ST. PAUL, Minn. – For the last four weeks, No. 7 St. Cloud State has had everything thrown at them by desperate teams trying to salvage their seasons.
For the most part, the Huskies have been able to weather the storm. They were able to end one archrival’s season a week ago to advance to St. Paul, and they did it again on Saturday against another rival.
After coming from behind twice in regulation, St. Cloud got a goal by Zach Okabe in overtime to beat the No. 17 North Dakota Fighting Hawks 3-2, sending the Huskies to their sixth NCHC Frozen Faceoff title game and ending North Dakota’s season.
“Heck of a battle between two teams that clearly both really wanted it,” said Huskies coach Brett Larson. “Could have gone either way, but obviously we were able to get it done.”
St. Cloud State’s mighty top line of Veeti Miettinen, Jami Krannila and Okabe had all three of the team’s goals Saturday as they bested the Fighting Hawks for the third time this season in five meetings (3-1-1).
“I think we did a good job responding to their pushes and stuff,” Okabe said.
Ethan Frisch and Judd Caulfield each gave North Dakota the lead in regulation, but after a second-half surge in which the Fighting Hawks displayed improvement in their defensive game following a rough first half of the season, North Dakota fell just short of an NCAA tournament berth with the defeat. The Fighting Hawks needed to win the Frozen Faceoff to advance.
“They made one more play than us in overtime,” said UND head coach Brad Berry. “Our guys racked up some wins together and found a way to get one game away from a chance to get into the national tournament. We’ll learn from that.”
“Obviously it’s been an up-and-down year,” Frisch said. “It would’ve been really easy to fold in at a couple points this season. We resurrected our season in the second half.”
The first period was even with both teams striking with one power play goal each. Frisch got things started with a beautiful backdoor goal on a feed from Jake Schmaltz, while St. Cloud replied about 11 minutes later with a Miettinen goal.
North Dakota reclaimed the lead just over halfway through the second period as Caulfield – among a sea of his teammates and Huskies – was able to jam one in past Jaxon Castor, who made 23 saves on the night.
By the end of the second, it was 2-1 Fighting Hawks and the confidence level was high among the players.
“That’s one thing we always talk about is taking over in the second,” North Dakota forward Mark Senden said. “We were really confident with our second period play.”
Krannila tied it in the third period for the Huskies on a one-timed blast from the right faceoff circle, swinging some momentum back toward St. Cloud. After that, it was basically a tough physical battle through the end of overtime, a period in which both teams had quality chances to end it.
Okabe finally won it after picking up a pretty centering feed from Krannila before skating in and beating Drew DeRidder on a backhand.
“I saw an opening in the middle there and I knew Jami had space when he was taking the line, so I just decided to drive the net and see if I could make something happen, and luckily I did,” said Okabe.
DeRidder finished the night with 18 saves.
St. Cloud State will meet Colorado College in the NCHC title game. The Tigers were 1-0 victors over Denver in the first NCHC semifinal Friday.
The puck drops at 7:38 p.m. CDT Saturday for the NCHC championship and an automatic NCAA tournament bid.
