Matt Frattin walked into the Fighting Sioux locker room like always, ready to put on the iconic white home jersey and attempt to sweep the St. Cloud State Huskies for the first time since 2008.
Only when he walked in, all he saw was black.
“This is my fourth year and we’ve never worn the blacks at home,” said Frattin.
The 11,941 attendees at Ralph Engelstad Arena who probably didn’t expect to see the alternate black uniforms also probably didn’t expect to see Frattin and the Fighting Sioux break out with five goals in the first period en route to a 6-2 dismantling of the Huskies, either.
“I guess we were all pretty jacked up, and it showed in the first period.”
Frattin, the game’s first star, had a goal and two assists in North Dakota’s (11-5-2, 9-3-0 WCHA) sweep-clinching victory over St. Cloud State (5-9-2, 3-6-1 WCHA). Typically, North Dakota has won this season with point shots that find the net, but Saturday night saw the Sioux score all five goals below the dots – an area that coach Dave Hakstol said the majority of quality scoring opportunities come from.
“It’s fun to score pretty goals, but there aren’t many of those out there,” said Hakstol. “You gotta get to the scoring area and get some rebound goals and some tip goals. You have to get to some tough areas if you want to create scoring opportunities regularly.”
Thirteen different Sioux players had points, and a trio of Sioux – Derrick LaPoint, Brent Davidson, and Mario Lamoureux – all earned their first goals of the season.
Without top forwards Jason Gregoire and Brett Hextall, Hakstol said the production up and down the lineup was huge. “When you look at the entire situation going into the weekend, we needed that. It was nice to see some guys get their first.”
The Sioux jumped on the Huskies early and often. The senior forward Frattin found Evan Trupp in the short left slot and Trupp buried it for his fifth goal of the season five minutes into the game.
Only a few moments later, LaPoint got on the board off of another rush and a rebound that came off the pad of Huskies goaltender Dan Dunn.
Brent Davidson, who replaced Joe Gleason in the lineup for Saturday’s game, buried his own rebound on yet another rush to make it 3-0. The goal chased Dunn from the game, though he came back in the third to finish.
For Davidson, it was just his third career goal in his 34th career game.
Frattin would score his 15th goal to keep pace with Niagara’s Paul Zanette for the national goal lead, and Corban Knight punctuated the dominant first period for the Sioux by taking a seeing-eye pass from Danny Kristo and depositing it into the wide open net.
From there, UND went into cruise control to squash any hope of a Huskies comeback. Goaltender Aaron Dell kept building on a breakout season and allowed just the two goals in the third period. Dell had 13 saves and also collected his second career assist, on Frattin’s goal in the first period.
SCSU’s Mitch MacMillan – the brother of UND recruit Mark MacMillan – and Travis Novak provided the lone goals for the Huskies.
Lamoureux broke a 23-game streak without a goal, burying one top shelf in the third. After ringing one off the crossbar in the first, the gritty hometown forward wasn’t sure if tonight was his night.
“It was still frustrating but you have to stick to the grindstone, stick to what makes you successful. Thankfully in the third I popped one in.”
For Lamoureux and Fighting Sioux, who close out the first half of their season next weekend in Mankato against the MSU – Mankato Mavericks, getting the sweep meant getting down to business, and that started with the attire.
“When we wear blacks, it’s all business. The boys know that it’s a must-win game. We’ve had some trouble completing the sweep at home so we knew tonight was crucial for us. It was definitely a message sent.”
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