By Virg Foss
GRAND FORKS, N.D. -- The UND Fighting Sioux men's hockey team parlayed two of its best periods of play tonight into perhaps its biggest victory of the season.
The Sioux outshot visiting Minnesota 18-2 in the scoreless first period and 37-12 through two periods in outhustling the No. 3-ranked Golden Gophers 6-3 in front a sellout crowd of 11,764 fans in UND's 100th win in the new Ralph Engelstad Arena.
The Sioux made it a game to remember.
Freshman left wing Jason Gregoire (Winnipeg, Manitoba) led the way with two goals and one assist.
All four lines contributed to the scoring and nine of the 12 forwads had at least one point in the Western Collegiate Hockey Association game.
Sioux senior captain Ryan Duncan (Calgary, Alberta), sophomore left wing Even Trupp (Anchorage, Alaska), senior right wing Ryan Martens (Selkirk, Manitoba) and senior left wing Andrew Kozek (Sicamous, British Columbia) added single goals for the Sioux.
UND broke the game open in the second period on Trupp's shorthanded breakaway goal at 1:17 of the period when he deked Gopher goalie Alex Kangas (34 saves) and went 5-hole on his backhander.
Gregoire's power-play blast at 5:13, Duncan's rebound goal at 11:25 and Gregoire's backhander through Kangas' 5-hole on a breakaway at 17:29 staked the Sioux to a 4-1 lead after two periods.
Ryan Stoa, who had two goals for the Gophers, cut the lead to 4-2 at 4:29 of the third period before Kozek's rocket on UND's first shot of the third period at 8:46 created a comfort zone at 5-2 before Martens knocked in a puck at the side of the net a minute later.
The goal by Martens caused Gopher assistant coach John Hill to pull Kangas from the game.
Kangas had come into the series with a 1.88 goals-against average and .932 save percentage, both best in the WCHA.
But the Sioux beat the Gophers to every loose puck through two periods in setting the tone for the seventh win in the last nine games for the unranked Sioux, now 12-10-2 overall and tied for fifth in the WCHA with a 7-5-1 record.
"We didn't give ourselves a chance to win tonight,'' Stoa said. "From the very beginning, we were outworked, outhustled.''
UND's 45 shots on goal were two shy of its season best, led by Gregoire's seven shots on goal. Duncan, Kozek and senior defenseman Joe Finley (Edina, Minn.) tied for next best with five shots apiece.
The dominating first two periods by UND overhwelmed the Gophers, playing without head coach Don Lucia, back in the Twin Cities with an undiagnosed illness.
"Playing against a rivalry like that,'' Trupp said, "emotions get a little higher. Intensity gets a little higher than any other game.''
But only the Sioux showed that spark through two periods before the Gopher came to life a bit in the third period with goals from Stoa and freshman star Jordan Schroeder.
"We talked about coming out there and driving hard to the net, getting a lot of shots on net,'' Trupp said. "We did exactly that.''
They drove the Gophers nuts, in fact, with their constant buzzing through two periods. They picked up the shorthanded goal by Trupp, a power-play goal by Gregoire to open the second period and saw sophomore Matt Frattin (Edmonton, Alberta) hit the crossbar between those two goals to get the crowd roaring in support.
"We came flying out of the gates and the crowd was behind us,'' Gregoire said. "That white-out was real fun.''
As a special promotion, Sioux fans were asked to wear white for tonight's game, and most did. The players responded by a blizzard of activity to snow under the Gophers through two periods.
"We just kept firing shots, and eventually broke them,'' Gregoire said.
Was it UND's two best periods of hockey this season? "I'm not going to go and say it was the best two,'' Gregoire said, "but that's what we need tomorrow to win the game.''
A win in Saturday's 7:05 p.m. rematch would tie the Sioux with the Gophers in the WCHA standings.
UND coach Dave Hakstol -- coaching in his 200th game with the Sioux -- was obviously pleased.
"We played on our toes,'' he said, "and that's the way we have to play to be successful. Our first period, in a lot of respects, was maybe our best period of the year.''
Minnesota didn't get a shot on net until the 7:40 mark of the first period and mustered just two over the first 20 minutes, both from long range. Only some brilliant stops by Kangas (18 saves) in the first period kept the game scoreless.
UND's sharpness was shown in that the Sioux won the battle of specialty teams, too. UND was 1-for-4 on the power play with 10 shots on goal, Minnesota 0-3 with just one shot on net.
"I thought we played with good speed, were physical, and we made a lot of plays in the first period,'' Hakstol said. "We just had to come back and have a second good period. We were able to do that. And speciality teams were very important, as they usually are.''
Gregoire's three-point game tied his career best. He had three assists in a win over Cornell on Nov. 28.
SIOUX NOTES: UND had a 40-7 edge in shots attempted through one period and a 68-25 edge through two periods before finishing with a 83-55 margin . . . The six goals tied for the most given up by Minnesota this season... Every Sioux player except defensemen Jake Marto (Grand Forks), Brad Miller (Alpharetta, Ga.) and Zach Jones (Lisle, Ill.) had at least one shot on goal . . . Freshman Brad Eidsness (Chestermere, Alberta) had 21 stops for the Sioux with 10 of them coming in the last period ... Duncan's goal was the 149th point of his career, tying him with Bill Himmelright (1975-79) for 22nd on UND's all-time scoring list.
Foss covered UND hockey 35 seasons for the Grand Forks Herald until his retirement. He now reports on UND home games exclusively for fightingsioux.com. Contact him at virgfoss@yahoo.com.
