The No. 7/8 University of Minnesota Duluth women's hockey team will stay on the road this weekend to face St. Cloud State University in the first head-to-head action between the Bulldogs and Huskies of the season.

Date:  November 11-12, 2022,  6:00 pm Friday, 2:00 pm Saturday

Site: Herb Brooks National Hockey Center (5,159), St. Cloud, Minn.

           UMD: 7-5-0 (3-5-0)

          SCSU: 7-6-0 (4-6-0)

Video: https://www.bigtenplus.com/en-int/page/home

Live Stats: https://scsuhuskies.com/sidearmstats/whockey/summary

POWER UP PLAY: The Bulldogs are arguably the NCAA's best team on the power play.  UMD ranks third the nation in power play percentage at 28.2, and have had twice as many power plays as the first place team. and 13 more than the second ranked.

No one in the nation has scored more power play goals, however. The Bulldogs lead the NCAA with 11 through their first 12 games, and have scored five power play goals in their last three games alone. In fact, UMD has run up a 50.0 power play percentage over those last three games -- all top-3 opponents, scoring on five of its 10 attempts with an extra skater.

Ashton Bell is tied for second in the nation for power play goals (4), while Maggie Flaherty is tied for 15th with two.

UP TO THE JOB(ST-SMITH):  Junior defenseman Nina Jobst-Smith is currently on a career-best five game scoring streak of two goals and four assists for six points over those five contests. Jobst-Smith's goals have come at impeccable times -- a game-winner in overtime against then No. 3 Wisconsin, and a game-tying tally against No. 1 Minnesota last Friday. In all, Jobst-Smith is UMD's fourth-leading scorer with eight points (2g, 6a) through UMD's first 12 games.

THE POWERED PLAY CAREER OF ASHTON BELL: No player in a decade has scored more goals on the power play for UMD than Ashton Bell, who has already rung up four so far this season.

The senior blueliner has 20 over her 137 games career so far -- the most by a Bulldog players since Haley Irwin finished her 134 game career with 20 in 2012. The last UMD player to notch more than 20 power plays in a career? Laura Fridfinnson, who posted 22 over 151 games from 2007-11.

OFFENSIVE DEFENSEMEN: 13 of UMD's 34 goals have been scored by blueliners, including over half of the Bulldogs goals over their past four games.  UMD has scored 10 goals over that span, and the position break down splits even at five goals scored by blueliners and five from forwards.

THE SERIES: UMD heads to St. Cloud, Minn. with an all-time record of 76-14-8, and  the Bulldogs are unbeaten in their last 10 skates against the Huskies (8-0-2) and own a 12-game unbeaten streak in total over St. Cloud.

Last season, UMD went 3-0-1, against SCSU and outscored the Huskies 13-5 in those four games, though they outshot them a whopping 158-78. The Bulldogs averaged 3.25 goals a game while holding SCSU to just a 1.25 average, and UMD outshot the Huskies 39.5 to 19.5 over the season.

In their last head-to-head series back on Feb, 18-19 at AMSOIL Arena last season, UMD swept St. Cloud Stateby scores of 3-0 and 4-3.

In game one, UMD shutout the Huskies 3-0.  Gabbie Hughes scored early in the first period, and Naomi Rogge scored midway through the third period.  Katie Davis scored an empty net tally with 10 seconds remaining to give the Bulldogs their 3-0 final.  UMD outshot SCSU 47-14 in the contest.

In game two, the Bulldogs spent just over a minute total in the lead. Of the 11 points recorded (four goals and seven assists), nine were scored by players in their fourth season of eligibility, including the game-winning goal by McKenzie Hewett.

UMD's first lead in the game came at 2:07 of the second period, a power play goal by Rogge.  But the Huskies scored 52 seconds later to tie the game at 2-2, and took the lead over at 7:27 of the third frame.

UMD finally equalized at 19:05 on a goal from Clara Van Wieren after pulling goaltender Emma Soderberg, and took the lead on Hewett's goal with just nine seconds left in the game.

Soderberg had 22 saves in her first collegiate action since arriving back in Duluth five days earlier after making her first Swedish Olympic Team.

A QUICK LOOK AT THE HUSKIES: SCSU is on a five-game winning streak that was punctuated with a 4-1 win over No. 1 Minnesota last night in Andover, Minn. The Huskies previous four wins in a row came against teams UMD has not yet played -- Bemidji State and St. Thomas.

Jennlina Nylund leads the Huskies with 15 points, while two players have scored eight goals in 13 games -- Klara Hymlarova and Emma Gentry. SCSU has split its time between the pipes with Sanni Ahola (who was in net against the Gophers Monday night), and Jojo Chobak.

Head coach Brian Idalski is in his first year with the Huskies. Idalski spent 10 years as the head coach at North Dakota before the program was terminated.

LAST TIME OUT: UMD was swept by then No. 1 Minnesota at Ridder Arena last weekend, by scores of 3-2 (overtime) Friday and 5-3 on Saturday.

On Friday night, the Gophers scored twice in the opening six minutes, but sophmore Gabby Krause cut the deficit in half at 5:24 of the second period. Nina Jobst-Smith then drew the game to a 2-2 tie with a power play goal 3:03 into the third period. Minnesota finally scored just 15 seconds into overtime to foil UMD's comeback with a 3-2 win. Emma Soderberg had 29 saves for the Bulldogs.

Saturday, the Bulldogs could not overcome multiple goal deficits the Gophers handed out.  Minnesota struck first in the opening 35 seconds to take a 2-0 lead before Maggie Flaherty netted her second power play goal at 5:51 to pull UMD within one at 2-1.

Minnesota then scored three unanswered goals in a span just over four minutes in the second period to open up a 5-1 advantage on UMD.  The Bulldogs did get goals from Mannon McMahon at 6:26 of the third period and a power play tally from Clara Van Wieren with 30 seconds remaining to make it a 5-3 final.

Emma Soderberg played 31:24 minutes, making 12 saves over that span, while freshman Hailey MacLeod, making just her second appearance in a Bulldog jersey, had 15 saves and no goals against the 27:54 of action.

NOTES FROM THE MINNESOTA SERIES:  The Bulldogs are now 32-68-10 all-time against Minnesota and 3-7 over their last 10 meetings.

--UMD is 3-2 in overtime this season, and 2-2 in WCHA extra time games.

--Minnesota's five goals against UMD was the most given up by the Bulldogs since the Gophers netted five last March in the WCHA's Final-Faceoff semifinals (5-1 loss).

--This marked only the second series this season UMD was outshot by its opponent in the both games.

--UMD scored three of its five goals on the power play in the series.

--The Bulldogs have scored at least two goals in each of its 12 games so far this season, and are averaging 2.83 goals a game.

--Gabbie Hughes has now has 21 career points against Minnesota (11g, 10a) in 20 skates.

WATCH PARTY: Super senior Naomi Rogge has 99 career points (52g, 47a) over 141 games, just one shy of becoming the 23rd member of the 100-point club.

Ashton Bell is right behind Rogge on the career climb.  The converted defenseman has 98 career points (37g, 61a) and 58 (21g, 37) of them have come from the blueline over 67 games.  In all, just two of UMD's 22, 100 point-club members have been defenseman (with one, Jessica Wong, a defenseman convert).

Bell is also currently sitting just outside the top-10 UMD scoring defenseman of all-time.  With 58 points, she trails Brittny Ralph, who compiled 61 points (19g, 42a) over 70 games over her Bulldog career.

Maggie Flaherty sits in the 10th spot with 45 assists by defensemen in a career.

Gabbie Hughes, already the seventh-highest point getter in UMD history (74-108=182), will look to climb in career goals, where she sits in the 10th slot with 74. The Lino Lakes, Minn. native is sixth all-time for assists.

MAKING A CAREER OF IT: UMD senior center Gabbie Hughes currently ranks in the top-five among all active NCAA players over a career for points, points per game, goals, assists, assists per game and game-winning goals.

Hughes ranks second among all current NCAA players with 183 career points, third in points per game (1.32 ppg), third in assists (109), third in game-winning goals (17), fourth in assists per game (0.78), and sixth in goals (74). Among all WCHA players, Hughes ranks first in points, first in points per game and game-winning goals, second in assists and assists per game and third in goals.

Hughes isn't the only current Bulldog on the career NCAA charts. Ashton Bell ranks fourth overall and second in the WCHA with 20 power play goals, while senior goaltender Emma Soderberg owns the fifth best saves percentage and tops in the WCHA at .929, while also ranked third in shutouts (and second in the WCHA). Soderberg also owns the WCHA's current most career wins and sixth in the NCAA with 40.