Zach Driscoll stops 26 shots; four UND players find the net
GRAND FORKS, N.D. (UND Athletics)– Hockey is a numbers game, no doubt about it.
That certainly rang true Friday night at Ralph Engelstad Arena, where numbers loomed large in the No. 12/11 University of North Dakota’s 4-1 National Collegiate Hockey Conference victory over the visiting 18th-ranked Omaha Mavericks.
For example:
* For the 18th straight time, the team that scored the first goal of the game in the North Dakota-Omaha series won the game.
* For the third straight game, UND scored on its first shot of the game when sophomore wing Riese Gaber scored his team-leading 12th goal this season on an unassisted play at 3:31 of the first period.
* For the third straight game, junior defenseman Ethan Frisch scored a goal for UND.
* To top it off, UND scored goals 10 seconds and 4 seconds after Fighting Hawks’ captain Mark Senden exited the penalty box for minor penalties in the second period when UND outscored Omaha 3-0 to take command of the game.
* Senior goalie Zach Driscoll has now stopped 46 of the last 47 shots he’s faced. He stopped all 20 he saw in a relief role in a victory over St. Cloud State last Saturday, and turned back 26 of 27 in a stout performance in front of 11,173 fans tonight.
Gaber had a goal and two assists to lead UND, coming on top of his four-point game against St. Cloud State a week earlier. “He pushes our team, and that’s a big deal,” UND coach Brad Berry said of Gaber. “He’s one of our best players, and when he pushes that bar up, he pushes the bar for the rest of the team.”
“I thought our guys played pretty good overall,” Senden said. “I think we definitely have a lot better to give.”
The turning point came in the second period when Senden took consecutive minor penalties, His first penalty came shortly after Omaha’s Brandon Scanlin hit the goal post on a shot that would have given Omaha a 2-1 lead. On that same Omaha power play, UND defenseman Cooper Moore cleared a puck behind Driscoll that was about to roll in for a goal.
Just 10 seconds after Senden’s roughing minor expired, he took a Gaber pass and rifled a wrist shot top shelf stick side on Omaha goalie Isaiah Saville at 9:54 to put UND ahead to stay for good on his first goal in his last six games.
Then at 13:49, four seconds after Senden’s boarding penalty expired, he stepped onto the ice and fed Judd Caulfield in front of the net for Caulfield’s fifth goal of the season, and just his second in the last 19 games.
“I was pretty fortunate to have those bounces that I had tonight,” Senden said. “They just come around once in a lifetime. It’s not a usual thing that that happens.”
Frisch’s rocket from the left point on a 5-on-3 power play at 19:53 of the second period closed the scoring.
Driscoll was especially sharp in the first period when Omaha outshot UND 11-5 but had to settle for a 1-1 tie after 20 minutes on Scanlin’s power-play blast from center point late in the period. “He played outstanding tonight,” Senden said of Driscoll. “He was a huge reason why we won tonight. He was a brick wall for us.”
“He made some tough saves early on,” Berry said. “That’s what you need to have your team settle in here. That was an urgent team (Omaha) coming in here, and they’ll be even more urgent tomorrow.”
Gaber set the pace for UND when he banked a pass off the side wall past an Omaha defenseman and into the attacking zone, then stepped around the defenseman, toe-dragged around sliding Omaha defenseman Victor Mancini and scored unassisted for the telling opening goal of the game.
“I knew after my first shift that I wasn’t going to be denied,” Gaber said of his early offense. “I felt really good off the start. I gotta keep bringing that every game.”
NOTES: Omaha outshot UND 27-20 . . . Omaha was 1-for-5 on the power play with 6 shots on goal, UND 1-for-3 with 5 shots . . . Frisch led UND in shots on goal with 4, followed by Gaber with 3 . . . Named three stars of the game in media voting were Driscoll, Gaber and Senden, in that order . . . UND won the faceoffs 29-20, led by Louis Jamernik (13-4) and Connor Ford (9-6) . . . UND improved to 15-10-1 overall and 10-4-1 in the NCHC while Omaha dropped to 16-11 overall and 6-9 in the NCHC . . . Gaber was a plus-3 in the plus/minus category to pace UND . . . Saturday’s rematch is at 6:07 at REA . . . Omaha has won 11 of 13 games in the back half of a two-game series this season while UND is 8-3-1 in the second game of a series . . . UND moved from 13th to 12th in the PairWise Rankings with the win, while Omaha dropped from 19th to 21st . . . UND remains in second place in the NCHC, 3 points behind league-leading Denver, and 3 points ahead of third-place Western Michigan.
Virg Foss covered UND hockey for 35 seasons for the Grand Forks Herald, including 5 NCAA title teams, before his retirement. Since his retirement, he’s written about UND hockey games exclusively for FightingHawks.com. This marks his 52nd season since he began covering UND hockey in 1969.
Game Recap: Men’s Hockey | 2/4/2022 11:44:00 PM | Virg Foss, FightingHawks.com
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