By Virg Foss
GRAND FORKS -- The blizzard scheduled to hit here later tonight had nothing on the blizzard of goals rocking Ralph Engelstad Arena earlier in the evening.
The North Dakota Fighting Sioux picked up their first Western Collegiate Hockey Association sweep of the season with a 7-4 victory over St. Cloud State. Coupled with UND's 3-2 win Friday, the Sioux now have won a season-best four games in a row to climb above the .500 mark both in the WCHA (6-5-1) and overall (9-8-1) for the first time this season.
The Sioux did it with a superb collective effort. Seven different players scored a goal each and 14 of the 18 Sioux skaters earned at least one point via a goal or assists.
UND also held the nation's leading scorer, St. Cloud State's Garrett Roe, without a point on the weekend, although he accidentally shot a puck into his own net for a goal for the Sioux with under a second left in the game.
That goal was credited to Sioux sophomore defenseman Derrick LaPoint (Eau Claire, Wis.), the last UND player to touch the puck before Roe banked it off the boards and into his net for LaPoint's first goal of the season.
Senior wing Ryan Duncan (Calgary, Alberta), sophomore defenseman Jake Marto (Grand Forks), junior center Chris VandeVelde (Moorhead, Minn.) and junior center Darcy Zajac (Winnipeg, Manitoba) scored the the Sioux in the first 11 minutes, 33 seconds of the game for a quick 4-1 UND lead.
Freshman wing Brett Hextall (Manhattan Beach, Calif.), scored UND's lone goal of the second period and freshman center David Toews (Winnipeg, Manitoba) and LaPoint closed the flurry with Sioux goals in the final period.
St. Cloud State had closed to within 5-4 early in the third period on a power-play goal by Ryan Lasch at 5:17.
Just 42 seconds later, Toews scored his third of the season on a wrist shot to send the Sioux on to victory.
It was a goal singled out by Sioux coach Dave Hakstol.
"Maybe the goal that stands out the most was David Toews, Jason Gregoire (Fr., Winnipeg, Manitoba) and Matt Frattin (So., Edmonton, Alberta) having a great shift after their power-play goal,'' Hakstol said.
"They come right back, had a great shift, ground it out, made good plays and finished it with what was probably the biggest goal of the game,'' Hakstol said. "That's a little indicative, I guess, how we're winning games.''
The Sioux scoring was so balanced that just three players - senior defenseman Brad Miller (three assists), junior defenseman Chay Genoway (two assists), and Hextall (goal, assist) - had multiple-point games.
The seven goals given up the Huskies were two more than they've given up in any game this season and marked the second time in the last four games the Sioux have scored seven or more. They hung 10 goals on Harvard in a 10-1 in eight days ago.
It seems that when December rolls around and the weather turns cold, the Sioux turn hot. It's a formula they've parlayed into trips to the Frozen Four in each of the four years Hakstol has been the coach. It could be happening again.
"We'll see what kind of a story we can write this year,'' Hakstol said. "I said a month-and-a-half ago that I like this hockey team. We as a staff feel this team can be a good one.''
It was a team that showed it could handle any adversity the Huskies threw at them tonight.
When St. Cloud chopped UND's 4-1 lead to 4-3 late in the second period, Hextall responded with a 5-on-3 power play goal. He slapped in a rebound after Genoway's shot chimed off the goal post for a 5-3 Sioux lead.
Then after Lasch pulled the Huskies to within 5-4, Toews answered right away to ease the pressure and ensure the sweep.
The Sioux take a break from WCHA play for the next month. They have four non-conference games on tap and one exhibition contest before they swing back into league play against league-leading Minnesota on Jan. 9-10 in Grand Forks.
"We've got an awful lot of work to do,'' Hakstol said. "We battled our way back to one game over .500, but I think in essence with the way things have happened nationally and within our league, with the win tonight, we really put our destiny in our own hands going into the second half (of the season).''
The Sioux scored on three of their first six shots at St. Cloud State starting goalie Jase Weslosky, who was lifted after the first period.
VandeVelde snapped a string of nine games without a goal with his first-period marker and the goal by Zajac ended a 10-game goal-less stretch for him.
"We're getting some good bounces, but we're creating those bounces by hard work,'' Miller said.. "We're putting a lot of shots on net and just getting to the net, something we've been trying to do over the course of the year.''
It's paying off. The goals by Marto, Zajac and Hextall all came off rebounds.
"We're kind of preaching that everyone needs to contribute a little more,'' Marto said.
The first home sweep was sweet for the Sioux, too. Three previous times this year the Sioux had won the home opener, only to lose the nightcap.
"Oh God, it's huge,'' Marto said. "Saturday nights were starting to bug us.''
SIOUX NOTES: Hextall and Matt Watkins (Sr., Aylesbury, Saskatchewan) led the Sioux in shots on goal with 4 each . . . The Sioux were 2-6 on the power play, the Huskies 1-6 . . . With LaPoint's goal coming with a fraction of a second left in the game, the game ended at that point with a tick of the clock left on the official scoreboad....That same thing happened Friday night when St. Cloud's Sam Zabkowicz scored with less than a second left and play was halted at the point . . . UND is now 7-1-4 in the last 12 meetings with St. Cloud . . . The paid attendance was listed as a sellout of 11,757, though there were plenty of no-shows because of the threatening weather . . . Freshman Brad Eidsness (Chestermere, Alberta) had 19 saves while St. Cloud goalies Weslosky (11) and Dan Dunn (9) combined for 20.
Foss covered UND hockey for 35 seasons for the Grand Forks Herald until his retirement. He reports on Sioux home games exclusively for FightingSioux.com.
