Good Morning! We’re approaching the home stretch. After 23 games, the University of North Dakota hockey team is 12-10-1, 6-6-0 (NCHC). Currently, UND is sitting at 22 in the Pairwise Rankings. If the NCAA playoffs started today, UND would be sitting at home, for the second season in a row. Lucky for UND, the NCAA playoffs don’t start today.
After UND split their weekend series with Omaha (4-3 W, 3-4 L), fans are unhappy. They’re getting restless. A fair number of UND fan want head coach Brad Berry fired. Personally, I find that a bit extreme.
Yes, fans have the right to be angry. It’s not just coach Berry, a number of fans are also unhappy with assistant coach Matt Shaw. They want him fired, yesterday. Why? See UND’s power play numbers below.
Is there a Reason for Positivity?
From here on out, it only gets tougher. UND’s next four opponents are above UND in the NCHC standings and the Pairwise Rankings. So, not all is lost. There’s still a glimmer of hope, but that is fading fast. UND is sitting two points out of third place. They’ve got a chance to right the ship in the next five weeks.
If we learned anything the last five in a half years, nothing in this league comes easy. In the past, I’ve compared the NCHC to a meat grinder. With that in mind, UND is in a precarious situation. From here on out, UND will be in playoff mode. They have a daunting task.
Here are the four teams UND will play the next five weeks. Included is their current Pairwise Rankings and record against UND: St. Cloud 1, (0-0-0) Denver 3, (1-1-0), Western Michigan 14, (0-2-0) and Minnesota-Duluth 4, (1-1-0). UND has a 2-4 record against those four teams. UND plays SCSU and UMD at home. They’re on the road against WMU and Denver.
Blue Bloods Out of the NCAA Playoffs
Yes, there are about two months left in the season. However, if the NCAA playoffs started today, Boston College 39, Boston University 25, Michigan 26, Michigan State 27, Minnesota 21, North Dakota 22, Penn State 18, Wisconsin 30, would all miss the NCAA tourney. That would be one heck of an NCAA tourney. Maybe the NCAA should consider having an NIT tourney like college basketball does.
But I digress.
How did we get here? On January 4-5, 2019, UND was unceremoniously swept (1-3, 1-2) by Canisius College. Currently, Canisius sits at 52 in the Pairwise Rankings. That sweep could end up being the dagger that kills the 2018-19 Fighting Hawks.
What’s Ailing the Hawks?
There is a myriad of things ailing the UND hockey team. They’ve given up two-goal leads in four consecutive games. Luckily, they went 3-1-0 in those four games.
UND is 7-4-0 against nationally ranked opponents. However, UND is 5-6-1 against unranked opponents. Including losses against BSU and Canisius.
UND is 42nd in the nation in goal scoring with 2.61 goals per game.
Defensively, UND 21st in the nation, giving up 2.57 goals against per game.
On the power play, UND scares no one. They’re ranked 38th 16/95 – 16.7 %,
UND’s penalty kill is struggling mightily. They’re ranked 36th 69/87 – 79.3 %.
UND is taking a lot of untimely, undisciplined penalties. They’re ranked 10th in the nation with 13.3 penalty minutes per game. Former head coach Dean Blais used to say, “don’t take a penalty if you can’t kill it.”
If your team is taking a high number of penalties and only killing 79 percent of them, that could be problematic. This past weekend, UND went 6-8 (75%) on the PK. Incidentally, UND was 2-8 on the power play this past weekend.
UND is 7th in the NCHC for goals for per game.
UND is ranked 5th in the NCHC for goals against per game.
UND is second in the NCHC for shots on goal with 750. On the flip side of that equation, UND has given up the fewest amount of shots in the NCHC with 499. What’s troubling, UND has scored 60 goals on 750. That’s a shooting percentage of eight percent.
Since December 1, 2018, UND is 4/33 on the PP, that dead last in the NCHC.
In the last five games, UND has gone 4/17 (23.5%) on the power play. That’s second in the NCHC.
Improvement Noted
I understand that the only thing that matters is the final score. That said, I don’t think that this team is that far away from taking the next step. With that in mind, UND needs to move fast before the season is lost. There’s no time like the present.
Over the last three games, some players that haven’t normally contributed on the score sheet have started chipping in points. This could be an outlier or a developing situation. We’ll soon find out.
After being held pointless in nine games, freshman forward Jackson Keane (2g-3a—5pts) has points in two straight games (1g-3a—4pts). He scored the game-winning goal in Friday’s series opener against Omaha. Keane is making it tough for the coaches to take him out of the lineup.
After being held pointless in seven games, junior forward Ludvig Hoff has points in three of the last four games (1g-2a—3pts). He also scored and assisted on the game-winning goals in last weekend series against the CC Tigers.
Sophomore forward Jordan Kawaguchi is heating up. He’s scored (3g-3a—6pts) in the last five games. Kawaguchi leads the team in points (6g-11a–17pts), he’s also a minus-four.
After being held pointless in 14 games this season, Dixon Bowen (1g-2a—3pts) has points in two of the last three games, including a multiple point game on Friday night (0g2a–2pts). Last weekend, Bowen a shorthanded goal, UND’s first of the season.
After being held pointless in nine games, freshman forward Jasper Weatherby has points in two straight games (1g-1a—2pts). Entering the season, Weatherby was expected to be a top-six forward. So far this season, he’s been a mainstay on the fourth line. It would be huge if he could start contributing regularly on the score sheet.
This past weekend, the fourth line of Jackson Keane (1g-3a—4pts), Jasper Weatherby (1g-1a—2pts), Dixon Bowen (0g-2a—2pts) combined for eight points. For the weekend, UND’s fourth line outscored the top line of Ludvig Hoff (0g-1a—1pt), Nick Jones (1g-0a—1pts), Jordan Kawaguchi (1g-0a—1pt) eight points to their three.
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