‘No quit’ Tigers rally from down three goals for a 4-3 OT home win over Omaha in NCHC playoffs

By Joe Paisley

Colorado College aced its biggest test of the year and moved within one win of a return trip to the NCHC Frozen Faceoff.

The resilient Tigers scored four unanswered goals to complete a historic comeback against Omaha when sophomore Gleb Veremyev tapped in a diagonal pass from freshman Zaccharya Wisdom with 8:07 left in overtime to take Game 1, 4-3,. Game 2 of the NCHC quarterfinal series is 6 pm Saturday.

The Friday OT winner capped a rally from down 3-0 midway through the second period when Omaha seemed to pull away despite a good performance by CC (21-11-3). 

The Tigers refused to quit and overcame a superb effort by Omaha goalie Simon Latkoczy, who made 46 saves in the game, including 17 in the third period and 15 in OT.

“A lot of goals in the postseason aren’t pretty, they’re gritty,” Veremyev said. “You just want to get the puck on net and get bodies there. We know that no matter what obstacle, we got it. We have a motto: Execution Over Emotion (and another), No Quit, Be Relentless. That is what you saw tonight.”

The first playoff game ever in Ed Robson Arena lived up to expectations after Colorado College forced overtime when leading scorer Noah Laba converted a pass from Veremyev to tie the game at 3-3 with the extra attacker with just 49.1 seconds remaining.

The tying goal capped a two-goal third-period rally by the Tigers, who scored once during a pivotal five-minute major and game misconduct on Ty Mueller to get back into the contest. CC was controlling the play by that point and the momentum surge from that extended power play tilted the ice the rest of the contest.

The five-minute major came with 12:08 remaining in regulation. CC scored when Wisdom used his speed to create a power-play breakaway. He cut across the goal face for a short-range shot that left behind a rebound for Klavs Veinbergs to tap in with 10:45 left. All three goals in the third and OT were scored from within 3-5 feet of the Omaha net.

“We were playing good hockey,” CC coach Kris Mayotte said. “The (3-0) score was unfortunate, especially when they scored 21 seconds after they scored the first one.”

“Our guys took advantage of the moment,” he added. “I am really proud of our ability to handle adversity and our ability to be tough. We had 13 forwards and six D who just went to work.”

CC was unable to score again over the next 3:38 of the man advantage but that helped the fourth-seeded Tigers out shoot the fifth-seeded Mavericks 19-1 in the third period to force OT in the first postseason home contest for the program since March 2012.

Omaha built a 3-0 lead in the second period when Mueller scored on a wrister to complete a 2-on-1 breakaway and Jack Randl scored high glove side just 21 seconds later to stake the 20-11-4 Mavericks to a 2-0 lead with 14:09 left against Tigers sophomore goalie Kaidan Mbereko (12 saves). Eight minutes later, Jacob Slipec made it 3-0 with 6:35 left.

Mbereko would bounce back with a huge save 4:29 into OT on a Omaha breakaway by Zack Urdahl to set up Veremyev’s late heroics.

After Omaha went ahead 3-0 in the second period, the announced sellout crowd of 3,410 was pretty quiet, but the resilient Tigers gave their fans reason to hope when CC converted its first power play just 18 seconds into the man advantage. Defenseman Chase Foley’s rising shot beat Latkoczy high stick side just inside the right goalpost to cut the lead to 3-1 just 48 seconds later. The Slovakian netminder was probably screened by Veremyev and the goal energized the crowd, who was loud the rest of the game.

Ice chips

The win lifted CC into 10th in the Pairwise rankings, which are used by the NCAA Selection Committee to help determine the 16-team NCAA Tournament field. Omaha fell to 14th. The teams were tied at 11th entering Friday’s game. … Nationwide, all home teams (higher seeds) won the 10 Game 1s Friday, except Colgate, with lost 3-2 in 2OT to St. Lawrence. … The last CC overtime playoff win was last season when the Tigers knocked off Western Michigan. … The last home OT game before Friday’s thriller was a 4-3 loss to Michigan Tech that ended the Tigers’ 2011-12 season and was Jaden Schwartz’s final college game. He signed his NHL entry-level contract with the St. Louis Blues two days later. … UNO leads the all-time series 28-15-7 with a 12-10-1 mark in Colorado Springs.

National Collegiate Hockey Conference quarterfinals 

Best of three series, Game 2, 6 p.m. Saturday; Game 3, 6 p.m. Sunday (if necessary)

Friday’s scores

St. Cloud State 5, Western Michigan 2

Denver 4, Minnesota Duluth 0

North Dakota 5, Miami 1

Colorado College 4, Omaha 3 (OT)

Saturday games

No. 8 seed Miami (7-25-3) at No. 1 North Dakota (25-10-2), UND leads 1-0

No. 7 Minnesota Duluth (12-19-5) at No. 2 Denver (25-9-3), DU leads 1-0

No. 6 Western Michigan (20-14-1) at No. 3 St. Cloud State (16-14-5), SCSU leads 1-0

No. 5 Omaha (20-11-4) at No. 4 Colorado College (21-11-3), CC leads 1-0