For a second-consecutive night, the No. 5 University of Minnesota Duluth men's hockey team piled on the power play points to knock off Lindenwood University 8-4 in a final nonconference tune-up at AMSOIL Arena in Duluth, Minn.

The Bulldogs, who entered the evening with the nation's top power play, only cemented their status, going 4-of-8 Saturday night – a 50% conversion rate – the same rate UMD turned in the night before after going 3-of-6. For the series, the Bulldogs scored a whopping seven goals in 14 attempts.

"Obviously, I liked their start in the first period, but even at the tail end, I thought we stopped getting away from what we were doing early," said UMD head coach Scott Sandelin. "Maybe it's 3–0, and the guys just think it's gonna be easy, and keep reminding them team's not going away. They didn't, I give them a ton of credit. They played hard and they could have went the other way very easily. ?And so I give them a lot of credit, they made it tough. And, you know, one goal game going in the third period, and we took advantage of some of their undisciplined play. Our power play, both of them, did a good job, and we were able to have a better third period and get the win, but a lot of things to clean up. We need to look more like we did maybe early, especially moving forward." 

The fact it was a one-goal game heading into the third period seemed like a far fetched idea 25 seconds into the game after Jayson Shaugabay followed up his three-assist Friday night with a goal to jump start UMD's offense. The Bulldogs were up 2-0 after three minutes when Zam Plante netted their first power play goal, and senior captain defenseman Joey Pierce's shot from the point hit the back boards and bounced off Lion goaltender Colin Ronan's to put UMD up 16:27 – a 3-0 lead after 20 minutes.

But Lindenwood clawed back with two goals less than two minutes apart, and by the 8:15 mark of the second, it was a 3-2 contest, a score that would hold after 40 minutes of play.

Max Plante scored his first of two power play goals 43 seconds into the third period for the 4-2 lead, but again the Lions would pull within a single goal at 5:42 on a score from Jake Southgate. But the Bulldogs would rip off four-straight goals over the next 10 minutes – including two power play goals – to push the game out of reach for LU. 

Harper Bentz scored his second of the series at 6:54, and then UMD had power play goals from both Callum Arnott (12:43) and Max Plante (14:34) on the five minutes cross checking penalty to Adam Raesler before Scout Truman closed up the scoring at 14:51. The Lions did add a power play goal with a one minute left to stop UMD's string of unanswered scoring and ring the final score up at 8-4.

Max Plante and Shaugabay led all scorers with four points – two goals and two assists from Plante and a goal and three assists from Shaugabay, who led all scorers on the weekend with seven points. In all, five players posted multiple points, including Aaron Pionk, who had three assists and Arnott with a goal and two assists.

Ethan Dahlmeir got the start between the pipes for the Bulldogs – his first official start at UMD– and the sophomore goaltender made 29 saves. UMD outshot LU 40-33 in the game, and despite leaving the game 5:09 early, Liam Beerman made 30 stops for the Lions, who are now 9-11-0 overall.

The Bulldogs (16-6-0) head to St. Cloud, Minn. next weekend to start the 2026 NCHC portion of their schedule against St. Cloud State University. Friday night's game is set to get underway at 7:00 p.m.

BULLDOG NOTES: UMD scored a season-high eight goals Saturday night and the most by a UMD side since it eight in a game against Northern Michigan University back on Oct. 14, 2023 … The Bulldogs have now had two games with four power play goals … UMD also had four against Bemidji State on Oct. 18 and has four times had three or more power plays in a game … Max Plante retook the nation's scoring lead back over Friday night and now has 36 points on an NCAA-best 19 goals to pair with 17 assists … Plante never surrendered the PPG lead, which is now up to 1.64 points per game … Plante reached the 60 point point mark in just 44 games … UMD now has 16 games, the most since it turned in a 16-win season in 2022-23 … the Bulldogs were 16-20-1 overall that year in 37 games … UMD is currently 16-6-0 through just 22 games this season.