What a difference a Brady makes. <\/p>\n
North Dakota sophomore forward Brady Murray returned to the lineup Friday after being out five weeks with a knee injury, and his presence helped spark the Fighting Sioux to a 4-2 win over Alaska-Anchorage. <\/p>\n
UND’s fifth straight WCHA win before 10,284 fans at Ralph Engelstad Arena enabled the Sioux (10-5-2 overall, 8-4-1 WCHA) to hold on to first place in the conference. UAA fell to 5-7-1 overall and 3-6-0 in the WCHA.<\/p>\n
Murray, last season’s WCHA rookie of the year, played most of the game on UND’s fourth line because coach Dave Hakstol wanted to limit his playing time. <\/p>\n
“The knee didn’t bother me at all, so I’m pretty happy about that,” Murray said. “Wearing this brace on my leg, that was bothering me in the first period. Once I adjusted to the speed of the game, I felt pretty good in the second and third.”<\/p>\n
Although Murray picked up one assist on the night, UAA coach John Hill had no difficulty recognizing his offensive contributions.<\/p>\n
“I certainly noticed him a few times,” he said. “He’s dangling out there, and I’m thinking, ‘Boy, don’t embarrass our guys.’<\/p>\n
On a team that’s lacked scoring punch, Murray’s value to the Sioux showed the moment the 5-9, 180-pound forward stepped on the ice. <\/p>\n
“The first shift, he steps out and finishes a big check on somebody,” Hakstol said. “And just in the first period, he created two two-on-ones with his speed and creativity. It’s nice to have that back in the lineup.” <\/p>\n
After a scoreless first period, UND struck first at 4:09 of the second period. Sophomore forward Drew Stafford, who was questionable after being injured at Michigan Tech last weekend, flipped a backhander past UAA freshman goalie Nathan Lawson.<\/p>\n
It took the Seawolves only 33 seconds to tie the game 1-1. UAA center Charlie Kronschnabel split the Sioux defense, fired a shot that goalie Philippe Lamoureux failed to control and stuffed in his own rebound.<\/p>\n
Halfway through the period, UND began to dominate, outshooting the Seawolves 17-1 during that stretch. Lawson bailed out UAA with one sensational save after another.<\/p>\n
Seconds after being stoned by Lawson on a breakaway, Murray spotted senior defenseman Matt Jones moving in from the blue line. Jones’ backhander from the right circle caught the far left corner to give UND a 2-1 lead at 18:01.<\/p>\n
In the third period, senior forward Rory McMahon scored his seventh goal of the season at 14:16 to put the Sioux up 3-1. That lead seemed safe until UND’s Chris Porter was sent to the box for goalie interference with 2:02 left.<\/p>\n
With Lawson pulled for an extra attacker, UAA defenseman Brandon Segal fired a shot through traffic from inside the blue line that found the back of the net. The power-play goal at 18:52 gave the Seawolves life. <\/p>\n
“I thought when we scored the second goal with a minute left, you never know, maybe we can get a bounce,” Hill said.<\/p>\n
But UAA’s chance for a rally was dashed when Sioux junior forward Mike Prpich scored an empty-net goal with 14 seconds remaining to make the final score 4-2. <\/p>\n
“Until we can get some experience and start to develop some consistency, it’s going to be a battle,” Hill said. “But the guys didn’t quit.”<\/p>\n
UND and UAA meet for the second game of the series at 7:05 p.m. Saturday at Engelstad Arena.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
What a difference a Brady makes. North Dakota sophomore forward Brady Murray returned to the lineup Friday after being out five weeks with a knee injury, and his presence helped spark the Fighting Sioux to a 4-2 win over Alaska-Anchorage. UND’s fifth straight WCHA win before 10,284 fans at Ralph Engelstad Arena enabled the Sioux […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22374,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5764"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5764"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5764\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5764"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=5764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}