For the second week in a row, the University of Minnesota Duluth holds down the No. 3 spot in the USCHO.com Poll.

The Bulldogs, who completed the 2016-17 regular season with a 21-6-7 overall record after upending Western Michigan University 6-3 on Saturday night in Kalamazoo, Mich., are unbeaten in 12 of their last 13 games (9-1-3) and placed second to the University of Denver in the final National Collegiate Hockey Conference standings.  The Pioneers remained atop the USCHO.com Poll for the second straight week with 997 points and 48 of the 50 first-place votes. They were followed by Harvard University (one first-place votes and 937 points), UMD (the remaining first-place vote and 902 pts.), the University of Massachusetts-Lowell (841 pts.), the University of Minnesota (753 pts.), Union College (739 pts.),Western Michigan (702 pts.), Boston University (697 pts.), Cornell University (593 pts.) and Providence College (559 pts.)

Thus far in 2016-17, UMD owns a 13-6-0 collective record against Denver (1-1-0), UMass-Lowell (0-0-2), Minnesota (1-0-0), Western Michigan University (2-2-0), No. 12 University of Notre Dame (1-1-0), No. 14 University of North Dakota (4-0-0), and No. 20 St. Cloud State University (4-1-0).  In addition, the Bulldogs are 1-0-1 against Bemidji State University, 4-0-0 versus University of Nebraska Omaha and 2-0-0 against Michigan Tech University. All three of those teams garnered votes in this week's poll.

UMD, which has occupied the USCHO.com Poll's No. 1 position for a program-record 11 weeks thus far in 2016-17, will host Miami University this weekend in the opening round of the NCHC playoffs. That best-of-three series begins on Friday night at AMSOIL Arena.

USCHO.com Poll (March 6, 2017)