Finishing Up With The Bulldogs

UAA's regular season end's this weekend at the Sullivan Arena with the same opponent they finsihed with last season; the UMD Bulldogs.  Last year, the Seawolves traveled down to the DECC and swept the Bulldogs in surprising fashion.  Many a UMD fan credit that sweep with propelling the squad through the WCHA Final Five and into success in the NCAA's.  It was a wake up call for them.  

The Seawolves beat the favored Bulldogs by 5-4 and 4-3 both nights.  UAA went on to lose two very tight games to highly favored DU in the playoffs.  UMD on the other hand won their next 6 in a row falling just short of reaching the Frozen Four with a 2-1 to Miami in the West Regional Final.  It was quite a nice postseason run for the Bulldogs who'd finished 7th in the league just 4 points ahead of UAA.  They became the first "play-in" team in WCHA history to win the Final Five.

This season it's a bit of a different story though.  While the opponent is the same, instead of the dinky-rinky in Duluth ... this series is on big ice.  Instead of being in 7th, Duluth is looking to secure their positioning in the upper-half.  Depending on results, the Bulldogs could finish from 3rd to 5th as they currently sit in 4th.  North Dakota fans will actually be cheering for UAA this weekend.

So what do the Bulldogs have this year?  They've got consistently decent goaltending, three good scorers with quality secondary scoring and somewhat young but steady blueline crew.  #37 Justin Fontaine leads UMD in goals with 21 and has added 19 assists so far this season.  #12 Jack Connolly has pumped in 16 goals with 25 assists to lead the team in total points.  And #22 Mike Connolly has 11 goals and 24 assists for 3rd on the team.  I mentioned secondary scoring?  They've got plenty ... they've got 4 guys with 8 goals or better (Bordson 8 ... Oleksuk 8 ... Lamb 9 ... Schmidt 10). 

Sandelin looks to have shuffled his lines around a bit over the course of the season, so I'd expect to essentially see 2 "#1" lines this weekend.  

In the net, Sophomores Kenny Reiter (Kevin's little bro) and Brady Hjelle (yup ... it's pronounced "Jelly") have played about an equal number of minutes.  Reiter is 2.42 and .909 and Hjelle is 2.84 and .900.  That's the very definition of consistency.  Sandelin can throw either kid out and be confident.  And with similar records he knows his team plays equally well in front of either.  Expect to see both goaltenders this weekend.

On defense the Bulldogs have two scoring threats in #2 Brady Lamb and #24 Mike Montgomery.  Lamb has an impressive 9 goals this season with 8 assists and #24 Montgomery has 2 goals and 13 assists.  Highly regarded prospect freshman #4 Dylan Olsen adds a goal and 10 assists to the scoring/threat list from the blueline.  6 of Lamb's 9 goals have come on the power play.  Expect to see him shooting the puck in power play situations.

The Bulldogs are solid on special teams with an overall 22% on the PP and a decent 81% kill.  The team is scoring 3.18 goals per game and giving up 2.76 overall on the season.

So ... How do you beat the Bulldogs?  Come back Thursday and I'll take my best shot at outlining the keys to success.

Edit: Came across this interesting future Olympic sport by chance this afternoon; so that I'd add it ...