The University of Minnesota Duluth will put its perfect 2008-09 postseason record on the line Friday (March 27) when the Bulldogs travel to Minneapolis, Minn. to take on Princeton University in the semifinal round of the NCAA West Regional. Game time is set for 8:00 p.m. at Mariucci Arena (10,000 capacity) on the University of Minnesota campus. The University of Denver will face Miami University (Ohio) in the other first-round matchup at 4:30 p.m. that day. The two winners will move on to the Regional championship the following night at 8 p.m.
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THE RECORDS: The Bulldogs are 21-12-8 overall and placed seventh in the final WCHA standings at 10-11-7 while the Tigers sport a 22-11-1 record in all outings and were 14-8-0 in Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference play (third place).
THE SEEDINGS: Denver drew the Regional's No. 1 seed designation followed by UMD (No. 2), Princeton (No. 3) and Miami (No. 4).
HOW THEY RANK: Here is how the four NCAA West Regional participants stack up in the latest uscho.com/CBS College Sports and USA Today/USA Hockey Magazine polls as well as the uscho.com PairWise rankings:
uscho.com USA Today PairWise
UMD 8th 8th 6th(t)
PU 10th 11th 12th
DU 4th 4th 3rd
MU 13th 13th 13th
ON THE AIR: All of UMD's games this weekend will be carried live by 102.5 The Hog (KHQG-FM) with Jeff Papas handling the play-by-play. The broadcast can be heard as well via the internet at: umdbulldogs.com.
Both Friday's game and Saturday's championship will also be televised nationally on ESPNU HD.
THE COACH: The 2003-04 American Hockey Coaches Association NCAA Division I Coach of the Year (Spencer Penrose Award), Scott Sandelin is winding down his ninth season at UMD where he has compiled a 143-172-45 overall record in addition to taking the Bulldogs to four of the last seven WCHA Final Five tournaments. That includes this past season when the Bulldog won their first-ever Final Five crown. Five years ago, Sandelin, 44, turned UMD into a NCAA Frozen Four participant for the first time in nearly a generation, marshaling his troops to their most victories (they were 28-13-4 overall) and highest WCHA finish (second place on a 19-7-2 mark) in 11 seasons. For his efforts, the Hibbing, Minn., native was chosen the WCHA Coach of the Year as well as the national coach of the year by both insidecollegehockey.com and uscho.com. In 2002-03, Sandelin's Bulldogs went 22-15-5 overall and captured fifth place in the WCHA with a 14-10-4 mark while experiencing the greatest one-season turnaround of any league club. One year earlier, he guided UMD to a 13-24-1 record in all games -- nearly doubling the number of victories from the previous season (7-28-4). Sandelin officially signed on as a member of the Bulldog staff on March 31, 2000 after six years of assistant coaching duty at North Dakota. Prior to joining the Fighting Sioux (who won two NCAA titles during his tenure), Sandelin spent the 1993-94 season as the head coach of the Fargo-Moorhead Junior Kings of the Junior Elite Hockey League after working in that same capacity (and doubling as general manager) the previous winter with the American Hockey Association's Fargo-Moorhead Express. He capped off his four-year playing career at North Dakota in 1985-86 by being named one of 10 finalists for the Hobey Baker Memorial Award. An All-WCHA first team pick and an All-American second team selection as a senior, Sandelin went on to play seven years of professional hockey, which included National Hockey League stints with the Montreal Canadiens (1986-88), Philadelphia Flyers (1990-91) and Minnesota North Stars (1991-92). Sandelin, one of just two current WCHA coaches to do time in the NHL, was the Montreal Canadiens' second round pick in the 1982 NHL draft (40th choice overall). He served as Team USA's head coach at the 2005 International Ice Hockey Federation World Junior Championships and directed that club to a fourth-place finish.
THE SERIES: UMD and Princeton will square off for just the third time ever Friday night. The two clubs traded wins in their only previous meetings -- a two-game series back on Dec. 20-21, 1980 at the Duluth Entertainment and Convention Center -- with UMD taking the opener 3-2 before falling 1-0 in overtime the ensuing evening.
LAST WEEKEND: UMD put an exclamation point on an historical WCHA playoff run by capturing its first-ever Final Five Championship on Saturday night at St. Paul's Xcel Energy Center. The Bulldogs derailed Denver 4-0 in the title game after besting WCHA regular season champion North Dakota (3-0) and Minnesota (2-1) the prior two evenings. In the process, UMD became the first play-in game participant in the 17-year history of the Final Five to lay claim to the Broadmoor Trophy. Junior goaltender Alex Stalock, who posted a pair of shutouts and allowed just one goal all weekend, was chosen the Final Five's Most Valuable Player and was joined on by freshman left winger Mike Connolly, senior defenseman Josh Meyers and senior center MacGregor Sharp on the six-member All-Tournament Team.
NCAA PLAYOFF HISTORY: UMD, which will be making its sixth NCAA tournament appearance this weekend, has compiled an 8-7-0 record in national championship play. UMD also qualified for the NCAA playoffs in 2003-04 (when it advanced to the Frozen Four under current coach Scott Sandelin), 1992-93 (quarterfinals), 1984-85 (third place), 1983-84 (second place) and 1982-83 (quarterfinals).
AGAINST THE REST OF THE TOURNEY PACK: UMD is 6-4-1 against 2009 NCAA tournament entrants, going 2-3-0 vs. Denver, 2-0-1 vs. North Dakota, 2-0-0 vs. Bemidji State and 0-1-0 vs. Notre Dame.
THREE'S COMPANY: For only the second time in its 65-year history, UMD is utilizing the services of three team captains. The senior trio of left winger Andrew Carroll, an alternate team captain last winter and a co-captain as a sophomore, defenseman Josh Meyers and right winger Matt Greer have all been entrusted with that role in 2008-09.
A SENIOR MOMENT: Of the 11 original members of UMD's highly-touted 2005-06 freshmen class (Red Line Report listed it as the nation's fourth best), seven are still in a Bulldog uniform -- seniors Andrew Carroll, Jay Cascalenda, Michael Gergen, Matt Greer, Nick Kemp, Josh Meyers and MacGregor Sharp. Three of the four departees signed on with National Hockey League organizations -- defenseman Jason Garrison (Florida Panthers last spring), left winger Mason Raymond (Vancouver Canucks in 2007) and defenseman Matt Niskanen (Dallas Stars in 2007). Niskanen was a first-round NHL draft pick two years earlier while Raymond was selected in the second round of that same draft.
WHERE GOALS GO TO DIE: 2008-09 All-WCHA first team goaltender Alex Stalock turned in a puckstopping performance for the ages last weekend, registering three wins (including two by shutouts) and rejecting 90 of 91 shots. Stalock, who became the second Bulldog ever -- and first since 1983-84 (All-American Rick Kosti) -- to finish as the WCHA's goals against average leader (a 2.39 GAA in league play), is a perfect 5-0-0 in postseason play with a 0.60 goals against average and a .981 saves percentage average (155 stops on 158 shots). A starter in 76 of 77 games over the past two seasons (including all 56 league engagements), Stalock now owns the UMD career record for shutouts with nine -- one more than the previous mark -- while his five blankings this winter equal the team mark held by Brant Nicklin (1997-98) The four-time WCHA Defensive Player of the Week award recipient will take a shutout streak of 132:49 into the West Regional. That's just under five minutes less than the Bulldog record he set one year ago (137:37).
LEAD 'DOGS: The 2008-09 Bulldogs are 16-0-2 when they've been ahead going into the final period of play this season and 25-0-3 over the past two years. UMD hasn't lost in that situation since falling 3-2 at St. Cloud State in three overtimes in the third and decisive game of the 2007 WCHA playoffs (March 11).
SHARP SHOOTER: Senior center MacGregor Sharp, who has shifted his game into overdrive during the past month, scored three times against Denver Saturday night for this second career hat trick (his other came three weeks earlier at Minnesota -- UMD's last outing at Mariucci Arena). Sharp, a member of the Final Five All-Tournament Team, has used a sizzling postseason spurt (six goals and three assists in five games) to move into a tie for the top spot on UMD's scoring charts. The Red Deer, Alberta product has amassed 25 goals and 22 assists for 47 points this winter, all career highs. Those 25 goals currently rank first in the WCHA and second nationally and are the most racked up by a Bulldog since Hobey Baker Memorial Award winner Junior Lessard tallied 32 times in 2003-04. His 47 points are surpassed by only one other WCHA skater at the moment (St. Cloud State's Garrett Roe with 48). Sharp, UMD's top point producer last winter with 17 (the lowest total by a team scoring leader since UMD moved up to the NCAA I ranks in 1961-62), also paces the 2008-09 Bulldogs in game-winners (an WCHA-leading six) and shots on goal (151 -- 50 more than the next closest competitor, senior defenseman Josh Meyers). Sharp, who has skated in all but one of the 156 outings over the past four seasons, including the last 113 in row, will take a career-high nine-game scoring streak into the West Regional. This April, Sharp and 15 other senior collegians will compete in the NCAA Frozen Four Skills Challenge in Washington, D.C.
MORE POWER TO THEM: UMD continues to pace the WCHA and is third nationally in overall power play efficiency with a 21.7 percent mark. The Bulldogs have been held without a power play goal in only eight of their 41 outings this season and the 51 goals they've have registered thus far are 33 more than they mustered last year.
MORE POWER TO HIM: Senior tri-captain Josh Meyers, UMD's top scoring defenseman in 2008-09, certainly has taken full advantage of the man advantage this season. The 2008-09 team tri-captain has collected all but five of his career-high 28 points -- including each of his 10 goals -- on the power play this season. Meyers' 23 power play points places him fourth among his WCHA brethren while his 10 overall goals are the second most accumulated by any league blueliner. He now has 30 goals as a Bulldog and 23 of those are of the power play variety.
ONE “FONTASTIC” FORWARD: Sophomore right winger Justin Fontaine, who was credited with an assist in each of the last two nights of the Final Five, is tied with MacGregor Sharp for team scoring honors with 47 points --a hefty 35-point increase from his rookie year output. That one-season scoring improvement is the second largest by a Bulldog in 16 years (Evan Schwabe went from 10 to 57 points between 2002-04). Fontaine, a 2008-09 All-WCHA second team honoree, and is tied for first among WCHA combatants in power play points (26) and is second in power play goals (11).He came within two points of claiming the WCHA scoring title (he collected 34 points in 28 league contests).
FREE HOCKEY: Eighteen of the Bulldogs' 77 games (23.4 percent) since the beginning of last season have required overtime. UMD has lost just one of those extra sessions affairs during that stretch, going 3-1-14 (1-0-8 in 2008-09) with the lone setback being inflicted by North Dakota on March 2, 2008
SAME LAST NAME, SAME GREAT RESULTS: Right winger and 2008-09 WCHA All-Rookie Team pick Mike Connolly, who last weekend picked up four points (including three assists in the title game against Denver) en route to earning a spot on the Final Five All-Tournament Team, is second among all NCAA newcomers in scoring with 38 points -- the most by a Bulldog freshman since 2002-03 when Tim Stapleton finished with a team-leading 42 points. Freshman center Jack Connolly, who scored once in UMD's 4-0 victory over Denver Saturday, now has 28 points on the season. That means the two Connollys have rolled up the most points of any UMD rookie tandem (66) since future NHL great Brett Hull (60) and Mike DeAngelis (6) also combined for 66 points way back in 1984-85.
MAKING A POINT: Nine of the 17 UMD returnees who have seen ice time this year have matched or bettered their career highs for scoring this winter. That group includes:
Name Yr Pts Previous High
Justin Fontaine So. 47 12 (2007-08)
MacGregor Sharp Sr. 47 27 (2006-07)
Josh Meyers Sr. 28 24 (2006-07)
Evan Oberg So. 24 3 (2007-08)
Jordan Fulton Jr. 17 14 (2007-08)
Drew Akins Jr. 14 10 (2006-07)
Mike Montgomery So. 10 1 (2007-08)
Chad Huttel So. 4 2 (2007-08)
Jay Cascalenda Sr. 3 3 (2006-07)
GOAL-GETTERS: For the first time since 2003-04, the Bulldogs went an entire regular season without being shut out. The last time UMD failed to get on the scoreboard was in the 2007-08 finale (1-0 at Denver in the WCHA playoffs).
BULLDOG BITS: UMD has won a school-record five consecutive postseason games and has never trailed during that entire stretch ... Sophomore defenseman Mike Montgomery, who was deployed as a reserve winger last season, freshman left winger Mike Connolly and senior defenseman Jay Cascalenda all pace the 2008-09 Bulldogs in plus-minus rating at a plus-10 ... The Bulldogs are averaging 3.00 goals per game this season after scoring at a program-low 2.06 goals per night clip in 2007-08 ... Junior Alex Stalock has logged more crease time (2,405:05) than all but one netminder in the nation (Northeastern University's Brad Thiessen) ... UMD will enter this weekend sporting the second longest current winning streak in the nation at five games. Notre Dame has reeled off 10 straight wins ... All but one (a goal against Alaska Anchorage on March 6) of junior left winger Jordan Fulton's career high 17 points (12 goals and five assists) have been registered in UMD victories this winter ... The Bulldogs have posted eight ties this season, one more than the previous club record set back in 1990-01. The seven league deadlocks UMD accrued this winter equalled a WCHA standard as well ... With a 21-12-8 overall record, the Bulldogs have rolled up their most wins since the 2003-04 season when they finished 28-13-4 and advanced to the NCAA Frozen Four ... UMD has scored first in 17 of its 21 wins this season (17-4-3) ... The Bulldogs have killed off 19 straight power plays going back to the first period of their March 14 WCHA playoff outing at Colorado College ... Rookie left winger Travis Oleksuk, the son of former Bulldog standout forward Bill Oleksuk (1978-82), has collected three of his four points this winter in the postseason ... UMD now has three WCHA playoff championships to its lifetime credit (2008-09, 1984-85 and 1983-84) ... The back-to-back shutouts the Bulldogs posted last weekend were a program (NCAA I-era) first.
MOVING ON: The champions from each of the four regionals will advance to the NCAA Frozen Four, which is set for April 9 and 11 at the Verizon Center in Washington, D.C.
