For at least the first seven minutes of the night, the University of North Dakota appeared to be on its way to finally busting up a seven-game losing skid to the University of Minnesota Duluth. The No. 7 Fighting Hawks raced out to a quick 2-0 first-period lead over their National Collegiate Hockey Conference rivals, but it was all Bulldogs after that.
All Bulldogs.
No. 14 UMD proceeded to score five unanswered goals, including a pair of power play tallies from rookie defenseman
Scott Perunovich 16 seconds apart in a dominating second period, and took down North Dakota 5-2 before a sellout crowd of 6,903 at AMSOIL Arena. That gave the Bulldogs a weekend series sweep of the Fighting Hawks (12-8-6 overall; 6-6-2-2 NCHC) and pushed their unbeaten streak to seven games (6-0-1).
Trailing 2-1 at the first intermission, UMD cranked up the heat in the second period, outshooting the Fighting Hawks 17-3 while taking a 3-2 lead. Senior center
Jared Thomas, junior right winger
Parker Mackay and sophomore left winger
Riley Tufte also scored for the Bulldogs, who improved to 13-9-3 overall and 7-7-0-0 in the NCHC. UMD connected on three of its six power play opportunities (it was 6-for-11 on the weekend ) and held North Dakota scoreless on all four of its man advantage chances (the Fighting Hawks were 1-for-11 in the series).
Sophomore right winger
Joey Anderson was credited with four assists while Tufte racked up three points. Sophomore goaltender
Hunter Shepard, voted the No. 1 Star in UMD's 5-3 victory over North Dakota on Friday, made 18 saves.
"We got after them," said UMD senior captain
Karson Kuhlman. "We put the right systems in place and the guys came up big when they needed to. They did all the little things tonight like blocking shots and getting sticks in lanes."
The Bulldogs will pay a visit to Mankato, Minn., on Tuesday to take on Minnesota State University-Mankato in their final non-conference activity of the 2017-18 regular season. UMD took the opener in that "home-and-home" series 3-1 back on Nov. 25 in Duluth.
