DENVER -- Following last night's 5-4 loss to Denver, senior
assistant captain Corban Knight called North Dakota's performance "unacceptable."
Knight and his teammates responded in Saturday's series
finale by handing the 10th-ranked Pioneers their worst home loss in
more than five years, a 6-1 drubbing that moved UND into a tie for third place
in the WCHA.
UND got goals from six different players, scored three times
on the power play and held DU's red-hot power play to just one goal in seven
chances.
"Obviously a big bounce-back win after last night," said
sophomore forward Mark MacMillan (Penticton, British Columbia), who had a goal
and two assists. "Last night wasn't good enough. We came out today and special
teams were great, and that's what you need to do this time of year to win
games."
After DU's Ty Loney opened the scoring with a power-play
goal 8:50 into the game, UND roared back with three straight to take a 3-1 lead
into the first intermission. Knight set up Kristo on the doorstep to tie the
game midway through the first, then Carter Rowney (Sr., Sexsmith, Alberta) gave
UND the lead for good when he jammed home a MacMillan rebound for his second
goal of the weekend.
Grimaldi closed out the first-period scoring when he
one-timed a cross-ice feed from Kristo with just 12 seconds left on the clock.
The goal gave UND a 2-goal cushion and sent DU goalie Juho Olkinuora to the
bench for Sam Brittain.
Olkinuora was named the game's No. 1 star on Friday after a
35-save performance.
"No matter who's playing in net you're going to try getting
pucks and bodies to the net," said MacMillan. "He's been phenomenal against us
all year. The more you go to the net on a goalie the more you're going to get
to him and today we just happened to get to him."
MacMillan provided UND with another late goal with just one
second left in the second period, knocking home a rebound in a goal mouths
scramble on the power play.
"(Scoring a late goal is) big momentum for the next period.
When you're on the other side of that, it's demoralizing. Obviously it's big
for us to get that and get momentum," said MacMillan. "When I looked up and saw
zeroes on the clock I was kind of worried a little bit, but all the guys on the
bench said it was in before (the buzzer)."
MacMillan's goal came just moments after DU's Zac Larraza
missed the net on a shorthanded breakaway, a sequence UND coach Dave Hakstol
said was critical.
"The difference between giving up one at the end of the
second on the shorthanded breakaway - (Larraza) misses and we go right back
down and score right at the buzzer, that's obviously a key turning point."
UND iced the game in a penalty-filled third period on goals
by Michael Parks (So., St. Louis, Mo.) and Dillon Simpson (Jr., Edmonton,
Alberta).
Simpson's goal came on the power play, where UND finished
3-for-9.
"It was a game with so much specialty teams play that there
were a lot of guys that didn't get a lot of minutes," said Hakstol. "The
difference from last night is every time we had guys on the ice, they were contributing
in one way or another. That was what I thought we were missing in last night's game."
Junior goalie Clarke Saunders quietly enjoyed a solid
outing, stopping 28 of 29 shots for his 11th win of the season.
With the victory, UND improved to 17-9-6 overall and 12-6-6
in the WCHA heading into next weekend's home series against Bemidji State, the
final home series of the regular season.
Notes: MacMillan's
three points matched his career high ... Simpson also had a goal and two assists
for his first career 3-point game ... Kristo had a goal - his career-high and
WCHA-leading 20th of the season -and an assist and now has 14 goals
in his last 17 games. He has 29 points during that stretch.
