‘Senior Night’ goals push UMD to second NCAA title

St. Paul — Maybe the UMD hockey team should try to schedule its “senior night” to coincide with the NCAA championship game every year. 

   Karson Kuhlman and Jared Thomas — senior linemates who spent most of their four years not scoring — came up with the biggest goals of their careers Saturday night to ignite the Bulldogs to a 2-1 victory over Notre Dame before 18,303 fans at Xcel Energy Center in Saint Paul.

   The eight freshmen in the Bulldog lineup deserved the raves from all who watched, and sophomore goaltender Hunter Shepard weathered some intense pressure to hold that early lead, but captain Kuhlman, from Cloquet-Esko-Carlton, and Thomas, from Hermantown, came through with first-period goals to stake the Bulldogs to a 2-0 lead.

   Then UMD could safely, but dangerously, turn things over to goaltender Shepard and a textbook display of team defense led by their poised and patient blueliners, to win their second NCAA championship in men’s hockey.

    Kuhlman and Thomas continued their late offensive leadership, which shows some great patience by coach Scott Sandelin. Kuhlman, always hustling, has proven his captaincy repeatedly. His goal Saturday night was his 13th  of the season — far from sufficient reward for all the energy he’s spent.

   “If I could have 25 guys like Karson, my job would be a lot easier,” said Sandelin, who tried double-shifting Kuhlman in the first period after freshman winger Kobe Roth injured his ankle when he was checked into the boards. On the first shift Kuhlman played on the fourth line, he scored.

    Thomas, a big scorer in high school and in junior, spent his four years looking good, and doing everything right, but without scoring much. His goal — the game-winner — was his 11th of the season, and only his 21st in 163 games over four years. But Sandelin stuck with him patiently, for his speed, his two-way play, and maybe believing he might someday come through offensively.

   It worked, even if just barely, because Thomas’s 11th tally was the game-winner and gave UMD its second NCAA men’s hockey title at the same location it won it’s first one, in 2011. That time, the Bulldogs beat Michigan 3-2 in the second overtime, after beating Notre Dame 3-2 in the semifnals.

   For their play in the Frozen Four, Kuhlman and Thomas were both named to the all-tournament team, along with Shepard and freshman defenseman Scott Perunovich, and Notre Dame winger Andrew Oglevie and defenseman Jordan Gross. For good measure, Kuhlman also was named tournament most outstanding player.

    UMD violated a whole raft of traditions to finish 25-16-3 — the most losses by an NCAA champion. After losing twice in the NCHC Frozen Faceoff at Xcel Center, UMD made the NCAA field as the final at-large entry by one-10,000th of a Pairwise point over Minnesota. From that point on, the Bulldogs became the first team since 1977 to win all four of its NCAA tournament games by one goal.

    Taking down top-seeded Notre Dame, which finished 28-10-2 and still in search of its first NCAA title, means UMD won the title as the lone NCHC team in the field, against three Big Ten teams — for the third straight NCHC championship. 

   The other traditional difficulty the Bulldogs ignored was the high-risk of trying to hold onto a narrow lead against an explosive opponent. But the Bulldogs shrugged all of that off and continued to follow a remarkable pattern of their own, jumping ahead 2-0 with a forceful first period, then battling to hang on as the game progressed.

   The Bulldogs did that in Sioux Falls when they got a 2-0 lead on Air Force and won 2-1 for the West Region title, and they did it again Thursday when they struck twice in the first 3:04 and rode those goals to another 2-1 victory to eliminate Ohio State in the semifinals.

    So why should Saturday night’s final be any different? 

   The Bulldogs opened the tough, physical battle against Notre Dame by losing Roth, who a couple of hours later was helped onto the ice in a protective boot to join the raucous celebration. That’s when the senior tandem of Kuhlman and Thomas staked them to the 2-0 lead.

    On his first turn at wing with center Jade Miller in Roth’s spot on the fourth line, Kuhlman helped spring the puck free in the neutral zone, then he slipped ahead to the far blue line as Miller rounded up the puck and passed it ahead to Kuhlman, who was wide open to rush the net. Kuhlman started to crank up for a slap shot, and appeared to change his mind, striding in a couple more steps and snapping a wrist shot past Notre Dame goaltender Cale Morris on the short side at 9:06.

Injured UMD forward Kobe Roth is escorted around the Xcel Energy Center Ice by linemate Jade Miller hoisting the Bulldogs national championship trophy following Minnesota Duluth’s 2-1 win over Notre Dame on Saturday night. (MHM Photo / Jonny Watkins)

Both Thomas and Kuhman have provided leadership roles with heady play and a lot of grit in tight quarters, and late in the first period, they demonstrated, collaborating on a forecheck in the right corner of the Irish zone. Kuhlman finally nudged the puck around the corner boards to Thomas, who won another battle for possession there and headed for the goal.

   With no angle to shoot at and no teammate to feed, Thomas rammed a shot at Morris, who was already kneeling in the crease, figuring he had every angle covered. Turns out, he didn’t. Thomas’s shot hit his skate and glanced into the net, and the Bulldogs were up 2-0 at 18:39 of the opening session.

   “Kars got the puck up to me, and I threw a surprise shot at his feet,” said Thomas. “I was fortunate enough to find a little hole there.”

   It could have been 3-0, but Mike O’Leary eliminated a set-up in the slot with a timely hook that saved a goal, maybe, but didn’t elude the officials. UMD’s power play, however, seemed to get more deliberate as time passed, interrupting their momentum on that overlapping power play, and another one 2 mintues into the second period.

    It was no surprise that Notre Dame got some fire from the penalty kills, and that the penalties started to even up. The Bulldogs did a good job killing a Louie Roehl penalty at 4:35, but when Perunovich stopped a rush and was called for interference when the Notre Dame skater hurtled over him, the Filghting Irish broke through Shepard’s goaltending.

   Dan Morrison was on the right boards and passed across the slot to Jake Evans in the left circle. Sophomore Andrew Oglevie broke hard to the net, and arrived just as the pass from Evans got to the crease, and Oglevie jabbed the puck under Shepard at 7:40.

    The Bulldogs obviously had no intention of sitting back to protect the lead, outshooting Notre Dame 18-9 in the second period. Still, the Irish had some excellent chances at the equalizer, the best of which was when Colin Theisen sped around the defense and crashed the net.

   Shepard, who had made two or three exceptional saves at the left post moments earlier, held his ground and made the save to preserve the 2-1 lead to the second intermission.

   “I thought we played much better in the second period,” said Notre Dame coach Jeff Jackson, whose team dominated its first season in the Big Ten by winning its first 13 games, and made it a habit to win close games at the finish. “We needed to tie the game in the second, because once you get to the third period, they’re a shut-down team.”

   In the third period, the shut down effort was mainly by UMD’s kiddie corps — the steady and heady defense led by sophomore Nick Wolff and the five freshmen who never seem to sense any danger. They stopped rushes, played the puck smartly, and cleared everything, while leaving a few threats for Shepard to handle.

   After outshooting Notre Dame 18-8 in the second period, UMD held the Irish to only 5 shots with a 7-5 edge in the shut-down third, for a 35-20 game advantage. “Obviously, we didn’t want to get on our heels,” said Kuhlman. 

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UMD captain’s clutch play leads Bulldogs national title

“This year has been fun because our relationship as a coaching staff (with Kuhlman) grew,” Bulldogs head coach Scott Sandelin said. “We had a lot of talks earlier in the year. It was fun to see him kind of mature into the leader that he was.

 

“There were some frustrating times, but we found a way to get through together … I can’t say enough about Karson. He’s a great kid, great captain for us and I was so excited that he was the Most Valuable Player of this tournament because he deserved it.”

 

Kuhlman was also the MVP of the NCAA Division I West Regional and led the Bulldogs to four straight one-goal wins in the national tournament.

 

This was Kuhlman’s first season wearing a letter for a team since he was an alternate captain for the Dubuque Fighting Saints in 2013-14. His teammates voted him as the team’s captain last spring after the Bulldogs reached the national championship game.

 

UMD captain Karson Kuhlman and former Bulldog great, Bill Watson, share an embrace following Minnesota Duluth’s 2-1 Frozen Four championship game win over the Irish on Saturday night at Xcel Energy Center. (MHM Photo / Jonny Watkins)

“Throughout the summer and the fall, we knew we were going to have a lot of ups and downs,” said Kuhlman, whose team had eight freshmen and five sophomores in the lineup in Saturday’s win at Xcel. “As much as it was a learning experience for the younger guys, it was also a learning experience for myself and the leadership group.

 

“How to manage games with these younger guys and also how to manage everything from on the ice to off the ice to everything in between. At the end of the day, I couldn’t be happier with how all of them and how they stepped up.”

 

It helps when the captain is leading the way with his energy and relentless play. In the championship game, Kuhlman also stepped in to help out on a line he had not played a shift with this season.

 

Freshman left wing Kobe Roth went down with a lower leg injury in the first period. Kuhlman took a shift in Roth’s place and gave the Bulldogs a 1-0 lead with a goal at 9:06, which was 2:45 after Roth left the game.

 

“We were down to 11 forwards and I just liked the way Karson was playing,” Sandelin said. “He said he was fine to go and I told him to keep his shifts short. It paid off. It was a big goal for us to get the lead.”

 

Kuhlman got the puck from Jade Miller after Miller stole the puck in the neutral zone. He got it to Kuhlman, who faked a slap shot at the top of the faceoff circle, took a couple strides and then scored on a wrist shot from the faceoff dot.

 

“I was kind of caught it flat-footed and the ‘D’ man was closing in pretty good,” Kuhlman said of his 13th goal of the season. “I actually had scored on one of those earlier in my career on a really similar play on the catching glove side.”

 

Then Kuhlman set up the game-winner. Kuhlman and center Jared Thomas were attacking low in the Notre Dame zone. Kuhlman was able to push the puck down to Thomas, who took a couple strides toward the net and scored at 18:39 of the first period for a 2-0 lead.

 

UMD went on to win its third straight game that the Bulldogs held a 2-0 lead after the first period and ended up winning 2-1, this time to clinch its second national title.

 

Kuhlman grew up a Minnesota-Duluth fan and was a freshman on the Cloquet/Esko/Carlton High School team when the Bulldogs won their first title in 2011 in St. Paul.

 

“I remember 2011 and how much it meant to the fans in the whole city,” Kuhlman said. “I just can’t believe it. It’s pretty special.”

 

Kuhlman is an undrafted player, who finished with 38 goals and 40 assists in 165 career college games. He will graduate this spring with a degree in organizational management after being an NCHC All-Academic Team member for four years.

The post Cool Man Karson appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

Bulldogs blitz Buckeyes early, hold on late to reach second straight title game

The preliminaries to the NCAA Frozen Four were all written and spoken in colorful language: Was the Big Ten clearly the best college hockey conference because they got three teams to the Frozen Four? Does a youthful UMD stand a chance as the NCHC’s lone entry? And are the Bulldogs doing it with mirrors, using five freshmen on defense and eight in all, and still returning to the Frozen Four?

It didn’t take long for the answers to start coming in, and they kept coming in as the Bulldogs held off Ohio State 2-1 in the first NCAA hockey semifinal at Xcel Energy Center in Saint Paul. 

Minnesota Duluth forward Jade Miller takes on on the chin from Ohio State’s Ronnie Hein during the Bulldogs’ 2-1 Frozen Four semifinal win over the Buckeyes on Thursday, April 5 at Xcel Energy Center. (MHM Photo / Jeff Wegge)

The story of this year’s UMD team is its defensive poise, all those freshmen notwithstanding. They worked it again and now take a 24-16-3 record into Saturday’s 6:30 p.m. championship game, in quest of their second-ever national championship. Ohio State ends its season 26-10-5, and the Bulldogs are assured of facing another Big Ten power in the winner of Thursday’s second semifinal, between Michigan and Notre Dame. 

It doesn’t seem to matter. On the third shift of the game, UMD made a spirited attack and Ohio State goaltender Sean Romeo blocked a couple of close-in chances, although he seemed unable to find the puck after one save. Undoubtedly some cynic in the seats, and maybe on the Buckeye bench, might have wondered, “Romeo, oh Romeo, wherefore art that puck?”

Ah, UMD junior winger Parker Mackay found it before Romeo got his bearings and directed it out to center point, where UMD freshman defenseman Matt Anderson spotted his partner, fellow-freshman defenseman Louie Roehl, in deep on the right, impersonating a forechecking right winger. “I thought Matty was going to shoot,” said Roehl. Instead, Anderson sent Roehl a crisp pass, and Roehl ripped a shot past Romeo and into the Buckeyes net at 1:53.

 The UMD fans were still aroused from that early goal, when a couple of seniors collaborated for another one. Jared Thomas deflected the puck away from an Ohio State point man, and when he saw it was headed for captain Karson Kuhlman, Thomas took off, breaking behind the OSU defense. Kuhlman, near the right boards in his own end, zipped a perfect 100-foot pass right on the tape, springing Thomas for a clean breakaway. Closing fast, Thomas gave a little head feint and a deke to go to his backhand, but he interrupted his own move to slide a backhander under Romeo and between his pads at 3:04.

“Karson made a great pass to me, and did what he always does — he gives us a spark when we need it,” said Thomas.

The Bulldogs used that early springboard for a dominant first period, outshooting the Buckeyes 17-4 and taking that 2-0 lead to intermission.

“We had two freshman ‘D’ get us the first goal, then Jared Thomas gets free for the second one, and that gave us a huge start,” said UMD coach Scott Sandelin.

Ohio State coach Steve Rohlik said, “We haven’t done that all year. For whatever reason, we seemed to be on our heels at the start, and I looked up and after only 3:04, we’re down 2-zip. UMD’s defense plays a lot like we want to play; they use their speed to take away time and space.

“But I told our guys to go out and play to win. We’ve come too far, and I was proud of the way we came back, and right to the buzzer, we felt like we could win.”   

The second period was considerably tighter defensively, but neither team scored. The big, strong Buckeyes forwards started exerting their physical forecheck and the Bulldogs had some problems getting out of their end. But, as they’ve done all season, the Bulldogs displayed great poise in their own zone, and sophomore goaltender Hunter Shepard held the 2-0 lead into the third period.

Ohio State got back into the game thanks to a couple of penalties. Riley Tufte went off for elbowing at 5:38, and less than a minute after killing that one, Nick Wolff was called for tripping.

Minnesota Duluth defenseman Dylan Samberg (Hermantown) drills Ohio State’s Wyatt Ege (Elk River) during the Bulldogs’ 2-1 Frozen Four semifinal win over the Buckeyes on Thursday, April 5 at Xcel Energy Center. (MHM Photo / Jeff Wegge)

Even then, the Buckeyes needed one more “break” to get on the board. Sophomore defenseman Wyatt Ege moved in from the right point for a power-play shot, but his stick broke as he swung. As Ege, who is from Elk River, went in search of a new weapon, the puck skittered free, and Dakota Joshua shoved it to Tanner Laczynski, who moved to the top of the right circle and drilled his clean shot past Shepard at 9:27.

“We didn’t generate the number of chances we wanted to,” said Buckeye captain Mason Jobst. “But they did a good job clearing out in front, and their goalie played well.”

Rohlik pulled Romeo with 2:10 remaining, and the Buckeyes charged again. A couple more freshman defensemen came through with poise in the face of that pressure, however. First, when the Buckeyes rushed hard up the right boards, Mikey Anderson blocked a pass that ricocheted back out across the blue line, necessitating a regroup instead of an attack.

Then, with the clock ticking down into the final 15 seconds, right in the midst of a mad scramble in the corner, UMD freshman defenseman Dylan Samberg dropped down on all fours. Knowing he couldn’t cover the puck, or throw it out of the zone, he groveled back and forth on hands and knees, tapping the puck back and forth, but out of the Buckeyes reach, as the clock went down to 0:00.

The officials checked the video and determined there was still 1.2 seconds left, but the Bulldogs won the faceoff and killed that as well, for their second game-winning celebration. And it might be the first time in UMD history that a Bulldog hockey highlight video might have to show a freshman defenseman killing the clock on his hands and knees in the corner.

The post Moving On appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

OFFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE WEEK
Adam Krause, Minnesota Duluth
Senior Forward
Hermantown, Minn.

Krause led the Bulldogs to a non-conference sweep of Northern Michigan, chipping in four points on a goal and three assists while posting a plus-5 rating in the two games. Although he was held pointless in Friday’s 3-1 win, the UMD captain put three shots on goal and was plus-1. The next night he exploded for a career-high four points and compiled a plus-4 rating in the contest. Krause scored the Bulldogs’ third goal on a breakaway to make it 3-1, while he dished out the primary assist on UMD’s first goal and fifth goal, which came short-handed. He also assisted on the Bulldogs’ final tally in the 6-3 win Saturday as he was named the game’s first star. Krause put three more shots on goal Saturday and finished with six shots on the weekend.

DEFENSEMAN OF THE WEEK
Joey LaLeggia, Denver
Senior Defenseman
Burnaby, B.C.

In Denver’s only game of the weekend, LaLeggia led the Pioneers to a 3-0 shutout of rival Colorado College, anchoring a defense that did not give up a goal and was 1-for-1 on the penalty kill. The Edmonton Oilers prospect also contributed offensively, handing out two assists in the win. His first assist was the primary helper on the opening goal as his shot was deflected in for what turned out to be the game-winning goal. He also helped seal the win with an assist on an empty-net goal. LaLeggia posted a plus-2 rating in the win, blocked two shots and fired three shots on goal against the Tigers.

ROOKIE OF THE WEEK
Jared Thomas, Minnesota Duluth
Freshman Forward
Hermantown, Minn.

Thomas had a big weekend to help lead UMD to a sweep of Northern Michigan, tallying three points on two goals and an assist in the two games. On Friday, he scored the game-winning goal early in the third period to break a 1-1 tie, which was his first goal since Oct. 18. He also put three shots on goal in the 3-1 victory and was named the game’s second star. In Saturday’s 6-3 victory, Thomas was moved to UMD’s top line and recorded just his second multi-point game as a Bulldog with a goal and an assist. He helped set up UMD’s third goal to go ahead 3-1 in the first period, while he capped the win by scoring a goal for a second straight night in the third period to make it a 6-2 game. Thomas posted a plus-3 rating in the win Saturday. With his two goals on the weekend, he doubled his season total entering the NMU series. Thomas finished the weekend with a plus-3 rating, four shots on goal and went 14-6 in the faceoff circle (.700).

GOALTENDER OF THE WEEK
Tanner Jaillet, Denver
Freshman Goaltender
Red Deer, Alberta

Jaillet recorded his first career shutout in Denver’s only game of the week, backstopping the Pioneers to a 3-0 win at rival Colorado College. He stopped all 30 shots that came his way, tying his career high for saves (Jan. 24 at Miami), as he recorded double-digit saves each of the first two periods in a tight game. Jaillet also helped DU kill CC’s only power play of the game as he finished with a 1.000 save percentage and perfect 0.00 goals-against average. He was named the game’s first star while earning his ninth win of the season. Jaillet dropped his GAA from 2.14 to 1.97 on the season and upped his save percentage from .920 to .927 on the campaign.

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