Sometimes hockey truly is a game of inches, as was the case in Tuesday’s nonconference game between Nebraska-Omaha and No. 9 Minnesota State. <\/p>\n
MSU drilled a pair of posts in a scoreless first period before a critical major kneeing penalty in the second put UNO on a five-minute man-advantage. <\/p>\n
The red Mavericks scored twice on the power play and added a pair of third-period markers to win 4-2 at the Alltel Center and sweep the season series from Minnesota State. It also allowed Omaha to take back the Spirit of the Maverick Trophy for the first time since 2002. <\/p>\n
Of more importance, however, were the NCAA tournament implications. With UNO all but eliminated from a possible at-large spot, the game was a critical one for the purple Mavericks — who entered the game tied for seventh in the PairWise rankings. The loss dropped MSU into a tie for 11th. <\/p>\n
“We didn’t have it tonight,” MSU head coach Troy Jutting said. “We gave them all the life in the world with that five-minute power play.”<\/p>\n
“It was a very good win for us,” UNO head coach Mike Kemp said. “Last weekend, we lost a 3-1 lead up at Northern [Michigan] and lost in overtime. We needed this win. It’ll be a real confidence boost heading into the playoffs.”<\/p>\n
The penalty came 1:44 into the second period on Mankato’s Trevor Bruess. It didn’t take the nation’s No. 1-ranked power play long to capitalize, as local boy Matt Ambroz tipped in a shot from the point just 26 seconds into the advantage. It was just the third goal of the season for Ambroz, a New Prague, Minn., native. Alain Goulet and Joey Martin were credited with assists. <\/p>\n
UNO stayed on the attack and scored just under two minutes later on a wrist shot by Goulet. His shot from the point made it through traffic and past a screened Mike Zacharias at 4:07. J.J. Koehler had the assist.<\/p>\n
“You don’t know how many power plays you’re going to get in a game, especially on the big sheet,” Kemp said. “We knew we had to take advantage of our opportunity and certainly we did.”<\/p>\n
UNO dominated play for much of the rest of the period but was unable to capitalize on numerous odd-man chances. A costly tripping penalty on Goulet gave MSU a power play with 1:52 to play in the period, and Minnesota State finally snapped out of its funk. Senior Joel Hanson dangled from behind the goal line to the left circle, and fired an off-speed shot that fooled Jeremie Dupont with just 5.2 seconds remaining in the second. Geoff Irwin and Andy Sackrison had helpers. <\/p>\n
Both teams finished the frame with 18 total shots on net.<\/p>\n
The goal did not give MSU the life many expected, however, and in fact, it was UNO that struck first in the third on a goal by Mick Lawrence at 9:24.<\/p>\n
“We play in a league with only two Olympic sheets, but I think the bigger ice is good for us,” Kemp said. “It complements our team speed well and our guys were excited to play on it.”<\/p>\n
Omaha continued to pressure before Mankato sustained its best pressure of the night after pulling Zacharias. An apparent MSU goal with 1:25 remaining was disallowed because Dupont’s helmet fell off just before the puck reached the net. Mick Berge made it 3-2 on the ensuing faceoff as his shot from the point snaked through traffic in front. <\/p>\n
Much of the final 45 seconds was played in the UNO zone, but MSU could not fire a shot. Koehler finally relieved the pressure by skating free from the zone and scoring an empty-netter at 19:49.<\/p>\n
“It’s always a concern when you have a night off,” Jutting said. “And it looked like it tonight. We didn’t have our usual jump.”<\/p>\n
Dupont stopped 28 shots in his most impressive performance of the season.<\/p>\n
“This was a big game for him,” Kemp said. “He came out a very solid freshman year but has struggled mightily all season long. He has not had a start since Christmas, so he needed this to feel good about himself heading into the playoffs and into the offseason.”<\/p>\n
Nebraska-Omaha (15-16-4, 11-13-4 in the CCHA) is off until the start of the CCHA playoffs in just under two weeks.<\/p>\n
Minnesota State (16-12-4, 10-10-4 in the WCHA) has a critical series at No. 4 Colorado College Friday and Saturday. Faceoffs from World Arena in Colorado Springs are scheduled for 7:37 p.m. MST Friday and 7:07 p.m. MST Saturday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sometimes hockey truly is a game of inches, as was the case in Tuesday’s nonconference game between Nebraska-Omaha and No. 9 Minnesota State. MSU drilled a pair of posts in a scoreless first period before a critical major kneeing penalty in the second put UNO on a five-minute man-advantage. The red Mavericks scored twice on […]<\/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\/8797"}],"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=8797"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8797\/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=8797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8797"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=8797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}