UMD Men’s Hockey to Host St. Cloud State in Special Teams Showdown

UMD has won five of their last six meetings against SCSU.

DULUTH, Minn.- The UMD men’s hockey team is one of the best power play teams in the nation as they rank 8th with a 28.9 success rate.

But this weekend, they’ll host a team with an even better success rate.

That would be the St. Cloud State Huskies, who are 2nd in the nation with a 39.5 success rate.

On the other side of things, the Bulldogs own the 10th best penalty kill at 88.2 compared to the Huskies 70.1.

As you can imagine, the power play has been a point of emphasis for Scott Sandelin and his coaching staff leading up to the series.

“Their power play getting off to the start probably puts a lot of confidence in that group. The important of not taking bad penalties and limiting those opportunities is going to be critical. I would think they’re saying the same thing. I’m not sure they’d want to give our top unit a lot of opportunities either. So, I think that’s critical for both teams,” said Sandelin.

The Bulldogs have had the Huskies number in recent years. UMD has won five of their last six meetings against SCSU, something they’d like to continue going forward.

“It’s just another good team in our league. They’re an in-state rival too. We had pretty good success against them last year so trying to take little things that we did last year and bring it into things we did this year. We know it will be a tough test just like every team is in this league,” said defenseman Ty Hanson.

It’s been a eventful week for Ty Hanson. Tuesday, he earned NCHC weekly defensive honors. And on Wednesday, Hanson along with teammates Max Plante and Adam Gajan all picked up NCHC monthly honors for October.

They’ll hit the ice for game one on Friday at 7:07 PM.