College Hockey Update:  The University of North Dakota completed a powerful run through the 2016 NCAA Hockey Tournament last night with a suffocating 5-1 win over Quinnipiac. North Dakota had solid victories over the field’s mid-ranked teams and nothing changed when they met #1 ranked Quinnipiac.  North Dakota started out the tournament with a 6-2 domination of #9 Northeastern, moved on to a 5-2 crushing of #5 Michigan, and then decided to make things interesting with a 4-2 win over #7 Denver.  In the Denver game North Dakota gave away a two goal lead and watched as Denver took advantage of North Dakota’s “we’ve got it in the bag” attitude and lack of effort to tie it up, before waking up and winning the game late.  Had North Dakota played against Denver the same way they played against Quinnipiac last night, North Dakota would have beaten Denver 6-0.  Easily.

From the moment the puck dropped on the ice in the opening period, North Dakota went after Quinnipiac in the same way that Quinnipiac had gone after Boston College two days before.  It was apparent very, very early in the first that North Dakota had Quinnipiac back on their heels, and North Dakota stayed ahead of Quinnipiac in about every way there is, preventing Quinnipiac from ever getting North Dakota back on theirs.  North Dakota out-skated, and out stick-handled Quinnipiac, and they were just plain old, flat out faster at about every opportunity. Where North Dakota played a pressing, up close defense on every man-to-man pairing, Quinnipiac  seemed to be leaving a safety cushion, and North Dakota took advantage of it and sped down the ice.  North Dakota did not repeat the mistake BC had made Thursday, and when they got the puck in the North Dakota zone, they moved it out so fast that Quinnipiac did not have a chance to tie them up.  As a result, Quinnipiac played a less-controlled game, all around, than in the semifinals, and instead were playing a more wide-open style that didn’t seen to suit them.  North Dakota’s constant harassment of Quinnipiac created a handful of dangerous odd-man rushes that Quinnipiac generally lucked out of by the skill of their goalie, Michael Garteig.

Despite all of this mayhem for Quinnipiac, they managed to keep it close for most of the game. The first period saw no scoring until there were about eight minutes left, when North Dakota’s Shane Gersich knocked in a rebound from up close to the net, to make it 1-0.  But then just two minutes later, playing shorthanded, North Dakota’s Brock Boeser got his stick on a puck and sent it down to the Quinnipiac net, managed to evade the Quinnipiac defense, and forced a fast-break, chasing the puck leading down to the goalie.  Garteig came out of the crease and fairly far up the ice to play the puck, but badly misplayed it as it ended up going back towards Boeser, who delayed, freezing Garteig, and then quickly skated around him for the easy shot into a seemingly empty net, to put North Dakota up 2-0.  A few minutes later, two consecutive North Dakota penalties, just seconds apart, gave Quinnipiac a five on three power play, and they capitalized on it immediately when Tim Clifton took a feed from his brother, Connor, and one-timed it high into the net to make it 2-1, which is how the period ended.  Quinnipiac had quite a bit of time remaining on the five on four power play, but could not convert in the first, or in the second, during the first minute of which the power play carried over.

In the second period Quinnipiac did a better job of holding their own and had a couple of first rate shots come close but banged off the pipe and a post, but North Dakota seemed to be more in control nonetheless.  Quinnipiac just couldn’t get over the hump and convert.  The second period went scoreless, ending again at 2-1, North Dakota.  Then came the third, and only about a minute into the period, another bad Quinnipiac miscue and turnover led to a nifty Drake Caggiula goal to extend the North Dakota lead to 3-1.  And only about a minute later Caggiula fired in another goal off of a nifty pass, and North Dakota was up 4-1.  But there was a lot of time left in the game, and anything can happen, right?  Well, it sort of did.  About seven minutes later Austin Poganski knocked in a rebound to put North Dakota up 5-1.  And the realization with only nine minutes left in the game that Quinnipiac had only scored when they had two-man advantage, and that time was now fleeting began to sink in, probably for about everybody.

At the buzzer it was official, North Dakota had won its eighth NCAA Championship by a 5-1 margin over Quinnipiac.  This outcome is sort of an upset in our pool as only seven participants had picked North Dakota to win it all, and fourteen had picked Quinnipiac; even fourteen is not a very big percentage (29%) out of forty-eight participants.  For all the news on the pool, see “Our Pool,” after the next paragraph.

Congratulations to the North Dakota team and its fans, but especially to Coach Brad Berry — a first year coach — who made history by being the first true rookie head coach to win the championship.  There have been several other head coaches who won the NCAA Championship in their first year with that winning team, but in all cases, the coach had previously been the head coach of another college team.  Brad Berry is the first ever brand-new, truly rookie coach to win the championship.  Admittedly he was already a multi-year assistant, and he inherited a team that was filled with talent and was ready to go.  However, putting it into perspective, and nothing against Dave Hakstol (now with the Philadelphia Flyers, headed to the NHL playoffs) who preceded him, but Hakstol never made it to this point.  Brad Berry was truly the right guy for this job!  Way to go Brad Berry!

Our Pool

I’d like to tell you that during the game I didn’t get a bunch of texts from people asking me if they were going to win the pool, but I can’t.  That was in addition to the constant badgering I endured in person from Barney Michela and Greg Schreader on the same subject.  And they wondered why I was in the kitchen so much!

Like the race horse American Pharoah at the Belmont Stakes, he led out of the gate after the first weekend of the tournament, and didn’t look back.  And now he graces our homepage with his purebred hockey family name as the 2016 College Hockey Update Pool Winner. Participating in only his fifth pool ever, and first since 2012, Jim Esposito will shoulder the year-long responsibilities that come along with winning this title, and will no doubt endure the wrath of a hero-hungry press and paparazzi corps, while reaping the benefits of a life buried in an avalanche of good fortune, fame, notoriety and special privilege that befalls all winners of the coveted title.  Congratulations, Jim, on your masterful picks this year, racking up twelve correct picks out of fifteen possible, and picking North Dakota as the final winner to get the bonus extra point, for a total of thirteen points, in a hotly contested field of 48 participants, some of whom were right on your tail!  This includes a bevy of hockey experts, some actual and some self-declared, including John McLean, who, by his own account, is called upon by both colleges and NHL teams to scout players in the midwest, and who this year applied his own special brand of hockey-know-how and insight, paired with an extraordinarily inventive approach to filling out this year’s bracket, to yield him sole possession of the third sub-basement in the standings. Over and above that, it is by a good margin, as there is no one even in the second sub-basement; the next closest contestants are only in the first sub-basement.  So congratulations to you as well, John, for getting that pick right in this year’s pool!

Final Pool Standings

Winner, Jim Esposito   12 correct picks, 13 total points

11 Picks, 12 Points   Fairbrother

10 Picks, 11 Points   Cattermole, Mattson, BMichela

11 Picks, 11 Points   Shimshock

10 Picks, 10 Points   Sempere

8 Picks, 9 Points   O’Brien

9 Picks, 9 Points   Allen, Cruz, Kaycie, Peterson, Rarden, OSchreader

7 Picks, 8 Points   Erdman

8 Picks, 8 Points   Bettendorf, Bogosian, Harris, Holte, Kreisel, MMichela, GgSchreader, Sell, TShymanski

7 Picks, 7 Points   Cook, Ide, Klein, Kramer, Reichel, Rugani, Schingh, JSchreader, DShymanski, DSlaughter, JSlaughter, Speare, Wienbar

6   Duprat, Huberty, Krajan, Ramsey, WSlaughter

5   O’Connell

4   Pastor, CSlaughter

3   Carlisle, Ponce

2   No one only got two

1   McLean

Again, congratulations to Jim Esposito.  His twelve correct picks is the second-highest ever, as is his thirteen points, only surpassed two years ago by Erin Toohey, who has the record with thirteen correct picks and fourteen points.  No other past winner has had twelve correct picks and/or thirteen points.  We have had six different winners with eleven correct picks, four of whom had twelve points.  Jim, your prize just arrived, and will be taken in for application of the custom College Hockey Update logo tomorrow.  It will probably be put in the mail to you in about a ten days to two weeks.

Well, it’s over.  What a great season.  Thanks to you all for coming along for the ride, particularly the forty-eight who entered the pool.  And thanks to my behind the scenes contributors who know a whole lot more about hockey than I do, and who give me insights and technical clarifications from time to time.  And thanks to anyone else who chimed in with a helpful tidbit — I know there were a couple, and I am not remembering who you are right now!

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

— Tom