Seawolves goalie Jon Olthuis was a little over two minutes away from a milestone that no Alaska Anchorage goalie had ever accomplished: a shutout of North Dakota. <\/p>\n
After dominating the Fighting Sioux for most of the game, Olthuis was happy to settle for a 3-2 victory in front of 11,772 fans at Ralph Engelstad Arena. <\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153A win is good. The bottom line is the two points,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153But when the clock is running down and there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s still a zero on our side, you kind of hope for it (a shutout).\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Until Sioux forward Ryan Duncan scored on the power play with 2:04 left, it appeared that UAA defenseman Nils Backstrom\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s goal just 1:07 into the game would stand as the game winner. <\/p>\n
When Sioux freshman forward Brett Hextall scored an extra-attacker goal with 43 seconds left to make it a one-goal game, UND fans who stayed after UAA built a 3-0 lead suddenly had reason to cheer. <\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153As soon as they got one goal, you could just see a change on their bench,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Olthuis said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153They got a lot more life. They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been down that road before, making comebacks. We just had to keep our composure.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
They did and the Sioux rally proved too little, too late. Olthuis and the Seawolves survived intense UND pressure as the clock wound down and held on for a key WCHA road victory. <\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Coming into this building and getting two points is a tremendous boost to our team and our program,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said UAA coach Dave Shyiak. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Winning a tight game like that was obviously a positive.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
The Seawolves jumped out to a quick 1-0 lead. After UND defenseman Jake Marto gave the puck away behind the net, senior goalie Aaron Walski stopped UAA\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Kevin Clark on the doorstep. <\/p>\n
Seawolves forward Nick Haddad then sent the puck back to defenseman Trevor Hunt who passed across to Backstrom at the right point. He one-timed the pass to beat Walski high to the short side for his first goal of the season. <\/p>\n
Although the Sioux kept UAA\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s potent power play off the ice, they couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t capitalize on their two power plays of the period and were outshot 9-6. Olthuis was sharp, turning back Evan Trupp and Brad Malone on breakaways. <\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what they expect out of you, to make those timely saves,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Olthuis said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve tried to do and it worked out tonight.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
UND coach Dave Hakstol said his team\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s failure to capitalize on their scoring opportunities to answer UAA\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s early goal was key.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I thought that was real critical in the game,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We had two or three empty nets. We didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t make the plays. We didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t answer.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n
UAA had just four shots on net in the second period, but struck for two goals to take a 3-0 lead. At 6:58, freshman defenseman Curtis Leinweber fired a wrist shot through traffic from high in the slot that beat Walski, who appeared to be screened. <\/p>\n
Sophomore forward Sean Wiles picked up his fourth goal of the season at 14:01. He and center Paul Crowder jumped on a mistake in the UND zone and came in two-on-one. Crowder passed to Wiles, all alone in front of Walski, who fired the puck past the goalie.<\/p>\n
Walski was then replaced by Sioux freshman Brad Eidsness. UND didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t register a shot on goal until more than 15 minutes of the period had elapsed. The Sioux had an opportunity to get back in the game with 31 seconds of 5-on-3 power play, but the Seawolves wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t allow UND to control the puck in the zone. <\/p>\n
UND let another opportunity slip away in the third period when UAA freshman forward Jade Portwood was given a 5-minute major for checking from behind and ejected from the game. But the Sioux managed only two shots on goal during the power play. The best scoring opportunity for either team came when Eidsness stopped Crowder on a shorthanded breakaway.<\/p>\n
Neither Hakstol nor his players could explain why the Sioux came out flat.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We need to play with some more desperation right off the start,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Hextall said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153In the last few minutes, we were really playing with desperation. We have to do that from the beginning of the game.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I think they outworked us for 57 minutes in our own building.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Duncan, the Sioux captain. <\/p>\n
Hakstol disagreed, saying, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d go 58. We didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have a whole lot of energy or a lot of jump in our legs until the last two minutes of the hockey game.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n
The UND coach described his team\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s performance as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153comfortable.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Comfortable is not a good word to associate with a hockey team, especially when we need to be scratching and clawing to get ourselves back to where we want to be,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Hakstol said. <\/p>\n
Although the strong finish made up for some of the lackluster performance, Duncan said the team\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s overall effort was unacceptable.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no moral victories,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re a 3-6 team right now. I think we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re much better than that. We have to turn it around quickly, otherwise our season will be ending early.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
UAA improves to 6-3-2 overall and 3-2-2 in the WCHA. UND is now 3-6-0 overall and 3-4-0 in league play. The two teams meet at 7:05 p.m. Saturday night in Engelstad Arena for the second game of the series. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Seawolves goalie Jon Olthuis was a little over two minutes away from a milestone that no Alaska Anchorage goalie had ever accomplished: a shutout of North Dakota. After dominating the Fighting Sioux for most of the game, Olthuis was happy to settle for a 3-2 victory in front of 11,772 fans at Ralph Engelstad Arena. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22374,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9117"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9117"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9117\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9117"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=9117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}