UMD Bulldogs "ALLETE" Moments: Competition
Throughout this year, UMD Athletics is partnering with Minnesota Power, ALLETE to highlight the Bulldogs accomplishments in the 3 C's: Classroom, Competition, Community. 

For a second time in three seasons, the Western Collegiate Hockey Association has named Emma Soderberg its Goaltender of the Year.

The University of Minnesota Duluth women's hockey graduate senior pocketed the honor for a second time Wednesday after posting one of the most dominant regular seasons by any goaltender in the NCAA, let alone the WCHA.

Soderberg currently leads the NCAA with 11 shutouts in just 30 games played, averaging a shutout every 2.72 games she steps on the ice. The Jarved, Sweden native ranks third in the NCAA and first in the WCHA with a 1.35 goals against average, and sits fourth in the NCAA and on top of the WCHA with a .938 saves percentage. Twice the league's Goaltender of the Month, Soderberg was a four-time WCHA Goaltender of the Week.

With Soderberg between the pipes, UMD owns the third lowest scoring defense average in the nation (1.33), and owns the NCAA's most team shutouts at 13 -- a program-record --12 of which Soderberg has been a part of and 11 that outright belong to the netminder. The Bulldogs also own the best penalty kill percentage in the league at 87.9 -- which doubles as the 10th lowest in the nation. 

Soderberg has assaulted the program record books this season, taking over the career shutout mark, which she has already pushed to 22 --  the eighth most in WCHA history. With 11 shutouts, Soderberg also took over the single-season shutout mark at UMD that doubles as the seventh-best shutout total by a league goaltender in five seasons. Boasting of season GAA of 1.35, Soderberg currently sits second in program single-season history with the lowest goals against average, and  her .934 career saves percentage not only would rank her second at UMD among goaltenders with 1,000 or more saves, but eighth in the entire history of WCHA.

With the honor, Soderberg becomes just the second league goaltender to earn the accolade twice in its six seasons of existence, and joins only Jenny Potter as the only Bulldog to win a WCHA yearly honor twice (Potter was the WCHA's Most Valuable/Player of the Year in both the 1999-00 and 2002-03 seasons).

Soderberg has also been selected a top-3 finalists for the 2022-23 WCHA Player of the Year and 2022-23 WCHA Outstanding Student-Athlete of the Year. Both of those awards will be named Thursday.

About Minnesota Power, ALLETE:
Our bold vision centers on our commitment to climate, customers and communities. We're a clean-energy leader under our EnergyForward strategy, already delivering 50% renewable energy ahead of all other Minnesota utilities. Now we're doubling down on that with a vision to deliver 100% carbon-free energy to customers reliably and affordably by 2050. Learn more at: https://www.mnpower.com/CarbonFreeEnergyVision