This game featured attack after attack, only to be turned away by the solid, no, make that brilliant play of the two goalies.  With the game knotted at 0-0 after two periods, it was starting to look like one of those that ends in triple overtime.  But after two and a half periods in this one, something had to give, and it did, with quite a flourish.  With only nine minutes left in the third, Minnesota’s Sam Warning passed to Kyle Rau, who rushed to the goal and attempted a wrap-around goal, and in the course of losing control of the puck, flipped it to Warning, who had also charged to the net; Warning made quick work of the puck with a back-hander into the net for the 1-0 lead.  With the way things had gone in the game, it seemed quite possible that that was the game, right then and there.  But only thirty seconds later, North Dakota’s Connor Gaarder drove to the goal, and made a back-handed shot, which was rejected by Minnesota goalie Adam Wilcox, but Gaarder quickly connected with the puck while it was still in the air, and knocked it in for the goal, to tie it up, 1-1.

With time running out, it appeared once again that there would be at least one OT period played.  But with less than two minutes to go, North Dakota’s Drake Caggiula was charging to the goal, and was held by Minnesota’s Mike Reilly, putting North Dakota on the power-play for the balance of the game.  A face-off in the Minnesota zone with only ten seconds left seemed to confirm that OT was on the way.  But Minnesota won the face-off and instantly rushed up the ice into the North Dakota zone.  Minnesota’s Kyle Rau took a shot from near the left side point, which was deflected forward and inward, right to teammate Justin Holl, who quickly fired it to the net; it was slightly deflected by a North Dakota defender on the way, and it went wider, just barely making it into the goal.  And there it was, a seemingly unlikely ending, and a 2-1 Minnesota win.

Note to readers:  Justin Holl is not to be confused with Jason “Gopher” Holte, our College Hockey Update subscriber and entrant in this year’s pool!

Minnesota advanced to play Union College on Saturday the 12th at 4:30PM Pacific Time on ESPN for the NCAA Championship.

Again, this game was not favored, because it did not have a majority of our entries picking it — but it was close as exactly half, twenty out of forty did.  Another thirteen had Wisconsin.  Yes, 20 people picked Minnesota, and 17 picked Union.  I’ll get us a winner out of this, don’t worry.

That’s all for now.  Stay tuned, and go Terriers, go College Hockey!

— Tom