Last Saturday, the UND men's hockey team completed a series sweep of Omaha (3-2 W, 3-2 W). With the win, Nodak lives to fight another day. UND still isn't out of the woods; the Fighting Hawks must win the Frozen Faceoff to advance to the NCAA playoffs. UND's path to the NCAA playoffs is very challenging if they want to make it to the West Regional in Fargo, ND.
The Hawks will play the Western Michigan Broncos at 7:3p.m. on Friday. UND is 4-5-1 in the last 10 games against the Broncos. WMU is on the bit of a heater. The Broncos are 13-2-0 (.866) in their previous 15 games. On the flip side, UND is 9-4-1 (.633), including two losses against the Broncos. If UND can win the first game, they will play the winner of Denver and Arizona State. UND has a combined record of 2-4-0 against them.
Here are a few things that stood out from last weekend's series.
Saturday's win was UND's first road quarterfinal sweep since March 10-11, 1995, at St. Cloud State, which dates back to the Dean Blais era.
Freshman forward Cade Littler had a solid weekend after being a healthy scratch a week earlier. I don't think it's an understatement to say that the East Wenatchee, WA, native took a huge step forward this past weekend. Littler has scored (7g-2a-9pts) in 32 games; he's a plus-nine. He's a solid two-way player and does many things that don't show up on the score sheet. On Friday, Littler scored the game-tying and game-winning goals. On Saturday, he scored the game-tying goal.
Winning the first game in the conference series playoffs is key; UND has won seven straight game twos when taking a 1-0 series lead. UND has reached the conference semifinals in 20 of the last 21 years. UND unfortunately for UND, they have won one NCHC tourney in the previous 11 years, which was at the Ralph Engelstad Arena during the COVID-shortened season of the 2020-21 season.
UND has been wearing the black third jerseys, aka the business suits, a lot this season. The Hawks have worn them nine times and are 6-2-1 (.722) when they wear them. This past weekend, UND wore them for their series against the Omaha Mavericks.
This was the second time in three years that UND ended Omaha's season at Baxter Arena in Omaha. With the sweep against the Mavericks, UND improves to 4-1 in postseason games at Baxter Arena. UND has won four straight playoff games against the Mavericks at Baxter.
This past season, UND went 3-1-0 against the Mavericks. UND never scored more than three against the Mavericks. Both teams scored 12 goals in the series (3-1 W, 3-7 L, 3-2 W, 3-2 W).
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