Game day: No. 4 CC 5, Alaska-Anchorage 2 (final)

How it happened:
The Tigers got two shots in their first four shifts and then drifted off for the rest of the period, mustering just seven altogether and taking a 0-0 tie into the first intermission.

When both teams came out battling in the second period, CC rose to the challenge with another three-goal period, their fourth such period in the last 10 played. Right wing Jimmy Kilpatrick crossed the puck from the top of the left circle to center Chad Rau, who put his first attempt into goaltender Jon Olthuis but roofed the rebound. Midway through the period, center-turned-right wing Brian McMillin one-timed a rebound and Kilpatrick added a power-play goal less than two minutes later.

On a five-minute power-play less than two minutes into the third, the Tigers went up 4-0 when Bill Sweatt scored a power-play goal. Anchorage scored twice in the subsequent 16 minutes before pulling Olthuis. Kilpatrick blocked a last-ditch shot and Rau scooped it up and slammed into the empty net.

Fun stats:
–Kilpatrick has 99 career points and needs just one more to become the 70th member of CC’s “Century Club” during the program’s 70th anniversary season.
–Of Kilpatrick’s 99 career points, 24 have come against Anchorage–24.2 percent.

–Rau ranks first among WCHA scoring leaders with 15 goals and nine assists (24 points) in league play.
–Rau is on a 15-game point-scoring streak and a six-game goal-scoring streak.

–Friday’s quick goals–Kilpatrick scored at 12:41 of the second, eight seconds after Walsky’s game-winner at 12:33–rank fourth place among the fastest two goals in CC hockey history.
Here are the three quickest:
1. Feb. 1, 1952 (2 seconds) vs. Michigan Tech
2. Nov. 17, 2006 (5 seconds) vs. Minnesota State
3. Nov. 18, 1966 (6 seconds) vs. Lake Forest College

Game day: No. 7 Colorado College vs. No. 9 Wisconsin

Note:
–Wisconsin forwards Aaron Bendickson (leg) and Matthew Ford (apparent shoulder) left the game in the first period and second period, respectively. Neither will play Saturday.

First period:
Colorado College 1, Wisconsin 0: Jimmy Kilpatrick 3 (Chad Rau 5, Jake Gannon 2), 12:53.
Boy, was right wing Jimmy Kilpatrick hungry for a goal. Kilpatrick had tipped a shot from Ryan Lowery past goaltender Shane Connelly about three minutes earlier, but the puck hit the left post. Then, 14 seconds before Kilpatrick scored, he missed a sneaky cross from Chad Rau. The line regained the puck and Rau found Kilpatrick in the left circle. Kilpatrick took a couple of touches and wristed a shot through traffic, beating Connelly (screened by Kyle Klubertanz) five-hole.

Second period:
Colorado College 2, Wisconsin 0: Chad Rau 4 (Jimmy Kilpatrick 3), 1:43.
Rau sliced into the slot from the left circle and put a hard wrist shot on net, about chest-height on Connelly, who was in his butterfly stance. Connelly couldn’t handle the puck and it flipped over his right shoulder into the goal.

Colorado College 2, Wisconsin 1: Michael Davies (Ben Grotting, Kyle Turris), 3:26.
On a face-off in CC’s offensive zone, Kyle Turris got enough of the puck to win the draw against Brian McMillin and right wing Ben Grotting took off with it down the ice. Grotting found Michael Davies, who beat Richard Bachman to the left post for the score.

Colorado College 2, Wisconsin 2: John Mitchell (Ryan McDonagh, Jamie McBain), 19:02.
John Mitchell got his own rebound off of the shin pads of defenseman Jack Hillen, who had blocked Mitchell’s first shot. Mitchell put the puck on net and caught Bachman scrambling.

Third period:
Colorado College 2, Wisconsin 3: Blake Geoffrion (Josh Engel), 0:24.
On the first shift of the period, Josh Engel ripped a shot from the slot, which Bachman kicked away with his right leg pad–right onto the stick of Blake Geoffrion, who was crashing the net.

Colorado College 3, Wisconsin 3: Chad Rau 5 (Nate Prosser 2), 3:21, sh.
On CC’s third penalty kill of the game, defenseman Nate Prosser caused a turnover along the boards and skated a couple of steps before he saw Rau sliding behind two Wisconsin defensemen. Rau’s low shot from the slot beat Connelly five-hole. It was the Tigers’ third short-handed goal of the season and third in four games. Rau joins Scott Thauwald and Brian McMillin in the short-handed goal-scorers club.

Colorado College 4, Wisconsin 3: Jimmy Kilpatrick 4 (Nate Prosser 3), 12:11.
Prosser finds Kilpatrick at the outer part of the left circle. Kilpatrick’s wrist shot beat Connelly over his left shoulder, hitting the far top corner of the net for the senior’s second game-winning goal of the season.

Inside the stats:

• CC won the face-off battle against Wisconsin, securing 62 percent of the face-offs. It was by far the Tigers’ best mark of the season and only the second time in nine games they have won more than 50 percent of the face-offs.
• The numbers (won/total): Vlassopoulos 11/19, Rau 7/14, McMillin 6/7, Johnson 5/1, Patrosso 4/1, Walsky 3/5, Thauwald 1/2, Kilpatrick 0/1, Fredheim 0/1.
• Here are the game-by-game stats for percent of face-offs won: Minnesota Game 1: 45 percent; Minnesota Game 2; 38 percent; New Hampshire Game 1: 36 percent; New Hampshire Game 2: 42 percent; North Dakota Game 1: 45 percent; North Dakota Game 2, 52 percent; Minnesota-Duluth Game 1, 45 percent; Minnesota-Duluth Game 2, 48 percent.

Lines:

Colorado College
10 Thauwald–14 Rau–23 Kilpatrick
21 Sweatt–19 Vlassopoulos–16 Patrosso
26 McCulloch–17 Johnson–22 Walsky
28 Schultz–9 McMillin–2 Lampl

8 Hillen–15 Prosser
7 Fredheim–4 Gannon
11 Connelly–24 Lowery

30 Bachman
31 O’Connell
1 O’Brien

Wisconsin
22 Street–19 Turris–18 Ford
6 Engel–5 Geoffrion–10 Johnson
24 Mitchell–16 Dolan–8 Turnbull
9 Davies–13 Bendickson–14 Grotting

7 Smith–20 Klubertanz
4 Drewiske–27 Goloubef
17 McDonagh–2 McBain

35 Connelly
1 Gudmandson

Lampl Will Play Friday

Junior forward Cody Lampl will play Friday against Wisconsin, he said after practicing Thursday.

Lampl, who suffered a hip bruise after a collision with the goalpost on Oct. 29, missed the Nov. 2 game at North Dakota. He returned to the lineup with limited success Nov. 3 and did not practice all of last week leading into the series with Minnesota-Duluth, in which he did not play. Lampl played in a non-contact jersey Wednesday and was able to participate fully in Thursday’s practice. Lampl said he did not know if he would play both nights against Wisconsin, but that it would be a coaches’ decision.

Projected lines for Friday are:
10 Thauwald–14 Rau–23 Kilpatrick
21 Sweatt–19 Vlassopoulos–16 Patrosso
26 McCulloch–17 Johnson–22 Walsky
2 Lampl–9 McMillin–28 Schultz

***
Center Brian McMillin‘s high school team, the Roseau Rams, will be featured throughout the season in The Hockey News. Check out the first installment here. Turns out Roseau, a town of 2,700 people about 2.5 hours northeast of Grand Forks, N.D., and not far from the Canadian border, has three hockey rinks buzzing with activity. I’ll have to see what Brian thinks of this media buzz.

Game day: No. 9 CC 5, No. 15 Minnesota-Duluth 3 (final)

Second period

Goals:
3. Colorado College 2, Minnesota-Duluth 1: Steve Schultz 1 (Jack Hillen 6, Andreas Vlassopoulos 4), 5:28, pp.
After turning over the puck and allowing some shorthanded shots, the Tigers regained possession in their offensive zone. Center Andreas Vlassopoulos passed to Jack Hillen, who was in the high slot, not more than five feet in front of the blue line. In his first stint on the power play this season, freshman Steve Schultz tipped Hillen’s wrist shot past goaltender Alex Stalock for his first career goal. Hillen went to retrieve the puck for Schultz after the play, which was reviewed for a possible high-sticking call on Schultz. The goal was upheld (clearly).

4. Colorado College 3, Minnesota-Duluth 1: Derek Patrosso 1 (Andreas Vlassopoulos 5, Bill Sweatt 5), 8:52.
Vlassopoulos took a pass from Bill Sweatt off the back wall and fed Derek Patrosso, who was trailing in the slot. The trio nearly scored a minute later, but Sweatt’s pass was just behind Patrosso.

5. Colorado College 3, Minnesota-Duluth 2: Jordan Fulton (unassisted), 9:57.
Fulton got an isolated moment with goaltender Richard Bachman who was protecting the left post. Fulton stuffed the puck five-hole just as the announcer listed off CC’s scorers.

6. Colorado College 4, Minnesota-Duluth 2: Chad Rau 3 (Jack Hillen 6, Richard Bachman 2), 10:19.
After Bachman made a save, Hillen retrieved the rebound and sent a long pass up the middle of the ice to Chad Rau, who had snuck behind Duluth’s defense and was idling at center ice. Rau converted the one-on-Stalock by first pulling the puck to his left foot — prompting Stalock to shift — and then with one flick of the stick, finishing inside the right post.

7. Colorado College 5, Minnesota-Duluth 2: Brian McMillin 1 (unassisted), 19:06, sh.
Another great play by center Brian McMillin on the penalty kill… McMillin, who had an assist on Scott Thauwald‘s shorthanded goal against North Dakota last Saturday, created yet another penalty-kill turnover. McMillin’s shot sailed wide of the left post and banged off the boards. Not deterred, McMillin hammered his own rebound past Stalock for the score.

• CC’s highest one-period output of the season
• Responded promptly to a quick goal by Duluth
• Second line has seven points (two goals and five assists) and both goals are even-strength
• Two shorthanded goals in two games…the penalty kill is back

Third period

Goals:
8. Colorado College 5, Minnesota-Duluth 3: Justin Fontaine (Jordan Fulton, Matt McKnight), 2:14.

• Patrosso took a checking from behind/game misconduct five-minute major penalty at 3:35, but the Tigers got quality penalty killing with saves from Bachman and blocked shots by Scott McCulloch. Thanks to a high-sticking penalty by Trent Palm, CC went back to even strength (4v4) with 1:12 to go in the five-minute major.
• With 1:02 left in Palm’s penalty, Duluth’s Josh Meyers picked up a checking from behind/game misconduct five-minute major at 8:21 for checking McCulloch into the boards. But CC had just two quality scoring chances despite the 5-on-3 (1:02) and 5-on-4 (3:58).
• CC killed all four of Duluth’s power plays.

Quick Quips:

Coach Scott Owens on the time-out before the five-minute power play:
We were trying to set up what we were going to do on the 5-on-3 and hopefully, (the play) was going to go into the 5-on-4. But we never really got it set up. That was probably one of the things that disappointed me the most tonight was the fact that it was a little bit scrambled in the beginning and we never really settled down and had composure. We were turning the puck over and making behind-the-back blind passes and it was a situation where we could have put the game away and we didn’t. …We’re still waiting on that a little bit.

Asked if the back-and-forth, wide-open game might cause him to juggle lines tomorrow, Owens said:
Part of it was our defensive mindset. It wasn’t just all of the forwards. I would guess that Prosser will play tomorrow and maybe that will help a little bit getting an older guy in there. We tightened it up a little in the third. We didn’t run and gun so much. We’re in a pretty good rhythm with our forward lines, so I think we’ll just make some minimal changes.

Center Andreas Vlassopoulos on his line’s momentum:
We’ve just got to concentrate on keeping it simple and working hard and things will fall for us.

Vlassopoulos on the power play:
We have it, we’re going to create chances, it just seemed like — whether somebody fell or the puck went off somebody’s heel — I think we just need to bear down a little bit more and things will happen for us.

Right wing Derek Patrosso on his line:
I think our line talks pretty well on the ice and that helps us out a lot. We were just having fun. That’s the main thing.

Patrosso on keeping things relaxed, even when the line wasn’t scoring goals (the trio combined for one goal against Minnesota on Oct. 19):
I think when you’re getting those chances, it’s when you shouldn’t be gripping your stick. When you don’t get those chances, that’s when you start gripping your stick a little tight. We’ve been happy with the way we’ve been playing as a whole. I think the last three teams we’ve played have prepared us pretty well and we’re developing chemistry as we go along.

Left wing Bill Sweatt on the line:
We’ve been sticking with our line for almost a month now. I think like Dre said, we’re just feeding off of each other and we have a lot of chemistry going right now. Say if Dre chips the puck, Derek and I know that we’ve got to bust a seam and go get the puck and one of us is going to the net. We just sort of feel each other out there.

Sweatt on developing consistent five-on-five scoring:
It was good that our power play was clicking so we could survive in (the first six) games, but maybe tonight will take momentum into the rest of the season for getting five-on-five goals. We can’t just be a one-sided team, where we just score on the power play. We’ve got to be very diverse and score on the power-play and five-on-five. Hopefully, we took a good step toward that tonight.

Game day: CC 1, North Dakota 0 (end of first)

Goals:
1. Colorado College 1, North Dakota 0: Scott Thauwald (Brian McMillin, Richard Bachman), 17:14, sh.
Scott Thauwald‘s first goal of the season and the Tigers’ first shorthanded score of the season came 73 seconds into the only power play of the game thus far. Richard Bachman, who already had made saves on a wrap-around shot by Andrew Kozek and a point-blank redirect by Chris VandeVelde, rebounded a shot from the right circle by Ryan Duncan into the slot. Brian McMillin passed it to Thauwald, who spearheaded a 3-on-1 rush down the ice (Kris Fredheim joined). Thauwald’s shot, CC’s third of the game, beat Jean-Philippe Lamoureux for the score.

• Bachman has 18 saves on 18 shots.
• CC is being outshot 18-4. North Dakota is definitely carrying the play, but the Tigers are doing a better job than last night of possessing the puck.
• Checking in on the keys to the game:
• 1. Limit North Dakota to two goals or less. So far, so good.
• 2. Score two even-strength goals. Nothing yet, but getting a shorty isn’t too shabby.
• 3. Score first. Check.