PORTLAND, Me. — It took an entire period but North Dakota showed why it has a top-five ranking in the USCHO Division I Men’s Poll, overcoming an early 2-0 deficit to defeat Lake Superior State 5-2 in Game 1 of the Ice Breaker tournament Friday night.
Former Maine player Josh Henke opened the scoring with a snipe just 4:53 into the game.
Less than a minute later, Mitch Hults scored on the power play to make it 2-0 Lakers. The period ended that way, but shots were 17-5 North Dakota and UND was controlling the play.
North Dakota finally broke through when Troy Stecher’s shot from the point deflected off both Nick Schmaltz and finally Shane Gersich to cut the lead to 2-1 early in the second. UND tied the game when Keaton Thompson fired another point shot and this one found the twine at 7:20.
North Dakota took the lead for good as Austin Pognaski took a pass from Johnny Simonson and deposited it in the back of the net 47 seconds later.
Lake Superior received a golden chance to get back in the game as Stecher and Coltyn Sanderson were penalized, giving the Lakers a two-man advantage for 1:11 in the early stages of the third period. LSSU never threatened, however, and when Stecher came out of the box, he took possession of the puck and made a beautiful pass to Bryn Chyzyk, who made no mistake and scored a shorthanded goal to make it 4-2.
Chyzyk added a late empty-netter with 59.1 seconds remaining to seal the deal.
“I’ve had trouble with the empty net before, so I wanted to get as close as I could before letting it go,” said an elated Chyzyk after the win.
The Lakers tried to mount a comeback, outshooting North Dakota 13-10 in the third period, but Cam Johnson was never seriously tested in logging 24 saves for the win.
“I calmed down,” Johnson said. “I was nervous,” he admitted, but after stopping a breakaway in the second period he decided, “I’m not going to let any more in today.”
Lake Superior State coach Damon Whitten found the silver lining in the loss.
“You never feel good about losing,” said Whitten. “We’re way ahead of where we were last year. We learned a lot about our team.”
The Brad Berry era began slowly behind the North Dakota bench.
“We were on our heels,” Berry said. “After the second goal, Johnson was excellent.”
