BY JIMMY GILLIGAN | The Statesman
Technically speaking, the UMD men’s hockey team (3-5-3, 0-3-1 NCHC) hasn’t won any of their last five games. But after getting the extra point in overtime against Denver University last weekend, they feel the positive vibes returning.
“It’s huge for our confidence, for sure. We’ve been battling a little bit,” forward Austin Farley said after Saturday’s game.
They head west this weekend to face Colorado College (0-8, 0-3 NCHC) on the road, the only other National Collegiate Hockey Conference team that has yet to win a conference game.
The Tigers were also winless in non-conference play. Their only win of the season came in an exhibition game against the University of Calgary. After being swept by Denver two weeks ago, CC had last weekend off. The momentum appears to swing in favor of the Bulldogs.
“Our confidence is high right now, and we’ve got one weekend left till break so we want to take care of (the) points against Colorado College,” Farley said.
Even though UMD didn’t come out of last weekend with an NCHC win, they did get their first points while they continued to outshoot their opponent. But even as the Bulldogs outshot Denver 74 to 29 last weekend, they had only one officially recognized goal to show for it.
With plenty of scoring chances over the past few weekends, the Bulldogs aren’t going to make any big changes to find a way to score more.
“You just gotta bear down,” senior forward Tony Cameranesi said. “When you’re putting that many pucks on net, you’re doing something right. I just think we need to get more bodies to the net but for now we just need to continue doing what we’re doing.”
Look for a full series preview on theumdstatesman.com Thursday.