UMD rallies (again) but comes up short (again), as Huskies sweep
St. Cloud State goaltender Scott Meyer sat motionless in the crease with his back up against the right post and his helmet and facemask removed. He resembled a shipwreck survivor who had been desperately swimming until he found a tiny island, a reasonable parallel to how vigorously he had to work Saturday night’s game at the DECC.
In fact, the entire UMD men’s hockey season was put on display in microscopic detail during the final minute and a half of that 5-4 loss to St. Cloud State. The Huskies 6-3, 5-4 sweep catapulted them to within one point of WCHA leader North Dakota, while UMD was left with a 1-12-1 WCHA record, 4-16-2 overall. The monotony of another explanation about how the team worked like ‘Dogs, and was so close-but-not-quite to winning, was unnecessary because it was all laid bare, for 4,324 fans at the DECC and a rare, regional television audience.
“That was the most determined barrage I’ve faced all year,” said Meyer, the league’s best goaltender with a 1.88 goals-against mark and over 93 percent saves.
Tommy Nelson, a junior center from Superior, had opened the game by holding off defenseman Duvie Westcott with one arm while rushing to the net and scooping a one-handed shot into the far side, scored another flashy goal with 3:40 remaining to lift UMD to within striking distance at 5-4.
With 1:30 showing, Westcott was called for holding, which was not unlike an expired-parking-meter ticket being issued during a civil war, based on the tough, physical intensity of the series. UMD coach Scott Sandelin called time out right then and pulled freshman goaltender Adam Coole, who had battled without much luck as the Huskies rallied from 2-0 and 3-1 deficits with four straight goals.
That gave UMD a 6-on-4 advantage, while the Huskies had Meyer. The Bulldogs threw everything at the net in their most intense closing rally of the season, as Nelson, Judd Medak, Nate Anderson, Mark Carlson, Junior Lessard, and defenseman Andy Reierson stormed the net.
“Carlie, Judd, Junior — we all had shots at it,” said Nelson, whose two goals give him 11 for the season.
Meyer dived, sprawled, scrambled, and engaged in some hand-to-hand combat while making six or eight stops of the elusive puck, which ping-ponged through amazing congestion at the crease. When Meyer finally covered it long enough for a whistle, he paused to do his shipwreck routine, then survived the final seconds.
“I was just praying we could get a handle on the puck,” said Meyer, a little-used back-up from White Bear Lake his first two years, who thrived once pressed into duty last season and has risen to the WCHA’s elite status as a senior. “We really didn’t have much chance to clear the puck, but if we’d ever cleared it, it would have eliminated a lot of stress. Here’s the last-place team in the league, and they come within one goal of us, after playing us tough in the first game, too. It shows you how tough this league is.”
The Huskies rose to 10-4, while the Bulldogs had to settle for a fantastic effort to make up for a couple lapses, and another unwelcome moral victory.
“It’s been that kind of year,” said Adam Coole. “But we WILL come out of it. There’s way too much pride in this dressing room for us not to come out of it.”
The ‘Dogs overcame the habit of falling behind habitually, scoring first in both games. On Saturday, they led 2-0 after one period on Nelson’s goal and Reierson’s two-man power-play blast, and Drew Otten rammed in Craig Pierce’s rebound in the second period to give the Bulldogs a 3-2 lead. St. Cloud’s Westcott and Ryan Malone both scored second-period goals, and Mark Hartigan, Tyler Arnason and Brandon Sampair scored consecutively for the Huskies in the third period against the luckless Coole. UMD outshot the Huskies 33-29 — one shot shy of being the most shots Meyer had faced all season.
But if the weekend had a furious finish, it had a weird start. The record shows Mark Gunderson’s opening goal in Friday’s game being answered by unanswered goals by the Huskies Brian Gaffaney, Malone, Hartigan and Mike Walsh. UMD rallied for third-period goals by Lessard and Jon Francisco, amid two more St. Cloud goals by Arnason and Jon Cullen, and a strong performance by goalie Rob Anderson was undone by some weird bounces off blocked shots. UMD was outshot only 38-36 and both teams had three power-play goals.
However, the weird part was that UMD might also have taken a 2-0 lead in the Friday game, but an apparent goal by Medak was disallowed for the net being dislodged by referee Bill Mason. The WCHA goal judge hadn’t shown up, so Glen Andresen — a UMD student who helps with statistics in the press box — was dispatched to the goal-judge’s booth at the start of the game. Almost immediately, Craig Smith, a more experienced goal judge, was asked to go down and replace Andresen, but while Smith was on his way, the questionable goal was scored at 4:00 of the first period.
“I shot the puck in and it hit the back base of the net and came right back out,” said Medak. But Mason collaborated with Andresen between plexiglass panes at the Zamboni entrance, and as he turned and signaled for a faceoff in the corner, Smith walked up and tapped Andresen on the shoulder and relieved him. The 3,712 fans witnessed the WCHA’s first change-on-the-fly of goal judges, prompting Sandelin to smile and shake his head.
“We can’t even get a ‘homer’ call from a UMD student,” he joked.
Meyer makes his No. 1 stand up as Huskies beat Bulldogs 6-3
Scott Meyer came out of the dressing room wearing a sweatshirt that said: “St. Cloud” with “No. 1” under it. That makes sense, since the Huskies senior wears No. 1 on his uniform, but it also works figuratively, because Meyer is the best goaltender in the WCHA right now, and he proved it Friday night by anchoring the Huskies’ 6-3 victory over UMD in the series opener at the DECC.
The senior from White Bear Lake proved himself with a solid junior year, although he said, “I was just happy to be playing, last year, but after that, I had to reevaluate.”
Things have changed. Now there is some pressure, although it is mostly self-imposed. “I’m kind of a perfectionist, and I was not happy giving up three goals tonight,” he said.
Meyer made 33 saves — one short of the most he’s had to make this season — and yielded only three power-play goals, by Mark Gunderson in the first period and by Junior Lessard and Jon Francisco in the third. At the other end, UMD sophomore Rob Anderson was almost as tough, facing more severe tests early. He, too, gave up three power-play goals — two in the second period when Ryan Malone and Mark Hartigan connected to boost the Huskies to a 3-1 lead.
“Meyer has been playing very well all year,” said coach Craig Dahl, whose Huskies now are 9-4 in their quest for second place in the WCHA and 14-4-1 overall. “He’s been the best in the league, this year, so far. But I thought Duluth played very hard, and Anderson was very good, too.”
While the recent play of Meyer, who leads the league with a 1.81 goals-against average while making 93 percent saves, and Anderson, who has often been spectacular, created the anticipation of a goaltending duel, it didn’t figure to be a battle of power plays, since UMD was at 18.4 percent and the Huskies came in at 17.9.
“I was pretty excited when we got three power-play goals, but they did too,” said UMD coach Scott Sandelin, whose Bulldogs drifted deeper into the WCHA cellar at 1-11-1, and 4-15-2 overall, going into the Saturday night rematch.
Gunderson staked UMD to a 1-0 lead with a screened slapshot from the right point at 2:03 of the first period. A pivotal turn in the game came at 4:00, when Judd Medak went to the right edge of the crease and chopped away at a rebound that came loose. He raised his arms, signalling he had scored, but referee Bill Mason waved it off, then he consulted with the goal judge.
Amazingly, the goal judge was not really the goal judge, who hadn’t shown up, but was Glen Andresen, a UMD student who helps out with statistics in the press box normally. He was dispatched to start the game as goal judge, then UMD officials found Craig Smith, who has done some goal-judging, and sent him downstairs to relieve Andresen. As he was on his way, the questionable play occurred. “I shot it in off the back of the net,” said Medak, disgustedly.
Mason and Andresen concurred, however, that the net had become dislodged before the puck crossed the line. As Mason communicated with Andresen through the seam in the glass at the Zamboni door, Smith showed up, tapped Andresen on the shoulder, and took over — possibly the first time in WCHA history that the goal judges changed on the fly.
“That’s the way things are going for us,” joked Sandelin. “We can’t even get a homer call from a UMD student.”
A 2-0 lead would have been huge, but instead, Brian Gaffaney moved in from left point at the other end and stroked a screened 45-footer past Anderson for a 1-1 tie at 5:26. St. Cloud outshot UMD 14-4 in the first period, making Anderson the star, but UMD came back to outshoot the Huskies 17-10 in the second period, and Meyer stood tall in blocking all of the Bulldog tries.
Meanwhile, Jon Cullen carried up the right side of a power-play 2-on-1 and sent a hard pass across the crease. Anderson whirled and dived, but too late to stop Malone, who one-timed the puck in behind him at 7:17. Meyer robbed Medak on a seemingly wide open net with a rebound, then the Huskies made it 3-1 when Hartigan cruised up the slot from the right point and quickly dispatched a pass out from behind the net by Nate DiCasmirro at 18:45.
The third period opened and the Huskies got a 2-on-1. Anderson correctly anticipated a pass and dived out to deflect it, but a defenseman blocked it first, and it went right onto Mike Walsh’s stick for an open-net stroke of good fortune and a 4-1 lead. Still, the Bulldogs never wilted. Lessard rushed up the right side on another UMD power play and when Meyer gave him an inch too much, the freshman winger snapped a deadly wrist shot into the upper right corner at 9:53 to cut it to 4-2.
The crushing goals for St. Cloud followed, as Tyler Arnason scored a power-play goal at 10:49, and Cullen scored shorthanded at 11:34, when Anderson stopped Malone’s rush but was helpless on Cullen’s wide-open rebound shot from the left.
Before that power play could go in the book as luckless, Jon Francisco scored from the left point at 11:52. That completed a wild and crazy stretch of two minutes where both teams scored twice, and closed the deficit to 6-3. But it stayed there as the teams spent the final six minutes being abrasive enough to incur eight penalties, four apiece, and half of them at the final buzzer.
“They battled hard,” said Malone. “But obviously, we’ve got to win to stay in the hunt.”
UMD ties Colgate at Silverado Shootout
UMD skated to a spirited 2-2 tie against Colgate Friday night, bringing a bittersweet ending to the third Silverado Shootout at the DECC. The Bulldogs played one complete near-flawless game in their own tournament, but the trouble was, the first period came against Colgate, while the impressive second and third periods came in Thursday’s 4-2 loss to Merrimack.
“If we could put the first period tonight with the second and third periods from the first game, we’d have it,” said UMD coach Scott Sandelin, whose Bulldogs are now 4-14-2 for the season, and Colgate 3-11-3.
As for the tournament championship, Western Michigan left no doubt in Friday’s opening game, blowing out Merrimack 8-1 behind a 44-30 shot barrage, two goals from Mike Jarmuth and one apiece from six other Broncos. Western Michigan (14-3-2) is the No. 7 nationally ranked team, and methodically dismantled Merrimack with goals by Jarmuth, Mike Bishai and Jeff Campbell in the first period, and by Jarmuth, Paul Davies and Brent Rumble in the second for a 6-0 cushion.
Jarmuth’s second goal, at 7:47 of the second, was followed just 36 seconds later by Davies, who zoomed in on a breakaway and fired his shot in over goalie Joe Exter, who left the game for Tom Welby’s relief at that point.
Merrimack, which had gone over .500 by beating UMD 4-2 with an empty-net goal Thursday, fell back to 10-10-1 with the thumping by the Broncos.
Anthony Aquino, who scored twice against UMD, got the Warriors goal to open the third period, but Mark Wilkinson – son of former Western coach Bill Wilkinson – countered with a goal for Western and Chad Kline completed the rout.
“For sure, we got our legs back today, and we’ve got a lot of guys who can put the puck in the net,” said Bishai, the nation’s scoring leader with 12 goals and 30 assists for 42 points.
A ticket count of 3,077 was announced, although the afternoon crowd far less than that, while 3,372 showed up for UMD’s night game. They saw the Bulldogs – who had fallen behind 2-0 early in the Thursday game with Merrimack before rallying to close to 3-2 before the open-net ending -switch tactics. After being lectured by Sandelin on the merits of starting off with a little intensity, the ‘Dogs stormed out of the chute, outshooting Colgate 14-7 and taking a 2-0 first-period lead on goals by Nate Anderson and Matt Mathias.
The goals were both pivotal. Defenseman Beau Geisler, who played an exceptional game, whistled a slapshot from the right point that beat goaltender Jason Lefevre and found the net, but Geisler insisted Nate Anderson deflected it.
Where did it hit Nate? “Beau said it hit the shaft of my stick,” said Anderson, who accepted his 11th goal of the season. “Actually, I know it hit my foot, but it might have hit my stick after that, because my stick was right by my skate.”
Whatever, the goal at 9:02 was a just reward. But it was nothing compared to the relief the second goal brought to Matt Mathias. The sophomore from Duluth East transferred to UMD from Alaska-Anchorage a year ago, and sat out the entire year, practicing only, to become eligible. He has played, more and more in recent weeks, but he hadn’t scored for the Bulldogs until last night, when Mark Gunderson’s right-corner faceoff popped right to him in the slot, and he fired it into the net without hesitation at 15:34.
“Gundy won the faceoff and the puck came right to me,” said Mathias.
“I one-timed it, just before I got knocked down. So I never saw it, but everybody was cheering, so I figured it must have gone in.
“This was my first goal since, let’s see, something like January 20, 1999, when I was at Alaska and we played Wisconsin. It’s been a long process, getting this goal, and you try not to think about it, but you find yourself thinking about it when you’re sleeping, when you’re at practice, or when you are home at night.”
The highlights were mostly confined to the first period for the Bulldogs, as Mathias nearly scored again. Colgate coach Don Vaughan said: “They came out strong and took it to us early on. We made a good comeback and worked hard.
All four teams here had a layoff, but our last game was Dec. 9th. We’d found ourselves behind quite a bit, and it takes its toll, but we have to look at this as a positive – we were down two goals and came back to get the tie.”
The Red Raiders broke Rob Anderson’s goaltending at 10:15 of the second period, when Chad MacDonald shot from long range on the left side, and the puck caromed out on the right. Nolan was closing fast, and when Anderson realized he was coming in all alone, he dived across the crease, but Nolan lifted his shot over him for the goal.
Still, the Bulldogs seemed in proper command of the game at 2-1, until 7:25 of the third. It was a goal for the two Minnesotans on the Red Raiders club, as Pat Varecka, a 6-3 sophomore from the Twin Cities suburb of Plymouth carried out from deep in the left corner and tried to jam the puck in. The puck hit a defender’s skate and Sam Sturgis, a senior and former Blake star from Minnetonka, smacked it through for the equalizer.
The teams battled the rest of the way exchanging penalties and hard hits, but no more goals, including a 5-minute sudden death overtime. The shots, also, wound up even at 28-apiece, but that meant Colgate outshot the ‘Dogs 21-14 after the first period, after UMD’s shots-by-period went from 14 to 8 to 4 and then 2 in the overtime.
“Maybe someday I’ll figure it out,” said Sandelin. “I mean, winning. The first period we played good, then they seemed hungrier to win than we did. The effort wasn’t close to what it was in the second and third periods against Merrimack. We’re 4-14, not 14-4. We can’t afford that.”
Bulldogs fall 4-2 to Merrimack, face Colgate in tourney finale
The only problem with having the two Western teams swap partners with the two Eastern teams in the Silverado Shootout, is there isn’t a guaranteed championship game. As it turned out, Merrimack and Western Michigan took care of that, by both winning Thursday to set up their match today as the unofficial title game.
Merrimack started fast, taking a 2-0 lead, and holding off rallying UMD for a 4-2 victory that was only secured when Joyn Pyliotis scored into an empty net with 31 seconds left. With all teams rusty from holiday break, Merrimack got its act together first, and held off the Bulldogs behind two goals by Anthony Aquino and the 34-save goaltending of Joe Exter, as the Warriors from Hockey East climbed over 10-9-1 with the victory.
Western Michigan, from the CCHA, is 13-3-2 after beating Colgate of the ECAC in yesterday’s 2-0 opening game. Mike Bishai scored a first-period power-play goal and Jeff Campbell clinched it with a goal at 14:39 of the third period for Western, as Jeff Reynaert got the shutout. Attendance at the DECC was announced at 3,266, after being listed as 3,049 for the first game. Merrimack plays Western Michigan at 4 p.m. today, then Colgate (3-11-2) faces UMD (4-14-1) in tonight’s 7 o’clock finale,
UMD coach Scott Sandelin was less concerned about a championship game than getting his charges to get off the mark quicker, and play consistently. “We’re not good enough to play 40 minutes and win,” Sandelin said. “I was disappointed in the first period, because they outplayed us, outworked us, and outhustled us. I was happy with the last two, though, because we came back and played well in the second and third periods.”
“I’m not sure we deserved to win the game,” said Merrimack coach Chris Serino, who warned reporters he was candid. “We played pretty well early, but UMD came back after us. Sometimes I think the worst thing in the world is for us to get a 2-0 lead, because then we start thinking we’re pretty good.”
It was not to be a night for highlight-film quality goals, but rather a lesson in the fact that all goals count equally. Freshman Adam Coole started in goal for the Bulldogs, and did not benefit from the two-week-off rustiness of either his teammates or himself. Nick Parillo staked Merrimack to a 1-0 lead after 3:25 of the first period had elapsed, and it came on an off-speed backhander from 15 feet that fluttered into the upper right corner of the net.
At 11:08, Aquino scored from in front to make it 2-0. “Stephen Moon had the puck, so I tried to get in front, just in case,” Aquino said. “The puck came to me, and I saw the goalie was cheating just a little to my right, so I turned and fired a backhand.”
The Bulldogs got on the board five minutes later, when Jon Francisco motored around the right side of the defense, cut back to the slot, and scored, also with a high backhander.
Outshot 15-9 in the opening period, the ‘Dogs came back stronger in the second period, but neither team could score. Judd Medak came close, but wound up dumped over goaltender Joe Exter by Merrimack defenseman Stephen Moon.
The Warriors didn’t have any major threats, but stirred up a hassle when Vincent Clevenger skated in about five seconds after Coole had dropped on the puck and earned a whistle. He skated at him hard, then stopped abruptly, rudely spraying the kneeling goaltender with ice chips. Such a show of disrespect caused a predictable response, and the Bulldogs pursued Clevenger into the corner, where a lively 5-on-5 tussle ensued. UMD’s Francisco was issued a double minor, Craig Pierce a triple minor, and Merrimack’s Ron Mongeau and Jeff State double minors each — meaning that the Bulldogs wound up shorthanded, and, naturally, Clevenger, who started the mess, escaped without a penalty.
Nick Parillo was penalized for unsportsmanlike conduct at the end of the second period, giving UMD a carryover power play, but the Warriors stung the Bulldogs when Aquino scored a weird shorthanded goal, rushing up wide to the right and flipping the puck from there. Coole went down, thought he had the puck covered, but it dribbled through and crossed the line at 1:26.
“I was just about to the goal line, and I just threw the puck at the goal, hoping something good would happen,” said Aquino. “I went around behind the net, and saw the puck was in, and thought, ‘Good.’ ”
That was not quite the thought that crossed the Bulldogs’ minds, although they responded to the 3-1 deficit with a strong period. Another apparent Merrimack goal was scored when Lou Eyster skated toward the net and a rebounding puck hit him on the right shoulder and wound up behind Coole. After a collaboration by the officials, referee John Seidel disallowed it.
“When he came over to the bench, the ref said the puck was knocked it in by hand,” said Serino. “He said he saw it clearly himself, so he asked his assistant and he saw it too, so he asked the goal judge, and he saw it too. I asked him, if he saw it clearly, why did he have to ask anyone else? And why did he signal goal at first?”
That set the stage for Derek Derow to score at 5:17, closing the gap to 3-2. Derow was at the left of the crease when Beau Geisler fired a low, hard shot. Exter blocked it, and the rebound popped up, and when Derow hit it, it looked like a changeup from a knuckleballer, and it floated up, over Exter, and into the right edge of the net.
“I hit the rebound on the bounce,” said Derow, who had to hesitate before signalling his own goal, even though he was sure it was going in.
Greyhounds’ new line, early lead ignite 5-2 victory over Edina
EDINA, MINN.—Sequestered away at a western suburban motel for the three days of the 20th annual Edina Holiday Classic boys hockey tournament, the Duluth East Greyhounds had some time on their hands. Time for a meeting with coach Mike Randolph, at which he suggested the various positives of taking an early lead in games.
Just like that, the Greyhounds jumped ahead of Edina with two goals in the first 4:13 Wednesday night and went on to whip the Hornets 5-2 in the second day of the round-robin event. The Hounds lost 4-2 to Bloomington Jefferson in the first game, their third loss of the season and third time they had fallen behind — that time 3-0 in the first period.
East’s response showed what happens when the Hounds score first, as they’ve done in most of their seven victories, and their intention was to duplicate the plan in Thursday’s game against Hill-Murray, which lost 5-2 to Edina and 4-2 to Jefferson at the tournament.
Randolph was all smiles after the game, as he tried another line experiment and it worked well. This time, he was hoping to get more consistent contributions from the talents of Tommy Kolar and Andy LeTourneau, so he put them together on a line with Eric Johnson. Kolar scored twice and had an assist, LeTourneau scored one and assisted on two others, and Johnson had a goal and an assist, giving the line four goals.
That included the fast start, when LeTourneau forechecked for the puck on the end boards and fed out front for Kolar’s goal after only 1:37 had elapsed. Next turn on the ice, Kolar carried up the left 2-on-1 and fed across the slot, where LeTourneau whistled a shot from the right circle past goaltender Chris Kapsen and just under the crossbar for a 2-0 lead — a power-play goal at 4:13.
Despite the obvious flow of Edina trying to pound the more skilled Greyhounds (7-3), the Hounds were issued 10 penalties to Edina’s three. That equated to Edina going 2-9 and East 2-2 on power plays. East got most of the goals, and also most of the welts from the bruising pace, while Edina enjoyed eight of the last nine power plays in the game, which accounted for the Hornets outshooting East 44-38. But Dan Hoehne was outstanding in goal, with 42 saves, and he and the Hound penalty killers came up big under heavy pressure.
Hoehne stopped the Hornets until after Nick Licari’s pass out set up Luke Kuettel for a 3-0 lead, 4:23 into the second period. Edina (5-4-1) gained some momentum by getting the only two power plays of the second period, and Adam Becker deflected in a Zach Potter shot from the right circle on the second one.
Eric Johnson’s goal came on a sizzling wrist shot from the right circle into the far side of the net at 1:55 of the third period, and made East 2-for-2 on the power play. Kolar got his second at 7:14, after a strong line rush, and a goal-charging second effort by Kolar.
But with 12:46 left in the third 20-minute period, East was given four consecutive penalties. Freshman Zach Fitzgerald was whistled for a blow and, when one official called his infraction cross-checking and the other slashing, the two talked it over and Fitzgerald was given a double minor, for both. Hoehne and his Hornets held firm and killed off the entire four minutes, but when Kuettel went off for elbowing at 15:03, Edina’s Steve Eastman scored at 16:20.
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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