Grand Forks, ND — There’s a direct correlation between winning and the number of penalties your team takes. After a recent game against Denver, University of North Dakota head coach Brad Berry explained.
“There’s a 100% correlation of how many penalties you take; and if you win or lose games,” Berry said. “I think we only took three tonight. If you can take three, maybe four at the most you have a good chance of winning. Any more than that, especially five on threes and more than three or four penalties, your chances of winning goes down. It was stressed and it was important and again, there’s a balance you have to play hard, but you got to play hard with discipline. I think we’ve got to find that that that middle line.”
On Friday night, early on, UND played with pace and scored the game’s first goal with a beautiful marker from senior forward Gavin Hain. From there, the Fighting Hawks went off of the rails. They started a parade to the penalty box. In the end, it proved to be their downfall.
At the 10:15 mark of the second period, UMD forward Casey Gilling scored the game-tying goal to make it 1-1. Fifty-one seconds later, Dominic James gave the Dogs a 2-1 lead. That was all the Bulldogs would need. The Dogs would score one in the second period, and one more in the third to give the Bulldogs a 4-1 win.
“I thought we came out and had a good jump, (we) scored the first goal, that’s what we wanted,” Berry said. “Then we took penalty, penalty, penalty, and penalty. That’s not a good recipe. Then you run out of gas.”
“I thought we started off pretty good there,” junior forward Judd Caulfield explained. “Hainer got that first one to get us going, but then we took some penalties and got away from our game.
Discipline, right? With seven seconds remaining in the first period, UND sophomore forward Louis Jamernick was assessed a five-minute major and game misconduct, for cross-checking UMD defenseman Louie Roehl in the head. One could make the argument that Roehl embellished on the player. However, that doesn’t excuse the major penalty. Looking at the photo below, it appears that it was the right call by the on-ice officials.
UND would kill off Jamernick’s major, but they would continue to take undisciplined penalties throughout the second period. UND was unable to generate much offensively. The Hawks only tallied four shots on the Bulldog net during the middle period.
Louis Jamernik takes a penalty in front of the UMD net. (Photo Credit: Eric J. Burton)
The Hawks played better in the third period, but they were unable to get anything past UMD junior goalie Ryan Fanti (stopped 23-of-24 shots). UND outshot UMD 9-5 in the second period. In the end, the Bulldogs beat the Hawk in impressive fashion, 4-1.
One has to wonder if the Fighting Hawks were too amped for game one of the series?
“We were pumped for this game,” Caulfield said. “I think it was just a lack of discipline. Need to be more discipline going in tomorrow because they’ve got a great power play. We want to play five-on-five.”
With the loss, UND drops to 8-4-0 and 4-1-0 in the NCHC. With the win, the Bulldogs improve to 8-2-1 and 3-1-1 in the NCHC. UND still leads the NCHC with 12 points. The Bulldogs are second with 11 points.
VIDEO: Watch the game highlights as @UNDmhockey falls to UMD. pic.twitter.com/ePqobID6c6
— UND Insider (@UNDinsider) November 20, 2021
