As good a coach as St. Cloud State Bob Motzko is, you won’t see him lay into his team unless they don’t show the effort that he expects.
Unfortunately, that was the case Friday night for the Huskies, and No. 6 Minnesota-Duluth made them pay dearly with a third period rally.
Jared Thomas and Derik Johnson scored early in the third to give UMD its first lead, and tight defense and late timely offense stymied SCSU as the Bulldogs rallied to beat the Huskies 4-2 Friday night at AMSOIL Arena.
“We were bad from start to finish,” Motzko said. “That may have been our worst game of the year.
“I don’t say this too often; that was a bad, bad hockey performance by our team tonight.”
Justin Crandall and Adam Krause also scored for Minnesota-Duluth, which snapped a three-game losing streak to St. Cloud State at home with a nice, balanced offensive attack and great defense.
“I liked all of our lines tonight,” said Minnesota-Duluth coach Scott Sandelin, as his Bulldogs won their fourth straight game. “I thought everyone contributed. That’s what we need to be a good team.”
“We stuck to our game plan really well,” added UMD defenseman Andy Welinski. “We didn’t play great the first two periods, but we were consistent with getting pucks in and out and staying on top of people to get some turnovers.”
After a mostly back-and-forth first period, the Huskies (12-14-1, 7-9-1 NCHC) drew first blood near the end thanks to a somewhat goofy goal. Blake Winiecki had the puck in transition then let it go from the right point, somehow beating UMD goaltender Kasimir Kaskisuo on his short side and sneaking it through for his fourth goal of the season with 52 seconds left. That made it 1-0 SCSU after one.
Neither team was able to score in the second period, but the Huskies were starting to slow down. Their puck control was absolutely terrible Friday, and that’s a big reason why they weren’t able to pull away from UMD.
“We had at least 20 turnovers tonight,” said an irate Motzko.
Yet somehow they were still ahead of their arch-rivals through two periods, but as the final period started, the Bulldogs went to work.
Minnesota-Duluth (18-10-1, 10-6-1 NCHC) finally got on the board early in the third. Thomas showed some great puck handling along the left wing wall, and he approached the net and flipped a beautiful backhander past Huskies goaltender Charlie Lindgren to knot the game at one at 3:06.
Johnson got his first goal of the season three and a half minutes later when his wrap-around attempt somehow found its way in to the left of Lindgren, who had almost the whole left side of the net covered other than the space Johnson found.
Just like that, the shell-shocked Huskies saw their one-goal lead become a one-goal deficit, and they started to unravel. They seemed to be a step behind the rest of the way, and they got even lazier on defense. Confusion on the ice and bench eventually led to a killer too-many-men penalty, and while Winiecki served the ill-advised infraction, a beautiful goal-mouth pass from Alex Iafallo to Justin Crandall got one-timed into a wide-open net, and the Bulldogs claimed a 3-1 lead with just three and a half minutes left.
Joey Benik scored with just over two minutes left to bring St. Cloud State back within one, but they couldn’t sustain a forecheck as time ran down, even with Lindgren pulled for an extra attacker. The puck eventually escaped the Duluth zone and Bulldog senior captain Adam Krause clinched it with an empty-net goal with five seconds left.
“In the third period, we came out worse than we did in the first two periods,” said Benik. “When you put that combination together, it’s not gonna end well, and we found that out.”
After a week off to rest and prepare, the Huskies simply weren’t ready physically or mentally for the talented and powerful Bulldogs, and as a result they fell to 0-3 against Minnesota-Duluth on the year.
“It was a slow death by a thousand paper cuts,” said Motzko.
The Bulldogs, meanwhile, continued their impressive season with yet another big conference win, and they’re just three points out of first place.
“Every win is big in our league,” said Sandelin.
St. Cloud State and Minnesota-Duluth will conclude their weekend and season series Saturday night at 7:07 p.m.
