Inside College Hockey | 2005 NCAA Frozen Four

April 7, 2005
NCAA Frozen Four Notebook
Cycle Center
A powerful performance by their first line sent the Sioux to the championship game

By Nate Ewell, James Jahnke and Mike Eidelbes

Photography by Sam Cooper

Drew Stafford had two assists Thursday night.

COLUMBUS, Ohio – As Drew Stafford and Travis Zajac missed glorious chances in the first and second periods of Thursday night's game, while Erik Fabian scored two goals, it was a perfect demonstration of the Sioux's depth.

It also provided motivation for the team's most dangerous line, which was controlling play every time it stepped on the ice but hadn't scored.

"We were talking on the bench about how the more you miss, usually the closer you are to getting the next one in," said Stafford. "That's what we were telling each other, and (Zajac) got the chances and put them in."

Zajac scored twice in the first five minutes of the third period to effectively seal the win for North Dakota and send the Sioux to their 12th NCAA championship game.

"Right off the bat I had a couple scoring chances that I should have probably buried," Zajac said. "But I was able to work through it and fight through and get a couple tonight."

Beyond Zajac's goals, the trio, which includes Zajac, Stafford and Rastislav Spirko, controlled the puck down low consistently and even took the last shift to defend against the Gophers' 6-on-5 advantage. Their physical presence in the offensive zone set the tempo of the game, as they did in Worcester at the East Regional, and sets up an intriguing matchup with Denver on Saturday.

"Usually we play very well below the dots," Stafford said. "We get the puck moving around, we use our size and our strength to create space for each other."

"We were trying to pressure the Minnesota D, because then they would struggle with the puck," said Spirko. "When we gave them a little bit more time they could make really good plays."

Stafford, a sophomore, is the experience on the line; the other two are freshmen. And while the cliche applies – nobody plays like a freshman at this time of year – Spirko and Zajac are still reminded of their place on the pecking order, even if they're on the team's top line.

"We act like freshmen, and we've got to do all this stuff like cleaning the locker room and cleaning the bus," said Spirko. "We are still freshmen, but on the ice we are not thinking about it. We are just trying to play hard and play like sophomores, juniors or seniors."

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Game One: Story | Notebook

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GOPHERS' "WILD RIDE" ENDS

Minutes after Minnesota’s season ended Thursday at the hands of North Dakota, Golden Gophers sophomore Ryan Potulny looked like someone who had been awake for a few weeks. Eyes glazed, shoulders slumped and body limp while sitting in his locker, Potulny said his fatigue stemmed from slamming himself into the Fighting Sioux’s giant defensemen again and again in a futile attempt to erase the deficit.

But he also admitted that the Gophers’ chaotic season had taken a bit of a toll on him, too.

“Wild ride” – a phrase provided by junior Gino Guyer – was the best characterization of Minnesota’s year Thursday. After relatively minimal preseason hype, the team lost just four times before New Year’s and climbed to the top of every national poll. Expectations skyrocketed.

Then came an awful 4-8-1 stretch, which included a 0-3-1 mark at home against Michigan Tech and Alaska Anchorage, leading up to Valentine’s Day. The Gophers’ NCAA tournament hopes migrated to the bubble. Then came seven straight wins. Then a pair of losses at the Final Five and the infamous Tyler Hirsch incident. Then a controversial No. 1 seed in the West Regional. Then two overtime victories over Maine and Cornell to punch their ticket to the Frozen Four.

Kellen Briggs stopped 28 shots for the Gophers.

Then came Thursday’s exit. Throw in more than a team’s fair share of injuries during a season, and you have the 2004-05 Minnesota Golden Gophers – college hockey’s walking, talking mood swing.

“I think it made us a stronger team,” Guyer said after a moment of reflection. “We matured a lot, especially our 10 freshmen. We were the only ones who thought we could do it – it brought us closer together. People were writing us off when we went through that little slump there, but inside our locker room, we knew we had a great team. It helped us bond. Try to scratch and claw your way up, it was all us, you know? We really showed what we were made of. I’m just so happy and proud to have been a part of this team.”

Regrets, if they existed, were kept silent on the Gophers’ side. The departing seniors could reflect on happier times – such as their back-to-back national titles – while the underclassmen predicted that this year’s adversity would morph into next year’s swagger.

“We were doubted from Day One,” goalie Kellen Briggs said. “But we rallied and really showed a lot of heart and got to the Frozen Four, which is kind of a benchmark for Minnesota. We’ll have to carry that from here.”

Resigned to the loss, coach Don Lucia also sounded content with what the Gophers accomplished.

“I think we got as much out of this group as we could,” he said. “I’m really proud of this group because we don’t have any all-league players or all-Americans and they battled. I think all of our guys did that. You’re always sad to lose this time of year, but I’m not disappointed. And I think there’s a difference.”

SEEN AND HEARD AT THE SCHOTT

Defenseman Matt Greene finishes off a hit on Garrett Smaagaard.

• North Dakota fans hoping to purchase Frozen Four souvenirs featuring their beloved Indian mascot were disappointed to learn that all of the tournament’s officially licensed memorabilia was emblazoned with the school’s interlocking ‘ND’ logo. The switch was a result of the NCAA’s policy against Native American mascots.

• Inside College Hockey would like to think it played a minor role in getting the banner honoring Minnesota’s national championships amended to include the Gophers’ 2003 title. The NCAA, which hangs the paeans to past champions from the rafters of the host arena at every Frozen Four, had someone amend the offending banner between today’s semifinal games.

• Our sincere thanks to the North Dakota and Minnesota fans who e-mailed us today to correct an item about Minnesota freshman defenseman Alex Goligoski that ran in Wednesday’s notebook. INCH reported that Goligoski’s wrist was broken after being slashed by a North Dakota player at the WCHA Final Five. He actually hurt it after running into the boards that night. INCH regrets the error.

• Cornell coach Mike Schafer among those in attendance at the Minnesota-North Dakota game. Schafer, in Columbus with Big Red goalie David McKee for Friday’s Hobey Baker Award announcement, bumped into a reporter during a period break. Asked about the action between the Fighting Sioux and the Gophers – the team that knocked his squad out of the tournament in Minneapolis two weeks ago – Schafer replied, “This is a good game.”

“You’d rather be playing,” the reporter replied.

“I’d rather be playing on this ice,” Schafer shot back, a reference to Cornell’s loss on the big sheet at Mariucci Arena.

• Minnesota coach Don Lucia spoke with WCHA commissioner Bruce McLeod after the game to complain about an element of ESPN's coverage. In the ESPN pregame show, the network aired video of Tyler Hirsch's still-unexplained outburst after the Gophers 3-0 loss to Colorado College in the WCHA Final Five.

• Ed Belfour has won a NCAA title (with North Dakota in 1987) and a Stanley Cup (with Dallas in 1999) but until Thursday he'd never been a spectator at a Fighting Sioux hockey game. Belfour, who spent just one season in Grand Forks, watched the win over Minnesota amid a big group of Sioux fans and reported that he "really enjoyed" the experience.

"I try to watch the Sioux on TV whenever I can but I'd never had a chance to watch them in person until tonight," said Belfour, who is living in Toronto while waiting for the NHL labor mess to settle. Belfour will attend Saturday's game too, and said he offered Sioux goalie Jordan Parise only one bit of advice. "I just told him to keep it going," Belfour said.

• Belfour wasn't North Dakota's only alumni support. The Sioux had faxes and emails posted in the locker room from the likes of Tony Hrkac, Bryan Lundbohm and Kevin Spiewak.

• Dave Starman of CSTV asked Jordan Parise after the game about the paralells to 30 years ago, when Jordan's father, J.P., was the playoff hero for the New York Islanders, scoring the overtime winner in the Isles' first ever playoff series win. Seemingly somewhat surprised by the question, Jordan responded with a question for Starman. "Are you that old that you would know that?" Parise asked. Starman confirmed that indeed he was seven years old and in attandance at Madison Square Garden in 1975 when the elder Parise scored to beat the Rangers in the playoffs.

• North Dakota assistant coach Cary Eades is in his first season behind the bench at his alma mater after a decade (and three state championships) as head coach at Warroad (Minn.) High School. Late Thursday, he noted that whenever the Sioux and Gophers get together in the NCAA playoffs, a player from Warroad's arch-rival, Roseau, making the difference. "In 1979 when they played in the NCAA championship, Neal Broten scored the game-winner for the Gophers, and tonight it was Erik Fabian," Eades said. "It's always the Roseau kids making the difference."

• Between games outside the rink, we overheard a cell phone conversation that was probably repeated a few times: "No, you were supposed to meet me at Schottenstein, not Nationwide!"

PLUSSES AND MINUSES

Parise’s glove save on Garrett Smaagaard midway through the second period almost defies description. The best comparison is that the stop was a horizontal version of former Montreal and Colorado goalie Patrick Roy’s patented glove save with a flourish.

Clock management isn't usually an issue in hockey, but North Dakota coach Dave Hakstol deserves credit for his grasp of the situation after Minnesota scored two third-period goals less than 90 seconds apart to cut the Fighting Sioux lead to 4-2 with 12:20 left in regulation. The first-year coach admitted that he nearly used his lone timeout at that time, but looked at the clock and noticed that a TV timeout would come with the first whistle after the 12-minute mark.

Minnesota’s efforts were severely hampered by a number of mental mistakes, many of which were inexcusable. Ill-advised penalties – infractions by Danny Irmen and Barry Tallackson that negated Gopher power plays come to mind – didn’t help the cause. Nor did a passel of questionable puck-handling decisions the Gophers made in the late stages of the third period.

In our pre-Frozen Four Columbus Primer, we noted that the city’s residents are irked when outsiders refer to their home as Columbus, Ohio. As a native of Grand Rapids, Minn., INCH scribe Mike Eidelbes can tell you citizens of that small northern burg don’t like it when people think they’re from a larger Michigan city with the same handle. That’s exactly what the Value City Arena public address announcer said when he introduced Gopher freshman defenseman and Grand Rapids, Minn., native Alex Goligoski prior to the day’s second semifinal net.

WHAT'S NEXT

Based on their performances Thursday, the championship game between Denver and North Dakota has all the makings of a classic. As one observer astutely pointed out, the nation's two best teams might not be playing Saturday, but the two teams that are playing their best hockey right now are.