LOVELAND, Colo. — Ryan Fanti said his highlight-reel save on Western Michigan’s Max Sasson Saturday in St. Paul was, basically, lucky. Even on Wednesday, when asked about his viral moment in the NCHC championship game, Fanti downplayed it, talking about how he didn’t get a very good push to his left and just threw what he could out there.
“You’re a little bit off balance because you’re already reacting to the to the initial shot,” Fanti said of the save on Wednesday. “And then it kind of kicked it out and then I realized that there was a guy coming down Broadway, so I didn’t really have time to kind of get my skate on the ice and get a really big push over. So kind of just one of those ones where you have to just flail at it and kind of just throw whatever you can, whether it’s your hand or your glove. You’re not really tracking it at that point.”
If Fanti keeps this up, he won’t need to pump his own tires, because he’ll have everyone in the admittedly-small college hockey universe doing it for him. The junior from Thunder Bay stopped all 28 shots he faced Thursday afternoon, including 12 in the third period, as UMD beat Michigan Tech 3-0 in the NCAA Loveland Regional semifinals at the Budweiser Event Center. The win allows UMD to play Saturday (3pm on KDAL), with a win sending the Bulldogs to a fifth straight Frozen Four. Only Michigan (1947-1958) has recorded a longer streak of Frozen Fours in the sport’s history.
The Bulldogs got a big goal from Kobe Roth in the first period, a stanza where the Bulldogs had the run of play. After that, Tech pushed hard, but UMD was mainly at least solid in front of Fanti. And Fanti was really good when he had to be. Kyler Kleven took advantage of a turnover in front of the Michigan Tech goal to make it 2-0 in the third, and Roth hit the empty net from 125 feet in the final seconds to cap the scoring.
That’s three straight shutouts for Fanti, who has stopped 90 straight shots (seven in overtime against St. Cloud State on March 12, 55 in two games last weekend, and 28 Thursday). Fanti’s numbers as of late are really eye-popping.
Over the last ten games, dating back to the second Tuesday game in St. Cloud on Feb. 22, a game where Fanti made a career high 46 saves in a 1-1 tie, Fanti has a .950 save percentage, stopping 265 of 279 shots faced. He is 7-2-1 with three shutouts, and eight of the ten starts came against teams that qualified for the NCAA Tournament. In five postseason starts, Fanti is 5-0 with a 0.96 goals against, a .966 save percentage, and three straight shutouts.
Insanity.
******
UMD coach Scott Sandelin knows it wasn’t a perfect performance by his squad on Thursday.
“We came out well,” he said. “Did what we wanted to do as far as the start, get a lead. But I think we forgot to play the next two periods. Wasn’t our best, but Ryan was outstanding for us. Kobe, obviously, continuing to do what he does. It’s a good lesson. Three period game, or more. Gotta play harder.”
Michigan Tech had a couple very good scoring chances along the way. Fanti won’t be going viral for any of his saves, but there were a couple big ones. UMD also blocked 18 shots in the game, a bunch coming on Michigan Tech power plays. The kill has continued to be a story, going 15-for-15 since St. Cloud State got a power play goal in the second period against UMD on March 11. UMD is now 31-for-34 on the kill going back to Feb. 19 (11 games).
Assistant coach Adam Krause handles the penalty kill, primarily. After some early struggles to get results, the kill has been largely tremendous, and it feels like it’s really dialed in now, at the most important time of the season. Of course discipline plays a role there, too. UMD has given just 34 power plays to opponents in the last 11 games, barely more than three per game, a number Sandelin will probably accept a lot more often than not.
But UMD has to clean up its game a little bit. Michigan Tech was able to get pressure on the Bulldogs Thursday, and UMD didn’t take very good care of the puck for chunks of the second and third periods. At the same time, however, the Bulldogs did take care of Fanti for most of those chunks, if that makes sense. For example, it felt like much of the second period was played in the UMD zone. Tech had seven shots in the whole period, one that featured two Michigan Tech power plays.
Of course, the big moment for Tech might have been 3:17 in, when Hobey Baker finalist Brian Halonen was ejected from the game for checking Wyatt Kaiser from behind into the boards. The officials did their due diligence on the replay review, but the call was correctly made on what was not a malicious hit by any means, but by the letter of the law was 100 percent a check from behind.
Does Michigan Tech win this game if its leading scorer isn’t thrown out of the game during his second shift? Maybe. We’ll never know. But his linemates, Trenton Bliss and Tommy Parrottino, combined for just four shots on goal in large gobs of ice time. Defensively, UMD still did a pretty good job, forcing Tech’s depth guys to beat the Bulldogs, and it wasn’t meant to be on this day.
******
Survive. Advance. That whole thing.
Denver did it Thursday night, surviving a hard-nosed effort from UMass-Lowell for a 3-2 win. The winner came from Bowling Green transfer Cameron Wright, who batted home a pass from Carter Mazur late in the third period to break a 2-2 tie.
It will be the sixth and — obviously — last and most significant meeting of the season between the NCHC rivals. The Bulldogs won the last two, including 2-0 last Friday at the NCHC Frozen Faceoff in St. Paul. Much like the last three meetings, Denver will be the home team Saturday afternoon in Loveland.
Coverage at 2:30 Saturday. I might drop in Friday night with a quick look ahead, plus a summary of the other regionals. Friday is a practice day in Loveland, with each team getting a 90-minute practice in the afternoon.
