2015 NCAA Frozen Four: Who Wins in Thursday's Semifinals?
The championship of NCAA Division I men's college hockey is upon us. The semifinals will be held Thursday at the TD Garden in Boston, followed by the title tilt two days later.
Semifinal No. 1: Providence vs. (Nebraska) Omaha (5 p.m. ET, ESPN2)
This should be a goaltending duel between Providence's Jon Gillies, a third-round Calgary Flames draft pick in 2012, and UNO's Ryan Massa (shown below), who backstopped the Mavericks to their first-ever Frozen Four by allowing just one goal at the NCAA Midwest Regional.
Gillies has gone 22-13-2 so far this season, allowing just two goals per game in backstopping the nation's fifth-ranked defense, according to stats at USCHO.com. Providence made use of a major power play to beat Denver in the NCAA East Regional final, although the fourth-seeded Friars were also facing a freshman netminder in the Pioneers' Tanner Jaillet.
In the regional opener, Providence outlasted Miami (Ohio) 7-5, although Gillies surrendered three third-period goals as the Red Hawks skated much of that session without a goaltender of their own, attacking with six skaters until the Friars finally scored into an empty Miami net in the waning seconds. Junior forward Nick Saracino leads Providence with 22 assists and 35 points, while classmates Noel Acciari and Trevor Mingoia have each notched a team-high 14 goals.
Massa, meanwhile, was a proverbial brick wall against Harvard and Rochester Institute of Technology, allowing just one goal on the weekend—to Harvard's Jimmy Vesey, the nation's leading goal scorer. The Mavericks won both games by 4-1 scores, although Massa had his work cut out for him, stopping 73 of 74 shots, including 40 saves in the regional final against RIT—a game that was scoreless through two periods.
Massa leads the nation in save percentage at .939 through 28 games played, and he has a 14-7-6 record. UNO has also gotten clutch scoring from players like sophomore forward Austin Ortega, who has 11 game-winning goals among his 20 goals so far this season. He has put up 38 points in all, while classmate Jake Guentzel is right behind him with 37 points. UNO also averages 2.74 goals per game, has seven players with 20 or more points and four with 10 or more goals, while allowing just 2.26 goals per contest as a team.
PICK: Take Massa and the Mavericks to win this one, perhaps late, in a close contest. Omaha, 2-1.
Semifinal #2: Boston University vs. North Dakota (8:30 p.m. ET, ESPN2)
The Boston University Terriers managed to best both Bulldogs squads they faced at the NCAA Northeast Regional in Yale and Minnesota-Duluth, winning both games by 3-2 scores—the former in overtime.
BU's offense ranks second in the nation with 3.85 goals scored per game. BU's Jack Eichel (67 points) and Evan Rodrigues (61 points) are the top two individual scorers in the nation, with Danny O'Regan (48 points) completing the Terriers' high-scoring trio. The Terriers have six players in all who have contributed 20 or more points, including junior defenseman Matt Grzelcyk, who has tallied 10 goals and 37 points.
BU has gotten 19 goals in all from its blueline corps, not counting junior forward/defenseman Ahti Oksanen, who has lit the lamp 24 times this season to lead the Terriers along with Eichel. BU is second nationally in power-play percentage (25.6), but 28th in killing penalties (83.1)
The nickname-less North Dakota squad manhandled both its opponents at the NCAA West Regional—Quinnipiac and St. Cloud State—by 4-1 scores thanks to physical play, penalty-killing, shot blocking and solid goaltending.
UND is no slouch offensively, ranking eighth with 3.29 goals per outing. In contrast to Eichel-Rodrigues-O'Regan, though, junior forward Drake Caggiula (36 points) is the only UND player in the top 50 in national scoring. North Dakota has five players with goals in double digits, but no 20-goal scorers for the second straight season. Senior forward Mark MacMillan was lost for the season with an injury after potting a then-team high 16 scores in his first 29 games.
UND's real strength, though, lies behind its blueline. Besides goaltender Zane McIntyre, who, along with Eichel, is a finalist for the Hobey Baker Memorial Award as college hockey's top player, the former Fighting Sioux specialize in defense, allowing just 2.17 goals per game while also killing off nearly 85 percent of opposing power plays. Additionally, UND leads the nation with 11 short-handed goals.
Many might say this should really be the real national title game, a matchup of two storied hockey schools who between them have collected a dozen NCAA championships, as it was in 1997 when UND beat BU in Milwaukee. Back then, it was Aaron Schweitzer manning the pipes for UND. Now it's McIntyre, who had faced 1,088 shots on goal prior to Thursday—themost in the nation—in 41 games while fashioning a .931 save percentage.
PICK: Look for McIntyre to edge 6-foot-6 BU netminder Matt O'Connor (24-3-4, 2.10, .928), and the former Fighting Sioux to edge the Terriers and deny BU its second NCAA crown in six years and also set up an all-National Collegiate Hockey Conference national championship game in Beantown. UND, 3-2.
We'll see who's left standing/skating Saturday night in the first Frozen Four held in Boston in 11 years. UND is gunning for its eighth national title, and its first in 15 years, while BU is seeking its sixth overall. Meanwhile, Omaha and Providence are each looking for their first NCAA crown. Omaha is also in just its 18th season of Division I hockey, while Providence is back among the final four for the first time since 1985.
The Garden looked ready on Wednesday as it prepared to host its third-ever Frozen Four:
"ONE.MORE.DAY.
— NCAA (@NCAAIceHockey) April 8, 2015"
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