GRAND FORKS, N.D. — Strange game on Friday, some ugliness both ways, and in the end it was UMD picking up the NCHC season-opening win over North Dakota, 4-3 in overtime at Ralph Engelstad Arena.
A few takeaways on the opener…
1. The top line was the top line. With UND junior Jake Livanavage on the ice basically every second they were, Zam Plante (1-3-4), Max Plante (2-2-4), and Jayson Shaugabay (0-2-2) had a hand in all four goals scored on this night.
Last weekend, it was mostly a stalemate between the Bulldogs’ top line and Minnesota’s, until the tail end of Saturday’s game. Instead, it was UMD’s depth, led by Scout Truman, Kyle Gaffney, and Callum Arnott, carrying the water.
The Bulldogs’ depth players had tougher nights on Friday. The Gaffney line only combined for nine shot attempts (Arnott had six of them). The freshman line only had four, with three of them coming from Daniel Shlaine.
The Plante line had to be good, and they were. It’s a major statement to see them do what they did on the road in a tough environment, with the opposing coach struggling to consistently get a good matchup on the ice against them.
2. The winning goal was a wild play. Ty Hanson checked Livanavage clean off the puck in the UMD zone, springing the Plantes for a two-on-one. Max fed Zam, whose shot was clipped by UND goalie Gibson Homer, caught the crossbar, and bounced into the air. Trailing the play, Hanson caught and dropped the puck, then shot it off the goalpost, before it came off the post, hit Homer’s left arm, and trickled over the goal line.
OT winner! 🙌
Ty Hanson is the Halloween hero for @umdmenshockey.bsky.social!
🎥: Midco Sports // nchc.tv
#theNational // #BulldogCountry— The NCHC (@thenchc.bsky.social) October 31, 2025 at 11:12 PM
Hey, we’ll take them any way we can get them. Yes, that was lucky. Don’t worry, UMD will surely be victimized by bad luck at some point in a game. That’s sports.
Max’s shorthanded goal in the first period also came on a rebound. It didn’t look like many in the building knew it went in (I thought it caught iron), but the referee on the goal line saw it all the way and signaled for a goal. Replay confirmed it indeed went into the net.
3. Adam Gajan’s numbers might not look gaudy in this game (25 saves on 28 shots), but he was really good early on as the Bulldogs tried to find their footing. It could have easily gotten out of hand early, but Gajan was sharp and made many a key save at a key time.
One second-period sequence comes to mind. Joey Pierce lost his stick as UMD got hemmed into its own end. Gajan calmly stayed in position and was eventually able to glove a Cody Croal shot attempt for a much-needed whistle.
Little play, yes, but the kind of play that players make when they are winning.
Gajan is at a .931 over the first nine games. He continues to be consistently good, and his bounce-back this season is a huge part of this team’s story so far.
4. UMD continues to make history with its strong start. The Bulldogs are now 6-0 on the road, matching the best road start in program history, which came in the 2014-15 season with a bit of an asterisk.
See, UMD started that season by playing in the Ice Breaker at Notre Dame. Minnesota beat the Bulldogs in the first game 4-3. That, my friends, is not a road game. It’s a neutral-site game. UMD beat Notre Dame the next day and won five straight on the road after that before losing 4-1 at Omaha on Nov. 22.
It’s the only 6-0 road start in program history besides this season. If you want to argue that it shouldn’t count because of the Gopher loss, fine, then this is the first 6-0 road start in program history. Either way, it’s notable.
(By the way, the last 8-1 start came in 1989-90, a team that started 8-0 before losing a series opener at North Dakota in overtime. Freaky.)
There’s plenty to clean up from Friday. The power play was not good, until it was. UMD lost a lot of faceoffs. UND scored two late in the third, including one on a very bad line change, to tie the game and force overtime. But 8-1 is 8-1.
5. Turns out Halloween even hurts attendance here. They announced 11,023 for the series opener, but attendance is not necessarily the number of butts in the seats. They distributed that many tickets, but there were not that many people in house.
It was also Halloween. I would expect the Saturday game to be a more typical UND crowd.
6. Hats off to the UMD women, particularly freshman goalie Sophia Villanueva. Making her first-ever start while Eve Gascon is at a Canadian national team camp, Villanueva stopped 31 of 34 shots as the Bulldogs held on for a 5-3 win at St. Cloud State. UMD took the lead for good late in the first on a goal by Rae Mayer, who was one of five different goal scorers for the Bulldogs (joined by Molly Cole, Thea Johansson, Grace Sadura, and Danielle Burgen).
But Villanueva was the story. I only saw a chunk of the second and almost all of the third. She was poised in net, and her teammates did a good job making it so she could play the shooters. UMD will want more out of its power play (they had a couple opportunities late in the second and in the third, squandering them), but it was a good way to start the weekend.
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We’re back here Saturday, coverage at 5:30pm on Northland News Radio. The women will face off at 1pm in St. Cloud, with coverage available on Big Ten Plus. We’ve got UMD football on the air Saturday at 1pm from Jamestown, a couple hours south and west of our spot in Grand Forks.
Enjoy what’s hopefully a pretty nice little Saturday. Back pregame with the lines and any other info we dig up between now and then.
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