Bulldogs Rising, But Who Have They Played?

Bulldogs Take 3 from Bemidji: 3-2OT, 1-1OT

The Bulldogs are up and comers. First in the WCHA, second in the polls and rankings. But how has that resume been amassed? Against teams with losing records. The total records of the UMD opponents is a whopping 6-15-5.

Make no mistake, UMD is a good team with the talent to go far this season, enough experience to make a run into April even. But we still need to see how the Bulldogs do against the “contenders” in the upcoming weeks.

The weekend against Bemidji was a hard fought, grueling weekend for the Bulldogs. In talking with the rest of the HighHorse staff, we kept coming back to what we believe the BSU style of hockey that has given UMD fits over the years since the Beavers jumped to Division I. It was no different this past weekend.

Every time that UMD seemed to get the upper hand, BSU came back and pushed for, and achieved, the momentum time after time. BSU never held a lead in the weekend, good right? But let’s look at it the opposite way. UMD lost the lead both Friday and Saturday.

The upcoming weekend at Grand Forks will be a telling weekend if UMD should be at #2 in the nation or not.

Rankings. As it was stated above, UMD is ranked at #2 in the two national polls and the INCH Power Rankings. It is hard to put much stock into rankings at this point seeing that the Ivy League just started playing last weekend and the haves and the have nots still need to be shaken out.

Goalie Play. Another weekend of Reiter and Crandall splitting starts, but in reverse order with Crandall starting Friday. Two more nights of decent play kept UMD in the games enough to take three points.

It was a little bit of an adventure with Crandall Friday as it looked like he was out of control multiple times, but he did get the job done. And another win putting him at 3-0-0.

Reiter had less goal support…again, even on Saturday night instead of Friday. He was up to the task, but let in a shot off of a SLOW one-timer pass.

At this point, I think that the play of the goalies indicate that the #1 job is still up for grabs.

Gophers Back. A sweep of CC brought the Gophers back into the picture in the WCHA. Their six points put them at third with two more games played than the rest of the top teams. Kent Patterson in net seems to be the guy, at least for now.

Sioux Shutout at Home. In a rare shutout in Grand Forks, Denver salvaged a split in North Dakota. UMD will go to Grand Forks for their next series.