The No. 4/5 University of Minnesota Duluth men's hockey team will have to wait until the new year to grab its second National Collegiate Hockey Conference series sweep after Arizona State University defeated the Bulldogs 6-3 at AMSOIL Arena in Duluth, Minn. Saturday night.

 

UMD – who is an impressive 10-0 on Friday nights – was looking for its first conference Saturday win since Nov. 8, but the Bulldogs will have to wait until January to lock that down.

 

'"Like I told the team, we've had a good first half, not always great, not where we're going to be, but still something to be proud of but not satisfied with," said UMD head coach Scott Sandelin. "You know, being 10-0 on Fridays. I don't want to change that. ?We're going figure it out. Again, you see desperate teams, too, we've got to know that. Maybe we've got to manufacturer a little more desperation,?but you have got to dig in. And like I said, hey, it's going to get harder. It's going to get harder and you have to be able to dig in and push back and sometimes take what the game gives you. ?Our guys are trying, you know, I think sometimes the execution was, I think, sometimes guys are trying too hard." 

 

The Bulldogs early minutes were some of their strongest, and it led to the game's first goal at 3:13 of the first period on Braden Fischer's first tally of the year. Fischer cleaned up a backhand attempt by Ty Hanson for the early 1-0 lead, the secondary assist went to Trevor Stachowiak – the first point of his Bulldog career. 

 

ASU struck twice after UMD's opening score, with a goal at 11:10 and a power play tally to close out the period at 19:30, which gave he Sun Devils their first score advantage of the contest.

Late in the second half, ASU took a 3-1 lead off Bennett Schimek's second of three goal on the night at 17:25.

 

The Sun Devils extended that lead to 4-1 2:32 into the third period, but the Bulldogs finally struck back in the form of Max Plante's 16th goal of the season less than a minute later to again make it a two goal deficit. ASU again pushed its lead to three goals at the 7:23 mark, and the closest UMD would get was 5-3 at 11:47 on Daniel Shlaine's second goal of the series.

 

An empty net goal with three seconds left finalized the 6-3 final for ASU, who outscored the Bulldogs despite UMD having outshot the Sun Devils 40-30.

 

Sophomore netminder Adam Gajan had 24 stops in the game, while ASU's Samuel Urban made 37 for the Sun Devils, who improve to 8-9-1 overall and 4-5-1 in the NCHC.

"I think we can take a lot from the first half just knowing we're a good team in this league in college hockey," said Max Plante. "We haven't even lost two games in a row yet, so I think we take the positives from it and have a great time with our families and whatever else is going on and I think we'll be ready to go come 2026."

 

The Bulldogs (14-6-0, 7-5-0) will be off from outside competition until Jan. 2 when they host the University of Manitoba at AMSOIL in an exhibition game that will get underway at 7:07 p.m.

 

BULLDOG NOTES: Max Plante, who continues to lead the nation with 30 points (16g, 14a), is the fourth UMD player since the 2020-21 season to log 30 or more points … Dominic James landed 30 last season, while Ben Steeves (34) and Owen Gallatin (30) did it in 2023-24 … Adam Kleber led all Bulldogs with two points, the second point performance of his UMD career … Ty Hanson also had two assists, his sixth game so far this season with two or more points … Hanson ranks second in scoring among all defensemen in the NCAA with 20 points (6g, 14a) … Daniel Shlaine scored a goal in each game of the series – along with Max Plante, he was the only UMD player to score a goal in each game … ASU's six goals was the most UMD has allowed this season and the most since it lost in overtime to the Sun Devils in the NCHC First Round on March 15 (6-5) … the Bulldogs are now just 4-6 on Saturdays … while UMD is outsourcing teams on Friday night (where they are undefeated) 43-14, in game twos, they have been outscored 23-27 … UMD outshot ASU in both games in the series … it was the Bulldogs third loss when outshooting an opponent (10-3).