The nation's top-ranked team trailed early and wasn't sharp all the time, but St. Cloud State's talent and tenacity took over as the Huskies defeated Colorado College 5-2 on Friday in the first semifinal of the NCHC Frozen Faceoff at Xcel Energy Center.
Patrick Newell and Nolan Walker scored goals 24 seconds apart in the first period for St. Cloud State, which advanced to Saturday night's championship game against Minnesota Duluth. The Huskies (30-4-3) also got a highlight-reel goal from Robby Jackson in advancing to the conference tournament final for the second consecutive year.
"We were fortunate to weather some big pieces of adversity within the game,'' St. Cloud State coach Brett Larson said. "Once we got through those, we were able to settle down a bit.''
The biggest piece of adversity came in the first period, when Huskies second-line center Ryan Poehling caught an edge and went head-first into the boards near the Colorado College goal. The junior from Lakeville skated off the ice with assistance of teammates and did not return to the game.
"We'll evaluate him in the morning,'' Larson said. "Really scary. … I can tell you this: He'll be OK. We'll see how badly he's injured [Saturday].''
David Hrenak made 31 saves for the Huskies, who are expected to be the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA tournament and land in Fargo for the West Regional next Friday and Saturday.
Colorado College was playing its fourth game in seven days after finishing a 2-1 series win at Western Michigan on Monday. The Tigers fell to 17-19-4 and dropped into Saturday's third-place game.
If the Tigers were fatigued, it didn't show early. They hung with the Huskies and scored the game's first goal on a power play, with Westin Michaud snapping a shot past Hrenak at 9:47, 19 seconds into the man advantage.
