Bulldogs stamp their identity in sweep of Huskies

John Gilbert

UMD freshman Ben Steeves fires a shot from the right circle against No. 1 ranked St. Cloud State. The puck hit the net behind Huskies goalie Dominic Basse to complete a pure hat trick Friday. Photo by John Gilbert.

Getting everybody on a rebuilding hockey team to come together as a coordinated unit can be a lot like herding cats, but UMD coach Scott Sandelin never wavered from supporting the scattered elements of his team and showing that with patience, you might not be able to herd cats, but you can get Bulldogs to all pull the same direction.

Last weekend, the players said they felt unified during an impressive sweep against No. 1 ranked St. Cloud State.
Ben Steeves, a freshman who defies the belief that this UMD team can’t score, scored a pure hat trick of power-play goals that overturned a 2-1 Huskies lead Friday night and led the Bulldogs to a 5-3 victory, then added another goal in Saturday’s 6-3 sweeper to give him 16 goals as the only Bulldog in double figures.

“After the first North Dakota game last weekend we had good heart-to-heart talks,” said Steeves, whose goals were all on power plays, including two carbon copy shots from the right circle during a 3-goal splurge after a weak 5-minute major penalty. “We decided that we can only go up; we can’t do any worse.”

Junior defenseman Wyatt Kaiser said, “We all got on the same page at the same time, finally. It’s a real confidence builder to play this way and win, and it helps us identify who we are.”
Senior Jesse Jacques, who scored a short-handed goal for a 3-0 first-period lead Saturday in a 6-3 game that became UMD’s third straight victory, added, “I feel like we came together as a team last weekend.”
Sandelin, meanwhile, had maintained all season that he really likes the makeup of this team, but that it sometimes struggled against high expectations.
Timing was right for the sweep, building a three-game winning streak with another strong threat in Western Michigan coming at AMSOIL Arena this weekend.
“It’s nice to win,” he said. “I liked how we won, and hopefully we can build on this.”
It was appropriate that UMD’s biggest weekend came on Hockey Day Minnesota, and makes you wonder why the major series between two huge NCHC state teams wasn’t included among the Minnesota Wild’s presentation of a dayful of boys and girls high school games. Duluth’s only presence was Hermantown’s televised 6-3 victory against Mahtomedi on the outdoor rink at White Bear Lake. That prevented Duluth from being totally snubbed by the Bally Sports presentation, which was more conspicuous because WCHA Women’s powers Minnesota and UMD were also playing in a pair of matinees at AMSOIL.

The Gophers women swept both games from UMD, 3-1 and 4-3, snapping UMD’s 6-game winning streak and extending Minnesota’s to 12 straight.
The Bulldogs are at MSU-Mankato this weekend, then home against St. Cloud before finishing at Bemidji State, which should help them regain the No. 6 rank, while Minnesota and Ohio State meet this weekend in Minneapolis for first place in the WCHA and the No. 1 rank in the nation, with Wisconsin following the Buckeyes to Ridder Arena for another huge series.

UMD gained a 1-1 tie at 0:37 of the third period Friday, but Abbey Murphy put Minnesota ahead, then scored again when Emma Soderberg had been pulled in the closing minutes to secure as 3-1 decision.
On Saturday, things got rough and both teams heightened their intensity, and Minnesota’s Madeline Wethington got the Bulldogs’ adrenaline pumping. First she knocked Gabbie Hughes down with a forearm to the facemask, and she came out of the penalty box and raced in after a puck Soderberg had covered in the crease. Wethington did a classic quick-stop, spraying the goalie with ice chips and leading to some pushing and shoving.

For good measure, Wethington swerved in close and crashed into and over Soderberg at 8:30 of the middle period, making it a wild four-minute stretch and probably not the way coach Brad Frost envisioned protecting a 2-0 lead.
UMD did connect on that power play, with Gabby Krause getting the second of two deflections with Naomi Rogge on a shot from the blue line by Maggie Flaherty at 9:57.
Peyton Hemp scored her second goal for the Gophers to boost the lead to 3-1, but UMD battled back to 3-2 on Mannon McMahon’s goal to open the third, and when Abigail Boreen restored the 2-goal edge once again, UMD coast Maura Crowell pulled Soderberg for an extra skater on a power play, and Taylor Anderson scored for UMD with 2:30 left  to make it 4-3.

The Bulldogs stormed the net to the final horn, with the officials, who seemed overwhelmed much of the game, giving Murphy a roughing penalty at 20:00.
“You had two teams that really don’t like each other and emotions got high,” said Crowell. “It got rough, but that brought the best out of the whole group. Minnesota played really well in both  games, and we played well too, but we need all of us to show up at the same time.”
Both the men’s and women’s games were fast, up-tempo, and highly entertaining. More reason why someone should notify the Hockey Day Minnesota organizers that they might want to be a bit more inclusive when looking for games to shine their “statewide” spotlight.