Minnesota Duluth Preview - West Regional Final

It's a quick turnaround for the Terriers this afternoon in the West Regional final in Fargo, North Dakota. They will face Minnesota Duluth for the right to play in Chicago, in two weeks, at the Frozen Four.

Evan Rodrigues scores the game-winning goal with 2:24 left on the power play against UMD, 
sending BU to the Frozen Four in 2015 

Two years ago, BU dropped Duluth 3-2 in an epic Northeast Regional final in Manchester to send the Terriers to the Frozen Four in Boston.

Yesterday, both BU and Duluth played thrilling overtime games leaving no rest for the weary tonight. Willie Raskob delivered the game winner 11:58 into overtime with a bomb from the point to send Duluth past Ohio state 3-2, despite leading the Buckeyes 2-0 after two periods.

Duluth’s goalie Hunter Miska was sensational between the pipes, turning aside 40 shots, including three or four highlight reel saves.

“We’ve grinded through games and even when you’re not at your best every game, we found ways to win and tonight was no different,” said Duluth coach Scott Sandelin after the game. “We gave up the lead and played on our heels and relied on some great saves from our goaltender to keep it tied and fortunately made a play in overtime to get the win. Certainly excited about moving on and obviously BU is a very good team—like everybody this time of year.”

UMD has lost just once in their last 18 games, going 14-1-3 since January 13th. In that stretch, they beat North Dakota three times, including last weekend in the NCHC championship game. The only loss came at the hands of Western Michigan on February 4th, a 7-4 defeat in Kalamazoo. Duluth is currently riding a six-game win streak and has scored 32 goals in the month of March alone. UMD has scored the 8th most goals in the country with 133. Penn State had the most at 153.

Scouting the Bulldogs:
Senior Ryan Iafallo leads the scourging pace with 47 points off of 18 goals and 29 assists in 39 games played. Yesterday, he picked up two assists, including one in the overtime winner. Adam Johnson is second at 36 points by way of 17 goals and 19 assists. Duluth has scoring depth, coming into this game with seven players with 22 or more points.

In goal, Hunter Miska has a .919 save percentage and a 2.21 goals against average in his first collegiate campaign. Nationally, Miska is the 18th ranked goalie in the country. Jake Oettinger on the other hand, is 9th.

History:
As stated before, BU and UMD met in the 2015 Northeast Regional Final and that marks the only time these two schools have ever faced each other in the NCAA tournament.

In fact, BU and Duluth have only played six games head to head all time, with BU holding a 4-2-0 record.