UMD Men’s Hockey Heads Back to St. Cloud for NCHC Quarterfinals

UMD has had St. Cloud's number this season, winning three out of four games and outscoring the Huskies 18 to 13.

DULUTH, Minn.- After just playing St. Cloud State last weekend, the UMD men’s hockey team will once again hop on a bus and drive down I-35 to the Granite City.

But this time, it will be in the postseason.

UMD just saw their longest win streak against the Huskies, which was five games, come to an end on Saturday.

But overall this season they have had St. Cloud’s number winning three out of four games and outscoring the Huskies 18 to 13.

Head Coach Scott Sandelin admits they have played well against SCSU but now it means nothing since its the playoffs.

“We’ve played four good games against them, we’ve won three of them. Obviously a chance to do that again on Saturday. But, should give us confidence certainly against them. But we’ve played well against good teams all year. Fortunately, we’ve won some games against them and you can throw it all out the window really. Doesn’t matter right now what you’ve done. Should give us confidence but doesn’t guarantee anything,” said Sandelin.

As for the players, they know they can’t look past anyone including the Huskies.

“I think we kind of got up by two goals in that Friday night game and we started taking them a little lighter. You can’t do that in this league especially in the NCHC. Every night you don’t know what’s going to happen. If we just stick to our game plan throughout the whole 60 minutes we should be good,” said senior forward Quinn Olson.

“I think some of the keys are just sticking to Bulldog hockey. We just have to get pucks in, pressure their defense and play a 200 foot game and I think we should be alright,” added freshman forward Jack Smith.

Puck drop is at 7:30 on Friday.