UND only has a tie to show for strong performance against St. Cloud State

Feb. 18—GRAND FORKS — UND doesn't need to mind the gap between fourth and fifth in the National Collegiate Hockey Conference standings anymore.

As it heads to the penultimate weekend of the regular season, it would take a miracle scenario to get home ice for the NCHC quarterfinals: four regulation wins for the Fighting Hawks, four regulation losses for St. Cloud State and exactly a four-point weekend for Minnesota Duluth against Miami.

It isn't out of the question UND gets high enough in the Pairwise Rankings to reach the NCAA tournament as an at-large, but the more probable scenario might be winning the conference tournament and getting an automatic bid.

So, the greatest importance of Saturday night's game against St. Cloud State? The Fighting Hawks played like a team capable of doing just that.

Yes, it ended in a 2-2 tie and St. Cloud State earned the extra point in the league standings by winning the shootout, but UND dominated the No. 6 team in the country for large portions of the contest.

Final shots on goal: 30-13 UND. It marked the lowest shot total for the Huskies since Nov. 23, 2019, when they only mustered 12 against UND in The Ralph.

St. Cloud State went 19 minutes, 54 seconds — nearly the entirety of the second period — without registering a single shot on goalie Drew DeRidder (11 saves).

Final attempts: 66-28 UND. The Huskies blocked 22. Goaltender Jaxon Castor stopped 28. And three more hit his posts — Owen McLaughlin in the first, Riese Gaber in the second and Jackson Blake in the final moments of the third.

Final faceoffs: 34-23 UND. Jake Schmaltz, who returned after missing three games due to an upper-body injury, was 16-5 in the dot.

"I'm really proud of our team tonight," Fighting Hawks forward Judd Caulfield said. "I thought we played a great game tonight. If you replay that game 10 times, I'd say we for sure win nine of them."

The only things missing from UND's game Saturday: finishing on its chances and killing the only penalty it took all game.

"The result wasn't there because we didn't execute," UND coach Brad Berry said. "Last night, in the last five minutes of the game, we executed two plays — one to tie it and one to win it in overtime. We had the execution there. Tonight, we didn't. It wasn't for a lack of trying. Their goaltender made some good saves. We hit three pipes tonight. That's the game of hockey.

"If you didn't earn those opportunities, it would be a huge concern in this group. But we did earn those opportunities. We're just going to keep battling and keep grinding and trying to find ways to score some offense."

Jackson Kunz and Gaber scored the goals for the Fighting Hawks, who moved to 13-13-5.

Spencer Meier and Jami Krannila scored for the Huskies, who moved to 18-9-3. They're now winless in six, though, which matches the program's longest in the last 18 years (St. Cloud State also had six-game winless runs last season and in 2011-12).

"I thought we had an excellent game tonight," UND captain Mark Senden said. "I thought all our lines were rolling. We were playing solid. Defensively, we had one breakdown there that they converted. But besides that, I thought our game was pretty solid defensively.

"In the offensive zone, we were doing the right things. We were advancing pucks. We were moving pucks north through the neutral zone and we were changing out of the O-zone. We had some good stints there where we were cycling in the zone and keeping them in the zone for a pretty good chunk of time. It's just unfortunate that one couldn't go in for us."

The Fighting Hawks, who have thrived with their NCAA-leading power play this season, have turned a corner at five-on-five.

UND has allowed just 12 even-strength goals in the last eight games. The Huskies scored just once at even-strength all weekend.

Suddenly, the Fighting Hawks' penalty kill has gone cold. They've allowed seven power-play goals in the last three games, compared to just three at even strength.

"The big deal is keeping the puck out of the net," Berry said. "Five-on-five, we did a pretty good job against a real good team. The problem is our penalty kill has given up seven goals in the last (three) games. That's an area we have to tighten up on. One power play against and it's in the net."

UND did get one power-play goal Saturday when Gaber snapped one past Castor at 3:28 of the third, but it also squandered a five-minute major to Husky defenseman Josh Luedtke in the first.

The Fighting Hawks close the regular season with a road series at Colorado College next weekend and a home series against Omaha on March 3-4.

Then, the playoffs begin — almost certainly on the road.

"That was, I think, one of our best games of the year," Senden said. "We just have to keep playing that brand of hockey and playing consistently. . . pointing out the positives there. We have to forget about it, stay positive and make sure we keep playing that same exact way, because if we play that way for a full 60, I know for a fact we can beat anybody."