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National Semifinals Notebook
Walk on to All-American
It may not exactly be a rags-to-riches story, but it’s pretty close for Norwich goaltender Ryan Klingensmith, who was just named First Team All American.
“I’d like to have him four more years,” Norwich coach Mike McShane said. “A great story. He came on as basically a walk-on goalie. He got better each and every year. We put him in a game a few years back, and he proved that was right. The defense loves him.”
Norwich netminder Ryan Kligensmith (photo: Angelo Lisuzzo).
Klingensmith made 29 saves in the Cadets victory over Plattsburgh. He led the nation in goals against with a minuscule 1.34. He’s also had great success against Plattsburgh, allowing just one goal in each of the regular season match ups and two tonight.
“The rivalry that we have and we’ve developed with Plattsburgh — we don’t really like them very much,” he said. “As a goalie you know there are going to be tough games [against Plattsburgh], and you have to battle in net. If you don’t like a team, then that’s the game you want to win.”
“Obviously, he’s pretty good,” Plattsburgh head coach Bob Emery said. “He’s pretty good against anybody, just not us. We knew going in, we had to keep it out.”
The senior has one more game to cap off his walk-on to All American ascension.
Stayed On
St. Norbert’s Cody Keefer has 13 goals and 13 assists so far in his freshman year. But none were as big as his first college game winner with 39.4 seconds left in the game against Oswego. And, he wasn’t even supposed to be on the ice.
“I was going to go for a change,” he said. “Saw the puck come loose. It wound up on my stick, and I just shot it.”
Jones’ Replacement
The last time St. Norbert was in Lake Placid, all the talk was about Kyle Jones, the all-everything goalie for the Green Knights. He shutout the entire competition, leading St. Norbert to their first national championship. Then, he put the icing on his career when he was invited to the NCAA Frozen Four Challenge, and was the only goalie the entire competition to not let up a goal in any of the drills.
After he graduated, St. Norbert struggled, finishing in fourth place in the NCHA and getting bounced in the semifinal round of their league playoffs. B.J. O’Brien and Blake Basher split duties that season. Coach Tim Coghlin did not like any of their performances, so last spring, he told them they will compete for the number one spot, and the winner was going to see the majority of the work.
St. Norbert goalie B.J. O’Brien (photo: Angelo Lisuzzo).
O’Brien came out on top and played in 29 of the 30 games this year, going 24-2-3 with a 1.63 GAA and .921 save pct.
“B.J. was the biggest difference from last year to this year,” Coghlin said. “He made a couple of huge saves during those Oswego flurries.”
O’Brien has one more game to go down along with Kyle Jones as a winning goalie for a St. Norbert national championship.
Even Years
St. Norbert has played in the national championship game four consecutive years ending in an even number. So far, all of these games ended in a shutout. In 2004, they lost to Middlebury, 1-0, in overtime. They were shutout again by Middlebury in 2006, 3-0. They won the title in 2008 with their own shutout, beating Plattsburgh, 2-0.
St. Norbert has now won six consecutive NCAA playoff games, and have never lost in Lake Placid.
Last Time
The last time Norwich made it this far, they won the national championship, beating Oswego, 2-1, in 2003 on home ice.
First Time
This is the first time Oswego has lost in the national semifinals. Whenever they have made it this far, they always got to the finals. In 1987, they defeated St. Cloud State, 5-2, before losing to Plattsburgh, 8-3, in the final. Sixteen years later, they shutout Middlebury, 6-0, but lost to Norwich, 2-1. They won the national championship in 2007 with a pair of 4-3 overtime wins over St. Norbert and Middlebury, respectively.
No Shorties
Four teams in Division III did not let up a short-handed goal this season. Three of them are in the SUNYAC, and two were in Lake Placid — Oswego, Plattsburgh, Fredonia, and Williams (NESCAC).
Goaltender Wilson Filling in Nicely for Maine
When Maine suspended goaltender Scott Darling indefinitely just days before the Hockey East quarterfinals, the Black Bears turned to senior Dave Wilson — a career backup goaltender — to fill the gaping hole between the pipes.
Maine’s hope of postseason glory dimmed with the recollection of Wilson’s earlier stints in net. Prior to this postseason, he opened and closed the regular season with losses and posted a 0-4-0 record in nine games for Maine.
Dave Wilson took over as Maine’s starting goaltender at the start of the playoffs (photo: Melissa Wade).
In October, Wilson kicked things off against Union with consecutive losses of 4-1 and 6-3 while filling in for an earlier Darling suspension. He sporadically filled in during four other Maine losses and a 10-1 trouncing of St. Lawrence on Nov. 28 before losing to Massachusetts 4-3 just one week before the Hockey East quarterfinals.
With the news of Darling’s punishment, most, if not all, playoff predictions unsurprisingly pegged Maine for an early exit from the Hockey East tournament.
It certainly seemed that way, as the Black Bears fell in heartbreaking fashion to Massachusetts-Lowell in Game 1 of the tournament quarterfinals. Wilson turned in an admirable 19-save effort, but still had not yet backstopped Maine to a key victory.
Once placed in a do-or-die situation, Wilson mounted a dramatic turnaround that carried the Black Bears out of the quarterfinals and into the championship game. Wilson pushed the series to a deciding third game by stopping all 23 shots and stoning the River Hawks on all five power plays in a 2-0 shutout of Lowell in Game 2. Spearheaded by Wilson’s 26-save effort, Maine locked up its 17th appearance in the Hockey East semifinals with a 3-2 overtime nail-biter over Lowell in the rubber match.
“Every game was an elimination game for him,” said Black Bears coach Tim Whitehead. “You never really know when guys are going to rise up like that in unexpected moments. … I’ve seen other guys rise up in other situations, which he certainly has done for us this postseason.”
Entering tonight’s game with a 2-4-0 record, Wilson’s statistics were deceptively strong: 2.19 GAA and .903 save percentage in 11 games. Skeptics continued to question Wilson’s longevity when the Black Bears drew tournament mainstay Boston University in the semifinals matchup.
His performance against the Terriers in Friday’s game, however, will go a long way to silencing the naysayers. Wilson, who never cracked the 30-save mark this season, stymied the Terriers a season-high 37 times in Maine’s decisive 5-2 victory over BU.
“Did I expect it? Yes and no,” said Whitehead. “It’s a pleasant surprise. The one thing about Dave [Wilson] is he really persevered and I’m so proud of his ability to focus when we needed him the most.”
Wilson’s highlight reel-worthy save came with just under three minutes to play in the final frame. After enduring a nine-minute review granting BU a controversial second goal, Terriers forward Ross Gaudet came in all alone on a breakaway and threatened to knot the game at 3. Wilson stoned Gaudet like a seasoned veteran, and propelled Maine for the 13th time to a spot in the coveted championship game against Boston College.
“As long as I have fun and relax, I can make those saves,” Wilson said. “I saw [Gaudet] coming down at me so I tried to get out and challenge him on that breakway. But like I said, I was just trying to relax and have fun out there.”
Wilson will have one night to savor the effort — on the night of his 25th birthday — before facing off against the Eagles in the finals Saturday night for the chance to raise a sixth Hockey East championship banner to the rafters.
With Dutchmen Defensemen, ‘U’th is Served
The Union Dutchmen aren’t playing in the ECAC Hockey championship game Saturday because they’re experienced.
They’re not residing on higher ground than the program has ever achieved because they’re older.
And they’re certainly not making a run at a first-ever NCAA berth because they have a veteran defensive corps.
Union’s blue line is younger than Larry King’s latest marriage. They’re fresher than Pine-Sol. With 18 combined NCAA seasons between them, Union’s 10 rostered defenders average out to less than sophomores. (Nolan Julseth-White played in only two games last year, so he is considered a frosh-plus.) Yet the group is a combined plus-77 this year, with only one player — freshman Ryan Forgaard — towing a negative number (minus-4). Not only are these greenhorn rearguards pulling their weight in the defensive zone, but they’re putting up some points, too: Eighteen goals and 53 assists are no beginners’ luck.
“It’s not tonight or the past three games,” said coach Nate Leaman of his defensive corps’ success. “I thought they did a pretty good job. They had good stick-on-puck play. We knew coming in [to the year] that we’d have three freshmen on defense … but the guys had good buy-ins, which makes it easy for the coach to put in a system that will help support that defense.”
Did we forget to mention that senior sentinel Mike Wakita is out with an injury, too? No big deal. Union forced St. Lawrence to take long shots through optimistic screens, boxing out any would-be invaders with game-long success.
“They work real hard,” said victimized coach Joe Marsh. “You’ve seen the development and maturation of their team. They showed a lot of maturity, they play within their capabilities, they play well as a group, and they don’t over-do things.”
Wakita’s classmate and fellow blue-liner Mike Schreiber never really saw his younger colleagues as, well, younger.
“I wouldn’t really say they’re young guys,” he said. “They came into camp ready to learn, and that’s what they’ve done all year. They worked hard in the weight rooms, they’ve worked hard on the ice, they keep everything simple.”
Schreiber knew this would be a group that played beyond its years early on.
“One or two weeks into the year,” he said. “Not just in games, but in practices also.”
Union had never played in a league championship weekend before this one. They’d never won 20 games in a season before, much less played for an ECAC Hockey crown.
But that’s the fun thing about youth … it can’t succumb to lessons that it’s never been taught.
Brown Looks to Future After ECAC Semifinal Loss
After upsetting two of the most offensively talented teams in the conference in RPI and Yale during the first two weekends of the ECAC Hockey tournament, the 3-0 loss suffered by Brown in the opening semifinal of the championship weekend was understandably disappointing.
Still, the Bears have a lot to look forward to as first-year coach Brendan Whittet works to bring the program back to a level of attention and prominence it has not experienced since he played well over a decade ago.
“I played at Brown,” started the playoff-bearded coach, “and had some really good success, and the amount of e-mails and well-wishes and people that are checking in, believe me, there’s a lot more of it than at the beginning of the year where we’re struggling. Our goal is to get this team back to the level it was when I played and to win championships. It’s not going to be easy by any stretch. I mean this run is nice, but again it’s going to be progress.”
Nearly every returning player on the Bears roster put forth a career-best performance in 2009-10. Many improved their numbers so dramatically that one has to think it must be the coaching. Junior Harry Zolnierczyk had only five points through his first two seasons before he exploded for 31 this campaign. Jack Maclellan, who has led this year’s edition of Brown hockey with 34 points, was coming off a freshman year in which he had been on the scoresheet but six times.
“We’re a program that was unbelievably down when I got there,” Whittet said matter-of-factly. “We had to change the mentality and the culture and lay the foundation for what’s going to lead to success. It paid dividends I thought as the season wore on. We’re a streaky team but we have definitively improved from the beginning of the year to the end of the year. And I thought that was spelled out with the way we were able to play down the stretch.”
Senior tri-captains Devin Timberlake, Aaron Volpatti, and Jordan Pietrus each nearly doubled his previous career scoring numbers just this year alone. And that with Pietrus having missed all of February and March up until his return Friday afternoon. The same can be said of the likes of Bobby Farnham, Jesse Fratkin, and Jarred Smith as well.
“When Coach Whittet and the new coaching staff came in, they brought a lot of enthusiasm and excitement to Brown,” Pietrus said. “[He] played at Brown and bringing that pride back is very exciting. We grew as a team and, unfortunately, I only got to play one year with [him] because I think they are going to do some big things here in the near future.”
“My senior class was just an unbelievable group of guys and were instrumental in helping to turn this program around,” said Whittet. “We want to have momentum going into next year, but it’s going to be a different team. We’re losing some really good hockey players. Every year is different, different chemistry.”
Brown has not only improved on offense, but also has taken on a defensive style that Whittet says is the same used by Cornell under Mike Schafer.
“I just like the way they play,” Whittet said with admiration. “They’re big and strong and they possess pucks. When I played for Bob Gaudet at Brown, we played a 1-3-1 [defensive setup] and that’s what we play now. It’s something that I have always felt is an effective system. I think it’s very accountable. If we want to play in-your-face hockey, I think it’s the way to go.”
RedHawks Star at CCHA Awards Banquet
Miami finished first in the CCHA this year off a surprise Frozen Four appearance last April, and coach Enrico Blasi took home the prize for the league’s coach of the year Thursday.
He’s the first coach in CCHA history to win four times. In his acceptance speech, he emphasized the personal struggles he’s gone through this past season and the support and comfort his hockey family has brought him.
Miami’s Tommy Wingels took home the best defensive forward award, and the best defensive defenseman went to teammate Will Weber. Weber was the third RedHawks player to win the award in the past five years, and the fourth in Miami’s history.
RedHawks goaltender Cody Reichard completed the Miami set, taking home the player of the year award. He was on the CCHA first team, was a Perani Cup winner, the CCHA’s best goaltender and was featured in the top 10 finalists of the Hobey Baker Award.
“The credit really goes to my teammates,” Reichard said. “They’re the ones blocking the shots in front of me, taking pucks, making plays. They’re a great group of guys and we have a great staff at the university to support us all the way.”
Northern Michigan’s junior Erik Gustafsson took home the best offensive defenseman prize. Gustafsson was also nominated for player of the year and best defensive defenseman and was the only player to return to the first team. Teammate Mark Olver was also on the first team with the most votes. He also took home the leading scorer award and is one of the top 10 Hobey Baker finalists.
Alaska took home their first rookie of the year award with Andy Taranto who was also on the All-Rookie team. Teammate Dion Knelsen took home the CCHA top scholar athlete and the CCHA Humanitarian Award.
“I feel so honored, but it’s all a team effort,” Knelsen said. “I don’t feel like I do a whole lot. All my teammates are just as committed to humanitarian efforts and academics as I am. Our whole program makes a great effort.”
Net Difference
Well, nine out of 10 really ain’t too bad.
The top 10 finalists for the Hobey Baker Award have been announced, and your humble Hobey pundit correctly predicted 9 of the 10 finalists. It’s my best performance yet – although I did have to share top honors among the media forecasters with Adam Wodon of College Hockey News – and while I’d like to have all 10 right one of these years, I’m happy to have improved over last year’s performance.
Still, happy as I am, I can’t help but think about the one I got wrong. I had Cory Conacher of Canisius in my top 10, in a spot that wound up going to Miami’s Cody Reichard. Looking back at it now, I realize that I made two fundamental errors on this one.
First, I picked an Atlantic Hockey player who wasn’t a clear pick. While Atlantic Hockey has gotten better and better about getting players into the Hobey top 10 – Reid Cashman, Eric Ehn, Simon Lambert and Jacques Lamoureux were Hobey Finalists in the space of five years – each of those players was the clear choice in the conference. This year, while I picked Conacher, the folks over at INCH picked RIT defenseman Dan Ringwald, and you could have also made the case for Sacred Heart forward Nick Johnson or even a repeat appearance by Lamoureux. If there’s not a clear-cut choice in the conference, there probably won’t be a finalist from Atlantic Hockey. I neglected that, to my cost.
The other error I made was to think that a team as strong as Miami – a team that spent a good chunk of the year at No. 1 in the country – was going to go home empty-handed from this party. Do I think that’s right? No, but I should have counted on it anyway.
Please note that this is NOT a slight against the Miami program. If I could give a Hobey Baker Award to a team, the RedHawks would be it. I think the culture of the program and the sense of unity among the players, coaches and staff are characteristics that Hobey Baker himself would have admired, even if the RedHawks take a few more penalties than Hobey would have approved of.
That said, though, there’s no one on the team I can point to and say “They don’t win without ___________.” There’s no player that’s performed at so high a level that he stands out from the team. From Jarod Palmer, Tommy Wingels, Carter Camper and Andy Miele straight on down, the RedHawks have so many different weapons that it’s been hard for one player to stand out a la Ryan Jones two seasons ago, Nathan Davis the year before, or Andy Greene before him.
Except, of course, that Reichard was the national leader in goals-against average and No. 3 in save percentage, making him as elite a performer as Miami has had this year, and hence, a finalist.
Here’s the thing, though: While Reichard was first nationally in goals-against average, his partner in Miami’s goaltending tandem, Connor Knapp, was fourth. And while Reichard was third in save percentage, Knapp was ninth. Granted, Reichard played the majority of the minutes, by more than eight games, but to borrow a term from baseball, I’m not sure Reichard’s VORP with Knapp on the team (that’s “Value over replacement player”) is so high as to merit a Hobey finalist nod.
All of that said, though, it’s hard to begrudge Reichard this honor. He clearly made the most of the time he had in net, so it’s not like he didn’t play well enough.
And as for my pursuit of a perfect pick, well, there’s always next year…
Brown’s Pietrus to Return to Lineup in Albany
With all the attention surrounding the injury to Yale’s Sean Backman last weekend, it was probably forgotten that Brown senior tri-captain Jordan Pietrus had been out of their lineup since the beginning of February. In an odd coincidence, both players wore No. 16 for their respective teams.
The Providence Journal has reported that Pietrus, who was expected to be out for the season with a torn abdominal muscle, will return to the lineup in Friday’s ECAC Championship semifinal against Cornell.
Pietrus, like nearly all of his upper-class teammates under first-year coach Brendan Whittet, was having a career year until he went down. He had 17 points through 21 games before the injury after tallying only 23 total through his first three seasons with Brown. He was also third on the team in points per game when he went down.
“It has affected [our team] a lot,” Whittet just a week ago. “Jordan is a leader in every sense and he’s a good hockey player also. Without Jordan in the lineup, our depth is not overly strong up front, meaning we have to go to the well a lot with our top two lines. Those six guys, we play them a lot. It’s hard, you run out of energy at times when you’re doing that and you put a lot of pressure on those specific guys in order to come through. It really limits some of the stuff we can do on the offensive side.”
“Jordan is a huge part of our team and he still is,” added fellow captain Devin Timberlake, who also knows a thing or two about being injured — he missed all but 10 games last year. “Before he went down, he was probably our most consistent and our best player to that point. To lose him wasn’t easy, but he’s such a positive influence around the guys. We really want to do it for him, too. The longer we play, the better chance he has for coming back. He’s such an inspiration to everyone of us with how hard he works that we just want to give him a chance.”
A role model both on and off the ice, Pietrus is one of 18 finalists for this year’s Hockey Humanitarian Award.
“It’s a team sport,” Pietrus said before the series at Yale. “Especially with our team, it’s about all 21 guys on the ice and all 29 guys on our team. We have to compensate for each other in different ways and when guys get injured, that’s an opportunity for other guys to step up and show their worth. We’ve had some guys step up and play great; David Brownschidle, Jesse Fratkin, and Bobby Farnham have all been able to step up and do well in bigger roles. I’m still a member of the team so I love seeing the guys do well. It is a little bit bittersweet. Obviously, I wish I was out there and able to contribute, but I kind of contribute any way I can and it’s great to come back in a room with smiling faces after a big win. There’s no better thing in the world than winning.”
