NCHC scoring leader Caggiula named league’s player of the month

GRAND FORKS, N.D. – North Dakota junior forward Drake Caggiula, who led all National Collegiate Hockey Conference (NCHC) players in scoring in November, was named NCHC Player of the Month by the conference office on Wednesday.

Caggiula reached the scoresheet in eight of nine November games and finished the month with six goals and seven assists, leading North Dakota to a 6-2-1 record and the top spot in both national polls. A league-leading nine of Caggiula’s 13 points came at even strength. The Whitby, Ontario, native was a plus-9 – second in the NCHC only to teammate Michael Parks’ plus-10 – and won 53.9 percent of his faceoffs.

In UND’s first game of the month, a 3-2 overtime win over Air Force on Nov. 1, Caggiula scored the game-tying goal with 29 seconds remaining in regulation to send the game into overtime. One week later, he had a goal and two assists and was a plus-3 in UND’s non-conference sweep at Wisconsin, tallying the game-winning goal in the series finale.

Caggiula was named NCHC Offensive Player of the Week the following week after a 5-point series in a conference split with seventh-ranked Miami. He tallied three goals (including a short-handed goal) and two assists in the series and once again notched the game-winner in the finale.

Caggiula closed out the month with a 3-assist series last weekend as UND took four of six conference points from 11^th-ranked Omaha.

The first NCHC player this season to reach the 20-point plateau, Caggiula owns a 4-point lead in the conference scoring race with seven goals and 13 assists. He also entered the week just one point off of the national scoring lead.

Caggiula and top-ranked UND will host Lake Superior State in non-conference play on Friday and Saturday at Ralph Engelstad Arena before closing out the first half of the season with a NCHC series at Denver (Dec. 12-13).