On a night where nostalgia pulled on the memories of Bulldog fans, the No. 5 University of Minnesota Duluth men's hockey team shadowed the hat trick of Ty Hanson to defeat the University of Nebraska Omaha inside AMSOIL Arena in Duluth, Minn.

 

The game started with the reintroduction of the Maroon Loon, making his first appearance at a UMD men's hockey game in 15 years. The Bulldogs, dressed in maroon to honor the legendary mascot, fell behind 1-0 at about the six minute mark, and would take that deficit into the first intermission.

 

Hanson equalized just 1:58 into the second period, fluttering the puck with his backhand over Maverick goaltender Simon Latkoczy. UMD took its first lead less than three minutes later on a shot below the right circle that gave Joey Pierce his second goal of the season, but 21 seconds later, Omaha scored to make it a 2-2 contest.

 

That deadlock was short-lived when Cal Arnott smacked in a puck at the doorstep 8:43 into the frame to take the lead – a lead UMD would never again surrender.

 

Hanson scored a power play goal off a drive to net on his backhand for his second just 22 seconds into the third period, and then the nation's leading defenseman made it a cool hat trick with a nasty wrist shot in the high slot at 8:30 to extend the Bulldogs lead to 5-2.

 

It's been a long time since a defenseman logged a hat trick for UMD – way longer than the Maroon Loon was gone. Until Hanson did it Friday night, the last blueliner to score a hat trick was Andy Reierson, who rang up three tallies in the Duluth Entertainment Convention Center in a 5-1 win over Michigan Tech University on Nov. 11, 2000.

 

Adam Gajan was again solid in net for the Bulldogs – the sophomore netminder had 23 saves and UMD outshot the Mavericks a whopping 43-25. UMD went 1-of-3 on its power play, while Omaha (4-5-0, 2-3-0) was held scoreless in four attempts. 

 

The red-hot Bulldogs will take a 11-2-0 overall and 3-1-0 National Hockey Collegiate Conference record into Saturday's rematch. Game-time is set for 6:07 p.m. 

BULLDOG NOTES: Ty Hanson now leads all defenseman scorers in the nation with 16 points on six goals and 10 assists … while Hanson ranks sixth overall, the top-two spots still belong to Max and Zam Plante … Max had an assist Friday night to move to 23 points … Zam had the third three assist night of his career … Zam now has six games with multiple points and three with three or more points … in all, four players logged two or more points against the Mavericks … in addition to Hanson and Zam Plante, Jayson Shaugabay had two assists and Callum Arnott had a goal and an assist.