ST. PAUL, Minn. — A regular-season-ending sweep of North Dakota put Omaha in great position to make the NCAA tournament.
The Mavericks all but ensured going there after advancing to the Frozen Faceoff, and another dominant victory over the regular-season champs has them within reach of a conference tournament trophy to go with it.
Zach Urdahl scored two of his three goals in the third period to help the Mavericks pull away to beat the Fighting Hawks 6-3 on Friday night in the first NCHC Frozen Faceoff semifinal. A surging Omaha program making its debut in the conference semifinals sure left no doubt they belonged here by keeping UND off their game all night at Xcel Energy Center.
“Really proud of our guys’ effort tonight,” said Mavericks coach Mike Gabinet, who brought this program into their first conference tournament semifinal since 2001 when they won a series at Colorado College last weekend. “I thought we played a really good game there start to finish.”
In large part that was thanks to the defense of North Dakota not playing very sharp, as a visibly annoyed coach Brad Berry acknowledged after the game. He thought his goaltender played well, but that he didn’t have enough help from his teammates after Omaha put 35 shots on goal.
“We’re gonna have to play a little tighter defensively,” Berry said.
The regular-season champion Fighting Hawks came out fast knowing what the Mavericks did to them in their last series. NCHC player of the year Jackson Blake found Jackson Kunz out front and Kunz banged it home just 1:18 into the contest, and it was 1-0 North Dakota. Omaha responded with heavy pressure over the next three minutes and eight shots but couldn’t beat Hobie Hedquist.
UND then countered with their forecheck and wouldn’t let UNO record another shot for over 10 minutes while the Hawks piled up shots on their own.
Kid can't be stopped..#OmahaHKY | @ZUrdahl pic.twitter.com/MaTRBio63L
— Omaha Hockey (@OmahaHKY) March 22, 2024
Then Omaha drew a tripping penalty from Keaton Pehrson, and Urdahl tied the game with a power-play goal from the doorstep late in the first, sending the teams into intermission in a 1-1 deadlock.
It turns out the action was just getting started.
It was the Mavericks’ turn to control play offensively for the majority of the period – Matt Miller buried one in front to give UNO the lead and Jimmy Glynn later added a low snipe from the high slot to make it a two-goal lead and seemingly continuing their dominance of the Fighting Hawks from two weeks ago. But Hunter Johannes reminded everyone the game wasn’t over just yet by re-directing in his 8th goal of the season in the dying seconds of the middle period to make it a 3-2 game.
The Mavericks kept it rolling in the third period as Brock Bremer restored the two-goal lead with a backhander that Hedquist couldn’t control. Jake Livanavage brought North Dakota back within one again on a power-play goal, but Urdahl scored two more goals before the end of the game to add insurance and complete the hat trick.
“The puck just did a good job finding me,” Urdahl said.
While the Frozen Faceoff didn’t go as planned for North Dakota, they have the NCAA tournament to prepare for to put this behind them.
“We gotta reset and get ready for next week,” Pehrson said.
The surging Mavericks will face the winner of St. Cloud State and Denver Saturday night.
