind up becoming a team trademark for this stretch run.
“We did it just for fun, but to show a commitment to hockey and to school,” said Rooth.
“We needed something new after the Ohio games,” said Holst. “I told Maria we had to do it right now. So we did it Tuesday. Everybody says Swedes are blond, so now we’ve proved it.”
Everybody also says Swedes are smooth with the puck, and Rooth put it on display. She had given the puck to McAteer on her first-period goal, but in the third period, Rooth carried up the middle, veered to the slot, and flipped a deadly accurate backhander from 35 feet that caught the upper left corner of the net at 3:39. On the next faceoff, Rooth came in and shot one off the right pipe. Rooth and Eustace collaborated to set up Peura’s goal at 9:01, making it 6-2, and 11 seconds later, Rooth went in deep, curled behind the net and scored on a wraparound.
It was Rooth’s 30th goal of the season, and she also has 27 assists for a team-leading 57 points. Hanna Sikio, who had only one goal and one assist, has 27-26–53. Sikio is from Finland, but she acknowledged that Finns, too, can bleach and spike their hair, if that’s what it takes.
Greyhounds whip Spartans 7-2, both teams ready for playoffs
Duluth East hockey coach Mike Randolph had reason to be in an “I told you so” mood, while Superior coach Erik Raygor hoped that his team’s third harsh lesson in a week was the perfect prescription to get the Spartans ready for Thursday’s Wisconsin high school sectional.
All of that came out of Tuesday night, when East’s rejuvenated Greyhounds hammered Superior 7-2 before a good crowd at Wessman Arena. The ‘Hounds wore white, and the Spartan their road blues because the game actually was East’s home game, but was scheduled for Wessman because of the boat show at the DECC.
“There’s not a team in the state of Wisconsin that can compete with Duluth East or Cloquet,” said Raygor, whose Spartans finish regular-season play 10-9 and now put on their home white jerseys as host to a sectional quarterfinal at Wessman Thursday. “Cloquet beat us 5-1 last week, and we beat Virginia 6-2, but we also lost to Two Harbors, so this East game means we’ve lost three of our last four. But we’re lucky we can play the Duluth-area teams, and it should help us in our sectional.”
For East, now 18-6, the game was convincing that last week’s 1-0 loss to Cloquet — which snapped an eight-game East winning streak — was only a bump in the long road, not cause for a detour. It also backed Randolph’s argument for his team to be seeded No. 1 in Section 7AA because of their rugged schedule, a debate he lost to Greenway, which was voted No. 1 by the section coaches.
Greenway’s claim had been that while East, Greenway, Cloquet and Hibbing all were 2-2 against each other, Greenway had beaten East head-to-head. However, while East was whipping Superior, Greenway was being blanked 2-0 by Cloquet at Coleraine. So now, of the top four, Cloquet is 3-2, East 2-2, Hibbing 2-2 and Greenway 2-3 in games against each other, but Greenway’s No. 1 seed stands, because the meeting was incomprehensibly held before such an important game.
That was old news by Tuesday, however, when more pressing news was how teams were playing. The ‘Hounds had bounced back to beat Alexandria 4-1 Saturday, with the second line of Tommy Kolar centering Bryan Olds and Nick Nelson scoring three of the four goals in that one.
That line, which has been East’s second unit since Randolph’s most recent revision a month ago, was even more prominent against Superior, with five goals and four assists among them. “Kolar played well and that line moved the puck,” said Randolph. “I thought all four of our lines played well, and our whole team did, other than a little stretch of penalties in the second period.”
Kyle Peterson staked Superior to an early 1-0 lead by pouncing on a careless and casual turnover in East’s zone to snap a quick shot in on the short side against Dan Hoehne. It took 10 minutes for East to counter, but a 14-3 shot advantage in the period — and 36-14 for the game — sprung three East goals late in the first period. Olds scored the first two goals 1:23 apart, and Weston Tardy’s blistering slapshot from the point made it 3-1 at the first intermission. Mike Stellmaker’s screened power-play goal opened the second and made it 4-1.
Kyle Peterson scored his second goal of the game for the Spartans at 5:58 of the second to close it to 4-2, but then Kolar and Nelson scored goals in a two-minute span, and Kolar scored again in the third period. That gave the Kolar line five goals out of the seven, and Kolar also made the great pass out of the left corner to isolate Tardy for his goal as he glided in from the right point.
The first line, with Luke Kuettel centering Nick Licari and Andy LeTourneau, was only on the ice for the Stellmaker goal, which came on a two-man power play, with Licari and Kuettel assisting. Kolar’s second goal also was on a two-man power play, as the Hounds scored four goals on the man-advantage.
“Our line has been playing well, and we’re getting some goals now, too,” said Nelson, who had two assists along with his goal. Kolar also had two assists.
Peterson was opportunist again in the second period, when Hoehne caught a high shot and froze, unaware that the puck had fallen at his feet. In the ensuing scramble, the puck went around the net and popped back out front, where Peterson knocked it in.
“When all 20 of our guys play together, and play our system, we can beat a lot of teams,” said Raygor. “We have to hope these games are good for us, but when the level of our competition goes down, sometimes our play goes down too.”
There’s no time left for that now, because any more such “lessons” will end the Spartan season.
Wild play near-flawless game to stifle Lemieux, Penguins 4-2
ST. PAUL, MINN.—Mario Lemieux has proven that he is bigger than the game itself, and his “Comeback Tour” of National Hockey League cities is filling arenas and reestablishing the Pittsburgh Penguins as serious Stanley Cup threats. But the Minnesota Wild played so nearly a perfect game to beat Pittsburgh 4-2 Sunday that they accomplished two remarkable feats.
First, they stole the show from Lemieux, by shutting him off without a point for only the second time in the 19 games since he started his his ballyhooed return after three seasons of retirement. Lemieux, an owner and CEO of the Penguins, has 17 goals and 18 assists for 35 points in that span.
Second, the Wild performance left often-critical coach Jacques Lemaire practically beside himself in reaching for superlatives for his own gang of expansionists.
“I told the coaching staff, I don’t know if I’ll see the day when we’ll play better in our end,” Lemieux said at his post-game press conference. “We played so well in our end it gave us the chance for some 2-on-1s.”
Mario Lemieux was not exactly ready for prime time, but then, Sunday’s 1 p.m. matinee wasn’t at prime time. It’s true his presence had made the game a focal point throughout the state of Minnesota, but Lemieux was so clearly hurting from his old, recurring back problem that he had to have someone tie his skates for him, and he skated stiffly and played sparingly, often taking 20-second shifts and heading for the bench long before linemates Jaromir Jagr and Kevin Stevens.
It would be easy to say that Lemieux helped lure 18,568 fans to Xcel Center, but the Wild has sold out every game anyhow. It also would be easy to say that Lemieux’s subpar performance helped the Wild win, but the Penguins with Jagr, Alexei Kovalev, Martin Straka, Robert Lang, etc., would still rank as heavy favorites over a typical expansion team.
But the Wild is anything but a typical expansion team. They have won seven of their last 10 games, coming home fresh from a 2-1 victory at Dallas — you remember the Dallas Stars? — and they simply didn’t allow the potent Penguins any chance of sustaining offensive pressure.
The Wild never trailed, taking a 1-0 lead on Jim Dowd’s goal early in the second period, making it 2-1 on Stacy Roest’s goal later in the second period, and going up 3-1 when Curtis Leschyshyn scored midway through the third, and clinching the victory when the Penguins had their best pressure of the game, a 6-on-4 closing assault, when Wes Walz zipped a 125-footer into the empty net.
Lang got both goals for the Pens, but all they did was gain a 1-1 tie and lift Pittsburgh within reach at 3-2.
Afterward, the usual media group asked Lemaire the usual questions, almost as if trying to get him to apologize for the Wild’s disciplined-but-patient defensive style. “What were you hoping to accomplish?” he was asked, and “What did you do to stop Jagr, Lemieux and Kovalev?”
Lemaire, whose team has achieved more than just respect by a 21-23-8 record, had a sly grin as he answered: “We hoped to accomplish what you see, and we did it by doing what you see.”
Then he offered a brief overview of his strategy, which has unwavered and obviously been embraced by every player on the Wild. “You can’t create as much as Jagr, Lemieux and Kovalev, and the rest, because they put up such great numbers,” Lemaire said. “If you try to, you pay the price. But if you play smart, and wait for opportunities to come, then you’ve got a chance. This has to be the fourth game where I said, ‘We can’t play better than this.’
“This was an important game for us, and for our fans. What impresses me is that the players we have are very intense. It is in their nature to be intense. They listen, and they work hard.”
The coach liked the finish so much he forgot about the beginning, when Roman Simicek was penalized for interference at 2:36 and Scott Pellerin followed for high-sticking at 3:32, leaving Pittsburgh’s high-potency offense with a 5-on-3 power play for over a minute. “I felt good till you brought that up,” said Lemaire. But, he as asked, doesn’t killing off such a disadvantage give you a lift?
“I’d rather get a lift from something else,” Lemaire said.
But the strict adherence to the defensive discipline was coupled with patience, and then a certainty to capitalize on opportunities. After the scoreless first period, when the Wild had a 12-6 edge in shots, Marian Gaborik swiped the puck near the left boards, rushed up the left, and passed across the goal-mouth, where Dowd one-timed it for his sixth goal and a 1-0 lead at 3:31.
Lang broke loose up the middle, on one of only two misplays Lemaire could recall his team making, and he beat Jamie McLennan with a deke to his left and a backhander at 10:57. Maybe the crowd then waited for an inevitable cave-in, such as he team suffered against New Jersey last month. Instead, Roest broke up the middle 2-on-1, passing early to Simicek on the left, then going to the net to again one-time the return pass two minutes after Lang’s tying goal, and the Wild led 2-1.
Lemieux, Jagr and Stevens came out with 1:31 left in the middle period, but when Jagr touched the puck offside for a whistle with 49.3 seconds left, the line went right off, and Lemieux walked directly to the dressing room to start resting early.
Wild defenseman Curtis Leschyshyn was penalized at 7:26 of the third period, but after an excellent penalty kill, Leschyshyn came out of the box and saw Antti Laaksonen with the puck, so he broke to the far blue line. Laaksonen’s pass was perfect, and Leschyshyn sailed in all alone and ripped his shot high to the right past goaltender J-Sebastien Aubin at 9:34 to make it 3-1.
When Lang used his backhand to chip Ian Moran’s rebound up and over McLennan to cut it to 3-2, there was still 4:16 to go, and the Penguins accelerated their attack through the closing minutes.
“Lemieux and Jagr are dangerous every single time on the ice,” said Pellerin. “Sometimes you get caught watching what they can do.”
And sometimes you simply play up to the level that Wild-watchers used to think was over-achieving, and you shut them down and win. Again.
Wild play near-flawless game to stifle Lemieux, Penguins 4-2
ST. PAUL, MINN.—Mario Lemieux has proven that he is bigger than the game itself, and his “Comeback Tour” of National Hockey League cities is filling arenas and reestablishing the Pittsburgh Penguins as serious Stanley Cup threats. But the Minnesota Wild played so nearly a perfect game to beat Pittsburgh 4-2 Sunday that they accomplished two remarkable feats.
First, they stole the show from Lemieux, by shutting him off without a point for only the second time in the 19 games since he started his his ballyhooed return after three seasons of retirement. Lemieux, an owner and CEO of the Penguins, has 17 goals and 18 assists for 35 points in that span.
Second, the Wild performance left often-critical coach Jacques Lemaire practically beside himself in reaching for superlatives for his own gang of expansionists.
“I told the coaching staff, I don’t know if I’ll see the day when we’ll play better in our end,” Lemieux said at his post-game press conference. “We played so well in our end it gave us the chance for some 2-on-1s.”
Mario Lemieux was not exactly ready for prime time, but then, Sunday’s 1 p.m. matinee wasn’t at prime time. It’s true his presence had made the game a focal point throughout the state of Minnesota, but Lemieux was so clearly hurting from his old, recurring back problem that he had to have someone tie his skates for him, and he skated stiffly and played sparingly, often taking 20-second shifts and heading for the bench long before linemates Jaromir Jagr and Kevin Stevens.
It would be easy to say that Lemieux helped lure 18,568 fans to Xcel Center, but the Wild has sold out every game anyhow. It also would be easy to say that Lemieux’s subpar performance helped the Wild win, but the Penguins with Jagr, Alexei Kovalev, Martin Straka, Robert Lang, etc., would still rank as heavy favorites over a typical expansion team.
But the Wild is anything but a typical expansion team. They have won seven of their last 10 games, coming home fresh from a 2-1 victory at Dallas — you remember the Dallas Stars? — and they simply didn’t allow the potent Penguins any chance of sustaining offensive pressure.
The Wild never trailed, taking a 1-0 lead on Jim Dowd’s goal early in the second period, making it 2-1 on Stacy Roest’s goal later in the second period, and going up 3-1 when Curtis Leschyshyn scored midway through the third, and clinching the victory when the Penguins had their best pressure of the game, a 6-on-4 closing assault, when Wes Walz zipped a 125-footer into the empty net.
Lang got both goals for the Pens, but all they did was gain a 1-1 tie and lift Pittsburgh within reach at 3-2.
Afterward, the usual media group asked Lemaire the usual questions, almost as if trying to get him to apologize for the Wild’s disciplined-but-patient defensive style. “What were you hoping to accomplish?” he was asked, and “What did you do to stop Jagr, Lemieux and Kovalev?”
Lemaire, whose team has achieved more than just respect by a 21-23-8 record, had a sly grin as he answered: “We hoped to accomplish what you see, and we did it by doing what you see.”
Then he offered a brief overview of his strategy, which has unwavered and obviously been embraced by every player on the Wild. “You can’t create as much as Jagr, Lemieux and Kovalev, and the rest, because they put up such great numbers,” Lemaire said. “If you try to, you pay the price. But if you play smart, and wait for opportunities to come, then you’ve got a chance. This has to be the fourth game where I said, ‘We can’t play better than this.’
“This was an important game for us, and for our fans. What impresses me is that the players we have are very intense. It is in their nature to be intense. They listen, and they work hard.”
The coach liked the finish so much he forgot about the beginning, when Roman Simicek was penalized for interference at 2:36 and Scott Pellerin followed for high-sticking at 3:32, leaving Pittsburgh’s high-potency offense with a 5-on-3 power play for over a minute. “I felt good till you brought that up,” said Lemaire. But, he as asked, doesn’t killing off such a disadvantage give you a lift?
“I’d rather get a lift from something else,” Lemaire said.
But the strict adherence to the defensive discipline was coupled with patience, and then a certainty to capitalize on opportunities. After the scoreless first period, when the Wild had a 12-6 edge in shots, Marian Gaborik swiped the puck near the left boards, rushed up the left, and passed across the goal-mouth, where Dowd one-timed it for his sixth goal and a 1-0 lead at 3:31.
Lang broke loose up the middle, on one of only two misplays Lemaire could recall his team making, and he beat Jamie McLennan with a deke to his left and a backhander at 10:57. Maybe the crowd then waited for an inevitable cave-in, such as he team suffered against New Jersey last month. Instead, Roest broke up the middle 2-on-1, passing early to Simicek on the left, then going to the net to again one-time the return pass two minutes after Lang’s tying goal, and the Wild led 2-1.
Lemieux, Jagr and Stevens came out with 1:31 left in the middle period, but when Jagr touched the puck offside for a whistle with 49.3 seconds left, the line went right off, and Lemieux walked directly to the dressing room to start resting early.
Wild defenseman Curtis Leschyshyn was penalized at 7:26 of the third period, but after an excellent penalty kill, Leschyshyn came out of the box and saw Antti Laaksonen with the puck, so he broke to the far blue line. Laaksonen’s pass was perfect, and Leschyshyn sailed in all alone and ripped his shot high to the right past goaltender J-Sebastien Aubin at 9:34 to make it 3-1.
When Lang used his backhand to chip Ian Moran’s rebound up and over McLennan to cut it to 3-2, there was still 4:16 to go, and the Penguins accelerated their attack through the closing minutes.
“Lemieux and Jagr are dangerous every single time on the ice,” said Pellerin. “Sometimes you get caught watching what they can do.”
And sometimes you simply play up to the level that Wild-watchers used to think was over-achieving, and you shut them down and win. Again.
Coole regains goaltending form to anchor UMD’s 1-1 tie at Tech
HOUGHTON, MICH.—Adam Coole needed to win a game in goal for the UMD Bulldogs, but more than that, he needed to play well — to get back that old, familiar feeling that nothing could go in, that nobody could beat him. He didn’t get the victory Saturday night, because the game with Michigan Tech wound up a 1-1 tie. But the freshman goaltender from Duluth East regained his old confidence, and his outstanding netminding was worth a point in the second game of their WCHA series.
“This might be all I needed,” said Coole, with relief, not boastfulness accenting his words. “I needed a big game, and the difference tonight was that I got a few bounces.”
Coole didn’t say much after losing 7-4 at Mankato, just as he hadn’t said much after losing 5-4 against St. Cloud State, but he knew he had played himself out of a chance to start either game against North Dakota last weekend. He had been pressing, since coming back from an injury, and he had appeared almost brittle in goal, certainly not like is usual self.
“I wasn’t playing well, but I also felt like I’d been cursed,” said Coole. “I never got a bounce, and I’d lost that feeling. After two periods tonight, I felt really good in the third period — that’s the feeling I always had, that got me to this level.”
The Huskies, buoyed by a vocal, Tech Towel-waving Winter Carnival crowd of 3,494 at John MacInnes Arena, outshot the Bulldogs 41-25, but had all they could do to offset Andy Reirson’s first-period UMD goal with a second-period marker by Brad Patterson. The Huskies skated and shot much the way they had done to establish a 41-30 advantage in Friday’s 3-2 Tech victory when Rob Anderson’s goaltending held UMD close.
This time, it was Coole, who came through with 40 saves, as Tech outshot the Bulldogs 30-12 after the first period, and his saves included the only two shots in a 5-minute sudden-death overtime.
“That’s the game that Adam needed,” said UMD coach Scott Sandelin. “He played really well, and this is really good for his confidence.”
The Huskies won the Carnival Cup for total goals, with a 4-3 edge in the two games, and the teams played with a forcefulness that seemed more than two teams in the lower reaches of the WCHA should be able to muster at this time of the season. Tech is now 5-14-2 in the WCHA, UMD is 2-18-2. Tech is 7-18-3 overall, UMD 5-22-3.
In the first period, the ‘Dogs outshot the Huskies 13-11, with 13 different Bulldogs getting a shot apiece. Coole got an early test, and came up with the save when Jarrett Weinberger, who scored three straight goals in Friday’s 3-2 Tech victory, got loose for a break-in.
He also came up with a big save on a breakaway by Jaron Doetzel with 30 seconds left in the second period, and he made a similar save when the always-dangerous Paul Cabana sailed in on a breakaway late in the third period.
“I stayed patient tonight,” said Coole, who was cool.
The Bulldogs gained a 1-0 lead when they got lucky halfway through their first power play opportunity. Reierson wound up and shot from the left point, and goaltender Brian Rogers was so well-screened that when the puck hit him, he didn’t react until UMD’s Junior Lessard raised his stick in celebration. Then he whirled and dived into the net to retrieve the puck that had already eluded him.
“He didn’t ever see the puck until it was in,” said Tech coach Mike Sertich.
The goal, at 7:40 of the first period, was the only tally until almost the exact same spot in the second period. At 7:36 of the middle period, Tab Lardner passed across the slot to Brad Patterson, who, despite being checked on the play, managed to get his 10-footer off and put the puck in off the left post.
The rest of the second period was back to close-fought, tight-checking hockey, with neither team yielding many good scoring chances. The Huskies pretty much pinned the Bulldogs into their end through the second period, outshooting the ‘Dogs 15-3, but UMD never lost its poise, and responded with more force in the third period, although that, too, was scoreless.
Referee Mike Riley let the players battle it out through the third period. He called penalties on three occasions, and gave both sides offsetting penalties each time. For the three periods, Tech outshot UMD 39-25, and Tech had what probably was the most promising opportunity in the third, but Coole came up with a huge save on the always dangerous Paul Cabana, forcing overtime.
In the five-minute extra session, Riley called one penalty, an extremely unpopular one on Tech’s Matt Ulwelling, for running into Coole, after Coole had covered the puck and gotten a whistle. But only 38 seconds remained, and the Bulldogs were unable to penetrate Tech’s rugged defense. In fact, the ‘Dogs failed to get a shot in the overtime, while Coole stopped two Tech tries.
“I thought we played better tonight than we did in the first game,” said Sertich. “Coole was sharp, and I thought they got great goaltending all weekend. We had a lot of shots, and a lot of quality shots.”
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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