Rookies playing their first WCHA game for the Minnesota Duluth Bulldogs were having a tough enough time of things last Friday, as the bigger and perhaps hungrier Alaska Anchorage Seawolves giving the home team all that it could handle. The Seawolves out-shot the Bulldogs for long stretches, played a physical game on the DECC’s tiny ice surface, and had not trailed at any point.

J.T. Brown

That was a lot for a rookie to process. Then, for Bulldogs second-line freshman wing J.T. Brown, in an instant, it got much worse. Chasing a long outlet pass and crashing hard toward the Seawolf net with just over three minutes to play in a 2-2 game, Brown realized he wasn’t going to reach the puck. He pulled up just in time to avoid a hard collision with Anchorage goalie Rob Gunderson, but not in time to avoid all contact. Gunderson went down, and the referee’s arm came up, sending Brown away for a controversial two-minute charging-the-goalie call.

For just the second time in his collegiate career, Brown had two minutes or less of solitary confinement and watched a critical part of the game from inside the penalty box.

“I was definitely a little stressed out in there,” Brown said afterward. “But the penalty-killers did a great job of blocking shots and winning faceoffs.”

The Bulldogs killed the penalty and forced overtime, despite having been out-shot by a 2-to-1 margin in the third period. In the overtime, Brown got a good look at Gunderson once more, this time sending the first shot of the extra session past the Seawolf goaltender for his first collegiate game-winner.

As the red goal light was flashing on that warm fall night in Duluth, J.T.’s father Ted heard a familiar roar from the crowd. It was a noise the elder Brown heard plenty of as a high school and then college football star at North Carolina State, as an NFL first-round draft pick, and as a featured running back for the Minnesota Vikings for much of the 1980s. Growing up in the Twin Cities suburbs, the younger Brown never felt pushed to follow his father onto the gridiron.

“Whatever I liked to do, he supported it,” J.T. said. “He didn’t really pressure me to play football or anything. I played football until ninth grade, when I decided hockey was the way I wanted to go.”

That ended up being high school and then USHL hockey. In Minnesota Duluth, J.T. says he saw a team with the opportunity to win WCHA and NCAA titles. In J.T., the Bulldog coaches saw someone they felt could make that red goal light turn on regularly.

“He’s always been an offensive guy since high school and he proved that again in the USHL,” Bulldogs coach Scott Sandelin said. “He can make plays, he’s strong on his feet, he can shoot the puck and he’s got good hockey sense.”

With the Bulldogs’ top line of Mike Connolly, Jack Connolly and Justin Fontaine leading the league in goals, assists and opponents’ attention, it’s been a perfect opportunity for Brown and his second-line mates, Travis Oleksuk and Kyle Schmidt, to garner some attention of their own. Oleksuk was named the WCHA’s most recent offensive player of the week after the sweep of Anchorage. With nine points in his first six collegiate games, Brown has already caught the eye of many. He says talking, as much as passing and shooting, has contributed to the second line’s success.

“We communicate very well with each other,” Brown said. “We’ve started to know exactly where each other are going to go and what we’re going to do with the puck before we do it. That’s the main thing we’ve been keying on to help our success.”

The Bulldogs are one of only two still-unbeaten teams in the WCHA (the other is Michigan Tech) heading into their series at Bemidji State this weekend.

SEAWOLVES NOT REWARDED FOR HARD WORK, SO FAR

Alaska Anchorage will get no credit in the WCHA standings for hard work, only for wins and ties. That’s unfortunate for the Seawolves, who have out-played several teams but have out-scored only one of them so far. On Friday they gave Minnesota Duluth a handful, not trailing at any point in the first 60 minutes, but emerged 0-1 in conference play.

“We didn’t give them a whole lot of time and space,” said Seawolves coach Dave Shyiak. “For a young team in a first WCHA road game, I thought we did very well. Unfortunately we weren’t rewarded for it and didn’t come away with any points.”

Most impressive was the willingness of Craig Parkinson and other Anchorage upperclassmen to block shots and help out the young goaltenders. The Seawolves had eight blocked shots in Friday’s second period alone. Hosting Minnesota State this weekend and still looking for their first conference win, it seems strange, but one has to like the 1-4-1 teams chances if the hard work continues.

“We’ve been in five one-goal games and a tie,” Shyiak said, prior to his team’s 6-0 loss in Duluth last Saturday. “For a young team I think that’s good. We want to remain positive and sooner or later we’ll earn our own breaks.”

BRITTAIN EARLY CHOICE AT DENVER

A groin injury suffered by Denver sophomore goaltender Adam Murray may have settled the Pioneers’ goaltending question, at least for now. Rookie Sam Brittain started both games for Denver last weekend (getting a home win and tie with Wisconsin) and was named the WCHA’s Rookie of the Week.

With Murray still questionable, Brittain is expected to get both starts this weekend at North Dakota. The Pioneers were 4-0-0 versus the Fighting Sioux in the regular season last year, but fell 4-3 to North Dakota in the WCHA Final Five semifinals.

MINNESOTA STATE HITS THE ROAD

Tourists rarely flock to Mankato in November, so one can’t fault the local hockey club for getting out of town just when things start to transition from fall to winter. Starting with this weekend’s series at Alaska Anchorage, Minnesota State will play its next eight games on the road.

After Anchorage, the Mavericks will visit Nebraska-Omaha, Denver and UMass-Lowell before their next home series, Dec. 3-4 versus Minnesota. After a home split with Colorado College last weekend, the Mavs are 1-2-3 overall.

SCHEDULE DOES GOPHER SID NO FAVORS

Before taking over as the media contact for Minnesota’s hockey team this summer, Paul Rovnak was an employee of the Washington Capitals, and cut his teeth in college sports information as a student at Ohio State.

It could have been a great sports reunion weekend in the Twin Cities for Rovnak, with the Caps visiting St. Paul on Thursday and the Buckeyes playing at TCF Bank Stadium on Saturday. But alas, the schedule gods did him no favors. Rovnak is spending Thursday, Friday and Saturday in Colorado Springs, as the Golden Gophers make their first WCHA road trip of the season to Colorado College.