TEMPE, Ariz. — Friday night’s playoff series opener at Mullett Arena was UMD’s entire season wrapped into one game.
Meanwhile, more than 2,000 miles and 34 hours of driving away, the UMD women find themselves one win away from a return to the Frozen Four.
9 THOUGHTS
1. “It was just so much fun to watch.” First-year UMD head coach Laura Schuler heaped praise upon her team when we chatted Friday morning, Arizona time.
After laughing at me because it was in the 60s and sunny in Ithaca while it was in the low 50s, cloudy, and breezy in Tempe, Schuler talked about how pleased she was with UMD’s effort in a 6-1 thumping of Sacred Heart Thursday night to open the tournament.
“As soon as we lost possession of the puck,” she said, “they reloaded so hard. Our D, their gaps were so good. And as soon as we turned over some pucks, we were able to go back north again.”
Sacred Heart goalie Carly Greene didn’t make it easy on the Bulldogs, as she did everything in her power to keep the Pioneers in their NCAA Tournament debut. Greene stopped 58 on the night, but UMD stuck with its game and eventually starting getting rewarded for all the hard work.
2. It’s weird to talk about a 6-1 game as having a turning point, but Thursday’s game did. It was the latter stages of the second period.
Up 2-0, UMD was in complete control, but it was only a 2-0 game thanks to Greene’s play in the SHU goal. One shot, and you’re in the game even if you shouldn’t be.
With 20 seconds left in the period, Olivia Wallin spun and fired a puck from the high slot. Olivia Mobley (no relation) got a piece of it and it slipped by Greene to make it 3-0. Before the period was over, Danielle Burgen picked up her second goal of the game with three seconds left to make it 4-0.
“You could kind of feel our whole team being like ‘Okay now, let’s have fun out here and continue to work hard do things the right way and keep pushing,'” Schuler said.
Burgen and Mobley each scored twice, with Clara Van Wieren opening the scoring and Grace Sadura making it 5-0 in the third period.
3. Sacred Heart had multiple long stretches without a shot on goal, including a drought of over 16 minutes in the second period. UMD goalie Eve Gascon has talked before about preferring to see a little more action than that, but she handled herself well in this game.
Schuler talked Friday about how hard these games can be on goalies.
“All of a sudden a play’s coming down on you and you haven’t seen anything in last however many minutes it’s been. But Eve did an outstanding job. They got some key chances on us, and she was there for us again. Just like every night she plays, she always gives us that chance to win. And she definitely was there for us when we needed her to be there for us (Thursday).”
Gascon finished with 10 saves on 11 shots in the game.
4. UMD will face Cornell Saturday afternoon for the regional title and a spot in next week’s Frozen Four, being held at Ridder Arena on the University of Minnesota campus.
(All four regional finals will be on ESPN+ Saturday. UMD plays Cornell at 3pm, with Clarkson-Wisconsin and Colgate-Minnesota both set to start at 2pm. St. Lawrence faces Ohio State at 5pm in Columbus. All times Central, even though I’m in Arizona. I’m nice like that.)
The Bulldogs and Big Red have only played three times in their respective histories, with UMD winning all three. There was a regular season series at Amsoil Arena in 2014 where UMD won 7-2 and 2-0, and the 2010 NCAA championship game at Ridder Arena. That was a classic that UMD won 4-3 in triple overtime on a winning goal by Jessica Wong.
Cornell earned the No. 3 seed by taking care of Colgate in last week’s ECAC title game. The way the PairWise worked out, had Colgate won, this regional would have been in Hamilton, N.Y., and Cornell would be playing Saturday at Minnesota.
“They’re really, really good,” Schuler said of the Big Red. “They have a really strong D-corps. Our wings need to have good awareness because they do like to jump into the play a lot in the offensive zone. So we can’t be caught sleeping there. Our transition game is going to have to be huge for us.”
5. Friday night in Tempe felt like the season for the UMD men, all wrapped up in one 60-minute game.
The Bulldogs started okay, on their heels a bit, yes, but you knew Arizona State was going to try to feed off a rabid and full house at Mullett Arena. The first three minutes or so saw not a lot of great chances either way, but nothing bad happened, either.
Until something bad happened.
Artem Shlaine’s good defensive stick broke up a play in the ASU zone, and he started the rush up the ice to Bennett Schimek. Schimek cut to the middle and put it on tee to his right for Ryan Kirwan, who hammered a shot that leaked through Adam Gajan from a sharp-ish angle for the game’s first goal.
Not three minutes later, more trouble. A rare mistake by Ty Hanson, who flung a puck under pressure that was intercepted by ASU forward Charlie Schoen. Schoen skated in on the right-wing side and let a shot go as Adam Kleber was approaching. The shot leaked through Gajan’s five-hole for a 2-0 lead.
6. As UMD has done many times this season, the Bulldogs clawed back into the game. Max Plante got them on the board, then Dominic James tied the game with a missile of a shot that he created off the rush in the second period. After the Sun Devils went back in front, Max did great work on the wall to win a puck, and Zam Plante re-tied the game.
But UMD never was able to get in front, despite outplaying Arizona State for large stretches of the game. The Sun Devils got some key saves from goalie Luke Pavicich, they blocked 18 shot attempts, and Anthony Dowd’s backhander at the end of a long shift in the UMD zone gave ASU the lead for good with 15 minutes and change left in the third period.
(That long shift was exacerbated by Will Francis breaking his stick at one point. Dowd beat Jack Smith off the wall, and Francis went down but slid out of the lane he was trying to block, giving Dowd plenty of room to skate and and beat Gajan.)
The push was mostly led by UMD’s young guys. We’ll get a look at the ice time numbers sometime Saturday, but the eye test would indicate that the Plante line with Jayson Shaugabay approached a season high for ice time. And the trio was a threat basically every time they were on the ice. UMD played a lot of four defensemen — Hanson, Kleber, Aaron Pionk, and Aiden Dubinsky — while sprinkling in the others (Owen Gallatin, Joey Pierce, and Will Francis).
For the game, only six of UMD’s 31 shots on goal came from players who are moving on after this season. The other 25 were divided up among players who have eligibility for at least next season.
7. James’ goal was a thing of beauty.
POP, SHOT, SCORE!! James knots it up!! pic.twitter.com/rZQCXFt1Lm
— UMD Men’s Hockey (@UMDMensHockey) March 15, 2025
But it was his only shot on goal in the game.
Smith’s line, made up of all veterans, had a tough go with just two Joe Molenaar shots and a collective minus-nine (each player minus-three).
The freshmen have done some really good things, but the Bulldogs have been at their best when everyone’s pulling on the proverbial chain. That wasn’t the case for enough of Friday’s game, and now the Bulldogs are on the brink of elimination.
8. I still believe the pressure in this series is on Arizona State. The Sun Devils are the 20-win team that finished second in their first NCHC season. A team full of veteran players, many of whom are playing the best hockey of their college careers.
But UMD can’t play from behind the whole game. Three games at Mullett Arena, and UMD has not led for one single, solitary second yet. Playing well and being the better team for most of the game won’t get the job done. Especially when there are glaring mistakes and a lack of that key save to make up for them.
As the Bulldogs play for their season on Saturday, job No. 1 will be to get a lead. Take the crowd out of things a bit and make the Sun Devils think about this a little bit.
None of us mind coming back again on Sunday, should it come to that. Can’t fly home until Monday anyway, might as well make it worth the stay.
9. Road teams picked up two wins in the NCHC Friday night. Colorado College put up three in the third, with Brady Cleveland’s first of the season with 3:43 left proving to be the winner, and the Tigers rode 33 Kaidan Mbereko saves to a 3-1 win in Denver.
In Omaha, Cade Littler scored goals 23 seconds apart in the second period before TJ Semptimphelter shut the door in the third period and North Dakota held on to beat Omaha 3-2 at Baxter Arena. Omaha outshot UND 17-0 in the third but couldn’t pot an equalizer.
Top seed Western Michigan got two goals each from Matteo Costantini and Iiro Hakkarainen to rout St. Cloud State 6-2.
Rematches Saturday. If necessary Game 3s are Sunday.
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We hit air at 7:30pm Central time Saturday night, faceoff at 8pm. Must win for UMD, or we say our goodbyes.
Join us on the radio. Back pregame with lines.
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