THE U REPORT Your Weekly USHL Briefing, Covering October 29 Through November 4

The USHL’s first games of November showed which teams could answer a rough stretch and which are still working through the problems behind it. Waterloo followed its consecutive losses to Madison with two wins before Dubuque pushed back hard on Sunday, Omaha kept winning behind goaltender Anthony Sciere, and Fargo’s offense kept producing despite some high-scoring contests. Cedar Rapids returned a favor to Madison, and Sioux Falls climbed back into the win column, even as an injury to its captain and a league suspension for a Green Bay forward left the Stampede with concerns that reach well beyond the scoreboard.

Waterloo arrived with plenty to prove after Madison handed the Black Hawks consecutive defeats the previous weekend, and Friday’s 5-1 win over Sioux City looked like the right response. Saturday’s 3-2 overtime victory over Dubuque seemed to confirm it, although the game took more work than the shot totals suggest. Waterloo outshot the Fighting Saints 35-20 and still needed Caleb Deanovich’s goal 26 seconds into overtime, which came after Olle Därth tied the game on a six-on-four power play with just 30 seconds left in regulation. Josh Banini made 32 saves in his USHL debut and kept Dubuque within reach through long stretches when Waterloo carried play.

Sunday reversed the balance. Sal Viviano scored twice on the power play to give Waterloo a 2-0 first-period lead, but Arsienii Voroteliak and Kris Richards pulled the Fighting Saints even, and Cody Sokol put the Black Hawks back in front midway through the second before Kane Johnson tied it again with 39 seconds remaining. Dubuque took control in the third. Recently acquired Cruz Martin scored the go-ahead goal at 8:15 in his third game with the club, Johnson added his second of the night, and Trevor Theuer finished the 6-3 win with an empty-net goal. The Saints turned Saturday’s shot deficit into a 31-18 advantage and held Waterloo to four shots in the third period, while Max Lind collected three assists to extend his point streak to seven games.

Waterloo played three games in three days while Dubuque had Friday off, a difference worth acknowledging even if it doesn’t fully explain the result. The Black Hawks still took two of three on the week, and Sokol and Deanovich earned the league’s forward and defenseman honors, but Sunday’s third period showed that Waterloo can be pushed onto its heels. Dubuque scored six goals and, more importantly, changed who was controlling the game.

A 43-save shutout against defending Clark Cup champion Sioux Falls put Anthony Sciere in the spotlight the previous weekend, and the question for Omaha was whether he could follow that night with something more lasting. Two wins over Lincoln made a fairly convincing case, even with the Lancers still having work to do in front of him.

Sciere stopped 38 of 40 shots Friday as Omaha held on for a 3-2 road victory. Saturday presented a different kind of test, since Lincoln scored four times and Omaha had to answer with six goals of its own to complete the sweep. Sciere made 23 saves in that one and finished the weekend 2-0 with a .910 save percentage, earning USHL Goaltender of the Week recognition for the second consecutive week.

The two wins looked quite different from each other. Friday required Sciere to withstand heavy pressure in a one-goal game, while Saturday required the Lancers to win despite giving up four. Neither result means Omaha’s defensive issues are solved, but strong goaltending can keep a team in games while the rest of its play catches up, and Sciere is giving the Lancers that chance.

The defending champions needed a better weekend after consecutive losses to Omaha and Fargo, and two road wins over Green Bay delivered it. Friday’s 4-2 result wasn’t comfortable, since the Stampede carried a 2-0 lead into the third period and watched the Gamblers rally to tie it. Ethan Sung scored just 1:25 after the equalizer, and Joey Macrina added an empty-net goal to end the two-game skid.

Friday’s game carried into the rematch. Sioux Falls reported that captain Anthony Bongo was injured on a hit by Green Bay forward Gunnar Conboy, and the USHL’s disciplinary record confirms a three-game suspension for Conboy for head contact on October 30. Just 33 seconds into Saturday’s game, Sioux Falls defenseman Wade Weil fought Green Bay’s Cale Quamme, and the Stampede’s own game report described the fight as a response to the previous night’s incident. Sioux Falls went on to win 4-3, with Max Davis scoring twice, Sung adding another goal, and Henry Major delivering what proved to be the game-winner. Ilya Nikitins stopped 32 of 35 shots.

The weekend delivered four important standings points, though Bongo’s absence remains a separate concern. In its November 3 preview, Sioux Falls reported that defenseman Markus Jakobsen had moved onto the top pairing alongside Weil while Bongo was out. The team has not disclosed the severity of the captain’s injury or a timetable for his return, leaving the Stampede to adjust defensively as they try to build on their weekend sweep.

Fargo didn’t need a runaway score to show how much trouble its offense can cause. The Force went to Sioux City and won 6-4 Saturday and 4-3 Sunday, taking both games despite giving up seven goals across the weekend. That isn’t the profile of a team shutting things down defensively, but it does describe a team finding enough offense to survive games that could easily have turned against it.

Lauri Kouhia supplied the weekend’s most notable individual performance with a hat trick Saturday. The USHL reported that he had 12 goals through 13 games and had received a W rating on NHL Central Scouting’s preliminary list, a designation worth noting without turning it into a draft-round prediction. His production is the more immediate story, especially as Fargo keeps getting contributions that make it difficult for opponents to focus on a single scoring threat.

Cedar Rapids had already interrupted the Force’s seven-game winning streak, yet the two wins over Sioux City suggest the loss did little to slow Fargo’s ability to produce. High-scoring wins are still different from controlled ones, and the Force will get another chance to measure that balance against Sioux Falls in the days ahead.

Madison had traveled to Cedar Rapids in early October and delivered a 6-2 loss that ended the RoughRiders’ seven-game winning start. On October 30, Cedar Rapids went to Madison and flipped the result with a 7-3 win, jumping ahead 2-0 in the first period. Madison fought back to within a goal at 4-3 late in the second, but the RoughRiders scored three unanswered goals in the third to put the game away. Henry Lechner and Sullivan Miller each scored twice in the victory.

Madison was coming off a sweep of Waterloo, while Cedar Rapids had allowed 11 goals across two games against Fargo, so the RoughRiders were answering plenty of questions in one night. A single convincing win doesn’t settle every defensive concern, especially with three goals still getting past them, but it does show they can respond against an opponent that previously had their number. For Madison, the loss was a reminder that its recent surge would face tougher tests than one successful weekend.

Waterloo faces Lincoln on November 6 and 7, which offers an immediate chance to show whether Sunday’s struggles were an isolated setback. Fargo visits Sioux Falls on November 7 and 10, a matchup that should test both the Force’s scoring and the Stampede’s recent recovery. Dubuque has to show that Sunday’s territorial advantage was more than one good afternoon, and Omaha needs to keep giving Sciere enough support to turn strong goaltending into steady results.

Most good teams can bounce back from a bad weekend at some point, so the more useful question is which ones can carry their improvements into the next weekend without having the same weaknesses exposed again.

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