UND senior goalie Shelby Amsle-Benzie was one of the major reasons UND made a late season run last year. Amsle-Benzie finished the 2014-15 season (18-7-3, 1.21 GAA and a .952 SV%).

Amsle-Benzie entered Friday’s game with a (9-1-0, 1.67 GAA and .922 SV%) lifetime record against the Beavers.  On Friday, Amsle-Benzie added to those career numbers stopping 23-of-23 shots.

Offseason Surgery Slows Amsle-Benzie

In the offseason, Amsle-Benzie had surgery for an undisclosed lower-body injury. The senior goalie still isn’t playing back to back games yet and was the back goalie during the second game of the series. From her play on the ice, Amsle-Benzie “appears” to have recovered and is back on track.

Whether Amsle-Benzie  is all the way back or not, UND  head coach Brian Idalski was impressed with his starting goaltender’s play.

“She’s getting close,” Idalski said. “I think that’s a question for her, and where she feels she’s at. But obviously, that was a nice game for her and more like she was playing at the end of last year. That was super encouraging for us.”

When asked if she’s back to full strength, a tight-lipped Amsle-Benzie said, “I am coming back.”

With Amsle-Benzie between the pipes, UND can keep things simple. Play good defense and the forwards help your goalie when needed.

“I just kind of go out there and I do my job and know that girls are going to do theirs,” Amsle-Benzie said. “So, I just take it a shift at a time. For me, I like to break it up into five-minute increments and just kind of go from there.

“I thought I left a couple of weak rebounds,” Amsle-Benzie said. “I was just happy that we had some good back checkers there for me. The team really came back and got them for me.”

“I thought we did pretty good,”Idalski said. “I don’t think we gave up a lot of good looks. If we did, Shelby was solid for us. I thought we defended well.”