TAMPA, Fla. — Saturday night’s NCAA Frozen Four title game was televised by ESPN, but it was a trio known as CBS that made North Dakota the national champions.
The Fighting Hawks’ renowned top offensive unit of Drake Caggiula, Brock Boeser and Nick Schmaltz — known as the “CBS Line” — had a hand in a quartet of goals during North Dakota’s 5-1 victory over Quinnipiac in the national championship game.
Caggiula scored twice, Boeser had a goal and three assists and Schmaltz set up a goal as North Dakota won its eighth NCAA hockey crown and first since 2000. Shane Gersich and Austin Poganski also scored for the Hawks (34-6-4), who got 32 saves from Cam Johnson.
Tim Clifton scored for the Bobcats (32-4-7), who fell in the NCAA title game for the second time in four seasons. Michael Garteig finished with 31 saves for Quinnipiac.
It was a one-goal game until early in the third period, when Schmaltz and then Boeser set up Caggiula goals less than three minutes apart to blow the game open. Caggiula also scored twice in North Dakota’s 4-2 victory over Denver in the semifinals on Thursday.
Brad Berry becomes the first college coach to win a NCAA crown in his initial season as coach. He took over the program last summer when Dave Hakstol left North Dakota to coach the Philadelphia Flyers.
North Dakota peppered Garteig early with eight of the game’s first 11 shots on goal, and a blast from the blue line by defenseman Tucker Poolman that clanked the left goal post. The Hawks broke through just past the halfway point of the first when Gersich backhanded in the rebound after a shot from the point by defenseman Gage Ausmus.
Less than two minutes later the Bobcats got their first power play of the game, but the momentum went North Dakota’s way. After a turnover, Boeser was chasing down a loose puck in the Quinnipiac end of the ice.
Garteig came out to play the puck but fired it into Boeser, allowing the Hawks right winger to knock the puck down with his waist-high stick and fire it into the net that Garteig had vacated. After a lengthy review to determine whether Boeser had played the puck with a high stick, the goal stood.
Back-to-back penalties against North Dakota late in the first gave the Bobcats a 5-on-3 power play for the final 1:10 of the period. They needed only three seconds of the two-man advantage to get on the scoreboard.
Travis St. Denis won the faceoff and got the puck to defenseman Connor Clifton. Connor fed a pass to his older brother Tim, who popped a high shot over Johnson’s right shoulder.
After Garteig thwarted a Caggiula breakaway early in the middle period, the Bobcats had an opportunity to tie the game near the 13-minute mark of the second when Sam Anas beat Johnson with a shot only to have it hit the right goal post.
Despite the tournament being played more than 1,000 miles from the campus of any of the four participating schools, the championship game crowd of 19,358 was the third-largest in Frozen Four history.
NOTES: For only the second time in the program’s history, North Dakota placed four players on the NCAA West All-American team, which was announced during the Frozen Four. Freshman RW Brock Boeser was named to the first team. Senior LW Drake Caggiula, sophomore G Cam Johnson and junior D Troy Stecher made the second team. … Thatcher Demko of Boston College was named the nation’s top goalie and was presented the Mike Richter Award by the trophy’s namesake. A native of San Diego, Demko won 27 games for the Eagles as a junior and led the nation in shutouts with 10. … Saturday’s game was for the 2015-16 national championship but a tiebreaker of sorts for dominance in past seasons. Since the start of the 2012-13 season, Quinnipiac and North Dakota had each won 109 games, which was tied for the most in college hockey.