GRAND FORKS, N.D. — In a playoff battle of two teams fighting to make it to the NCHC Frozen Faceoff, it was North Dakota that moved one step closer to punching its ticket.
UND persisted through a slow start and used its resiliency and a strong finish to defeat Colorado College 5-1 on Friday night in front of 10,824 at Ralph Engelstad Arena.
“A little slow start, worked our way into it,” UND defenseman Nick Mattson said. “It wasn’t the prettiest game. We got the win and we’re going to move forward. I don’t think any of us are overly impressed with it, but we’ll take it.”
North Dakota tallied a goal in the first period, and it wasn’t until the end of the second period that it found its rhythm.
“Tonight, we certainly weren’t at our best, especially in the first 30 minutes of this game,” UND coach Dave Hakstol said. “We worked hard to work our way into the game, and fortunately we were able to build a lead at the end of the second and through the third. We’ve just got to really challenge ourselves. As a team we have to challenge ourselves to work to be a little bit better tomorrow.”
O’Donnell put UND on the board first with a one-timer that beat Tyler Marble (21 saves) at 8:01 of the opening frame. The senior’s goal continued UND’s streak of not losing a game when he scores, now 21-0-1 all time.
North Dakota continued to work its way into the game, capitalizing in the closing minutes of the second period.
On a scramble in front of the net, Peter Stoykewych tried to send the puck out of the zone, but his attempt to clear was caught by Nick Mattson, who fired one from the top of the circle at 14:48.
Connor Gaarder etched a 3-0 mark on the scoreboard when he caught his own rebound up front and sent it past Marble with just four seconds left in the second period.
Despite some rearranging of North Dakota’s lines due to the absence of Mark MacMillan, who was inured after blocking a shot on Feb. 28 and remains out of the lineup, Gaarder and his linemates Austin Poganski and O’Donnell were a combination that stayed the same.
“His line’s been consistent,” Haktsol said. “They’re a hard nosed group. They go out and play the same way every day, every shift. It’s been a real good combination; they’ve scored some good goals for us. They’re just a hard group to play against.”
The Tigers found it especially difficult Friday night.
Matt Hansen erased the deficit at 2:14 of the third period with a shot past Zane McIntyre (21 saves), but Paul Ladue quickly responded with a shot from the blue line at 4:01 to put North Dakota up 4-1.
“You give up a goal in the last minute of that second period and you have lower momentum,” CC coach Mike Haviland said. “They have all the momentum going into the third, and I though the response getting one early in the third gave us a little life, and then that wrister was a beak breaker, obviously, but I was more concerned with our mental mistakes. You can’t do that against this team.”
Tucker Poolman added one more for North Dakota at 7:07 of the final frame to clinch the 5-1 win.
Despite a start it wished it would have avoided, North Dakota found a way to turn it around.
“Coach Hakstol made sure we weren’t too satisfied with the effort in the first period,” Mattson said. “We have a bunch of resilient guys, especially, I think, this year more than any, when things aren’t going good, we have the ability to turn the tide, more so than other teams, so we were able to dig ourselves out of that poor play and play fairly strong.”
