In the postgame presser following No. 20 Miami’s 4-3 overtime loss at No. 3 North Dakota, Miami coach Anthony Noreen had high praise for the officials and the highest praise for the Fighting Hawks.
“That’s the best team in the country,” Noreen said. “Up front, back end, goaltending — they’re as complete of a team as we’ve seen.”
Then he addressed the late UND power play that led to the tying goal and ultimately the Fighting Hawks’ OT winner.
“I just felt for our guys, for our program, that was just…really unfortunate,” Noreen said. “And again, this is nothing against North Dakota or the officials on the ice or anything like that. I think…(North Dakota) is a tremendous team, thought those were some of the best guys in the league, but it felt like, in a game where there’s one penalty — and even last night’s game, I thought (the officials) did a great job of letting the players play, and it felt like it was a whistle’s-going-away type game and a playoff game, and I would just say that I don’t think the penalty called would be done over, just in the offensive zone. I thought it was tough. And credit them, they scored.”
The paramount power play was the second of the game for North Dakota (23-7).
Miami (17-11-2) did not have a single opportunity on the man-advantage for just the second time this season.
(And maybe the second time in team history. Certainly the second time in the Cady Arena era. The RedHawks played their program-first penalty-free game in Lindenwood earlier this year, and prior to that, the school record for the fewest combined PIM in a Miami game was four).
A minute into overtime, Miami forward Ryan Smith went down while carrying the puck in the neutral zone while two UND skaters pursued, creating another tweener call, and later that shift, the Fighting Hawks scored.
“Obviously you would’ve loved when Smitty gets tripped there, you felt like maybe there was a chance to make it right, I don’t know, maybe if the whistles come back out,” Noreen said. “Wasn’t, obviously, creates a turnover, and again, credit them, they go down and score a goal.”
Noreen has this right: Unfortunate is the right word, as in it’s unfortunate that we’ll never know if Miami would’ve held on had the game finished 6-on-5 instead of going to 6-on-4 with a lethal UND power play. And this is the best team MU has faced in 2025-26.
— Puck possession was a big part of this game. Would love to see the final zone time stats, but it feels like the puck was in one zone or the other more than any contest this Miami season, and usually it was in the RedHawks’ D-zone.
— Doug Grimes earns the Shift of the Year award, as North Dakota held the puck in the Miami zone for nearly three minutes in the second period — with the long line change — and the RedHawks were so tired they were literally bent over as they defended.
Yet Grimes was able to dive to punch the puck out across his defensive blue line and carry it through the neutral zone so all of his teammates could change before eventually getting run down by a fresher UND skater. Absolute maximum-effort play that will never appear in a box score.
That after scoring from his knees earlier in the frame.
— We don’t talk about Thompson enough, but he’s played major minutes against major opponents and has helped shut down some of the best forwards in college hockey. And he seems to be getting better, like most of his teammates.
Let’s do some stats, since we didn’t get to them last night…
— Seven MU skaters recorded one point.
Kocha Delic scored his 10th goal of the season, tying him with Max Helgeson for second on the team. David Deputy leads the RedHawks with 14 markers.
Ryan Smith netted his ninth, tying him for fourth with Matteo Giampa.
Grimes scored No. 8.
Ilia Morozov quietly picked up his third point in four games, all assists. The 17-year-old freshman is 7-10-17 on the season.
Helgeson has also crept up the team’s scoring leaderboard, earning an assist to give him four points in five games and six in his last eight. His 19 points are third only behind Giampa and Delic.
Defenseman Michael Quinn picked up a helper for his first point in six games and his 14th on the season, second on the team in blueliner points only to Vladislav Lukashevich.
And fellow D-man Ryder Thompson notched an assist, his ninth point of the season and his first of 2026.
— All-world goalie Matteo Drobac stopped 40 of 44 shots, his third-highest save total of the season (second was on Friday), and it was his 12th straight game with a save percentage over .900.
In 10 games in 2026, Drobac’s save percentage in .951.
— The first period hasn’t been Miami’s friend as of late, as the RedHawks have failed to score in the opening 20 minutes in four straight games, and their opponents have found the net in three of those contests.
— Miami was outshot, 44-20 a night after North Dakota dominated, 42-12 in that department. That’s 86-32 on the weekend, a minus-54 differential.
The RedHawks were minus-55 in SOG for the entire season entering this weekend, but this series saw them drop to minus-109.
— Overlooked in all of this, Miami suffered its third straight loss, which astonishingly is its longest of the season.
How long has it been since we could say the RedHawks made it to Valentine’s Day before suffering a three-game skid?
— And standings. Miami remains in sixth place in the nine-team NCHC, earning its 25th point.
That’s exactly the number of conference points the RedHawks picked up the previous three seasons combined.
Miami is now out of reach of the top three spots in the conference, but fourth place does earn home-ice advantage for the NCHC Tournament, and next weekend the RedHawks host fourth-place Duluth, who lead Miami by three points.
MU is seven points ahead of last-place Omaha. The team that finishes in the league basement does not participate in the conference tournament.
With all D-1 action completed Sunday evening, Miami is 21st in the NPI, which determines at-large bids to the NCAA Tournament. The RedHawks would need to crack the top 15 to have a chance to earn an invite that way.
— Injuries.
The MidCo group that televises North Dakota games certainly does its homework, and they said on air that Giampa will not miss much time with his latest injury, and defenseman Owen Lalonde — who has missed seven straight games and 10 of 11 — is more of a long-term situation.
It sounds like Lukashevich is week-to-week. His two-way play on the blueline and the power play has been sorely missed. He has been scratched three straight games.
John Emmons is also out with a UBI. His return is uncertain.
Final thoughts?
If you went into a 72-hour coma Thursday evening and just woke up, and you were told Miami lost valiantly in regulation on Friday and earned a point for taking North Dakota to overtime in Grand Forks, odds are you’d be OK with that.
The way it went down Saturday may have triggered PTSD in some long-time fans, conjuring up traumatizing memories of seasons past, but this team is over that.
Miami — again, without Giampa, Lukashevich and Emmons and only six healthy defensemen available for the third straight game — entered this weekend 12-0-2 when leading after two periods. One recent season the RedHawks actually finished below .500 entering the final 20 minutes ahead.
North Dakota is a great team that did what great teams do when things aren’t going their way: Fight back and take advantage of opportunities.
Find a way to win.
Just like what Miami has done all season, becoming the biggest turnaround story in Division I by a wide margin, proving it can hang with the best in college hockey, even on the road, in the NCAA’s most inhospitable venue, without multiple key players.
That’s what made this such a great series, and hopefully a precursor to more similar series in future seasons.
View From the Glass 