Western Collegiate Hockey Association
Bulldogs slip past Mercyhurst to gain Frozen Four
March 19, 2008
By John Gilbert
If you wanted to check off the reasons why the University of Minnesota-Duluth women's hockey team would fail to reach this week's Frozen Four, there were several: They were young and surprisingly rattled against Mercyhurst in their NCAA regional match; they fell behind by 1-0 , 2-1, and then 3-2 in the third period; they were still without freshman star Iya Gavrilova, who has been held out of a dozen games for an NCAA investigation into whether she was eligible to continue leading the WCHA in scoring; they lost Saara Tuominen to a left knee injury, after the recently returned captain had spent two months recovering from a right knee injury.
But there is something about this Bulldogs team, some undefined chemistry that seems to prompt top players to come through and unsung players to rise up and also come through, and it happened again against Mercyhurst, when Karine Demeule and Emmanuelle Blais came up with the biggest of big plays, and UMD toppled Mercyhurst 5-4.
The victory sends UMD (32-4-1) into Thursday's NCAA Frozen Four semifinals against New Hampshire (32-4-1), a 3-2 overtime winner against St. Lawrence in its regional, at the 8 p.m. Nightcap at the DECC. Wisconsin (28-8-3) which beat Minnesota 3-2 on Mallory Deluce's overtime goal, will face top-ranked Harvard (32-1), which whipped Dartmouth 5-1 to reach Duluth.
Every team faces adversity, and every team has its stars and its unsung heroes, but none of the other four finalists pulled all of those elements out of a hat the way coach Shannon Miller did with the Bulldogs.
"It was an awesome game for us," said Miller. "It was huge, because it was do-or-die. We have a young team that had a little trouble with the pressure Mercyhurst put on us. We had qujite a fight in our own zone.
"Our players were so tight, it almost cost us the game," said Miller, who recognized the problem and understood it immediately. "I've been through so many big games, as have my assistants, Caroline Ouellette and Julie Chu, but this team is so young, they haven't been through games like this. After the first period, I just said yes, it's a big game, but let's relax and try to have some fun."
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Certainly, sophomore goaltender Kim Martin has been the mainstay in all of UMD's success this season, and she remains a deserving member of the three finalists for the Patty Katzmaier Award. She was under heavy fire from Mercyhurst, but she came through with 25 saves, many of them crucial, despite giving up more goals than she usually allowd in two weekends.
In Gavrilova' s absence, fellow freshmen Haley Irwin and Laura Fridfinnson have come through as scoring leaders, and Fridfinnson came through again, with two big goals, but otherwise the big guns were stopped by Laura Hosier and the Mercyhurst defense. Tuominen, since returning to action and getting up to speed the last three weeks, hurt her knee in the first period, told Miller she would try to play with the knee braced in the second period, but should move from center to wing, and after two shifts in the second period, left the game. Her status for the Frozen Four is doubtful, at best.
UMD's defense had been thoroughly impressive in carrying the Bulldogs past Wisconsin in a 5-4 overtime thriller in the WCHA Final Faceoff playoff final, but that defensive corps, as a group, was set back on its heels and turned the puck over to the dangerous Mercyhurst forwards with frightening and uncharacteristic regularity - part of those opening jitters. It started on the opening shift, when Meghan Agosta - also a Katsmaier finalist - got free for a shot, and scored with her own rebound while all along in front after just 22 seconds.
If the Bulldogs were stunned, the Irwin-Blais-Fridfinnson line was ignited to action. Blais sped up the right side and jammed a goal-mouth pass that Fridfinnson stuffed past Hosier at 0:48. Any idea of a battle of defenses was gone in the 1-1 opening minute. It settled down after that, but Mercyhurst went back ahead 2-1 whjen Valerie Chouinard scored a power-play goal at 18:37, converting her own rebound.
The Bulldogs, at that point, looked rattled. When Fridfinnson's solo dash midway through the second period was halted by Agosta's hook, and UMD's power play failed to click, things looked bleak. It got bleaker when Erin Olson went off for a penalty at 14:07. That's when Demeule came up with possibly the play of the game.
Demeule, the only UMD senior, has been a vital role-player for the Bulldogs all season. She took over the captaincy with Tuominen out, and while she is not the swiftest skater, or possesses the hardest shot, she is an invaluable source of inspiration, which was never more evident than in the Mercyhurst game.
Out on the penalty kill, Demeule went in and flipped a shot, which ended up behind the net. Agosta, who Miller called the best player on the ice in the game, went behind her net to start a power-play rush. Demeule sensed a chance and went after her. Agosta looked up, and in that moment the game turned.
"I had the puck between my stick and skate just off the boards," said Agosta. "But I couldn't quite get my stick on it."
Demeule swiped it clean, and swung out on the left side of the net for a quick wraparound try that went through the legs of the startled goaltender. "It wasn't a garbage goal, for once," smiled Demeule after scoring her 15^th goal of the season. "It probably was the most important of my goals. It changes the tempo of the game a little to score shorthanded."
Miller said: "Karine's goal on the penalty kill was the best goal of the game - it changed the entire game for us."
It tied the game 2-2, and sent it to the third period with UMD in good position. But the UMD defense again lapsed, casually going back after the puck and allowing Agosta to speed right past them all and get to the puck first. She zipped a pass out to center point, and Natalie Payne beat Martin with a screened shot at 3:08, restoring Mercyhurst to a 3-2 lead.
As Miller juggled lines, giving extra duty to Tawni Mattila and Demeule, the Bulldogs extra work on special teams proved valuable again. Irwin had the puck deep o a power play and got the puck to Fridfinnson, who scored her second of the game and 20^th of the season for a 3-3 tie at 8:19.
Then it was up to Blais, a speedy sophomore playing with freshmen Fridfinnson and Irwin, and she was positioned in front to deflect Heidi Pelttari's screened shot from the right point, for a power-play goal at 10:21 that gave UMD a 4-3 lead - its first of the game. Mercyhurst regrouped during a timeout, and charged again, but with 3:07 remaining, Blais got loose up the right boards, with three defenders falling back. With a burst of speed, Blais cut across the slot and outflanked the defense, cutting back toward the net and snapping a shot into the left edge for her 16^th goal and a 5-3 lead.
"I don't know how I got by them, I just tried to use my speed," said Blais. "After I cut to the left, at the end, it was just the goalie left. This is so exciting - the most exciting. They're a really good team. No team is going to give it to you easy, but we played so well. I got the hard hat, but a lot of players could have had it. Our third line played super."
That was Mattila, Demeule and Erin Olson. Mercyhurst, the seventh seed in the NCAA pairings, kept coming hard, and it was then that a subtle play by Demeule proved her value beyond the score sheet. UMD had escaped its zone, and a couple of deflected passes got the puck sliding toward the Mercyhurst blue line, while several Bulldogs went for a change. Demeule put all her energy into a last burst, and dived across the blue line to poke the puck ahead, so it would go deep into the zone and out of immediate danger.
As the final seconds ticked away, the Bulldogs could finally relax - although they shouldn't have. Kim Martin was left alone when Vicki Bendus snapped one last shot that caught the right edge of the netting just as the horn sounded. The goal was ruled good, at 19:59, although time was up. It closed the final score to 5-4, and left the exhausted but happy Bulldogs realizing they can't take anything for granted.
The Bulldogs stay at home for the Frozen Four, and while New Hampshire and Harvard will offer as much or more challenge than the familiar Badgers, the last time UMD was home for the national tournament they won their third in a row, beating Harvard in overtime in the third NCAA national women's tournament ever conducted.