Photo via @UNDMHockey

GRAND FORKS, ND– It wasn’t the prettiest game, but the University of North Dakota will come out of this weekend much like they did last weekend– a win and a tie. UND and Miami tied Saturday 3-3, though UND took the extra NCHC point in the shootout.

“We’ll take it,” mentioned head coach Brad Berry. “To come back from 2-0, it shows a response from our guys. It’s a learning lesson as far as going down two goals, but the biggest thing is to come back from it.”

The first period was, by and large, a neutral zone affair, but Gordie Green broke the ice for Miami after a Jordan Kawaguchi turnover allowed Josh Melnick to pick it up and pass to Green, who put it high glove on Peter Thome for the lone goal of the frame.

Miami got out to a quick start in the second with Grant Frederic shooting the puck wide, but with the carom off the end-boards, it landed on Ryan Siroky’s stick with a wide-open net to give Miami a 2-0 lead. A minute later, UND cut the lead in half with a Colton Poolman one-timer off a set-up from Christian Wolanin to make it 2-1 and spark the crowd of 11,795 at The Ralph.

“(Wolanin) takes so much attention out there being such a creative player,” Poolman said of his goal. “He opened some space up for me and had a good screen and got it to go.”

“We just stepped up and stuck with it,” said forward Shane Gersich about the second period. “We weren’t hard on each other and we keep building. It’s something we got to keep in mind as we go forward.”

However, UND wasted no time in the third period, as Dixon Bowen went high-glove on Ryan Larkin just 33 seconds into the third period with assists going to Austin Poganski and Poolman. The game went back and forth for the majority of the third period before Shane Gersich potted his fourth goal of the year from an almost impossible angle from a lovely pass from across the back of the net from Grant Mismash to put UND ahead 3-2. However, with 1:24 left, Miami captain Louie Belpedio found Melnick backdoor with the extra attacker to tie the game at three.

With the game moving to overtime, both sides had decent chances to end the game, the closest happening when Johnny Simonson was whacking at a rebound in front of the net, but the puck stayed on Larkin’s pad and was determined to be no-goal, despite a camera angle making it appear to have the puck cross the line. The game officially ended in a tie game, but in NCHC play– a 3-on-3 period for five minutes was used to determine the extra point which solved nothing. The shootout then happened for the extra NCHC point, where Christian Wolanin slapped home the fourth round attempt to give UND the extra point.

Christian Wolanin/Photo by @NHLHistorygirl

“Coach (Dane) Jackson looks at the guys after those three missed dekes and was like, ‘How about somebody try shooting it’,” mentioned Wolanin of his shootout slapper. “I said, ‘I’ll take a slapshot’ and saw he was backing up a little as I was coming in with speed so I change the speed and just ripped it.”

Despite the extra points, the main message for the weekend– as it is with every weekend– is to sweep the series. It’s something that UND has only done once this season when they played St. Lawrence in the home opening weekend.

“Obviously, we’re not excited over it,” Poolman mentioned about not being able to sweep the weekend, “But to go unbeaten is not a bad thing either. We’re trending in the right way and I like where we’re going.”

“We’re happy,” offered Wolanin of the weekend. “Five out of six points is as good as you can get without the sweep. We would have liked to get the sixth point, but we showed a lot of adversity out there. We didn’t have any panic in our game, no bad energy on the bench, and we just picked right up.”

UND will be put to the test next weekend, as they will face the reigning National Champions in Denver University at Magness Arena. Denver swept #1 St. Cloud State over the weekend and could very well regain their #1 seeding to take on the current #2 UND.