St. Paul – Nic Dowd couldn’t help but smile.

The 6-foot-2 former St. Cloud State star winger got his first NHL action for the Los Angeles Kings in their 2-1 loss to the Wild Tuesday night, calling it “a dream come true.”

Dowd, 25, collected 13 goals and 48 points in 57 games for the Ontario Reign of the American Hockey League, earning him a spot in the Kings’ lineup because of injuries to Marian Gaborik, Tanner Pearson and Kris Versteeg.

“My whole family was here, so it was great,” he said. “Disappointing we didn’t come out with a win, but yeah, it’s been a long road. It was great to play in the first one.”

The smile widened on Dowd’s face when someone asked him if it felt appropriate to make his debut at the Xcel Energy Center because the Huskies will play in the NCAA West Regional this weekend at the X.

“I was pretty excited knowing I was going to debut in Minnesota,” the native of Huntsville, Ala., said. “The state means a lot to me. The culture here is awesome, and going to St. Cloud, we had a lot of people in the stands that I wouldn’t be here without them.”

How many?

“Half a dozen important people in my life, and I’m sure there were a lot more than that,” he said.

Nic Dowd (MHM Photo / Jeff Wegge)

In four seasons with the Huskies, Dowd totaled 52 goals and 69 assists in 155 games, but picked up 39 points in 42 games as a junior and 40 points in 38 games as a senior, when he was a candidate for the Hobey Baker Award.

Dowd was strong on the puck all evening for the Kings, who outshot Minnesota 39-18 but were unable to solve goaltender Devan Dubnyk as the Wild climbed back into eighth place in the NHL West.

Dubnyk had to be especially good with 3 ½ minutes left in the third period when the puck came Dowd’s way with teammate Nick Shore in front and Jake Muzzin closing in from the left point.

“I tried to bump it back to Shorsie. I missed it,” Dowd said. “Got a piece of it and it ended up working out and going to Muzz. He (Dubnyk) made a good save. A tough break.”

Dubnyk actually steered the puck wide after Dowd deflected it, then had to dive to cover the corner of the net when Muzzin tried to pot the rebound.

“Duby got us two points tonight,” Wild interim coach John Torchetti said.

The night began on a strange note for Dowd, who took a stick to the chops from former University of Minnesota opponent Erik Haula on his first shift. Dowd played 2 minutes, 48 seconds in the first period, 4:05 in the second period and 5:22 in the third, finishing with two shot attempts, one hit and one giveaway.

He spent much of the game on a line with Kings leading goal-scorer Tyler Toffoli and Dwight King.

“I felt really good,” Dowd said. “I think the adrenalin really kicked in. I was fortunate my first shift was in the O-zone, and I happened to take a high stick. The game went from there. I think I was lucky I got to play with Toff and King all night – two pretty good players.”

He was plus-1 for the evening and won 63 percent of his faceoffs (5-for-8).

“He was solid,” Kings coach Darryl Sutter said. “You get called up, you get to play.”

Dowd says he has no idea how long he will stay in the NHL, but he enjoyed his first taste.

Asked what’s next, he smiled and said, “Just continue to take what’s given to me and work from there.”

The post A Husky Homecoming appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

Nic Dowd’s overtime winner earns St. Cloud State a date with Minnesota in region final.

SAINT PAUL — Nic Dowd score the game-winning goal 17:21 into overtime and Ryan Faragher made 39 saves, including 17 in the second period alone, as St. Cloud State overcame a huge deficit in shots on goal in regulation to defeat Notre Dame 4-3 and advance to Sunday’s NCAA West Region Final.

The third-seeded Huskies will face the tournament’s No. 1 seed, Minnesota, at 6:30 p.m. at Xcel Energy Center.  The Gopher beat Robert Morris University 7-3 earlier on Saturday.

Dowd stripped Notre Dame’s Steven Fogarty of the puck at center ice and the loose puck went to David Morley whose backhand pass hit Dowd in stride as he crossed the Irish blue line. The Hobey Baker Award finalist rifled a wrist shot from the top of the left circle which caught a piece of Irish defenseman Kevin Lind’s stick on its way behind Notre Dame goaltender Steven Summerhayes for goal No. 22 of the year.

“I kind of lost mobility in my entire body after that one went in so it is tough for me to say what I was trying to do there,” Dowd said. “At this point, any shot is a good shot and it was pretty fortunate for it to have hit his stick and then find the top shelf.”

“Once I got the puck, I just heard Dowd yelling as he was flying down the wall there and I just passed it to him,” Morley said. “Then stood there and watched him work his magic there”

Motzko said the Huskies never changed a thing from a tactical standpoint and had no answer to what turned the tide in overtime to go from being outshot 36-12 through 60 minutes to a 16-6 edge in the extra session.

“The real question is why were we so quiet in the first three?” Motzko said.  “We scored quite a few goals this year and we have a team capable of doing so. In overtime it just started to work. Why overanalyze it?”

“We’re obviously very disappointed,” Notre Dame coach Jeff Jackson said. “I thought we played very good hockey for sixty minutes and we changed our game in overtime and gave St. Cloud a lot of life.”

Notre Dame never led the game at any stage thanks to the stellar performance of Faragher. The junior goaltender made several jaw-dropping saves on the night but saved his best for overtime when he denied Notre Dame’s Vince Hinostroza’s breakaway attempt.

“Give Faragher some credit, he held us in there and made the big save in overtime on the breakaway,” St. Cloud State coach Bob Motzko said.

Faragher raises his record to 20-8-4 this season including 10-0-1 when making 30 or more saves.

The Huskies got on the board first on Ryan Papa’s sixth goal of the season at 6:54 of the opening period. Kalle Kossila’s pin-point pass from the left circle found Papa at the right post for a backdoor one-timer.

The Irish tied it near the halfway point of the first on Bryan Rust’s 17th of the year but St. Cloud State regained the lead with just 35 seconds remaining in the period when Brooks Bertsch scored his third of the season.

St. Cloud State’s Cory Thorson gained possession behind the Notre Dame net and spotted Bertsch, who was camped out below the hashmarks in front of Summerhayes. Bertsch one-timed Thorson’s pass to give the Huskies a 2-1 lead at the break.

Notre Dame’s Kevin Lind drew the Irish even at 8:18 of the second courtesy of an assist by Minnesota coach Don Lucia’s son Mario.  Once again, however, the Huskies responded with a late goal to jump back in front before the end of the period.

This time It was Jonny Brodzinski, whose brother Michael scored for Minnesota earlier in the evening, who turned the trick with a power-play goal at 19:35 of the second giving him 21 on the season and the Huskies three goals on just 10 shots through two periods.

“[The late-period scoring] was huge for us especially because of the way were playing,” Morley said. “We weren’t too happy with our effort and to get us a couple of big goals at the end of each period to get us a lead … Those were huge for us.”

The Irish outshot the Huskies 9-2 in the third and knotted the game once again at the 9:35 mark on a goal by Thomas DiPauli but all that did was set the stage for Dowd’s heroics.

The post Huskies Oust Irish in OT appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

SAINT PAUL—St. Cloud State is back.

The Huskies are back in the sense it’s been two weeks since they’ve seen game action following a surprising pair of one-goal losses to Miami in the first round of the NCHC playoffs which cost them a trip to Minneapolis and a berth in last week’s NCHC Frozen Faceoff.

SCSU is back in St. Paul two months after beating Minnesota State 6-4 in the consolation game of the North Star College Cup.

But most importantly, St. Cloud State is back in the NCAA Tournament in consecutive seasons for the first time since 2008 and is prepared to square off at 8:00 p.m. tonight against Notre Dame at Xcel Energy Center. The encounter comes just short of a year to the day after the Huskies pummeled the Irish 5-1 in the first game of the 2013 Midwest Regional en route to the first Frozen Four appearance in school history.

St. Cloud State coach Bob Motzko says there are pros and cons to playing this close to home at this time of year.

“There’s a lot of good and there’s some bad with that—the distractions—but that’s all good because our fans can get down here,” Motzko said.  “We didn’t give them the opportunity to go down to Minneapolis last week, so we’re anticipating that they’ll be excited to be down here and follow us this week.”

The Huskies are vying for back-to-back trips to the Frozen Four this weekend which would earn them a trip back to Pennsylvania, Philadelphia specifically, after a disappointing loss to Quinnipiac in Pittsburgh to end last season.

While St. Cloud State will have to accomplish the feat without the only three players on last year’s team with tournament experience (Drew LeBlanc, Ben Hanowski and Taylor Johnson) and their 87 points (30-57–87) due to graduation, the Huskies’ roster comes equipped with 22 players carrying over from 2013’s Frozen Four run. But the Huskies don’t necessarily believe the experience gives them much of an edge.

“I guess I’d be lying if you say you know exactly what you’re in for,” senior captain Nic Dowd said. “Having been there one year, does that make a bigger difference than coming in last year? I don’t think so. I think Kevin (Gravel) said it best in a previous interview. You’ve got to expect the unexpected.”

“We have a lot of guys back this year that played last year and played a lot of big minutes in a lot of big games and that can be looked at as a positive,” Gravel added. “But, at the same time, you face a new challenge every time you come into a game like this, in a tournament like this.”

With the loss of his seniors combined with skilled, minutes-logging defenseman Nick Jensen’s decision to forgo his senior season to sign with the Detroit Red Wings’ organization, Motzko was concerned heading into the 2013-14 season that his team might succumb to a Frozen Four funk.

But SCSU got off to a 11-1-2 start including 6-1-1 in the NCHC, a league it led or tied virtually from start to finish, and won its second straight regular season conference title.

“I think that was the telling-tale of this team, we started the year right where we left off,” Motzko said. “We had a bounce from it, we didn’t have a setback … and that really stemmed from the leadership of our team and how we handled last year’s success. We carried it right from day one this year.”

That begins with Dowd , the senior Hobey Baker Award Top 10 finalist from Huntsville, Ala. whose list of accolades seems to grow daily after a 39-point season (21-18–39) season. In addition to the Hobey nomination, Dowd earned first-team All-NCHC and All-NCHC Academic honors, the NCHC Defensive Forward of the Year award and was named NCHC Student-Athlete of the Year.

Like Jensen, Dowd too had the opportunity to sign a pro contract over the summer. However, the seventh-round (No. 198 overall) selection by the Los Angeles Kings in the 2009 NHL Draft opted to return for his senior season but not for the reason that immediately comes to mind.

“It wasn’t what we had coming back and the possibility of winning another championship, it was the team and the university and my head coach and my roommate [Gravel], who I’ve known for a while, that drew me back,” Dowd said. “I think one of the biggest things I learned from seniors above me is guys want to leave their mark on a program and you want to give back as much as the university, my coaching staff and my teammates have given to me.

“It’s almost like something bigger than yourself and playing at St. Cloud State has been the best four years of my life.”

As devastating as the playoff losses to Miami were to St. Cloud State’s hopes of playing for a conference playoff championship, the Huskies played the second half of their season without a bye week and fatigue was setting in. The unwanted weekend off allowed Motzko to give his team a breather while giving banged up players a chance to heal.

“It’s been good. I think Coach has done a good job managing not only the length of our practices, but the days that we choose to practice on and days off, and workouts, et cetera,” Dowd said. “It left a pretty bitter taste in our mouth when we didn’t make it to the conference tournament. …But from the standpoint of not having a bye the second half of the season, it felt pretty good for our guys to get a mental break.”

Motzko used the extra time to engage in some fine tuning of his team with few short but pointed practices before focusing attention on Notre Dame.

“We went back to detail in a handful of small areas,” Motzko said. “We wanted to just get our good habits going again.”

In Mozko’s eyes, the tournament doesn’t truly get started until after the first game and has been imparting upon his players the importance of getting off to a good start.

“You’ve got to win to get momentum going and to be part of the tournament,” Motzko said. “It’s a terrible feeling to lose the first game and then go home.

“We’ve got great leadership, they’ve handled every challenge that’s come upon them this year, and we have to leave it in their hands to be ready.”

The post Welcome Back Huskies appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

SAINT CLOUD—They came into the weekend tied at 39 points apiece.

After a split, they’re tied again as the race for the NCHC’s Penrose Cup nears the inaugural finish line.

St. Cloud State kept the Penrose from heading to Grand Forks by beating North Dakota, 3-1, Saturday night in St. Cloud.

This was a night after UND went into the Herb Brooks National Hockey Center and used five-second period goals to beat a flat Huskies team, 5-2.

“We competed tonight,” SCSU coach Bob Motzko said. “We were aggressive, we were winning battles and we were putting pressure on their goalie and last night, we stayed on the perimeter.

“Usually, when you’re mad after a game, you’re not as bad as you think you were and when we watched the film of last night’s game, we were as bad as we thought we were.”

SCSU was eager to get back on the ice after UND pushed the Huskies around for 60 minutes Friday with good checking and overall control of the play.

Huskies captain Nic Dowd took it upon himself to bust up UND’s flow and keep it from continuing into Saturday’s game.

The senior caused a big-time collision in open ice that sent him and the UND player flying on the opening shift. The hit landed Dowd in the box for elbowing but Dowd’s intent was to establish a presence early.

“I was pretty flat last night, individually, and when you’re leaders play a flat game, it trickles down to the rest of the team,” Dowd said. “I saw an opportunity to hit a guy and I took it. It resulted in a penalty but the boys said they’d kill it off any time so I think it set the tone.”

UND went up 1-0 at the 14:17 mark of the first period on Rocco Grimaldi’s shorthanded breakaway goal but the Huskies tied the game 1:27 later on a goal by Joey Benik.

Cory Thorson scored the game-winner late in the second period when put a wrist shot past UND goaltender Zane Gothberg.

The loss was UND’s first in six games going back to Feb. 6 against Nebraska-Omaha.

The Huskies have split the last two weekends after four straight games of at least gaining a point.

It’s still UND by a nose for the top NCHC Playoffs seed.

With a home series against Western Michigan, North Dakota has the advantage over St. Cloud State going into the final weekend.

UND swept the Broncos on the road in December.

The Huskies play Colorado College on the road this weekend. SCSU tied and defeated the Tigers in November.

The teams could finish with joint custody of the Penrose Cup but only one of them will get the No. 1 seed, which UND holds because it leads SCSU in the first criteria (total wins), 14-13.

UNO is the only other team still in Cup contention with 39 points. The Mavericks are at Minnesota-Duluth to end the regular season.

But the Cup isn’t the top item on SCSU’s collective mind.

“There’s not a lot to say about it now,” Dowd said. “We’re just taking it one game at a time. We’ll play CC and see what happens. We have CC on our minds and that’s all that matters. We won’t even get to think about (the Cup) if we don’t play well against CC anyway.”

That’s not to say it wasn’t brought up before the UND series.

“We bring it up very little to the team,” Motzko said. “Except for tonight, I said ‘let’s go for it. This game keeps us in the hunt. Doggone it, let’s go for it.”

The post Huskies Bounce Back, Clip UND appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

Dylan Margonari’s goal lifted Minnesota State over No. 2 Minnesota on Saturday (Photo: Minnesota State University Athletics)

No. 2 Minnesota (5-2-0, 2-2-0 WCHA) vs./at Minnesota State (3-3-2, 1-3-0 WCHA)

Friday: UM 3  MSU 2
Saturday: MSU 5  UM 3

Minnesota State led in each of the first two periods on Friday on goals by Zach Palmquist and Teddy Blueger but the No. 2 Gophers battled back to tie each time on power-play goals by Travis Boyd and Nate Schmidt. Zach Budish added a third PP goal at 5:40 of the final period and a great effort by Mavericks goaltender Phil Cook (29 saves) went for naught in a 3-2 Minnesota win. Gopher goalie Adam Wilcox earned his fourth win of the season with 23 saves.

The teams traveled to Mankato for Saturday’s rematch and Dylan Margonari provided the evening’s heroics. The MSU freshman forward’s goal at 16:19 of the final period gave the Mavericks a 4-3 lead on their way to a 5-3 win. Minnesota State’s goal scoring was spread among five players with 10 registering MSU’s 11 total points. Cook was strong again with 25 saves to pick up his third win of the year while Wilcox made 30 saves in his first loss. Erik Haula had a goal and two assist while Nate Condon added a goal and an assist for Minnesota.

No. 18 St. Cloud State (5-3-0, 3-1-0 WCHA) at No. 5 Denver (5-1-0, 3-1-0 WCHA)

Friday: SCSU 3  DU 0
Saturday: DU 6  SCSU 1

St. Cloud State forwards Nic Dowd and Kalle Kossila continued their hot starts and Ryan Faragher made 28 saves to shut out the nation’s highest scoring offense on Friday night in Denver. Dowd scored his fifth and sixth goals of the year and Kosilla his fourth as No. 18 SCSU handed No. 3 Denver its first loss of the season.

The Pioneers bounced back on Saturday, however, behind senior forward Chris Knowlton‘s hat trick and assist to snap the Huskies’ winning streak at five games. Cory Thorson scored  St. Cloud State’s lone goal against DU goalie Juho Olkinuora (20 saves) while Faragher (11 saves on 14 shots) was replaced by freshman Rasmus Reijola (16-19) just 1:03 into the second period after David Makowski‘s goal gave Denver a 3-1 lead.

Colorado College (5-3-0, 2-0-0 WCHA) at Wisconsin (1-4-1, 1-2-1 WCHA)

Friday: CC 5  UW 4 (OT)
Sunday: CC 3  UW 0

On a night in which Wisconsin honored legendary CC and UW coach, Bob Johnson, with a pregame ceremony dedicating the Kohl Center ice to “Badger Bob’s” memory, the Tigers spoiled the party with a 5-4 victory on an Alexander Krushelnyski goal just 25 second into overtime. Friday night’s winner was set up, ironically, by Edina’s Charlie Taft whose father, John Taft, played for Johnson and the Badgers in the 1970’s. CC’s Eamonn McDermott contributed 3 assists to the cause.

Plymouth’s Joe Howe shut out Wisconsin on Saturday to complete a sweep of the Badgers in Madison. (Photo: WCHA.com)

Former Hopkins forward Archie Skalbeck‘s fourth goal of the season at 1:58 of the second period held up as the game winner on Saturday night when Plymouth’s Joe Howe shut out the Badgers on 33 saves to raise his record to 2-0-0 on the season. Krushelnyski scored for the second straight night and McDermott added his fourth assist of the series. To make matters worse for the Badgers, star forward Mark Zengerle was lost in the second period to what UW coach Mike Eaves confirmed was a broken finger.

Nebraska Omaha (4-3-1, 2-1-1 WCHA) at Michigan Tech (2-6-0, 1-5-0 WCHA)

Friday: UNO 2  MTU 1
Saturday: UNO 5  MTU 3

Nebraska Omaha’s Zahn Raubenheimer scored twice, including the dramatic winning goal at 18:50 of the third period, to lead the Mavericks over the Huskies in Houghton, Mich. on Friday night. After Raubenheimer put UNO on the board at 5:38 of the second, MTU’s Tanner Kero tied just under 10 minutes later setting up Raubenheimer’s late-game heroics.

Raubenheimer haunted Michigan Tech again on Saturday scoring two more goals, including  his second consecutive game winner, as the Mavericks completed the road sweep of MTU. Brainerd’s Josh Archibald also scored twice and Rosemount’s Ryan Walters had a goal and a pair of assists for Nebraska Omaha. UNO goaltender John Faulkner followed up Friday night’s 21-save performance with 24 more to raise his record to 4-0-1.

No. 12 Boston University (4-2-0, 3-1-0 HE) at No. 5 North Dakota (3-2-1, 1-0-1 WCHA)

Friday: UND 4  BU 2
Saturday: BU 4  UND 2

Edina’s Connor Gaarder scored a hat trick and Rocco Grimaldi added a goal and an assist to lead North Dakota to a non-conference win over Boston University in Grand Forks on Friday night. Clarke Saunders made 20 saves in the victory for UND.

The Terriers returned the favor on Saturday by an identical 4-2 score to earn a split on the road. BU’s scoring came from four different players including Danny O’Regan who added an assist. Eden Prairie’s Danny Kristo and Stephane Pattyn scored UND’s goals and goalie Zane Gothberg of Thief River Falls made 29 saves in the loss.

The post WCHA men’s weekend recap appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.