For when the One Great Scorer
Comes to write against your name,
He marks--not that you won or lost,
But how you played the game.
--Sportswriter Grantland Rice, 1941
By Virg Foss
GRAND FORKS, N.D. -- The University of North Dakota men's hockey team might be thanking the lucky stars tonight that the famous quotation from Grantland Rice doesn't pertain to the world of college hockey.
Western Collegiate Hockey Association cellar-dweller Alaska Anchorage outplayed, outworked and outshot the Fighting Sioux in front of another sellout crowd (11,779) at Ralph Engelstad Arena.
But thanks to the outstanding efforts of junior center T.J. Oshie (Warroad, Minn.) and senior goalie Jean-Philippe Lamoureux (Grand Forks, N.D.), the Fighting Sioux found a way to run their winning streak to seven games with a second straight 3-1 victory over the Seawolves.
Oshie had a goal and an assist for the second game in a row and Lamoureux stopped 35 of 36 shots as the Sioux (16-8-1 overall, 13-7 WCHA) moved into sole possession of second place in the WCHA, two points ahead of idle Denver University, which has played four less league games.
The seven-game winning streak is UND's longest in four seasons and came in a game in which the Sioux were outshot 36-13, their lowest shot total in at least five seasons, yet found a way to win,.
"They have some difference makers and we still have some guys who are maturing into difference makers,'' Anchorage coach Dave Shyiak said. "Their difference makers made a difference tonight.''
Oshie, who has points in his last eight games, put the Sioux ahead to stay at 1-0 at 3:45 of the first period when he snapped off a wrist shot on a 1-on-4 rush that beat Anchorage rookie goalie Bryce Christianson over the glove on the short side. The goal was Oshie's 12th of the year, tops on the team.
After the Seawolves outshot the Sioux 16-3 in the second period and chopped a 2-0 deficit in half, Oshie set up sophomore center Chris VandeVelde (Moorhead, Minn.) for a key goal at 2:36 of the third period to make it 3-1.
Oshie, on the left wall, spotted VandeVelde camped on the other side of the net. He threaded a pass to him, and VandeVelde took his time to walk around goalie Jon Olthuis and slide the puck into an open net for his 10th goal of the season. Olthuis had entered the game after Christianson gave up two goals on three shots in the opening period. The goal came three seconds after a Sioux power play had expired.
Junior wing Matt Watkins (Aylesbury, Sask.) one-timed a pass out of the corner from VandeVelde at 8:23 of the first period to give the Sioux a 2-0 cushion, marking the end of Christianson's night in net. It was the sixth goal--and third game winner--of the season for Watkins.
The 13 shots for UND is at least the lowest for the Sioux in five years, going back to 14 shots in a 2-1 loss at Minnesota on Jan. 24, 2004. The low shot total may go back longer than that, but that was as far as UND media relations director Dan Benson had time to go in his research immediately after the game ended.
"No. 1, Alaska Anchorage deserves a ton of credit,'' UND coach Dave Hakstol said. "They played hard from the drop of the puck through 60 minutes.''
Yet UND, on a rare off night offensively, found a way to win, and Hakstol was thankful for that.
"They just had more jump than us tonight,'' Hakstol said. "We didn't have a whole lot of legs. The second period, we played virtually 20 minutes straight-legged.''
Even so, UND won.
"You look at the positives out of it, and we found a way to get two points,'' Hakstol said. "We found a way to gut it out in the third period and make the play to get a two-goal separation. It wasn't pretty, but I can say one thing. A few games from the first half (of the season) that went the other way, maybe we just got a little bit of an even-up tonight,.''
Hakstol, too, pointed to the play of Oshie and Lamoureux as keys to the victory.
"Individual efforts make a big difference,'' Hakstol said. "Phil Lamoureux had a huge individual effort and stole two points for us. Individual efforts like T.J. had in scoring the goal and on some of his penalty kills, those make the difference on a night like tonight where, as a team, it's just not there.''
The Sioux have now swept three WCHA series in a row heading into a road trip to Minnesota next weekend. It solidified their hold on their No. 4 national ranking and put them in No. 6 in the PairWise rankings, which are similar to those used to eventually choose the 16-team NCAA field.
"Big saves from Phil and great individual effort on the penalty kill from T.J., that's how we got through the night, quite frankly,'' Hakstol said. "It's two points. We're going to take it. We're going to move forward.''
Oshie played a big role with his goal and assist and was a key penalty killer as the Sioux held the Seawolves off the scoreboard on six power-play tries tonight and eight overall for the weekend.
"On the scoreboard, maybe it looks like we controlled the game out there,'' Oshie said. "But that wasn't the case. They (Anchorage) came in here tonight and took it to us. I thought we got kind of lucky out there tonight.''
Oshie gave a lot of credit to the Seawolves. "The standings don't show too much in this league,'' Oshie said. "They're in last place, and they were playing like a top-five team. They caught us flat-footed. Luckily, Phil was in there and he had a big game, huge game. Without him, the score could have been a lot different.''
Oshie's opening goal was unexpected, coming in alone against four defenders. But he walked around Anchorage senior defenseman Luke Beaverson along the right wall and found a small opening to place his wrist shot.
"Usually, I get yelled at trying to come in 1-on-4,'' Oshie said. "I kind of saw the 'D' was flat-footed and I had some pretty good speed built up on the other end. I saw a hole, and I took it. Maybe I caught their goalie sleeping a little bit.''
Lamoureux, like most goalies, prefers a busy night, and he certainly had one.
"I feel comfortable when I get lots of shots,'' said Lamoureux, who extended his school record for consecutive starts to 50 games.
"I was able to get a bead on a lot shots tonight,'' Lamoureux said. "We found a way to win the game tonight. That's all we're worried about.''
Anchorage dropped to 2-12-4 in the WCHA and 6-12-6 overall as its winless streak reached seven games (0-5-2),
SIOUX NOTES: UND's streak of at least one power-play goal in the last six games ended tonight as the Sioux were 0-for-4 with the man advantage, mustering just three shots on goal on the power plays . . . Watkins, along with freshman forward Evan Trupp (Anchorage) and senior defenseman Robbie Bina (Grand Forks) led the team with two shots on goal each . . . Oshie won 12 of the 19 faceoffs he took, while freshman Brad Malone (Miramichi, New Brunswick) won six of seven. After two periods, Anchorage's Merit Waldrop, who scored the only goal for the Seawolves, had seven shots on goal compared to just eight for the entire Sioux team.
