Minneapolis — All Mikey Eyssimont does is win tournament MVP trophies.

The St. Cloud State freshman forward took home the MVP hardware at the North Star College Cup in January with a five-point weekend. Eyssimont followed that up with two game winners among his three goals in this weekend to lead the Huskies to their first NCHC Frozen Faceoff title.

The Littleton, Colo. native’s highlight reel goal in the closing seconds of the second period broke a 1-1 tie with Minnesota-Duluth and SCSU goaltender made it hold up with 33 hard-earned saves for his 30th win of season as the Huskies beat the Bulldogs 3-1 Saturday night at Target Center.

Eyssimont’s torrid second half continued on Friday when his no look behind-the-back backhanded shot from along the goal line slipped past UMD netminder Kasimir Kaskisuo at the 19:24 mark of the second period to put the Huskies ahead for good.

“I saw Jimmy Schuldt, he shot for a stick, I think (Patrick) Russel’s,” Eyssimont said. “And it missed wide and popped out in kind of a perfect spot for me and as I got hit I just, it came past the goal line and I just tapped it in.”

The goal was Eyssimont’s 26th point in 22 games since New Year’s Day.

While he’s proud of his players’ accomplishment, St. Cloud State Coach Bob Motzko said he’s already in emotion-control mode with his team.

“We talked about it yesterday, we won the first round of the playoffs, we’ve got another round to go,” he said. “We’re excited but we want to park it quickly and try to stay off an emotional roller coaster.”

Motzko said that was the key to the win over UMD after the Huskies got off to a slow start which led to a 1-0 deficit after one period on Bulldogs defenseman Carson Soucy’s third goal of the season.

“I thought we had a great first period,” Minnesota-Duluth coach Scott Sandelin said. “Not a lot happened but we got the lead. We were playing real well.”

“They got up 1-0 and that was a scary situation because that’s what happened to us before,” Motzko said. “We needed to hunker down and it took us awhile.”

Motzko was referring to Minnesota-Duluth’s late February sweep at St. Cloud which ignited UMD’s seven game winning streak which the Huskies extinguished on Saturday.

“They have great speed which makes it difficult because with great speed you can play great defense,” Motzko said. “And that’s what was limiting our chances early; we weren’t moving our feet.”

Minnesota-Duluth outshot SCSU 11-5 in the period but its momentum was slowed by Neal Pionk’s roughing penalty at the 20 minute mark of the first and Andy Welinski’s slash five minutes into the second.

The Bulldogs held the Huskie’s vaunted power play off the board but it came at a cost as St. Cloud State began to assert its control over the contest. That led to Eyssimont tying the game near the midway point of the second period off a cross-ice pass from Prow which he one-timed past UMD goalie Kasimir Kaskisuo from below the right circle.

“I don’t think our last 30-plus minutes was the way we’ve been playing,” Sandelin said. “They were very opportunistic and that’s what they do. They’ve scored a lot of goals this year.”

“I thought we got very consistent, very business-like, limited chances and played a very solid, strong game from that point on,”Motzko said. “So I liked the fact we didn’t start great but we found a way to be very business-like and get it done.”

Russel gave St. Cloud State some breathing room with his 2oth of the season early in the third and Lindgren kept the Bulldogs off the board.

The win boosted the Huskies past North Dakota and into the No. 2 overall spot in the all-important Pairwise Rankings which uses a formula mirroring that of the NCAA tournament selection committee. The general consensus late Saturday night, among those who speculate on such matters, had St. Cloud State as the No. 1 seed in the March 26-27 West Regional in St. Paul’s Xcel Energy Center.

The Bulldogs, meanwhile, dropped to the 14th spot in the Pairwise which will likely send them to Worcester, Mass. as the No. 4 seed in the Northeast Region March 25-26.

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Minneapolis — Some players, for whatever reason, step up their games against certain opponents. For St. Cloud State’s Mikey Eyssimont, it’s an entire state.

The Littleton, Colo. native ‘s goal at 1:41 of the third period gave the Huskies a 3-1 lead and turned out to be the difference in the Huskies’ 4-2 National Collegiate Hockey Conference Frozen Faceoff semifinal win over Denver on Friday night at Target Center.

With SCSU up 2-1 early in the third period, Eyssimont did a nice job of protecting the puck down low and his centering pass to Patrick Russell deflected off traffic in front and behind bewildered Pioneers goaltender Tanner Jalliet. No. 3 seed Denver’s Evan Janssen answered for the Pioneers just 32 seconds later but the Huskies held DU at bay until defenseman Jimmy Schuldt’s empty-net goal sealed it.

“So far, so good against the Colorado teams,” Eyssimont said after the Huskies snapped Denver’s 11-game winning streak. “It feels good but I can’t think about it too much right now.”

Of the freshman’s no 29 career points (10-19–29) seven of them (2-5–7), or nearly a quarter, have come against against either Denver or Colorado College. In fact, St. Cloud State coach Bob Motzko believes Eyssimont’s rookie season turned a corner when St. Cloud State visited Denver to close out the season’s first half.

Eyssimont had bounced up and down the line chart and in and out of the SCSU lineup leading up to that Dec. 11-12 series sweep at Denver. He came into the weekend with just four points but played well and his beautiful assist to complete Kalle Kossila’s hat trick helped cap off the weekend’s scoring.

“How many time do you see these young guys come back after Christmas and the sky is blue and they start playing?” Motzko asked rhetorically. “And Mikey started to play and we all saw it and he’s been very, very good.”

Good indeed. In 21 games since Jan. 1,the 2014 graduate of Chatfield Senior High School has racked up 24 points on nine goals and 15 assists.

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Mr. March helps SCSU reach Frozen Faceoff final

Minneapolis — Postseason beast Joey Benik’s two pivotal points led St. Cloud State to a 4-2 National Collegiate Hockey Conference Frozen Faceoff semifinal win over Denver on Friday night at Target Center. In the process, the Huskies snapped third-seeded Denver’s 11-game winning streak.

The No. 2 seeded Huskies will face fourth seed Minnesota-Duluth – identical 4-2 winners over top-seeded North Dakota – at 7:37 p.m. on Saturday for the NCHC playoff title.

Benik scored a goal and added a pretty assist on fellow senior David Morley’s 14th goal of the year in SCSU’s 30th victory of the season. It’s just the second time in the school’s DI history the Huskies have reached that mark.

Third period goals by freshmen Mikey Eyssimont and Jimmy Schuldt, the latter into an empty net, rounded out the scoring for St. Cloud State. Goaltender Charlie Lindgren faced just 19 shots on goal in picking up his school-record 29th win (29-8-1) of the season on Friday as the teams combined for just 35 total shots.

“I don’t think anyone thought it was going to be a defensive battle,” Motzko said. “But that’s what it sure turned out to be and it was a hard-fought, it was a tough hockey game … I think that it helps set the tone for what’s to come in the (NCAA) playoffs.”

Denver forward Grant Arnold lamented his team’s ability, or lack thereof, to get to the front of the Huskies net. He said St. Cloud State isn’t “the most physical team, but they have great sticks.”

“They did a great job of bottling us up on the walls and did a great job using their sticks,” he added. “You’re not going to score on a great goalie like that getting perimeter shots.”

“Guys were selling out to block shots,” Motzko said. “That might be the critical thing. We were kind of buying into having a very good defensive night.”

St. Cloud State’s Joey Benik (MHM Photo / Jeff Wegge)

Benik’s first-period power play goal opened the scoring and ultimately ensured SCSU would never trail the Pioneers. His second period assist gave the Huskies the lead for good.

With the game tied 1-1 in the second, Benik carried the puck behind the net and and Denver goalie Tanner Jalliet bit hard on what appeared to be a wraparound attempt.

“That was my initial plan,” Benik said. “I was going to bring it around up front and last second I heard Dave yell my name so I just turned and threw it to him and he had a wide open net.”

Benik’s against-the-grain pass hit Morley’s tape and Jalliet had no chance. The assist gave Benik 21 points 10-11–21) in 19 career playoff games as a Husky.

“It’s a fun time to play and with the atmosphere that our conference brings, I mean this is a great tournament,” Benik said. “It’s easy to play in front of a lot of fans and with such high emotions. It’s a mixture of all that and everything is on the line so I mean you gotta give it all every night you go out there.”

St. Cloud State now faces a UMD team that’s won seven straight games dating back to a Feb. 26-27 sweep of the Huskies at the National Hockey Center. SCSU had last been swept in October at Quinnipiac, currently the No. 1 team in the all-important Pairwise Rankings.

Motzo said the biggest thing the Huskies learned from that experience was to move on from it.

“The best thing we did was we just parked it,” Motzko said. “Why late in the year should we make a big deal out of an off week? Because we trust our guys; we like our hockey team.”

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Minneapolis – After losing all four meetings with North Dakota during the season, Minnesota-Duluth appeared in trouble when the Fighting Hawks scored in the first minute of the National Collegiate Hockey Conference Frozen Faceoff Friday.

To add to their predicament, the Bulldogs needed a win to keep their NCAA tournament hopes alive.

No problem.

“Our guys, like in the last month or so, kept their composure and kept playing,” UMD coach Scott Sandelin said.

The Bulldogs, who won their final four games of the regular season and then two straight from Miami (Ohio) to enter the Frozen Faceoff with a 17-14-5 record, got two goals from Dominic Toninato and 22 saves from goaltender Kasimir Kaskisuo and rallied to knock off the top-ranked Hawks 4-2 at Target Center.

UMD’s Toninato and Alex Iafallo scored in the first 3:46 of the second period and the Bulldogs got another goal from Austin Farley nine minutes later to take control.

“Every line had it going at the start of the second,” Toninato said, “and we went from there.”

The Fighting Hawks responded with 14 shots in the second period and five in the third, but were able to beat Bulldogs sophomore goalie Kaskisuo just once over the final 40 minutes.

“Kas played tremendous for us all year,” Toninato said, “and it’s good we can finally start getting some wins for him.”

The victory not only locked up a berth in the NCAA tournament, but gave UMD a shot at the NCHC playoff title for the first time.

“It’s always good when you can play for a championship,” Sandelin said. “We talked about it a month ago: Where we were at, we needed to get to our tournament and try and win the tournament. That was the surest way to get in. We put ourselves in a position to do that, so it feels good.”

Nick Schmaltz scored for North Dakota in the first minute Friday afternoon, and the 1-0 lead stood through the first intermission. But UMD came out strong, tying the score just 28 seconds into the second period.

Fighting Hawks coach Brad Berry, while admitting that UMD probably had more at stake than his team in this game, noted that whatever the cause, the Bulldogs were clearly motivated.

“I saw a team that was committed to not only play hard with the puck, but without the puck,” Berry said. “There was a commitment there.”

“It was two good teams playing playoff hockey,” Berry added.

North Dakota dodged a five-on-three disadvantage for 1 minute, 18 seconds in the second period, but UMD refused to allow that to return the momentum to North Dakota.

UMD outshot the Hawks 26-24 for the game and yielded very little when Berry pulled goalie Cam Johnson for more than the final three minutes. Minnesota-Duluth simply made it difficult for the Hawks to get close to their net all evening.

“Give their D-corps props,” North Dakota defenseman Troy Stecher said. “They stuck on our forwards pretty tight, and there wasn’t much time and space out there.”

That was the key for UMD, which stopped North Dakota’s eight-game winning streak in the process.

“It’s been a lot of fun so far,” Toninato said, “but we’re not done yet.”

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Coleman’s hat trick leads Miami to Frozen Faceoff title

Minneapolis — St. Cloud State knew the necessary work to reach the NCAA Tournament had been completed Friday afternoon.

But the Huskies just missed their chance to do something they hadn’t accomplished in 14 years, and that was to win a postseason conference title.

Miami, led by Blake Coleman’s hat trick, handed SCSU its first loss of the postseason by a score of 3-2 in the NCHC Frozen Faceoff championship game.

“I loved how we competed tonight,” SCSU coach Bob Motzko said. “We left it all out there. We had some great looks at the end to get the thing tied up. I like a lot of things about our hockey team tonight.”

The loss drops SCSU (19-18-1) from ninth to 12^th in the PairWise Rankings, but Friday’s win over North Dakota had already ensured the Huskies a requisite record above .500 and enough cushion in the PairWise to qualify for an NCAA regional.

Where and when they play will be announced at 11 a.m. Sunday.

Still, SCSU’s focus was winning a title Saturday, but instead it lost its third conference title game since it beat North Dakota in the 2001 Final Five championship.

“The good news is that our season isn’t over,” Huskies forward Brooks Bertsch said. “I think we can take something out of this loss and into next week and the NCAA Tournament.”

The Huskies got on the board first Saturday, thanks to a goal by Joey Benik 12 minutes into the game, but every time SCSU scored, Coleman had an answer.

He answered Benik’s goal when he deflected a cross-ice pass from Riley Barber out of mid-air and into an open net 4:15 later.

Jonny Brodzinski gave SCSU the lead again on a one-timer on the power play at the 6:03 mark of the second period, but Coleman came back with a power-play goal on a one-timer 1:34 after Brodzinski scored.

Coleman scored the game-winner 1:43 after his tying goal. Twenty nine minutes and 20 seconds was all Coleman needed to record the hat trick, and 34:12 was the time of the game in which he was forced to leave.

Coleman leveled SCSU’s Joey Rehkamp and made contact with his head, resulting in a five-minute major penalty and a game misconduct. It was Coleman’s third game misconduct of the season, which means he’ll miss Miami’s first NCAA tournament game.

“That’s my understanding,” Miami coach Enrico Blasi said.

But the senior center still left the biggest footprint in the game Saturday with three goals, a 14-2 faceoff record and half the minutes played.

“That’s a senior, and it was a blow to Miami when he got knocked out of the game because he was having an unbelievable night,” Motzko said.

SCSU had chances to score late in the game with a flurry of Grade-A opportunities in the final minute as the teams scrambled in front of the Redhawks net.

Rehkamp had the best chance to score with less than 60 seconds left with the puck at the top of the crease. He had Miami goalie Jay Williams beat, but as he brought the puck from forehand to backhand, a Miami defender used his stick to break up the chance.

Each goalie, SCSU’s Charlie Lindgren and Williams, finished with 18 saves. Lindgren was forced to make a big pad save on Miami’s Austin Czarnik on a shorthanded breakaway in the second period.

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No. 18 St. Cloud upsets No. 1 North Dakota 3-1 in the Frozen Faceoff semis

MINNEAPOLIS —Twenty-five seconds may not be a lot of time in some cases. Unless you’re a hockey team that used that time to score a couple goals.

That was ultimately all it took for No. 18 St. Cloud State University (19-17-1) to score two goals and upset No. 1 North Dakota (27-8-3) 3-1 in the semifinals of the NCHC Frozen Faceoff Friday at Target Center. The win sends the Huskies to the championship game Saturday.

“It’s a great opportunity for us,” said SCSU junior Joey Benik. “Everyone’s eager to get going tomorrow.”

SCSU looked to be headed into the first intermission down 1-0 to UND. Then the final seconds of the first period changed the course of the game. SCSU went into the locker room with a 2-1 lead that it never relinquished.

Their first goal came with 24.5 seconds on the clock. Junior forward Jonny Brodzinski took the puck around the back of UND’s net, then passed it out front to a waiting David Morley, who buried it for his 17th goal of the season.

Tying the game when they did gave the Huskies some momentum. The result of that swing was almost immediate. They drove the net again and Benik shot a loose puck into a wide-open net as the clock showed 5.4 seconds.

“Couple lucky bounces, and it came back to me, back door,” Benik said. “It bounced off everything before it came back to me.”

That turned out to be the game winner, as SCSU blocked shots and stepped up defensive play for the next two periods on the way to the victory.

For SCSU Coach Bob Motzko, the task coming into the game was to play a solid first period. That mission seemed to be accomplished on the scoreboard, despite how they knew UND was capable of playing early in the game.

“They (UND) want to come out and dictate it early… and then smother you,” he said. “We have to counter that.”

Even after getting behind, the attitude on the SCSU bench remained positive, according to Motzko, who added that his team is playing its best hockey in the past month or so.

On the other bench, UND Coach Dave Hakstol had his own evaluation of how that final minute of the first period went down.

“Well, it was sloppy,” he said. “We weren’t sharp through a lot of the game. That 25-second time period was real indicative of that.”

UND’s lone goal came from Keaton Thompson on a blast from the point that made it through traffic in front of goaltender Charlie Lindgren. Thompson credited his teammates in front of the net on the play.

“I just tried getting it through,” Thompson said. “The goalie couldn’t even see it.”

Hakstol said his team “turned a corner” with its play in the second half of the game and did its best to tie the game. But SCSU’s “hard and hungry” play was something UND wasn’t able to conquer.

“Playoff time, one goal is, it’s critical,” he said. “It’s a tough deficit.

“We needed to be a little bit better tonight.”

That’s not to say UND didn’t have its chances. They had a few close scoring chances and were pressuring in the final 40 minutes of hockey but to no avail.

“Tonight just wasn’t us,” captain Stephane Pattyn said. “It wasn’t our game.”

UND pulled goalie Zane McIntyre with 1:12 left in the game, and Joe Rehkamp scored the empty netter seven seconds later to ice the win for his team.

SCSU goaltender Charlie Lindgren improved to 18-16-1 with the victory. He made 19 saves against the nation’s No. 1 team.

“He’s been dialed in for awhile for us,” Motzko said.

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