UND Hockey Looking to Find Momentum From Home Ice

Begin four-game homestand this weekend starting with St. Cloud State

GRAND FORKS, N.D — North Dakota hockey was flying high last month, finishing 2021 with a three-game win streak and entering the new year with a 13-6 overall record. 2022 however has been off to an icy start after being swept by Cornell, a postponed series with Omaha, and being swept by Western Michigan.

“We just have to get out of this slump right now, We have to get that swagger back, that confidence back, and I think we just need one win to believe, I mean we do believe but just to get that win under the belt and from there I think we’ll just take off and continue to build week to week,” sophomore forward Louis Jamernik said.

While the fighting hawks are still searching for that first win of the new year, eight of their next 12 games will be played at home starting this weekend with a tough test against St. Cloud State.

“The schedule lends itself to playing at home for two thirds of the schedule and we want to take advantage and be a hard heavy team that has success in our building,” head coach Brad Berry said.

Of the 12 teams ranked ahead of UND in the USCHO national rankings, four are in the NCHC.

“The depth of the league is now at it’s highest that it’s ever been at and its a situation where everybody has a chance to vie for the Penrose and us included so yeah from here on it it’s a sprint and its a race and we want to take advantage at home,” Berry said.

The Huskies 4.3 points per game is second best in the nation and have the most efficient power play.

“They’re running at 38 percent,” Berry said. “I think that the next closest team is 26 or 27 in the nation.”

“We’ve been meeting every morning and we had a strictly penalty kill meeting this morning and we really dialed it in and yeah that’s one of the biggest messages,” sophomore defenseman Jake Sanderson said.

Having only scored four goals total in their last five games so far in 2022 the team hopes to wakeup their own offense this weekend.

“We need to get more bodies to the net,” Sanderson said. “We need to just shoot the puck when we can we don’t want to be too picky with our shot selections so we’ve been working a lot with that in practice this week and I can already tell a difference in our group.”

In their previous series in St. Cloud, North Dakota split the series with an 8-1 loss Friday followed by a 5-3 win on Saturday.