Although North Dakota\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 5-2 exhibition victory over the visiting U.S. National Under-18 Team has no impact on the standings, the return of two key Fighting Sioux players bodes well for the second half of the season. <\/p>\n
Sophomore forward Evan Trupp hadn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t played since Nov. 29 when he was injured in the third period against Cornell. He scored UND\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s first goal and set up its next two, including Matt Watkins\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 game-winning shorthanded goal. <\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I felt really good,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Trupp said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I missed a few games and our team\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been scoring a lot of goals. To jump back into the lineup and being able to contribute to that felt pretty good.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Senior defenseman Joe Finley, last season\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s WCHA plus-minus leader and a number-one draft choice of the Washington Capitals, saw his first action since he suffered a concussion in UND\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s second game of the season Oct. 11 at Massachusetts. <\/p>\n
Sioux coach Dave Hakstol was happy to have the pair back on the ice.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s kind of like at the trading deadline having a couple of new players show up in the locker room — a couple of real good players,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Evan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been out three weeks and I think he jumped back in and had a great impact on this game tonight. <\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153For Joe, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been a long time,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Hakstol noted. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153When you consider that the majority of those weeks, not only was he not on the ice, but he wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even coming to the rink. With all things considered, he did a pretty good job for tonight.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Hakstol said it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s too early to tell whether Finley will be a regular in the lineup. <\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We have to gauge how today went, but there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no reason not to think that,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t talked to him after today\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s game to see how he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s feeling. The hope is that from here, we can move forward.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Assessing his performance, Finley said his return to action went well.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Actually, as the game progressed, I felt more and more comfortable,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s going to take a few games, I think. The coaches are working me in their little by little. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re on course.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
The exhibition gave Sioux fans an opportunity to see UND recruit Nick Mattson, a defenseman from Chanhassen, Minn., and other future NCAA players on the U.S. development team.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a great young team,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Hakstol said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153There are a lot of fun players that are going to be heard from at the college level and the highest level as well for a lot of years to come.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Team USA gave UND all it could handle in the first period. The Fighting Sioux struck first at 6:10 when Ryan Martens sent Trupp in alone down the slot. His wrister beat goalie Andy Murray (Denver) five-hole.<\/p>\n
USA answered with a goal from center Kevin Lynch (Michigan) at 9:59. He picked up a turnover in the UND zone and from the right circle, sniped the near top corner, beating Sioux goalie Brad Eidsness glove side. <\/p>\n
UND responded a minute and four seconds later with a goal by sophomore forward Brad Malone. Carrying the puck down the slot, Trupp passed to Malone coming down the left wing. He one-timed the pass to put the Sioux up 2-1.<\/p>\n
USA made it 2-2 at 16:19 with a goal by A.J. Treais (Michigan). Eidsness apparently thought that he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d frozen the puck off a shot along the left wing by Ryan Bourque (New Hampshire). But the puck lay in the crease next to him. Treais alertly crashed the net and got his stick on the puck, sending it across the line. <\/p>\n
Although the Sioux outshot USA 10-15 and had the better scoring opportunities, Murray came up with some big saves to make it a tie game at the end of one period.<\/p>\n
UND dominated much of the second period, outshooting USA 18-2. But Murray continued to come up big, stopping several point-blank shots on flurries in front of the net. The Sioux finally broke though with a shorthanded goal by Watkins at 14:38. Trupp carried the puck into the USA zone 2-on-1, hitting Watkins with a cross ice pass that he shot in far side from the left circle, giving UND a 3-2 lead. <\/p>\n
The Sioux extended their lead with a goal by freshman forward Jason Gregoire at 5:57 of the third period. When Darcy Zajac hit forward Matt Frattin with a pass from behind the net, Murray stopped his point-blank shot. But the rebound went to Gregoire, who had a wide-open net with the goalie out of position.<\/p>\n
UND senior forward Andrew Kozek closed out the scoring with an empty net goal at the 19:10 mark to make the final score 5-2.<\/p>\n
The Sioux started the season 4-7-1, but have now won five of their last six games. Hakstol said that although the exhibition game doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t affect any rankings, it was important to build on the team\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s recent success.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Sometimes it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a journey to get to where we need to go, and we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not quite there yet,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153But I think we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re playing good hockey. We were able to end the first half on a real good stretch. We were able to build some momentum. I thought we were able to continue that tonight.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n
UND plays next in the Annual Great Lakes Invitational at Detroit Dec. 27-28, taking on Michigan State in the first game and then either Michigan or Michigan Tech.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Although North Dakota\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 5-2 exhibition victory over the visiting U.S. National Under-18 Team has no impact on the standings, the return of two key Fighting Sioux players bodes well for the second half of the season. Sophomore forward Evan Trupp hadn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t played since Nov. 29 when he was injured in the third period against Cornell. […]<\/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\/9241"}],"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=9241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9241\/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=9241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9241"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=9241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}