A focus on penalty enforcement came down from the NCAA at the beginning of the season, resulting in what’s expected to be much tighter play and an inevitable increase in special teams action. In No. 20 Omaha’s regular season opener against Vermont, ending in a 4-4 tie, it was the story of the game.
Between both sides, 16 penalties were drawn, one of which was a five-minute major resulting in an ejection for Vermont’s Rob Hamilton.
“We’ve played in some games where every little thing was called,” Vermont coach Kevin Sneddon said. “I think here they enforced the standard, but it wasn’t outrageous. We took some bad penalties, I’m sure they felt they took a few bad. I thought both teams did well on their special teams.”
It showed on the score sheet. Four of the eight goals scored came on the power play, and another one came by Vermont’s Jarrid Privitera as he shot out of the box and caught a pass for a breakaway score. With the rule changes, it’s something that has caused Omaha coach Dean Blais to put even more added focus than usual toward the power play and penalty kill.
“We can’t take undisciplined penalties; we have to address that right now,” Blais said. “It’s happened in all three games we’ve played, where one or two guys will take penalties. It’s one thing if the referee makes a bad call or it’s holding, but with the rules changing, you got to change with it. But you’ve got to give guys a little bit of time.”
Sneddon believes it’s going to take adjustments from everyone involved, as his team’s consecutive penalties late in the third gave Omaha a five-on-three opportunity they capitalized on to take the lead.
“You have coaches that are trying to teach it in practice, you have players that need to adjust to different officials in games, and you have the officials that need to adjust to figure out what calls absolutely need to be made to fit the standard and ones that maybe don’t have a big impact,” he said.
All of the Omaha goals came at the sticks of the veterans, with captain Justin Parizek scoring the first of the game and Tyler Vesel and Luc Snuggerud, the alternate captains, notching goals following. They echoed the importance of staying disciplined upon playing in a stricter environment as well as capitalizing on an influx of power-play chances.
“We’ve probably had six or seven power plays every game this year and killed six or seven times,” Snuggerud said. “And I think we’ve done a lot better job at emphasizing, if we’re going to get that man advantage, we have to bear down and put them away and at the same time on the flip side, be a little bit better on our penalty kill.”
While a power-play goal by Vermont gave the Catamounts a third-period lead, it was an even=strength score by Austin Ortega at 15:16 that brought it to a draw. Saturday, Vermont will try to hand the Mavericks their first regular-season nonconference loss since December 2014 while escaping Omaha unbeaten.
NCHC results
No. 10 Boston College 4, Colorado College 1
The Tigers scored first, but Boston College responded with four unanswered at home, two from the stick of Colin White to get the win. Boston College improves to 3-2 and Colorado College drops to 1-4, the Tigers’ third consecutive loss.
No. 16 Denver 2, at Michigan State 1
Both sides skated scoreless into the third period until Henrik Börgstrom put the Pioneers on the board. Denver scored again for insurance, and the Spartans inched within one with less than two to play, but Denver held on for the road win.
Miami 3, Maine 3
Anthony Louis scored two game-tying goals for the RedHawks, in the second and third periods, but both sides failed to find the net in overtime, resulting in a 3-3 draw.
No. 1 North Dakota 3, No. 18 Bemidji State 2
Bemidji State got off to a two-goal lead in the first period in Grand Forks, but North Dakota’s Brock Boesner scored three unanswered for a hat trick, preventing the home upset.
No. 14 St. Cloud State 6, at No. 7 Minnesota 5
The Huskies rallied from down 5-2 in the third period, scoring four unanswered and the game-winner in overtime to defeat the Gophers. 10 different players scored goals in the contest.
