By Virg Foss
ST. PAUL, Minn. -- The Broadmoor Trophy slipped out of the hands of the University of North Dakota Saturday night when an ugly statistic reared up at the wrong time for the Fighting Sioux men's hockey team.
The University of Minnesota claimed the Broadmoor Trophy as Western Collegiate Hockey Association playoff champion to go with its MacNaughton Cup as WCHA regular-season champion by virtue of a 3-2 overtime victory over the Fighting Sioux.
Minnesota's Blake Wheeler, who had his first college hat trick Friday night in a 4-2 victory over Wisconsin the second WCHA semifinal game, delivered even a bigger goal tonight.
He won a foot race with a Sioux defenseman for a lead pass from Jay Barriball that was feet away from being an icing infraction, dove headfirst and somehow flipped the puck high past the glove hand of Sioux junior goalie Philippe Lamoureux (Grand Forks, N.D.) at 3:25 of overtime.
Wheeler's improbably goal ended a tense battle in front of a crowd of 19,463 at the Xcel Energy Center. It was the largest crowd ever to attend a WCHA game in the 55-year history of the league.
The victory, the first for the Gophers in three games against the Sioux this season, likely locked up one of the four No. 1 seeds for the Gophers heading into the NCAA tournament next weekend.
The Sioux (22-13-5) likely dropped to a No. 3 seed for the 16-team tournament. The teams advancing to the tournament will be announced Sunday afternoon at 1:30 p.m. on ESPN.
The Sioux, who trailed 2-1 after two periods before sophomore forward and Hobey Baker candidate Ryan Duncan (Calgary, Alberta) scored his 30th goal of the season on a power play at 1:54 of the third period.
But in losing in overtime, the Sioux have now lost the last 19 games in which they trailed after two periods. The last time the Sioux won a game when behind after two was on Feb. 18, 2005 against Alaska Anchorage, when the Sioux turned a 3-2 deficit into a 6-3 victory.
"I took a whack at it and I could hear the crowd go crazy,'' Wheeler said. "I didn't see it go in.''
The Sioux, who blanked the Gophers on eight power play chances while converting 2 of 5 of their own, never led.
Gopher freshman defenseman Erik Johnson broke a scoreless tie at 8:26 of the second period when his sharp-angle shot from the faceoff dot to the left of Lamoureux hit his stick and trickled across the goal line.
The Sioux answered the goal five minutes later. Sophomore defenseman Taylor Chorney (Hastings, Minn.) scored his eighth goal of the season on a 5-on-3 power play. He took a pass from fellow defenseman Robbie Bina (Jr., Grand Forks, N.D.) and wristed his shot over the glove hand of Gopher goalie Jeff Frazee at 13:24 of the second period for a 1-1 tie.
Minnesota's Ben Gordon scored two minutes later at 15:36, beating Lamoureux to the glove side from the same face off circle that Johnson had scored from.
The Sioux caught a break at 19:09 of the second period. An apparent goal by Ryan Flynn was disallowed when a video review showed that Minnesota's Tony Lucia was in the goal crease and interfering with Lamoureux at the time of the goal.
Duncan brought the Sioux even early in the third period with his howitzer high to the catching glove hand on Frazee, bringing on a round of chants of "Hobey Baker,'' from a large contingent of Fighting Sioux fans in attendance.
Defensemen Chorney and Bina assisted on the goal by Duncan, the WCHA's scoring champion and the league's player of the year.
Lamoureux was outstanding in goal, finishing with 41 saves to 25 for Frazee as the Gophers outshot the Sioux in every period, including 4-0 in overtime.
"It was definitely a bitter pill to swallow when we saw those guys (Gophers) lifting the Broadmoor Trophy,''' Duncan said. "Hopefully we can use that as motivation. We'll remember this tonight and hopefully we can take some positives out of it. We'll remember what happened. Who knows, we may get a chance to see them again, and it should be another great game.''
UND coach Dave Hakstol congratulated the Gophers on his first order of business at the postgame press conference.
"I want to congratulate Don (Lucia) and the Minnesota Golden Gophers on a great game tonight and their championship,'' Hakstol said. "They certainly played a heckuva game, and they played hard. They made the play in overtime. Our hats are off to them. Congratulations. It was a hard-fought game. I guess it was everything it was billed to be.''
The Sioux, who had been on a hot streak with a record of 15-2-4 since Christmas, were plagued by penalties throughout. While the Gophers didn't score on their eight power plays, it was a factor in the outcome, Hakstol said.
"We wasted a little bit too much energy in the first half of the game killing some penalties,'' Hakstol said. "Overall, I think that took a little bit away from our game. Our game, we have to be on our toes and jumping and be very aggressive. We spent too much energy killing penalties.''
The Sioux did a superb job of killing penalties, limiting Minnesota to 11 shots on goal on eight power plays.
Hakstol had high praise for Chorney, who had one of UND's two goals and assisted on the other.
"He's a warrior,'' Hakstol said. "He's really developing into a complete two-way defenseman. The second half of the year, the biggest change in his game is what he's doing for us offensively.''
Chorney was one of three Sioux players named to the all-tournament team by a committee. Joining him on the team from UND were Lamoureux and sophomore forward Jonathan Toews (Winnipeg, Manitoba), who had two goals and one assist in Friday's 6-2 whipping of St. Cloud State.
Other all-tournament selections were Wheeler and defenseman Mike Vannelli from Minnesota and forward Jake Dowell of Wisconsin. Wheeler was named the tournament MVP.
On Wheeler's winning goal, Hakstol said: "It was heckuva play, a big-time play. Blake had a great tournament here this weekend. He made a good effort, and as always with a play like that, some good fortune on your side helps it along.''
Hastol said it wasn't UND's best performance. "We have an experienced hockey team, even though this is a young team,'' Hakstol said. "There's a lot of things we did tonight that mentally we have to improve on. That's the biggest area of improvement you can take away from a highly contested game at this time of the year.''
Hakstol said he doesn't expect the loss to haunt UND as it enters the NCAA tournament. "If I had to predict with this team, it might give it a just a little more resolve,'' Hakstol said.
"We have an extremely competitive group of guys,'' Hakstol said. "We didn't come here to play well this weekend, we came to win the Broadmoor Trophy and we came up short. That's going to sting for a while. Fact it, we have to put it behind us immediately, and learn from it.''
And with the hope of when the NCAA pairings are announced today, of chasing down a bigger trophy -- the NCAA championship.
Game notes: UND senior captain Chris Porter (Thunder Bay, Ont.) played in his 172nd consecutive game Saturday, the most by any WCHA player in the 55-year history of the league. Porter has never missed a game or practice since arriving on campus in the fall of 2003 . . . The WCHA Final Five drew a total attendance of 88,900 fans for the five games scattered over three days. The previous record was 87,589 set last year . . . Toews, Duncan and Porter had four shots on goal apiece to tie for the team lead in that department. The Sioux had a 39-23 edge in faceoffs win, led by an 18-9 margin by Toews . . . Minnesota had a total of 13 minutes, 53 seconds of power-play time compared to just six minutes, 46 seconds for the Sioux.
