North Dakota Hockey Looks to Finish Strong; Still Uncertain on Goalie

GRAND FORKS, ND– After coming into the season with high expectations for a promising young roster, North Dakota hockey has had an inconsistent winter. The Fighting Hawks currently sit at second to last in the NCHC standing in front of only Miami of Ohio with a 3-7-2 record in conference. On the season itself North Dakota is just below .500 with a 9-10-4 record overall. With just one point separating them from Minnesota Duluth in the standings, the fighting hawks will have a valuable opportunity at home this weekend to climb past the Bulldogs. Sophomore Nick Portz says that the team still has time to head in the right direction.

“Obviously this is not where we want to be at at all in the standings but like you said we still got a decent chunk of games left and if we can just do the right things and get some confidence going and get some things rolling here we can hopefully work our way back to where we want to be,” said Portz.

One of the biggest question marks surrounding the team this season has been goaltending.  The Fighting Hawks gave Kaleb Johnson a shot at net on Saturday after sophomore Jakob Hellston allowed 3 goals in game one of the hawks series against the Broncos Friday night. Johnson allowed seven goals on Saturday. The Fighting Hawks have now used 3 goalies across their 23 games so far this season. Michigan State transfer Drew Deridder has started 13 games allowing an average of 3.1 goals per game. Hellsten has started 9 games and has allowed 2.77. And Johnson had his first start against the nation’s number one scoring offense allowing Saturday’s seven. Coach Brad Berry says that this weekend’s goalie is yet to be determined.

“That’s why Kaleb went into the net on Saturday. I think it’s exactly not a position where we want to be but again, I’ll go into the team side of it as far as it’s a covet upon all of us together to be better but in that situation you know we’re gonna go through the practices here through this week and determine who’s our starter and go from there and again at the end of the day you wish and you hope that you can run a guy right away and you can take it right til the end but right now we’re gonna have the guy that’s playing most consistent,” said Berry.