UMD Men's Hockey Halts Harvard's 16 Game Win Streak with 2-1 Victory in Frozen Four Semis

Senior forward Alex Iafallo’s goal with 26 seconds left in regulation sends the University of Minnesota Duluth men’s hockey team to Saturday nights National Collegiate Athletic Association Frozen Four title game. The 2-1 victory over Harvard University is the Bulldogs fourth consecutive win by one goal.

Aggressive play on the boards by UMD to hold zone resulted in freshman winger Joey Anderson escaping with the puck. Anderson fed Iafallo who dished it to senior defenseman Willie Raskob, Raskob returned it to Iafallo for the tip.

“It was a good pass by Joey, we kept it in at the blue line and that was pretty much the key to the goal,” Iafallo said, “Raskob made a good play and we do that in practice all the time so just simple things like that getting the puck to the net and I was able to shovel it in.”

Scrambling to tie the game, Harvard bounced two pucks off the post with time expiring.

“I don’t know if I got a piece of them but Wolffy(Nick Wolff) said he got a piece with his knee so thank god for that, but yeah, it’s all good tonight,” freshman goaltender Hunter Miska said.

Having to come from behind tonight after senior forward Tyler Moy’s backdoor power play goal, the Bulldogs, just like all season long, remained resilient. Just 3:24 later, Joey Anderson buried the equalizer right off a faceoff win by senior captain, Dominic Toninato with 1:36 left in the opening period.

A goalie battle for rest of the game up until Iafallo’s game winner, Miska was brilliant once again. The rookie sensation stopped 39 of the 40 shots he faced tonight. The Bulldogs did their job by throwing 38 shots at junior goaltender Merrick Madsen.

“Certainly an exciting for our team and our program to be playing Saturday night,” said UMD head coach Scott Sandelin, “kind of been our MO all year, a tight game, another one goal hockey game but just real exciting to be moving on.”

UMD plays the winner of the Notre Dame-Denver game Saturday night. The Bulldogs will be playing for their second national championship in program history.

Photo courtesy of Michael Bennett