For a second consecutive night, the University of Minnesota Duluth men's hockey team played the University of Alaska Fairbanks into overtime, and for a second consecutive night, the Bulldogs didn't get the result they wanted.

UMD's late regulation comeback was snuffed out by the Nanooks in overtime in the form of a 2-1 loss for the Bulldogs, who had settled for a tie and a shootout win previously on Friday night at AMSOIL Arena in Duluth, Minn. The loss puts UMD at 4-5-1 in non conference action for the season, facing a complete National Collegiate Hockey Conference schedule ahead for the remainder of the season.

" I think it's kind of a little bit of a microcosm of our season," said alternate captain Aiden Dubinsky. "Tonight we played really well, we outshot them by like 30 and we just couldn't find the back of the net and ended up with a OT loss. So our message to the guys right now is just keep going, keep pounding away because we're playing well, we just gotta work that extra hard for those bounces."

Despite holding Alaska Fairbanks to the fewest shots on goal by a Bulldog opponent since November 21, 2021 – ironically also against the Nanooks – UMD surrendered the first goal of the game on Alaska Fairbank's fourth shot of the night at 9:50 of the second period.

That 1-0 score would hold for the rest of the second period and all but 18:58 of the third frame until the Bulldog freshman forward Blake Bechen broke through. With an empty net and extra skater, Dominic James blew by the Nanooks from the red line, and dropped the puck off to Bechen at the inside of the right circle. Bechen soundly buried the puck for his third goal of the season and more importantly, game-tying tally.

UMD's comeback was cut short by Broten Sabo in overtime, however, after Sabo finished the odd-man rush to push Alaska Fairbanks past the Bulldogs 2-1.

The Nanooks were led by goaltender Nicholas Grabko and his 39 saves on 40 UMD shots. The Bulldogs outshot Alaska Fairbanks 40-10 in the game, while neither team was successful on its power play (UMD 0-of-3, UAF 0-of-2). UMD freshman goaltender Klayton Knapp had eight saves in the games against the Nanooks, who improved to 7-9-4 overall.

"I mean, these are both games that we think we should win," said James. "They both went to overtime, and last night we were, you know, absolutely distraught about it, and tonight we were excited we got that tying goal. That's just the way hockey is and this game tonight is kind of the story of our season right now, kind of getting those moral victories.  We outshot these guys, and we did the same thing in Arizona, did the same thing against Western. It gets to a point where you can't just sit in the locker room and say, well, you know, we did this good, we did that good, and, you know, we gotta start seeing results, we're in a result based business. That's just it for our group right now, we have to start winning, finding ways to win like we did in Bemidji."

The Bulldogs (6-11-1 overal) return to AMSOIL next weekend to host No. 11 St. Cloud State University in NCHC action, beginning with a 7:07 p.m. puck drop  Friday night.

BULLDOG NOTES: UMD's previous most recent shot on goal game was 11 against Alaska Fairbanks on November 21, 2021 at AMSOIL in a 5-1 win … Saturday night marks the Bulldogs first program loss to the Nanooks … UMD is now 6-1-1 all-time against UAF … the Bulldogs are now 0-2-1 in overtime games this season … in fact, three of UMD's last four games have gone into extra time … sophomore defenseman Aaron Pionk extended his scoring streak to four games Saturday night with a secondary assist on Blake Bechen's goal … Pionk has now scored four points (1g, 3a) over that four game span.