UNIVERSITY OF NORTH DAKOTA – UND hockey players and coaches felt that their 5-2 win over the University of Denver was their best effort of the season.  

“That was one of our better efforts this whole season,” Senior Griffin Ness said. “That led them to not get that many chances, so I’m definitely very proud of our players… I just thought it was a very good complete game. I’m very proud of it.”  

The Denver Pioneers, who average five goals per game, have never been held to less than three goals this season until Friday, Jan. 26 at the Ralph Engelstad Arena, where UND held them to two.  

Part of DU’s offensive dominance is their first line, which contains of two players in the top ten points per game in the NCAA and the NCAA’s leading goal scorers. UND held all three of those players off the scoresheet.  

UND’s shutdown line, Louis Jamernik V, Jake Schmaltz, and Ben Strinden, was tasked with containing DU’s first line. They were the line tapped by Head Coach Brad Berry to start the game, along with the third pairing of Logan Britt and Bennett Zmolek.  

“They work their, you know, off every time they’re on the ice,” Jackson Blake said of the third line. “We know they’re going to do that. That’s why we put them up against that line. We know that they can shut them down… That was the most important thing for the game to shut down their top line.” 

It was not only the first line that was contained; UND held DU to two shots in the first period and under 20 shots for the full game, putting on a defensive clinic against a team that has been difficult to defend this season.  

5th-year defenseman and Assistant Captain Keaton Pehrson said that it was a joint defensive effort with both the d-men and forwards committing to being defensively responsible.  

“One of the big things is just playing disciplined with the puck. We put it behind them, didn’t try to do too much, and feed their transition,” Pehrson said. “When we were defending, we had forwards tracking back, which made it easy for our d-men to stand, and we were working as a five-man unit.”  

UND kept Denver to the outside, taking away vital shooting lanes and preventing DU from getting in too close to the net. UND also did an excellent job of clogging the zone and preventing DU from getting too deep into the zone. Pehrson credited their success at that with the forwards working through the middle and, again, to the commitment to play as a five-man defensive unit.  

Blake also had high praise for UND’s blue line and their “simple” play in this game.  

“They’re just going off and playing simple. Simmer’s [Dylan Simpson] has been telling them to play simple and to play with confidence when you’re at that blue line,” Blake said. “I thought Big Z [Bennett Zmolek] did a heck of a job of being evasive on top and making it really hard on their winger, so I thought that’s what they did really well.”  

The defense also had a renewed commitment to blocking shots and registering 14 blocks, which Pehrson said was “huge” to UND’s defensive dominance against DU.  

The lockdown defensively did not prevent UND from finding offense; in the first period, Dylan James had two high-danger chances, but he was not able to capitalize until five minutes into the second period, scoring UND’s opening goal off a rebound from a two-on-one with Blake.  

UND built up the lead when Ness scored six minutes later and broke down the goal.  

“I was going to go for a change, and I saw that we had the puck; I just wanted to drive the middle for I’m trying to get some space… I just wanted to shoot that one,” Ness said. “It’s just an unbelievable feeling.”  

Another bright spot in the game was UND’s success on the power play; Blake scored the game-winner on the power play, and their success at preventing DU from scoring shorthanded, which was something coach Berry singled out as a point of emphasis before the series.  

“Berg did a heck of a job dragging both of those forwards over, which gave me some time to shoot that one,” Blake said. “And Kunzy [Jackson Kunz] is so big at net front that I don’t think the goalie even saw it.”  

While it was an impressive team performance by UND, the team was also acutely aware that they had to repeat the same performance to pull off the sweep against a DU team that would come out even hungrier.  

“Enjoy it for about 10-15 minutes, and once you shower up and leave the room, you start focusing on tomorrow,” Ness said. “We came in wanting to get six, and we did the first half, got three, so we got to do our job.”  

Maeve Hushman is a Dakota Student Sports Reporter. She can be reached at [email protected].