BUFFALO, N.Y. — Make the most salient argument you want. It won't change anything that happened late in the first period of the first national semifinal in Buffalo Thursday.
Cole Koepke appeared to score after a Mikey Anderson shot was stopped by Providence goalie Hayden Hawkey. The horn sounded, everyone celebrated, and the teams lined up for the next faceoff, only to have the hand signal of an off-ice official lead to a long replay review.
And five minutes later, the goal was off the board.
(The semi-official explanation: Koepke was ruled to have made contact with Hawkey that prevented the goalie from playing his position. I have respectfully lodged my disagreements, but it doesn't change anything.)
How does a player not react with anything but disappointment?
“Me personally, I was actually very frustrated at the end of that first period,” senior captain Parker Mackay admitted. “Coming back in here, I think the whole group said 'Hey, we need to settle down.'
“We can't let a moment like that dictate our year that we've had. We're not going to let a goal called off get in our heads enough to make us not play the game that we need to play in order to win.”
Though Mackay didn't say it was directly addressed at any point, it's clear the Bulldogs have been hardened by their own experiences and have learned to not let these things have a terribly negative impact.
After all, it was barely a year ago that UMD saw an overtime game-winning goal in an NCAA regional game wiped off the board after a review for goalie interference. Three weeks ago, at the NCHC Frozen Faceoff, a 2-0 lead was pushed back to 1-0 against Denver when Jesse Jacques' goal was taken away once it was determined DU goalie Filip Larsson was interfered with.
“We talk about not too high, not too low,” said sophomore defenseman Mikey Anderson. “It's about staying even-keeled and staying with our game and our systems. I thought we did a great job sticking with the game and trusting our process and the way we needed to play.”
The Bulldogs did what they seem to always do when adversity strikes. They shook it off.
Same with the 5-on-3 power play Providence had for a 1:18 stretch of the third period. Instead of giving up what could have been a crippling go-ahead goal (or two), UMD killed both power plays and proceeded to outshoot Providence 15-3 for the rest of the game, getting a Billy Exell goal and two empty-netters to win 4-1.
(Credit to Hunter Shepard for a couple huge saves during the two-man advantage, but the Bulldogs also got some huge faceoff wins from Justin Richards to get the job done.)
Mackay felt his team was able to call on past experiences to help lock down the Friars.
“I think we looked back to last year, and when we did get a lead, it was locked down,” he said. “But we weren't sagging. We continued to push, make the simple plays, get pucks deep, the cliche stuff that needs to be said, we did it out there on the ice (Thursday) after we got that lead.”
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There's no way around it. What UMD has accomplished — making a third straight NCAA championship game — is simply remarkable.
“I know it's hard,” head coach Scott Sandelin said. “It's extremely difficult. (Thursday's) game was a very, very hard hockey game. I can't say enough about our players. I think for me I'm so excited for them to have the opportunity again.
“You're always excited for your seniors to play in the last game of the year, hopefully have a chance to win that game.
It's a great learning experience for our young players, our younger players. More importantly it's tremendous for our program, our university, to be in these positions.
“I've said it a number of times: I personally don't ever take them for granted. I don't want our players to. I want them to really enjoy it and relish it. Like I said, we're really looking forward to having a chance to play on Saturday.”
(By the way, for those curious, it does appear that, once again, UMD is really enjoying this moment. The Bulldog players are in great spirits and appear well-prepared for what lies ahead.)
Mackay, who will tie what is believed to be a college hockey record by playing in his 14th career NCAA Tournament game Saturday night, has a good grasp of what this all means.
“Just so thankful to be able to experience my four years here in Duluth,” the Irma, Alberta, native said. “To be able to play in 14 (NCAA) games, all I have to thank is the coaching staff. My teammates, obviously, you don't get in these games without being a complete team, and we know what we have in this dressing room. I think we believed all year we could get here. Even with the high expectations, we never stumbled. We bent a little bit, but we never broke when faced with different types of challenges, and I couldn't be happier for this group.”
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Richards says Jade Miller's line could be “top six pretty much anywhere else.” On NHL Network Friday, ESPN analyst Dave Starman said that line might be the best fourth line in the country.
It's easy to look at these NCAA Tournament games and think depth doesn't matter. There are three two-minute media timeouts in each period (thanks, ESPN), and that might mitigate a depth advantage for some teams. But UMD has shown that is not a universal truth. While opponents are shortening their benches in close games, Sandelin is rolling his four lines, and it's paying off.
“When you go through our league year,” he said, “you have to be built with four lines to be successful. And I know sometimes even during those games, those guys, depending on how a game is going, might not get out there on a regular basis. But when they have been, and when we're rolling and able to do that, those guys have been real contributors. They bring a lot of energy. They play well off each other. They've scored some big goals, but I think the biggest thing is they can play, if there's a mismatch, they can do the job against anybody's line. That's really important, especially now.”
“Just because they're the fourth line on the line chart does not make them a fourth line,” said Mackay. “Couldn't be happier for those guys, scoring back-to-back game-winning goals. I'm happy for each one of them because we know the work that they put in. If we're able to wear teams down, we know that we have the goaltending and the unbelievable defense, and I think we take pride in how much depth we have up front.”
Exell has scored three times this season, but two of them were humongous goals, one to tie the NCHC title game against St. Cloud State in the third period, and another Thursday that proved to be the winner against Providence. It's his first game-winning goal since Dec. 10, 2016, in a 3-1 win at Denver.
“Throughout the four years that I've been here,” Exell said Thursday, “obviously the first year I didn't get a ton of playing time. Tried to earn a spot the next year, really develop a role that I think I can fill and help the team.”
Richards spoke about Exell's leadership after Thursday's win.
“Bill has come up pretty huge a bunch of times this year with some big goals. I mean, like it's awesome having an older guy playing the role he plays, to come up with some big goals like that. He's on the penalty kill. He has a pretty important role on this team. So are the other seniors.
“It's really awesome to see.”
Continued contributions from the “bottom six” would be fantastic. We saw quality shifts from Jackson Cates' line Thursday, and I do believe UMD has a deeper team up front. If the Bulldogs can wear down UMass' top forwards by making them chase the puck more than they're accustomed to, it could be the start of a good night for the Bulldogs.
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Some news on Friday.
First for UMD, Shepard was passed up for the Mike Richter Award (best goalie in men's Division I hockey), as Northeastern's Cayden Primeau was named the winner. Shepard (28-11-2, 1.80 goals against, .922 saves, six shutouts) will have to settle for playing in a second straight NCAA title game. I think he'll be okay with that.
By the way, in UMD's seven games in the NCAAs with Shepard as the starting goalie, he has now played 433 minutes, 10 seconds, and allowed
seven
eight goals (two of them at even strength).
I think that's good.
Shepard was named a West Region First Team All-American by the American Hockey Coaches Association (first UMD goalie named an All-American since some guy named Alex Stalock that you might have heard of), while sophomore defenseman Scott Perunovich was named to the second team (he's a two-time All-American).
The big news, however, came from the NCAA earlier in the day. Here is the announcement sent out to the media shortly before 1pm Central Time Friday.
The NCAA Division I Men’s Ice Hockey Committee has announced that Massachusetts forward Bobby Trivigno has been suspended for one game under the NCAA’s supplemental discipline process as a result of an incident that occurred during the third period of the Men’s Frozen Four semifinal game between Massachusetts and Denver.
The action was taken by the committee after a review of the incident, which occurred with 3:10 remaining in the third period, in which Trivigno made contact with the head of a Denver player. Trivigno is ineligible to play in the championship game Saturday night against Minnesota Duluth.
My radio show wrapped up at 11am. I packed up the equipment I needed to take back to the hotel, took a few more pictures of UMD's last practice of the season, and matriculated my way back downstairs. After I arrived in the media room, I heard from a colleague that Trivigno would be suspended. Word began to circulate around the media area, but it was nearly two hours before the NCAA confirmed the decision.
By the time the announcement was made, UMass coach Greg Carvel had conducted his press conference for the day (the Minutemen had their press conference while UMD was wrapping up practice).
Trivigno is a good young player for UMass. He has 13 goals and 28 points after scoring in the win over Denver Thursday night, and he plays on the second line. But his hit on Jake Durflinger with 3:10 to play was one of the more flagrant cases of head contact you'll see.
There were three major penalties called Thursday night in this game — all done with the benefit of video review after being missed on the ice — and someone this was not only missed by the officials, but it was never reviewed. Incredible.
Anyway, the NCAA jumped in and got this right. I'm sure no one on the committee wanted to have to do this, but Trivigno's actions and the miss by the officiating crew left the NCAA with no choice. Frozen Four veterans I spoke to here in Buffalo said they had no recollection of supplemental discipline being used for anything but all-out fighting.
Argue all you want about Koepke's disallowed goal, but even in that instance, it's not like someone is blowing the call on purpose. They're trying to get it right, even when it doesn't go the way we want it to.
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Kraig Karakas has arrived in Buffalo, and I'm supremely excited for us to call a third straight national championship game Saturday night. Really hope you'll mute the TV and #ListenToTheRadio.
6:30pm pregame, faceoff just after 7pm. We'll have pregame conversations with UMD sophomore defenseman Mikey Anderson and USCHO.com's Todd Milewski. Bulldogs Richards and Mackay will join us on the intermissions.
#JustWinBaby.
