Over the weekend, Colorado College men’s hockey took on No. 2-ranked North Dakota in two away games. The Tigers came away with a tie and a loss, bringing their season’s record to 5-18-1 and 3-10-1 in the NCHC.
“I think we’ve found our identity as a team,” said senior forward Hunter Fejes. “We’re definitely making strides in the direction that we want to go and that means winning games. We’ve got to come into the rink with a chip on our shoulder every night.”
The last time the two teams faced off, North Dakota defeated CC twice. On Friday, it looked like North Dakota was heading for another victory. North Dakota came out hard and fast, scoring four times in the first 15 minutes, including one power play goal. But it soon became clear that North Dakota shouldn’t underestimate the Tigers.
The team didn’t let the 4-0 deficit deter them. With less than four minutes left in the first period, while the Tigers were down a man, junior forward Christian Heil created a turnover and took on North Dakota’s goalie alone, scoring his first goal of the year and the team’s first shorthanded tally of the season.
“We knew…we just needed to get a couple bounces in order to get the momentum back,” said freshman defenseman Andrew Farny. “Comebacks are always fun especially when you’re on the road in front of 12,000 people.”
As the game went on, the Tigers continued to chip away at the deficit. Junior forward Luc Gerdes scored just 3:18 into the second period, sending the puck over the goalie’s shoulder. It was Gerdes’ fifth goal of the season.
Fejes brought the gap down to one with another goal at the 10:57 mark. The second period ended with North Dakota just barely holding on to their early impressive lead at 4-3.
“Going down by four goals pretty early in the first period, that was kind of a blow towards us,” said Fejes. “But we just knew that there was a lot more hockey yet to play. We kept our game simple and got as many shots as possible…I think the last time someone came back from that big of a deficit at North Dakota was 1988.”
The Tigers kept the momentum going into the third period. Freshman forward Trey Bradley tied the game, scoring a power play goal off a pass from Fejes. Less than a minute later, Fejes scored for the second time and put CC in the lead, 5-4. The Tigers held the lead for almost 13 minutes. With the game nearly over, North Dakota removed their goalie for an extra attacker. With just 31.9 seconds left, North Dakota scored, evening the score once again, sending the game into overtime. Neither team was able to capitalize during the five minutes of 5×5 and the five minutes of 3×3. With the tie intact, the teams went into a shootout. In the first round of the shootout, North Dakota scored, giving them the extra point in the standings. The tie broke CC’s nine-game losing streak to North Dakota.
Like Friday, on Saturday the Tigers faced another 4-0 deficit. But this time, the scoring started off much more slowly. Neither team scored during the first period. Junior goalie Tyler Marble made 12 saves for CC. North Dakota outshot CC 12-3.
The game started to pick up halfway through the second period. North Dakota scored twice in a little over a minute. The second period ended with North Dakota in the lead, 2-0.
North Dakota increased the lead to 3-0 just 1:26 into the third period. A few minutes later, North Dakota scored again off a rebound. The Tigers finally made it on the board at the 12:37 mark with a goal by Farny.
“We had just come off a power play and we kept good pressure in North Dakota’s end and the puck bounced out to Alex Roos on the half wall where he made a great little chip up to me at the point,” said Farny. “I got the puck and saw there was traffic in front of their goalie and just tried to get it through on net. Luck was on my side and it beat the goalie high glove side.”
As the goal was scored, a North Dakota player was whistled for a five-minute major for boarding. Partway through the ensuing power play, CC head coach Mike Haviland pulled Marble for an extra attacker. But, unfortunately, the risk didn’t pay off. North Dakota scored the final goal of the game, an empty-netter with 3:52 left, leaving the score 5-1.
This weekend the Tigers return to the Broadmoor World Arena for a series against Nebraska-Omaha.
“[Nebraska-Omaha] is very fragile right now,” said Fejes. “For us to have them on our home ice will be huge advantage.”
Nebraska-Omaha lost their last two games to Miami University. Earlier this season, CC defeated Miami twice.