Apparently, not being No. 1 agrees with North Dakota, at least at this point of the season.<\/p>\n
After falling to second in the USCHO poll for the first time this season, the Fighting Sioux throttled visiting Colorado College 6-2 before a sellout crowd of 11,824 at Ralph Engelstad Arena.<\/p>\n
Behind the steady net minding of senior goalie Jean-Philippe Lamoureux, who made 23 saves on 25 shots, and a relentless, attacking offense, UND surged to a three-goal lead in the first period and then cruised to victory in its WCHA home opener.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153When we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re in our own barn, we want to try to put the other team back on its heels,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Sioux assistant captain T.J. Oshie. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We use the term \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcPush them through the Zamboni doors. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what we did.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
CC coach Scott Owens wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t disagree.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153They were hitting on all cylinders tonight, and they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re good in a lot of areas,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said of the Sioux. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re big, they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re physical and they all move their feet well. It was a tough night for us.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
UND coach Dave Hakstol also credited Sioux fans with being a factor.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We took advantage of what was a great crowd tonight,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he noted. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We gave them something to stay excited about. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the result of going out and having a good start.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
UND junior forward Ryan Duncan, last season\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Hobey Baker winner, went over 100 points for his career with two goals and an assist. Oshie, who passed the 100 point mark last week at Michigan Tech, had a power play goal and two assists.<\/p>\n
UND scored three times on six first period shots to jump out to a 3-0 lead. On the other end of the ice, Lamoureux stopped all nine shots he faced. He robbed forward Eric Walsky on a breakaway and anticipated cross-crease pass to stifle a Tiger point-blank scoring opportunity.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153They had some great chances,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Duncan said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It could be a whole different game if Phil doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t make those saves for us.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Oshie notched his fifth goal of the season at 3:29 on the power play. Senior defenseman Robbie Bina took the puck off the boards on the right side and sent a cross-ice pass to Oshie, standing alone to the left of CC junior goalie Drew O\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Connell. The Warroad, Minn., product pounded the puck home to give UND a 1-0 lead.<\/p>\n
The Sioux struck 50 seconds later off a turnover in the CC zone. Oshie split the defense and passed the puck across to forward Ryan Duncan, who easily tapped the puck into a wide-open net.<\/p>\n
About seven minutes into the first period, Tiger defenseman Nate Prosser left the game and didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t return. As he and Oshie went into the corner after the puck, the Sioux forward delivered a hit that sent the 6-2, 203 pound defenseman crashing into the boards. Owens said Prosser\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s status for Saturday\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s game was questionable.<\/p>\n
UND freshman defenseman Derrick LaPoint scored his first college goal at 10:27 when he joined a 3-on-1 rush into the CC zone. Duncan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s pass went through O\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Connell\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s pads and likely would have gone in, but LaPoint got his stick on the puck just before it crossed the line to get credit for the goal.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s something we feel like our defensive corps can add,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Hakstol said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153LaPoint scoring that goal, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s something we want to see out of our defensive corps. Derrick came from way back to add to the rush.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
CC sophomore defenseman Kris Fredheim said the Tigers didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t match UND\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s tenacious style of play.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I think they were more aggressive than us,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he explained. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We definitely weren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t tough enough the first period. We weren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t really doing anything to slow them down and they took it to us.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
A quick goal just 1:06 into the second period by CC sophomore forward Bill Sweatt enabled the Tigers to make it a 3-1 game. However, at the 10:00 mark, CC got into penalty trouble and UND took full advantage of it. On a delayed penalty and with Lamoureux pulled for the extra attacker, the Tigers committed two additional infractions, giving the Sioux a two minute 5-on-3 power play.<\/p>\n
Duncan got his second goal of the game at 11:07 with the two-man advantage. He patiently held the puck at the bottom of the right circle, waited for O\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Connell to go down and then roofed the shot under the crossbar to restore UND\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s three-goal lead.<\/p>\n
The Tigers made it a two-goal game once more when junior forward Eric Walsky capitalized on a rare Lamoureux rebound that he pounded in just three minutes into the third period. But UND responded with two goals of its own to put the game away.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I thought they (the Sioux) were in control of the game just about the entire time,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Owens said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It would have been nice to get back-to-back goals, but they are awfully stingy. They haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t given up more than two goals the whole season. We just couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get anything sustained.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
At the 4:44 mark, Sioux captain Rylan Kaip buried a backhander set up by a pass from behind the net by linemate Matt Frattin to make it 5-2.<\/p>\n
Fredheim said Giving up key goals after scoring has been a problem for CC.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s tough when you start coming back on them and they have a good shift,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Lately, we haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t played very good shifts after we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve scored goals.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Joe Finley closed out the scoring at 10:14 when his shot from the blue line beat O\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Connell cleanly through traffic, giving the Sioux a 6-2 conference win.<\/p>\n
O\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Connell finished the game with 21 saves on 27 shots. UND was 2-6 on the power play while CC went 0-4.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153CC has very good specialty teams and one of our goals was to win the specialty teams battle,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Hakstol said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We did that tonight and it was a big factor.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Overall, the Sioux coach was pleased with the team\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s effort.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I thought we got good play out of a lot of guys tonight,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Everybody\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s got a job to do. Everybody\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s got to chip in and play their part. I thought we had a lot of smart, intelligent play tonight.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
UND improves to 4-1-1 overall and 2-1-0 in conference play. CC, ranked ninth in the nation coming into the series, is 2-3-0 overall and 2-1-0 in the WCHA. The two teams meet at 7:05 p.m. Saturday for the second game of the series in Engelstad Arena.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Apparently, not being No. 1 agrees with North Dakota, at least at this point of the season. After falling to second in the USCHO poll for the first time this season, the Fighting Sioux throttled visiting Colorado College 6-2 before a sellout crowd of 11,824 at Ralph Engelstad Arena. Behind the steady net minding of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22374,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8355"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8355"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8355\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8355"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=8355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}