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The Olympic hockey tournament is swirling around us, the National Hockey League is taking its every-four-years break, high school hockey is rising to a fever pitch, and through it all, the UMD Bulldogs have almost quietly marched into prominence in the new National Collegiate Hockey Conference.
Without fanfare, and without any top-gun scorers, the Bulldogs men’s team has ridden the brilliant goaltending of senior Aaron Crandall to eight victories in their last nine league games. It’s been a bit of an ordeal, but the Bulldogs have gotten timely scoring and a few breaks to climb the ranks of the NCHC as if they were so many rungs on a ladder.
One night after outshooting Colorado College 52-22 in a 2-2 tie that wound up with a UMD shootout victory, the Bulldogs came back Saturday night to AMSOIL and were promptly outshot 32-26, but Crandall held on as UMD prevailed for a 2-1 victory.
“I’ve never in my life gone through anything like this,” said CC coach Scott Owens, whose Tigers have found a variety of ways to fail to win most of the season. “Both goalies played great.”
The CC Tigers have frustrated their coach and themselves by finding a way to lose all but three of their 25 games this season. The difference between the Bulldogs and last-place CC is as slim as a shootout, and the Bulldogs can certainly sympathize with CC.
In that second CC game, Tigers top scorer Alexander Krushelnyski got loose just to the left of the UMD goal. He hoisted his shot and it beat Crandall...but it hit the crossbar and dropped straight down, harmlessly. On his next shift, Krushelnyski got loose again, near the same spot, and snapped his shot up high again...this time it also beat Crandall, but the shot clanked squarely off the upper edge of the left pipe and glanced away. When the game ends 2-1, those two chances add to the nightmare season CC has had, but offer further evidence that when a goaltender plays as well as Crandall has in the last dozen games, he probably has built up a stockpile of good-luck he can summon in stressful times.
Freshman Kyle Osterberg deflected in Willie Raskob’s center-point power play shot late in the first period, and Cal Decowski took a feed from Joe Basaraba and waltzed in to the left circle before sniping a shot through Josh Thorimbert for a 2-0 lead at 7:39 of the third period. CC’s only goal came only wen UMD had killed 4:57 of Sammy Spurrell’s 5-minute contact-to-the-head penalty with 5:29 remaining. Crandall allowed nothing more.
Back up a bit, to mid-December. The Bulldogs had just dropped a 5-3 game to Western Michigan, in the first game of a series at AMSOIL Arena. That was the third straight defeat for UMD, and fourth in five games. That also made the Bulldogs 6-8-1 for the season, and 3-6 in the NCHC -- a long way from home-ice for the playoffs, to say nothing of contention in what is clearly the nation’s top college hockey league.
The next night, the ’Dogs chose an odd time to start an upward surge. They beat Western Michigan 4-3 in a tough rematch on December 14, then they had three weekends off, but came off the vacation for a 7-0 rout of the U.S Under-18 Development team in an exhibition. They returned to full-scale action at Nebraska-Omaha, which was second in the NCHC at the time, and the pressure of the road series was nothing, as UMD won 3-2, 3-1 for a startling sweep.
They had moved into mid-pack contention at 6-6, and came home to lose 3-2 in overtime to Denver back at AMSOIL. Again the Bulldogs bounced back, tying 2-2 the next night and beating Denver 3-2 after a shootout.
A tough 5-4 victory over Minnesota State-Mankato in overtime at the North Star College Cup at Xcel Center was followed by a stirring 4-4 tie, resulting in a shootout loss against Minnesota in the final.
Then it was back to the NCHC wars for a trip to Western Michigan, and the Bulldogs swept agaibn, winning 5-2 and 3-2, which brought us back to AMSOIL for last weekend’s series against Colorado College. The first night, the teams tied 2-2 and UMD again won a shootout, then UMD held on for goaltender Aaron Crandall to win 2-1 for another sweep.
Taken within the context of the evolution of the entire season, it’s evident that UMD had been more consistent and effective. But a statistical glance also shows that as a team that was out of contention, the Bulldogs have lost only one legitimate game -- that 3-2 overtime game to Denver -- out of their last 12 games. They’ve followed up that mediocre 6-8-1 start by going 8-1-3 since then.
The NCHC standings show St. Cloud State in first place at 9-4-3 for 30 points, and UMD in second place at 8-6-2 with two additional points for two shootout victories for 28 points. Nebraska-Omaha and North Dakota follow with 27 points, then Denver and Western Michigan have 26 each. The league standings can change dramatically in the blink of an eye, but the reason this juncture of the season is so significant is that UMD goes back on the road to play at first-place St. Cloud State Friday and Saturday, with first place at stake. Not that the road intimidates the ’Dogs; they’re 4-5-3 at home and 8-4 on the road overall.
Another interesting aside is that Crandall inherited the starting goaltending job on -- you guessed it --  December 14. So he’s been in the nets throughout UMD’s 8-1-3 run. Osterberg, Alex Iafallo and Justin Crandall lead UMD in goal scoring with 10, but in the last 12 games, Osterberg has 6 goals, while Caleb Herbert, Iafallo, and Basaraba have 5 goals each. Corey Farley has 4, and hasn’t played in the last four games. He was KO’d by Ben Marshall’s forearm blow to the head after scoring two of his four goals against Minnesota, and hasn’t returned to action since, fighting symptoms of the concussion.