The No. 9 University of Minnesota Duluth men's hockey team ran into a red-hot goaltender in Kaidan Mbereko of Colorado College Friday night, and the result led to a 4-1 loss at AMSOIL Arena in Duluth, Minn. for the Bulldogs.

While UMD's National Collegiate Hockey Conference home playoff ice is secure, the Tigers were playing for a shot to move up into fifth place in the league -- and grabbed hold of it.

"I thought our guys played well for three periods and Mbereko was a difference," said UMD head coach Scott Sandelin. "Defensively, too, thought the guys played really well.?I wasn't happy at the empty netters, I thought we didn't really make good decisions there, but what are you going to do? Sometimes, you win pretty. ?Sometimes you win ugly. Sometimes you lose pretty, sometimes you lose ugly. But today, we played well enough to win, and their goalie was good. Got to come back and repeat it and be better tomorrow. Otherwise, we'll see them again in a week."

The Tigers struck first midway through the first period on their first shot of the game,  a goal from Mats Lindgren at 9:46. CC held that 1-0 lead for the next 41 minutes, despite UMD having outshot the Tigers 22-10 in the opening two frames. 

Senior forward Scout Truman extended his current goal-scoring streak to three games at the 11:41 mark, getting on the end of a Grayden Siepmann pass through the crease for his 13th goal of the season to finally pull UMD even at 1-1. But CC responded 25 seconds later on a puck that tipped in off a Bulldog to retake the 2-1 lead.

UMD kept pounding on the door from there, outshooting the Tigers 18-9 in the frame, but CC buried two empty net goals in the final seconds of play -- with 49 seconds and 21 seconds remaining to hold off UMD's offensive effort and upset the Bulldogs.

The game was short on special teams – CC had just one scoreless power play attempt, while UMD went 0-of-2. Goaltender Ethan Dahlmeir had 15 saves in his seventh start as a Bulldog.

"I think if we play the same way we did for the first, like, 58 minutes, we're putting ourselves in a great spot to win a hockey game," said Zam Plante post game. Tighten up a couple things, but I mean, we played pretty darn good hockey there. We just got to be a little bit better about our executing on the net and in front of our net."

The Bulldogs (20-13-0, 11-12-0) will drop the puck Saturday on the their final game of the regular season. The puck is slated to drop at 6:07 p.m., and UMD will honor its seniors prior to the opening faceoff.

BULLDOG NOTES: UMD put up 40 shots, its seventh time this season putting 40 or more shots on goal … the Bulldogs are now 16-8-0 when outshooting their opponent and 15-5-0 when their opponent scores the first goal of the game … UMD is just 2-8-0 when it trails after two periods of play ... Scout Truman had a team-high five shots on the night.