MINNEAPOLIS — Between the “Pacific Rim” line in Denver and the “CBS” line in North Dakota, it can be easy for St. Cloud State’s top line of Mikey Eyssimont, Kalle Kossila and Patrick Russell to be overshadowed. But the one thing that trio has that the others don’t is a conference tournament title.
Eyssimont scored twice Kossila had two assists and Russell had a goal and an assist as the Huskies won the National Collegiate Hockey Conference’s Frozen Faceoff tournament 3-1 over Minnesota-Duluth. Eyssimont was named the MVP of the Frozen Faceoff, with three goals on the weekend.
“We’re awful proud of our guys, and we’re trying to guard everything with emotion,” head coach Bob Motzko said. “We talked about it [Friday] night: We won the first round of the playoffs and we’ve got another round to go. We’re excited but we want to park it quickly and try to stay off an emotional roller coaster. I thought that was the key to our game tonight.”
The night started out looking like a must-win for the Bulldogs to get into the NCAA Tournament, and throughout the night, results elsewhere were dictating the Bulldogs’ post-season fate. But as the third period started before 11,643 at the Target Center, across the Mississippi River in St. Paul, Michigan was beating Minnesota to win the Big Ten Tournament. That result not only kept Minnesota out of the NCAA Tournament, it most likely put Minnesota-Duluth in.
“I wasn’t aware at all,” UMD head coach Scott Sandelin said. “Someone told me Northeastern was ahead 1-0 and I said told them i don’t want to know. Focus has to be on this game. and we want to win. when you get opportunities to play for championships you want to win. Our guys were certainly focused on that and it kind of got away from us a little bit.”
UMD captain Andy Welenski hopes that winning against top-ranked North Dakota on Friday night would put the Bulldogs into the tournament.
“I think right now, hopefully the work we’ve done especially the last month, month and a half, we’ve had some big wins and hopefully that’s enough for us to get in,” said captain Andy Welenski. “I think our confidence was high and we had every intention of winning this hockey game.”
Carson Soucy got the Bulldogs on the board in the first period. The defenseman walked out of the corner to the right of Huskies goalie Charlie Lindgren. He deftly redirected a pass from Willie Raskob past a helpless Lindgren.
Judd Peterson almost got St. Cloud State on the board. He blocked a shot just inside his own blue line, skated past two defensemen and beat Kasimir Kaskisuo only to be denied by the crossbar.
The Bulldogs almost had a power play late in the first period when Will Borgen was called for goaltender interference for running over Kaskisuo, but Soucy took a shot at Borgen which nullified the power play and gave us a 4-on-4 action.
After the horn sounded to end the first, Borgen got dumped to the ice by Neal Pionk as he was skating towards the doors to leave the ice. The Huskies’ power play couldn’t score with their man advantage early on the second period.
“We didn’t get off to a great start tonight and Duluth did,” Motzko said. “But about midway through the second period it started to change. They iced the puck twice, we were able to get our top line out there and we scored to tie the game.”
Despite being outshot 7-3 in the first seven minutes of the second period, it was the Huskies that got on the board.
Essiymont got his first of the period at 8:59. Aaron Prow, the league’s Player of the Year drove the goal line to Kaskisuo’s right and fed the puck across the net for Essiymont to tap in.
With 36 seconds left in the period, Essiymont scored a highlight-reel goal. On his knees with his back to goal at the left edge of the crease, he took a pass from Jimmy Schuldt and blindly flipped the puck past Kaskisuo.
The Huskies extended their lead to 3-1. Patrick Russell burst down the right wing and flipped a backhand pass towards a streaking Essiymont. UMD defenseman Cal Decowski deflected the pass past Kaskisuo.
NCHC All-tournament Team
As voted on by the media, the All-Tournament Team is:
F: Essiymont, SCSU
F: Nick Schmaltz, UND
F: Dominic Toninato, UMD
D: Raskob, UMD
D: Prow, SCSU
G: Lindgren, SCSU
Follow Lonny on Twitter @lonny_goldsmith and you can always reach him at Lonny.Goldsmith@prohockeynews.com
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