From the WCHA Final Five...
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March 19, 2004
By JOHN GILBERT
SAINT PAUL, MN. - Alaska-Anchorage had never been here before, so the Seawolves figured, "What have we got to lose?" That attitude - and fantastic goaltending by Chris King - led the Seawolves to a 4-1 upset victory over Colorado College in the Thursday night "play-in" game between the fifth and sixth seeds at the WCHA Final Five.
Winning the game gave the Seawolves the dubious reward of advancing, in 16 hours, to face No. 1 seed and No. 1 national ranked North Dakota, the WCHA league champion, in the first semifinal on Friday afternoon. Minnesota and Minnesota-Duluth were set to meet in the second semifinal.
North Dakota, runner-up UMD and fifth-place Minnesota all are certain to be invited among the 16 teams to the NCAA tournament starting next week. For Anchorage, the only possible route to an NCAA bid is simple - win three games in three days to capture the playoff title, and gain the automatic berth it contains.
Alaska-Anchorage (14-21-3) was sixth seed, which was high-water for a team that had never won a playoff game, let alone a series, in its WCHA history. But the Seawolves, who finished eighth in the regular season, went to Madison, Wis., last weekend and knocked out third-place Wisconsin in a first-round series. After its first two playoff victories ever, the team traveled to the Twin Cities to await the Final Five, rather than spending a day returning to Anchorage on Monday, and leaving a day later to come back to the "mainland."
It was no surprise when Colorado College (20-16-3) - itself in the field after upsetting fourth-place Denver last weekend - tested King in a scoreless first period, then took a 1-0 lead midway through the second period. The surprise to the 12,713 fans at Xcel Energy Center came when the Seawolves responded with three goals before the middle period ended, and battled to keep the Tigers from loose pucks and close-in scoring chances. That said, the game came down to King, a senior netminder who didn't seem to mind that CC outshot AA 45-18 for the night.
"The difference in the game was goaltending," said AA coach John Hill. "That is an understatement. If Chris played in a higher-profile program, he'd be an All-American."
King, after three years of hard labor at his hometown college, was a victim of last season, when the Seawolves won their first game of the season and never won another game, all season, including a winless WCHA campaign and quick playoff exit. So he came into the Final Five planning on enjoying himself, or at least he would have, had he not been knocked out by the flu for several days.
"Everything is a new experience for us here, so we're having fun," King said. "I came out and saw all those fans, and fed off it. Our defense worked hard, and we do a lot of drills on crashing the net in practice."
Those drills may be aimed at getting the "offensively challenged" Seawolves to generate more goals, but it works defensively, too. The only goal CC could score came when Brett Sterling flung a shot toward the crease from a wide angle to the right, and Trevor Frischmon tipped it off King's leg pad and into the net at 9:21 of the middle period.
Then came the biggest surprise of the night. Usually, what little offense AA gets is triggered by top linemates Curtis Glencross (19 goals) and Chris Fournier (14 goals), but not this time. Freshman defenseman Brandon Segal scored his first collegiate goal at 9:51, tying the game 1-1 just 30 seconds after the CC goal.
Fifty seconds later, third-line center Vladimir Novak, a senior center from the Czech Republic, cruised down the slot and smacked in a clean rebound for a 2-1 Seawolves lead. Freshman goaltender Matt Zaba had no chance on that goal, or on leaving the rebound available, because of an amazing play by sophomore Justin Johnson. In a tangle of bodies along the right boards, Johnson battle a couple of Tigers, somehow gaining possession and then breaking out of the group and chipping the puck ahead to himself. Rushing hard up the right side, Johnson cut loose with a laser-like shot from the top of the right circle. Zaba had all he could do to block that shot.
"JJ is a ferocious, tenacious competitor," said Hill. "He's really strong, and he's a hometown kid who knows so well how much this means to the program that when we won our first playoff at Wisconsin, he got the puck and gave it to me."
When Novak scored his third goal of the season on that rebound, it made up for a first-period disallowed goal the line had thought it scored. It also signaled CC coach Scott Owens to pull Zaba for junior Curtis McElhinney. But the third line wasn't done. At 19:24, Novak carried up the left side of a 3-on-2 rush, and made a slick, behind-the-back drop pass right on the stick of Brent McMann. The sophomore moved in and snapped a wrist shot into the short side for the 3-1 cushion.
It looked like a routine play by high-scoring linemates, rather than a guy who had just scored his third goal setting up a winger who would score his second. "It felt nice," said Novak. "Our line didn't score much during the season, but we feel good about ourselves. For me, this is like my freshman year, when I scored a goal in my first game, and two in the playoffs, but nothing in all the games in between."
Dallas Steward scored into an empty net with 17 seconds left, after King had blocked all 17 third-period shots.
For Owens and his CC skaters, the loss ended the faintest of hopes of advancing to the NCAA tournament, where, for the first time, CC is a host to one of four regionals in Colorado Springs. "But give credit to Anchorage," he said. "They had a good game plan and got great goaltending."
For Hill, who returned to his native Alaska to take over a downtrodden program he once played for, the pride was enhanced by the fact that so many hometown and homestate players had contributed. Along with goaltender King, Johnson, Fournier and defenseman Daron Underwood are from Anchorage, while junior captain and defenseman Lee Green is from just down Cook Inlet in Soldotna, Alaska. For good measure, Colorado College winger Joey Crabb is also from Anchorage.
Hill said he got some pleasure out of ending Crabb's season, because it's important in the building process for Alaska-Anchorage to keep as many homestate players as possible - which sounds a lot like the concept once embraced totally by Minnesota when Hill came to the Gophers as Don Lucia's assistant.
As for the task of upsetting North Dakota, and taking a run at winning three
straight games to get an NCAA berth, Hill smiled and conceded that anything
was possible. "Besides," he said, "we couldn't get a plane home until
Tuesday."
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