Senior center Dominic Toninato gave the University of Minnesota Duluth its first -- and only -- lead of the night with a third-period goal and the Bulldogs finally got the monkey, or in this case the Beaver, off its back with a gritty 2-1 non-conference road triumph over Bemidji State University.

The victory terminated UMD's seven-game winless skid against its intrastate rival (an 0-5-2 run that dated back to Dec. 8, 2012) and jacked the Bulldogs' overall record to 12-3-3 heading into the Holiday break. No. 15 Bemidji State, which ground out a 1-1 overtime draw with the host Bulldogs Friday in the front end of the home-and-home series, fell to 13-6-3.

"Everyone contributed tonight and it was a really good team win," said UMD head coach Scott Sandelin, who notched career win No. 299.  "We played a very good hockey game tonight from start to finish and made it interesting at the end with a couple of late penalties (minors to junior right winger Karson Kuhlman at 16:23 of the third and senior defenseman Carson Soucy at 18:56) but our guys did a nice job and stuck with it."

Bemidji State attempted just 37 total shots managed to put just 19 of those on target -- a 2016-17 single-game low for a UMD opponent. Kyle Bauman's goal just 44 seconds after the opening faceoff was all the scoring the Beavers would generate as rookie netminder Hunter Miska shut them down the rest of the way while improving to 11-2-1 on the year. He also played a key role in holding the Beavers off the board on all five of their power play opportunities.

With the Bulldogs a man up, Kuhlman got the equalizer 7:20 into the second period on a one-timer for his fourth goal of the season. For the eighth time in 2016-17, UMD found itself trailing heading into the third period and for the fourth time the Bulldogs rallied for a victory (they have come back to earn a tie in three other of those games) as Toninato redirected senior defenseman Brenden Kotyk's blast from the point for his fifth goal of the year with 7:27 remaining in regulation. The Bulldogs outshot the Beavers 20-12 over the first two periods and 27-19 on the night

UMD, which is unbeaten in 10 of its last 11 regular season road games going back to last February (8-1-2),  won't return to the ice until Jan. 6-7 when it hosts Colorado College in a pair of National Collegiate Hockey Conference confrontations.