MINNEAPOLIS — In a back and forth game with multiple momentum shifts, the No. 1 St. Cloud State Huskies defeated the No. 14 North Dakota Fighting Hawks, 3-2, in overtime to advance to the NCHC championship game.
Nick Poehling scored the game-winner at 1:47 of the extra session, rifling a shot top corner stick side off a turnover in the North Dakota end.
“I think we just got out on the ice; I think we were trying to get it deep, or something like that,” said Nick Poehling. “Their D-man tried getting it out of the zone and it came right to me and I tried to cut into the middle a little bit to get an angle and just shot it. I guess I got a little bit lucky.”
It was St. Cloud’s third consecutive overtime game, as the Huskies had two OT games in their best-of-three series with Miami, including in the series-clinching game last Sunday, something that helped their preparation with the OT period looming.
“At least you’re not nervous and you’ve been there,” said St. Cloud coach Bob Motzko. “You just went through two and we had one with North Dakota the week before that. I did say that last week, that a high percentage of games in NCAA play go to overtime, and to live a few can do nothing but help, as long as you win them.”
St. Cloud got on the board first on a goal by Patrick Newell, who was left alone in the slot and got a sweet pass from Jack Ahcan, who drifted down with the puck from the right point. Ahcan fed Newell, who roofed it top shelf glove side at 5:54.
“Tonight, for the first two periods we were out of sorts; we didn’t play our game,” said North Dakota coach Brad Berry. “I have to hand it to St. Cloud; congratulations to them. They’re a very good team, they played well. But we didn’t play up to our capabilities in the first 40 minutes. This time of year you have to play 60 minutes.”
North Dakota had a late power play in the first, but St. Cloud’s penalty kill was very strong throughout the game. North Dakota finally got on the board at 4:39 of the second when Nick Jones skated up the right side and circled behind the net, finishing a wraparound goal before D·vid Hren·k could fully get his right leg against the puck to stop it.
However, St. Cloud quickly regrabbed the lead when Easton Brodzinski fired a snap shot from the right point over Cam Johnson’s right shoulder at 5:53. Buoyed by that goal, St. Cloud started to carry much of the play, and Johnson made multiple strong stops, robbing Robby Jackson with a diving glove save. Johnson also stopped Newell on a breakaway in the third.
“It’s kind of a common theme in our league with the goalies,” said Ahcan. “They’re all really good goalies. There were a few times where we had a wide-open net and he would jump and sprawl across the crease.”
Late in the period, St. Cloud had a power-play chance when Colton Poolman was called for hooking, but it was negated by a Robby Jackson call for hooking. That meant North Dakota started the third period with 1:01 of power play time. St. Cloud’s penalty kill never let the Hawks get on track on that opportunity, nor on a power play when Ryan Poehling was called for goalie interference after Christian Wolanin pushed him into Johnson.
“I think we stayed with what we talked about all week,” said Nick Poehling of the penalty kill. “One guy would hunt the puck getting all over their guys and another just protecting the middle of the ice.”
However, another power-play chance proved one too many, as Jordan Kawaguchi scored on snap shot from just outside the crease at 10:10 of the third off a nice feed by Trevor Olson.
“I think we just had quick movement and caught a break,” said Kawaguchi. “We kind of picked off a clearing attempt and Jonesy made a nice pass over to Olson and Olson made a nice pass to me and I finished it off.”
“The thing is, five-on-four, you want to score a goal, but at the very least you want to gain momentum,” said Berry. “We didn’t gain any momentum on our power play tonight. We got a fortunate bounce and look at the net and we capitalized for the tying goal on the power play, but we had five power plays, we need more looks, we need more momentum off it.”
The victory by St. Cloud possibly ended North Dakota’s season, as well as its NCAA tournament streak at 15. However, in the press conference, the players remained positive.
“I think we need to have a short memory,” said Jones. “We have a quick turnaround; we have the early game tomorrow. We can’t control everything, but we control how we play, we control how we come to the rink, how we prepare.”
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