GRAND FORKS, N.D. — North Dakota blew a four-goal first-period lead before rallying to tie Colorado College 5-5 on Friday in the National Collegiate Hockey Conference.
The Fighting Hawks (19-3-3, 10-2-1) earned the extra point in the standings when Brock Boeser scored in a shootout following scoreless 5-on-5 and 3-on-3 overtimes.
Rhett Gardner scored two goals for North Dakota, including the game-tying goal with 32 seconds left in the third period.
The Fighting Hawks jumped out to a 4-0 lead in the first 14 minutes of the game, but it was all Colorado College (5-17-1, 3-9-1) from there.
“We’ve got to clean up a couple different things. The game got away in the second period a little bit,” North Dakota coach Brad Berry said. “We can’t do that.”
The Fighting Hawks scored just 3:36 into the first period when Gardner deflected a shot by Gage Ausmus into the goal. Tigers goalie Jacob Nehama was screened and didn’t see the shot as it glanced of Gardner.
Boeser extended his point-scoring streak to 13 games, the longest by a freshman at North Dakota since Danny Kristo had a 13-game streak in 2009-10.
Luke Johnson scored on the power play at 8:29 and Coltyn Sanderson scored at 9:10. Sanderson’s goal prompted Colorado College to replace Nehama in goal with Tyler Marble.
Johnson added another goal at 14:30, taking a feed coming down the slot and easily beating Marble for a 4-0 lead.
Things turned for the Tigers when Christian Heil scored short-handed breakaway goal at 16:01 of the first period.
Luc Gerdes scored on a wrister from the side of the net at 3:18 of the second to make it 4-2. Hunter Fejes, who had two goals and two assists, whipped a shot toward goal that eluded Cam Johnson and led to him being removed from the game with the Fighting Hawks up 4-3. He was replaced by Matt Hrynkiw.
“When you’ve got a team on the ropes you can’t give them life,” Berry said. “That’s a very good team. We gave them a short-handed goal and they came after us. Play the right way for the game, not just 20 minutes.”
Fejes assisted on a goal by Trey Bradley that tied the game 4-4 at 5:41 of the third period. Fejes took the puck to the net and sent it back to Bradley trailing the play.
Fifty-three seconds later, Fejes scored again to stake the Tigers to a 5-4 lead.
At 19:58, Gardner gained a loose puck in front of the net and flipped it over Marble to send the game to overtime.
After the two overtimes, Boeser beat Marble high to the right corner and Hrynkiw stopped Trey Bradley.
“This team is a team that’s trending upward and we . let them back in the game,” Berry said. “We’ve got to play a north-south game 200 feet.”
Cam Johnson and Hrynkiw combined for 21 saves for North Dakota. Johnson came into the game as the nation’s top goalie in save percentage and goals against average.
Nehama and Marble made 33 stops for Colorado College.
