St. Cloud State Men’s Hockey took on their NCHC rival, the North Dakota Fighting Hawks, at the Brooks Center last Friday evening, trying to snap a six-game losing skid.

Looking to bounce back from a series in Omaha where the Huskies felt like they should’ve come away with at least one point, the Huskies started the scoring against North Dakota with an unassisted goal from junior forward Ethan AuCoin, giving them an early 1-0 lead. Unfortunately for the Huskies, Fighting Hawks freshman defenseman Jayden Jubenvill tied the game less than two minutes later, and then New York Islanders Cameron Berg draft pick put the UND squad up only minutes after that. A couple of big saves from Husies Sophmore goaltender James Gray would keep the damage at two goals heading into the break, but as the horn sounded on the first 20 minutes SCSU would trail 2-1 with shots on net favoring the visitors 15-5.

Things wouldn’t be any better in the second frame. St. Cloud State would lose their advantage in the faceoff dot, trail in shots 29-12, and worst of all, Cameron Berg would net his second of the game, which gave the UND the 3-1 lead. Once again, goaltender James Gray would stop the metaphorical bleeding, but the damage was already done, with the Huskies once again trailing heading into the final third, where, in that circumstance, they’d been winless all year.

All that said, it would take an unlikely effort for the Huskies to come back and avoid their seventh straight loss. And through the first 8 minutes of the frame, it looked like the effort wasn’t there. With only 2 shots recorded by either team through that time span, it looked like SCSU would go out with a whimper. If not for Ethan AuCoin recording his first two-goal game of his collegiate career, that might’ve been the case, but the 3-2 game was soon pushed to a tie game when Barett Hall found the back of the net late, sending the game to OT.

Neither team could pick up the win in the five-minute 3-on-3 either, so with the game officially being declared a conference tie, the two rivals would head to a shootout. There it would be the talent of North Dakota taking over, as they outscored the Huskies 2-1 in the shootout to capture the extra point, but most importantly, it’s the first time since SCSU fell to North Dakota in Grand Forks that they pick up a point. On the comeback effort, Huskies Head Coach Brett Larson said it “was the happiest I’ve ever been about a tie.”

Up Next: St. Cloud State will take on the Fighting Hawks tomorrow evening at 6:00, where you can find Brian Moos and Carl Goenner on the call once again. Broadcast is available online at kvsc.org, or on the main airways 88.1 FM KVSC.