Inside College Hockey | INCH Measures Up Drew Stafford

March 30, 2005
NCAA Frozen Four
INCH Measures Up North Dakota's Drew Stafford

By Joe Gladziszewski

The only team at the Frozen Four that wore a dark sweater during the regional round, North Dakota, was also the most impressive regional performer. The Sioux whitewashed Boston University, 4-0, and blew out Boston College, 6-3, to join conference mates Denver, Colorado College, and Minnesota at next week’s Frozen Four.

Despite being a No. 2 seed for the regional, the Sioux played like the best team in the tournament. In fact, they’ve been playing that way for five weeks. North Dakota turned its season around with a win and tie against Wisconsin at Ralph Engelstad Arena Feb. 26-27. Since then, they’ve only lost one game. That was a 2-1 overtime defeat inflicted by Denver in the WCHA Final Five semifinals.

If North Dakota is considered the least likely of the four finalists to win the national championship next week, it’s good that they’ll have Drew Stafford on their side. He knows something about making history. Stafford was a member of the gold-medal winning United States team at the 2004 IIHF World Junior Championships in Helsinki, Finland.

He talked about that title, and North Dakota’s recent success, in the aftermath of the East Regional championship win over Boston College on Saturday night.

Drew Stafford leads the Fighting Sioux and ranks tied for seventh nationally with five game-winning goals.

INCH: The last time North Dakota was in a Frozen Four was in 2001 and none of the players on this team were in Albany. It’s a long time for a program like North Dakota to be away. Was that talked about at all last week?

Drew Stafford: It was a little bit. I know we have nine seniors on the team this year and they’ve come up through the program and gotten to this point now where they’ve really stepped up their game and allowed us to go on a run. Now we’re there and the next step is getting ready for that first game.

We have a lot of time off to prepare for it and everything else now is over with. Our only concern now is moving on and getting that first win.

INCH: Colby Genoway talked about the Wisconsin weekend. The team started to “gain its identity” is the term he used. What is your identity and why are you guys successful right now?

DS: I think one of the keys to our success is our goaltending obviously. Jordan Parise has really stepped it up. Another thing is our depth. We’ve been getting some production out of our lower lines. Our third and fourth lines have been scoring goals. Brian Canady got a goal [against Boston College] and that’s huge. Anytime that our depth players can get goals for us and our top-line forwards can offer some offense we’re definitely going to be a successful team.

INCH: Speaking of depth, you’ve had some guys out of the lineup from time to time, Robbie Bina and Brady Murray most recently. Is that more a testament to your team’s depth, or your team’s character that you can respond to that?

INCH Measures Up:
Frozen Four Edition

Colorado College: Scott Polaski
Denver: Matt Carle
Minnesota: Barry Tallackson

Drew Stafford: In dealing with Robbie, he’s been in our prayers and he’s been in our thoughts. We’re definitely playing for him. We have his jersey in our locker room and we’re thinking about him and we wanted to win this game for him so that he can come on the trip with us to the Frozen Four.

Losing Brady Murray, who is a huge part of our offense, that’s another testament to our ability to step up our own game and realize that we do have the ability to produce offense even with a player like Brady being out of the lineup.

INCH: You got a lot of goals against Boston College right in front of the net and guys were still on their skates to put their sticks in the air. Do you pride yourselves on playing in that area of the ice?

DS: For sure. That’s one of the things the coaches have talked to us about, going to the net and being strong in front of the net. Not only that, but just in general having that killer instinct to be able to finish a play off and in the second and third period we kept getting goals. That’s something we’ve been working on. A killer instinct to finish teams off and staying strong to finish games off strong.

INCH: When was the last time you had a feeling this good in hockey?

DS: Well, it had to be the World Junior Tournament. That was a pretty special moment. We definitely haven’t done anything yet. Obviously getting to the Frozen Four is a huge step. We’re there now, and the biggest thing is concentrating on that first game and taking the next step.