After getting swept and allowing the most shots in a game during Brad Berry’s tenure, the Fighting Hawks have 13 days to search for answers.
UND looks to figure out its troubles with penalty killing, goal tending, possessing pucks, and winning battles.
The team is looking for a goalie to take over as T.J. Semptimphelter and Hobie Hedquist have split starting time since Christmas break.
“I think having a goaltender that can grab the consistency about winning a game and just keep it moving forward here,” Head Coach Brad Berry told the Grand Forks Herald. “We’ll see where that goes.”
Semptimphelter is 10-7-1 with a 2.80 Goals-Against Average and a .899 save percentage this season. Hedquist sits at 2-3 with a 2.48 GAA and .903 save percentage.
Berry wants to see more grit from his team.
“We talk about being hard skill,” Berry told the Grand Forks Herald. “I think we’ve got some skill, but I don’t think, collectively, we’ve been hard enough in a lot of different areas. I don’t mean physicality. That’s one thing. What I think is hard is when we’re in the offensive zone, guys coming back, pouring out their hearts, skating back through the neutral zone to help our ‘D’ and goaltenders. When there’s a scrum in front of the net, you’re clearing guys out and they don’t get second and third whacks at it. That’s what I mean by being hard. I don’t think we do it all the time. That’s on us as coaches. That’s on us as players. We have to figure that out.”
The Fighting Hawks once top-five-ranked power play has dropped to 11th in the country and being paired with the nation’s 57th ranked penalty kill makes coming by wins even tougher.
A bright spot for UND is that three of the 22 Hobey Baker nominees from the NCHC came from their team including only one of the two freshmen nominated in the conference.
Sophomore defensemen Jake Livanavage and Abram Wiebe were nominated alongside freshman standout Sacha Boisvert.
The trio are the teams’ top three point leaders. Boisvert is first leading the team with nine goals and 18 points.
Wiebe is second with four goals and 13 assists totaling 17 points. With Livanavage just behind him with two goals and a team-leading 14 assists for 16 points.
UND will look to lean on a healthy Cameron Berg, three Hobey Baker nominees, and its veteran leaders to turn its season around.
The Fighting Hawks are in fourth place in the National Collegiate Hockey Conference sitting at 12-10-1 (7-5 NCHC).
The team needs to make a run over the final 12 games to qualify for the NCAA tournament as they are behind in the Pairwise (26th). Otherwise, they will have to win the NCHC Tournament, which requires an inconsistent team to win four or five games in a row.
That run must start this Friday when they go on the road for a two-game series at St. Cloud State.
Elijah Andrews is the Dakota Student Sports Reporter. He can be reached at elijah.andrews@und.edu.