Holl of a finish: Buzzer-beater sends Minnesota to national title game against Union

Courtesy of Paige Ozaroski

Philadelphia, PA -- Justin Holl scored his first goal of the season on Thursday night, and it was one Hell of a time to do it.

On the penalty kill and facing an overtime to decide who would face Union in Saturday's national championship game, Holl beat Zane Gothberg with six-tenths of a second remaining in regulation, and the Minnesota Golden Gophers claimed a 2-1 victory over the North Dakota Fighting Sioux in Thursday's late semifinal. 

Sam Warning opened the scoring with 9:09 left in the contest, but Conor Gaarder squared things only 32 seconds later.

A hooking call to the Gophers' Connor Reilly with 1:39 on the clock had Minnesota on the defensive, but the former No. 1 team in the country ended up advancing on Holl's first goal since March 8, 2013 against Bemidji State.


“There’s no better time for Justin to score his first than tonight,” said Minnesota head coach Don Lucia. “But that’s our team. We haven’t relied on any one guy. A new guy has to step forward every night.”

It came thanks to a screen from Seth Ambroz, who backed in UND forward Stephane Pattyn and captain Dillon Simpson enough to let a low shot go that ticked off the right post and in to send the Big Ten regular-season winners to their first NCAA final since 2003.  Kyle Rau began the rush from a faceoff win in his own end, with Holl kicking the puck out of his skates just prior to the winning strike.

“I think momentum was kind of, I guess you could say, in our hands,” Pattyn mused. “A couple of close calls, a couple of good saves by their goalie, and the puck going the other way, just hit a couple of skates, hit a couple of sticks, and it was in the back of our net. There’s not much more I could say.”

Minnesota (28-6-6) faces off against Union, a 5-4 winner over Boston College, in Saturday's finale for the college hockey season. North Dakota (25-14-3) came up short in its first Frozen Four bid since 2008.

Gothberg stopped 26 shots in the painful defeat, but drew praise from his boss.

"I think Zane was very good for our hockey team. Along the way, you need a goaltender to win the game. I think if you look back 10 days, I thought against Ferris State in the third period, he was a difference maker for us. He did his job, got us to overtime," said UND head coach Dave Hakstol, who completed his 10th season. I have a lot of confidence in Zane, and it doesn't just come from performance. Guys watch him prepare and that's good leadership on his part."

If not for the final marker, it would have been the second straight season a team advanced to the championship with an OT strike. Yale's Andrew Miller lit the lamp at 6:59 of the extra session to beat UMass-Lowell last year in Pittsburgh, and the Bulldogs eventually beat Quinnipiac.

The stakes between these Upper Midwest neighbors haven't been higher since Herb Brooks' Minnesota club won the last of its three titles in the 70s, taking out Gino Gasparini's North Dakota by a 4-3 count in 1979 at the Olympia in Detroit.

It showed in the play over the first two scoreless periods, defined by fits of close checking and bursts of brilliant offense and goaltending.

Adam Wilcox, who stopped 36 shots and put himself light years above the competition for the Mike Richter Award as the nation's top goalie, made a career-defining save on Colten St. Clair late in the first period, channeling Dominik Hasek to do a forward snow angels and grab his shot in close with the splits. 

Both he and Gothberg held the fort in the second frame, and it looked like the first-ever scoreless deadlock to head to overtime in semifinals history was on tap until both clubs awoke from their slumber in the space of one shift.

Warning was behind a goalmouth scramble and managed to take a Rau pass and lift a shot past Gothberg and inside the left post. Rau, the club's leading scorer, ended up with two assists on the evening.

On the ensuing shift, Wilcox failed to cover enough of the left post as Gaarder squeezed off a weak shot, and then made a successful sweep of the rebound with 8:37 remaining. For the native of the Twin Cities, it showed fortitude he first displayed when poking home the double-overtime winner against Ferris State to take the Midwest Regional.

"They put a lot of pressure on us and it was really tough at times. It seemed like every time they had a shot blocked, they'd get it back and throw a couple more towards the net," Wilcox noted. "But our defense did a great job blocking shots, boxing out, one guy took a shot in the ear. We really sold out, cut off angles, tying guys up at the point. We did a great job of weathering the storm at times tonight."

Notes: Minnesota has won its last two NCAA playoff appearances against North Dakota, including a 5-2 decision in the West Regional final two years ago after losing the two previous matchups in the 2005 and 2007 West Regionals ... Though there are no official records kept, it is believed that Holl's goal is the latest game-winner in Frozen Four history ... Minnesota and Union have played only three times previously, and all during the in-season Mariucci Classic, with the Dutchmen taking a 3-2 OT decision on Dec. 31, 2010.

Michael Parks: Invisible Man

Let's talk about the Flyers prospect at a major Division I program, a junior who is considered a prime mover on his team.

No, not him. The other one. A lot further north and west and whose club, once a national powerhouse, faced an uphill battle to be recognized among the best in the country once more.

That's right...Michael Parks.

Parks has put together a third campaign in Grand Forks that has been largely ignored when compared to the printed hype Shayne Gostisbehere's endured for the No. 3-ranked Union Dutchmen and the travails with the uber-stacked London Knights that goaltender Anthony Stolarz has seen since jumping from Nebraska-Omaha midway through his freshman year.

Selected in the fifth round of the 2010 draft, Parks has risen to become a leader on this years' Fighting Sioux squad, adorned with the "A" of alternate captain. The 22-year-old native of St. Louis has picked up 26 points (10G, 16A) in 30 games, good enough for second on the club in all three categories. That performance has helped North Dakota ascend to the top of the brand-new NCHC, though pushing through into the upper echelon of the national rankings proved elusive until this past week, with a debut at #10.

It's quite a turnaround from a tumultuous sophomore campaign, one which was slowed by the infamous and nebulous "lower-body injury" suffered during an October exhibition contest against the University of Manitoba -- that ended up costing him a chunk of the first half of the schedule and limiting him to seven goals and one assist in 25 appearances.

The Fighting Sioux are hot. Heading into a two-game weekend set against conference rival and fifth-ranked St. Cloud State, they have gone 14-2-1 since late November, and they have won four straight games by a combined 21-6 count. That's a searing offensive pace for a team which struggled to top three goals-per-game from the start of the season through the early part of this sizzling streak of success. Their record currently stands at 18-9-3.

Parks has risen to the occasion, stoking the fires by collecting seven goals and eight assists over 12 games since the calendar moved to 2014.

Parks is a rare commodity within the Flyers organization: a draft pick who chose the Division I path who has, thus far, suffered neither hype nor dismissal, one who won't feel the pull or demand to elevate his game so that the club can entice him to move from college to the pros. From the sound of the following from Fighting Sioux beat writer Brad Elliott Schlossman of the Grand Forks Herald, he's a versatile man in the Michael Raffl mold:

"He is used in all special teams situations. His speed and ability to separate a guy from the puck help on the PK. His job is screening the goalie and looking for rebounds...he scores almost all of his goals within 10 feet of the net on rebounds or wraparounds."

Here's video of Parks' carom-controlling prowess against long-time rival Denver:




Afraid of those demon shootouts, the bane of the Orange and Black? Don't be:

"If he comes in alone on a goalie, he has a lot of poise to make a good move and score (or shoot 5-hole). UND has not been in a single shootout this year, but if they get in one, Parks will be their second shooter (after Rocco Grimaldi)."

Hit the link for a prime example of that poise, from a home game during his freshman year.

He's just the type of player the franchise needs as an anchor, one who will be left alone to complete his growth in college and then be allowed to grow into whatever role the Phantoms or Flyers wish to provide.

Without extraneous distractions and extra attention paid to first-round picks and those who wish to tout franchise saviors at whatever position is the need of the moment, Parks should be free to make of his opportunity to stick in the pros all about his own smarts, ability and adaptability. Schlossman backed up that sentiment, ending with the following:

"He still has work to do before becoming an NHL player, but I wouldn't rule out his chances of playing in the NHL at some point if he keeps developing. He's definitely moving in the right direction. I'm pretty certain he will be back at UND next season..."

With two more weeks left in the college hockey regular-season slate, Parks will be called upon to lead the way as the Sioux try to break a deadlock atop the conference standings, which UND leads by virtue of one more win than the Huskies. Things can get very complicated if both schools end up with identical records, as the NCHC has five separate tiebreaking rules.

And BTW, if the Sioux keep rolling right through the postseason, their fans are guaranteed to be the largest contingent present at the Frozen Four next month.