Team, Player of the Week
By Fetch
Two fairly easy choices for the team and player of the week this week…
The team of the week is WCHA 2nd place North Dakota. The Sioux swept Wisconsin in the Kohl Center for the first time in over 7 years this past weekend. Friday night’s game was a tight defensive affair which the Sioux won 1-0 on a Jason Gregoire goal with roughly 5 minutes left. Aaron Dell got a shutout, but the real story was the Sioux defense, who allowed just 16 Badger shots despite having to kill two 5 minute majors and 40 minutes worth of power play overall.
On Saturday, the Sioux again turned in a great defensive game, allowing only 16 shots again. But the offense also picked it up. After Wisconsin tied the score at 1, UND rattled off three goals in the next five minutes. Corban Knight had two goals in the game, as did Matt Frattin, who now leads the WCHA with 10 tallies.
The player of the week is Kevin Kapalka of Lake Superior State. The Freshman goalie gave the Lakers two well deserved wins over Ferris State in an all of a sudden bunched up CCHA. Kapalka stopped 63 Bulldog shots on the weekend, 30 of them coming in a 1-0 win on Friday.
With the two shutouts, Kapalka now leads the conference in save percentage with a .929 mark, and though Lake State is 6th in the CCHA, they are on a three game winning streak and with the roughly 8 million points available for each league game, they are definitely within striking distance of a top four finish.
Runners up: Matt Frattin, North Dakota; Jack Connolly, Minnesota-Duluth; Joey Diamond, Maine