UMD Athletics

The No. 5 University of Minnesota Duluth men's hockey team scored at a record-breaking speed Saturday night and never looked back, defeating Long Island University 4-0 inside AMSOIL Arena in Duluth, Minn.

The win sealed the opening season series sweep for the Bulldogs, who outscored the Sharks 11-4 on the weekend.

To say UMD opened the scoring quickly might be an understatement. The goal, which came immediately off a faceoff win from Jayson Shaugaby and corner pass from Hunter Anderson found Barrett Hall on the door step just nine seconds into the game. That goal broke UMD's old record – Barrett's pop of the puck over LIU goaltender Daniel Duris surpassed the program's record of 11 seconds set by Doug Torrel against Minnesota on Jan. 11, 1992 – a record that had stood for 34 years.

"I mean, can you stay the first shift, right?" said Sandelin, who mentioned they showed video to the line about the exact play that set the record. "?You know, it happened the first two periods, Shaugs won the draw, and we had just gone through a clip prior to the game about how we had one of those last night and we took took the puck back. ?We were just trying to go north and, the first one, tight chips it in there and we went and raced, and the next thing you know, it's one 1-0".

Ryan Zaremba stretched UMD's lead out to 2-0 after the sophomore winger skated the slot and redirected in a pass from Grayden Siepmann at 13:18 of the first.

The second period was scoreless, despite UMD's overwhelming shot on goal advantage in the frame of 17-5, but the Bulldogs offense restarted in the third, thanks to a defenseman.

Siepmann's penalty box to penalty-drawing breakaway happened at the 4:59 mark of the third, and the defenseman buried his penalty shot five-hole to make it a 3-0 lead for the Bulldogs. While Siepmann's was the first UMD player since is UMD first since Quinn Olson netted one on Oct. 21, 2023 against Bemidji State in Bemidji, Minn. to be a successful UMD penalty shot shooter, it historically appears that at least over the past 40 years not to have been another blueliner make a successful penalty shot, and the first defenseman since 1988 to even attempt one.

UMD's final goal was Zam Plante on the back door, just after a Shark power play had expired, for his first of the season at 17:32.

"Overall, we asked our team to get better, and I think we got a little bit better tonight, but again, it's a good weekend to keep building and teaching and get the work on Monday," said Sandelin. "It's a good start and nice to see some guys get on the score sheet other than our guys the media keeps talking about, but some guys had, you know, some other guys that were we're going to count on had good weekends."

Freshman goaltender Carl Axelsson got both the 17-save win and shutout in his debut – the first Bulldog netminder to run back those stats since Hunter Miska had a shutout win in a first start back on Oct. 1, 2016 against Michigan Tech (a 21 save effort from Miska.) Overall, UMD outshot LIU 40-16 but again, neither team could find it on their power plays – the Sharks went 0-of-6, while the Bulldogs were 0-of-7.

Shaugabay led all scorers Saturday night with two assists, including on the opening draw that helped the Bulldogs get out ahead early. In all, the junior forward, who played center on the weekend, had five points on a goal and four assists.

UMD (2-0-0) will hit the road to Sioux Falls, SD next weekend to face Augustana University. Friday night's game will get underway at 7:07 p.m., while Saturday will drop the puck at 6:07 p.m.