One night after securing the first shutout in St. Cloud, Minn. in University of Minnesota Duluth men's hockey history, Carl Axelsson repeated the feat to lead the No. 7 Bulldogs to a 4-0 shutout of St. Cloud State University in the Herb Brooks National Hockey Center Saturday night
The shutout, Axelsson's fifth on the season, is also the first shutout series of his career and he has now twice had back-to-back games without allowing a single goal
Saturday night, UMD took advantage of a Husky error and two power plays to secure its scoring. The first goal came at 17:09 of the first period when Ryan Zaremba intercepted a pass at the SCSU blueline and beat Yan Shostak for the 1-0 lead.
The Bulldogs dialed up their next two goals on the power play less than four minutes apart in the second period, with Zam Plante continuing his personal scoring vendetta against SCSU by locating the puck in a scrum and burying it at 11:48 to make it a 2-0 game. Plante then found Jayson Shaugabay all alone in front of the net for a power play tally at 15:22, and after 40 minutes, UMD had pulled away from the Huskies 3-0.
Plante scored his third goal of the weekend (and sixth point) 13:48 into the third frame, popping the puck off Shostak's stick from behind the net for his ninth goal of the season. Plante's goal was assisted by Grayden Siepmann and the secondary helper awarded to Hunter Anderson – his third assist of the night and the second three-point game of the season and his college career.
UMD outshot the Huskies 25-24 and Axelsson stopped all 24 SCSU shots he faced to run his weekend total to 52 in the series. The rookie goaltender's five shutouts is the most by a Bulldog netminder in a season since Ryan Fanit had seven over the entire 2021-22 season. (For reference, UMD's all-time single season record is eight, set by Hunter Shepard in 2017-18.)
"Our goaltender played great, I mean we played pretty well throughout the weekend," said Shaugabay. "They probably should have had a couple but our goalie bailed us out, so when you have a guy like that back there, it makes it easy."
The Bulldogs (9-3-2, 4-2-0) will take their three-game National Collegiate Hockey Conference winning streak back home to AMSOIL Arena next weekend where they will host Arizona State University. The Friday-Saturday series will get underway at 7:07 p.m. Friday night.
BULLDOG NOTES: Zam Plante now has 17 points on nine goals and eight assists in just 10 career games against the Huskies … Jayson Shaugabay now has four goals and seven assists for 11 points in those same 10 games against SCSU … Bulldogs have a five-game winning streak intact against the Huskies … Carl Axelsson was the first Bulldog goaltender to shutout the Huskies in St. Cloud Friday night and is now the only goaltender in program history with two shutouts against SCSU in a career … All-time, UMD has just five shutouts against SCSU in 169 games.
