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.

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Young defense, goaltending  lead UMD back to Frozen Four

  When hockey fans see Carson Soucy step into the Minnesota Wild lineup to play his first NHL game as a replacement for Ryan Suter, they have to be impressed with the 6-foot-5 rookie defenseman. Same with Neal Pionk, when he moved seamlessly into the New York Rangers lineup halfway through the season.

  Similarly, seeing Alex Iafallo spend the entire season as a solid winger for the Los Angeles Kings, or Dominic Toninato hustling his way into the Colorado Avalanche lineup, creates cumulative evidence about the talent that powered last season’s UMD Bulldogs into the Frozen Four. Though they lost a 3-2 overtime game to Denver in the NCAA final at Chicago, the Bulldogs got there because of a talented forward group and an exceptional corps of defensemen.

  However, that also creates the larger question: How did this year’s UMD team make it back without all those standouts? The Bulldogs lost their senior leaders, including their three top scoring forwards, as well as five senior defensemen, compounded by the summertime underage signings by captain-to-be Adam Johnson, defensive standout Pionk, as well as freshman goaltending star Hunter Miska.

  The impressive recruiting skills of head coach Scott Sandelin and top assistants Brett Larson and Jason Herter notwithstanding, trying to find new scorers, a new goaltender, and acclimating five freshman defensemen made this a certain rebuilding season. Right?

  “Just wait until you see these freshmen,” said Larson, a former Duluth Denfeld and UMD defenseman who returned to the UMD staff after venturing off to gain experience as a USHL coach and as assistant to old recruiting partner Steve Rohlik at Ohio State. He said it with a slight grin, and you learn quickly to never question Larson.

  Sure enough, sophomore Nick Wolff was joined by freshman defensemen Scott Perunovich, Mikey Anderson, Dylan Samberg, Matt Anderson, and Louis Roehl — all homegrown Minnesota high school players — and the defense never missed a beat. Hunter Shepard, former Grand Rapids star who competed and narrowly lost out to Miska in goal last season, went through the same early-season competition but won it this time, and has been superb, a fact Sandelin attributes to the quiet work of former UMD goaltender and now goalie coach Brant Nicklin.

   Freshmen wings Nick Swaney from Lakeville, Kobe Roth from Warroad, and center Justin Richards, who is listed from Columbus, Ohio, because that’s where his dad, former Wild coach and Gopher defenseman Todd Richards, formerly coached, but without question, the most astounding thing about this edition of the Bulldogs is the defense. And that

UMD defenseman Louie Roehl defends against Air Force forward Evan Giesler in UMD’s 2-1 West Regional final win over the Falcons in Sioux Falls, S.D. on March 24, 2018. (MHM photo / Jonny Watkins)

goes for the coaching staff, responsible for the intriguing development of the freshmen.

  What goes mostly unnoticed by casual observers is that rarely does the UMD defense come out from behind their net and chip the puck up off the sideboard glass to clear the zone. Just as unnoticed is how prevalent such defensive zone play is. Virtually all NHL teams, college teams, and high school teams have short-fuse switches to panic mode and send pucks ricocheting off the glass or sideboards to get it past the opposing point-men and out to center ice. Of course, that leads to a lot more icings at one end of the spectrum, and loss of possession at the other end.

  Sandelin and his staff stress a puck-control game, and it starts when the defensemen get the puck.

  “Back in our end, they don’t panic,” said Sandelin. “They’re patient, and they’re always looking to make a play — sometimes to our own demise. Sometimes you just have to get the puck out across the blue line, and sometimes our guys think that if they can’t make a tape-to-tape pass, it’s not a good play.

  “It’s all in the recognition. Under pressure, sometimes what you want to do isn’t the best play. But look at our guys on D. We made some mistakes, but you’re always going to have that. I think our D has been pretty good all year. They’ve stepped in and played some really good hockey. For all of them to play as well as they have all season is a big reason we’ve had the success we’ve had.”

  On nearly every college coaching staff, the assistants have a defensive specialist and a forward specialist, but not UMD. While Larson played at UMD, Sandelin and Herter were elite defensemen at North Dakota who went on and played some pro hockey. When Sandelin got the UMD job, he added Larson and, for a while, OSU coach Rohlik, and former North Dakota sniper Lee Davidson, and later former UMD and NHL star Derek Plante. All of them were standout forwards as players, but as things evolved, and Larson returned from Columbus to be closer to his young family, the UMD staff wound up with three defensemen providing three voices, but singing in harmony.

  “We all see the game a little differently,” said Larson. “And we all offer suggestions all the time. It’s not like most teams, where one defensive coach is the only voice the defensemen hear; with us the guys get a slightly different explanation, delivering the same message. So maybe something from one of us clicks.”

  Larson also has a simple philosophy for the sharp-passing breakouts rather than the simpler off-the-wall escapes. “We want to possess the puck if we can,” Larson said. “We want getting rid of the puck to be our last option, even though at times you have to do it, like late in a close game when you have to play zone-to-zone hockey.”

  The trend in hockey to clear the zone in near-panic mode is a lot like dump and chase in the offensive end, which requires giving up the puck in hopes of maybe getting it back. Sandelin said, “I’m not a big guy for ‘Hope’ plays. There’s no shot-clock in hockey, but my feeling is if you possess the puck for even as little as 10-15 seconds, that means it’s 10-15 seconds the other team doesn’t have it. The longer we have the puck, the longer they don’t.”

  The fact that five freshmen and a sophomore can play so effectively and consistently is a tribute to Sandelin and his staff. They decided early to be patient, and to let the young players play and maybe make mistakes while they gain game experience and work to eliminate the mistakes.

  “We’ve played eight freshmen a lot of games,” Sandelin said. “And they’ve been fine. You can get away with some mistakes by a couple of young forwards, and they can be more costly by young defensemen. We don’t have a lot of right-handed defensemen, so I make all of them play the off-side.

  “Early, I wasn’t happy with the way Nicky [Wolff] was playing, because I thought he was trying to do too much as a leader.”

UMD defenseman Nick Wolff shields the puck from Air Force forward Pierce Pluemer in UMD’s 2-1 West Regional final win over the Falcons in Sioux Falls, S.D. on March 24, 2018. (MHM photo / Jeff Wegge)

 So Sandelin paired the hard-hitting 6-foot-4 sophomore Wolff with Perunovich, the mercurial freshman puck-rusher, whose defensive play has improved steadily, while his offense remains the team’s prized possession. Going into the Frozen Four, the elusive Perunovich is UMD’s leading scorer with 36 points, on 11 goals and 25 assists.

  “If we give Perunovich some parameters, he could back off, but he wouldn’t be nearly as effective,” said Sandelin. “He’s responsible and wants to help out on defense, to the point where sometimes I have to get on him to take off more and join the rush.

   “Matt Anderson has great skating ability, and Mikey Anderson is steady, and Dylan Samberg is a big, physical presence. Louie Roehl has improved all season, and we’ve got Wolffie, who has played well and it’s hard to realize he’s only a sophomore. We put Mikey and Dylan together and let them try things, just so we can see what works. It takes some time to see where everybody fits.”

  Mikey Anderson and Matt Anderson are unrelated. Mikey is the freshman brother of sophomore winger Joey Anderson. “When we were little kids on the outdoor rinks in Roseville, we were always scrapping,” said Mikey. “If I’m a wing, he would be hitting me, and if he was a wing, I’d be hitting him. Either way, mom and dad weren’t happy at the end of the day.”

  And now that they’re reunited, on a college team playing close to home at Xcel Energy Center in the Frozen Four, the whole family is happy.

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