With its first complete roster since mid-December, the No. 5 University of Minnesota Duluth men's hockey team defeated Lindenwood University 6-3 Friday night at AMSOIL Arena in Duluth, Minn. in nonconference action.

It was the Bulldogs first game with the return of goaltender Adam Gajan and Zam Plante from the Spengler Cup as part of the U.S. Collegiate Selects, as well as U.S. Team members Max Plante and Adam Kleber with the IIHF Junior World Championships.

While UMD picked up its 15 win of the season, Bulldog head coach Scott Sandelin thought his team left plenty of room for improvement.

"Aside from certain individuals that had strong games, I'd like better connectivity, better execution, harder on pucks, there's a lot of things I would like to see better," said Sandelin. "There's a lot of things. We talked about how they like to go north, stretch your rink, push it out, and we helped it. We didn't take care of the puck, we didn't put pucks in the right areas, didn't skate to those areas. ?When we did, we were fine, but we didn't we didn't do it consistently. It was not wasn't up to my standard, it was a win, but we have got to be much better tomorrow in a lot of areas."

One thing that showed up for UMD Friday night was its nationally-ranked power play, that went an impressive 3-of-6 behind two power play goals from rookie blueliner Grayden Siepmann. Siepmann started of the Bulldogs scoring with his first goal at 3:55 of the first, but the Lions equalized less than a minute later and took the lead at the 8:25 mark.

UMD rattled of three unanswered goals over the next 10 minutes of the period to grab a 4-2 lead – Zam and Max Plante bookended a power play tally from Callum Arnott at 11:57 to help regain the footing of the Bulldogs offense.

LU struck again at 3:53 of the second period to make it a 4-3 game, but Siepmann's second power play goal came at 11:03 to extend UMD's advantage out to 5-3 – a deficit the Lions would never get closer to. Harper Bentz batted in Daniel Shlaine deflection late in the third (16:54) to seal the 6-3 final for the Bulldogs.

Jayson Shaugabay led all scorers with a game-high three points on three assists, and he was one of five players to post two or more points on the night. In addition to Siepmann, Max Plante and Zam Plante had two points on a goal and an assist, while Ty Hanson had two assists.

As a team, UMD had a season-high 44 shots on the Lions, who were outshot 44-22 in the contest and held scoreless in two power play attempts. LU's goaltender Klayton Knapp made 38 stops in the game for the Lions, who fall to 9-10-0 overall on the season.

Gajan made 19 saves for the Bulldogs in his first game since being named to the Slovkian Olympic Team. Two players blocked three shots for UMD on the night – Kleber and senior captain Joey Pierce.

The 15-6-0 Bulldogs will finish out the series tomorrow in a game that will double as its annual Sophie's Squad for mental health game. The puck is set to drop at 6:07 p.m.

BULLDOG NOTES: Jayson Shaugabay now has seven multiple point games so far this season, while Ty Hanson has also has seven – and back-to-back regular season games with two … Zam Plante put up his eighth multiple point skate Friday, while his younger brother Max Plante secured his 10th … Max Plante jumped back into a tie for the nation's leading point getter with 32 and the NCAA's best points per game average at 1.52 … Plante ranks second with 17 goals … Zam Plante and Shaugabay now rank fifth in assists in the NCAA at 19 apiece.