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UND Men's Hockey
Games 27 & 28 ? Fri.-Sat., Jan. 26-27, 2007
#15 North Dakota (13-11-2 overall, 7-9-2 WCHA)
at
#1 Minnesota (21-3-3 overall, 13-2-3 WCHA)
7:07 p.m./7:07 p.m. Central Standard Time
Minneapolis, Minn.
Mariucci Arena (10,000)
Friday TV: Fox Sports Net (Ch. 28 in Grand Forks)
Saturday TV: Fox Sports Net (Ch. 28 in Grand Forks)
CSTV (DirecTV Ch. 610, Dish Network Ch. 152)
UND travels to Minnesota for only regular season series between Fighting Sioux, Gophers: North Dakota will travel to Minnesota for a two-game series against the No. 1-ranked Gophers on Friday and Saturday. It's the only regular season series between the teams this year, marking the third time in the last five years that North Dakota and Minnesota have played just one series in the regular season.
From the 1950-51 through the 2001-02 seasons, the teams met during the regular season for at least two series every year.
Fighting Sioux on a hot streak: UND is currently on a five-game unbeaten streak (4-0-1) that is tied with Michigan State for the second-longest active unbeaten streak in the nation. Only Boston University (seven games) has a longer current unbeaten streak.
The Fighting Sioux are 6-1-1 in their last eight games dating back to Dec. 29.
Series against Minnesota: Last year Minnesota won the first three games (4-3 and 4-3 in Grand Forks and 6-1 in Minneapolis) between the teams, but UND won 4-2 in Minneapolis the last time the teams met (Jan. 14, 2006).
UND is 8-7-0 in its last 15 meetings with Minnesota, and the Fighting Sioux have gone 3-3 in their last six games at Minnesota's Mariucci Arena, splitting their last three series there.
Overall in UND series records, which date to 1948, UND is 117-128-11 against Minnesota and 48-70-4 in road games against the Gophers.
About Minnesota: The Gophers, with a 21-3-3 overall record, have more wins than any other team in the country.
Minnesota, coached by Don Lucia, is in first place in the WCHA, holding a five-point lead over second-place St. Cloud State.
The Gophers have split their last two series (against Wisconsin and Denver) and have had a pair of lengthy unbeaten streaks recently come to an end. Included are a school-record 21-game home unbeaten streak that came to an end last weekend with a 1-0 loss to Denver on Friday, and a 22-game (19-0-3) overall streak that came to an end with a 2-1 loss to Wisconsin on Jan. 12.
The loss to Denver was Minnesota's first at Mariucci Arena since North Dakota beat the Gophers, 4-2, at Mariucci on Jan. 14 of last season.
Fighting Sioux against No. 1: The last time UND played a team ranked first nationally was more than two years ago (Jan. 14-15, 2005), when the Sioux took on top-ranked Colorado College in Colorado Springs, Colo. The Tigers swept that series (2-0, 2-1).
Prior to that, UND's last series against a team ranked No. 1 nationally was on Oct. 17-18, 2003, when the Sioux played host to top-ranked Boston College at Ralph Engelstad Arena. UND won the first game of that series (6-4) ? its last win over a No. 1-ranked team, with the Eagles winning the next night (2-1).
UND Notes
? UND Head Coach Dave Hakstol is 4-4 all-time against Minnesota.
? UND is coming off a home-and-home two-game non-conference sweep of Bemidji State. The Sioux defeated the Beavers 3-2 on Friday in Bemidji and then beat BSU 6-3 on Saturday in Grand Forks.
? Last weekend's series against Bemidji State ended UND's non-conference schedule. The Sioux finished 6-2 in non-conference play and will finish the regular season with 10 conference games.
? North Dakota's six goals on Saturday against the Beavers were the most by the Sioux since they scored eight goals in an 8-5 win at Minnesota State on Oct. 28.
? Leading point-scorers for UND against Bemidji State were sophomore forwards T.J. Oshie (Warroad, Minn.) and Jonathan Toews (Winnipeg, Manitoba), who each had five points on the weekend. Oshie had a goal and four assists, while Toews had two goals and three assists.
? Oshie has seven points (2g, 5a) in his last three games.
? Toews has played in UND's last four games after missing six games while competing for the gold-medal winning Canada squad at the 2007 IIHF World Junior Hockey Championship. Toews has seven points (2g, 5a) in his four games since returning and has gone 58-37 (61.1 percent) in the faceoff circle in those four games.
? Defensemen Taylor Chorney (So., Hastings, Minn.) and Brian Lee (So., Moorhead, Minn.) have also now played in UND's past four games after missing four games each while representing the United States at the World Junior Championship.
? Chorney recorded his first career two-goal game on Saturday.
? Junior defenseman Robbie Bina (Grand Forks, N.D.) had two goals Saturday, giving him 12 points (5g, 7a) in his last 12 games.
? On Friday, forward Erik Fabian (Sr., Roseau, Minn.) scored the game-winning goal with 3:36 remaining. Fabian's next game will be the 100th of his career.
? Forward Ryan Duncan (So., Calgary, Alberta) had two assists on Saturday, upping his team-leading point total to 29 (17 goals, 12 assists).
? Goalie Philippe Lamoureux (Jr., Grand Forks, N.D.) stopped 45 of 50 shots (90 percent) he faced in the two games against Bemidji State, picking up both wins. Lamoureux has a season save percentage of .908 and goals against average of 2.37.
? Lamoureux is now 6-1-1 with a 1.62 goals against average and .938 save percentage in his last six starts.
? Lamoureux is 1-1-0 in his career against Minnesota. He has played in three games against the Gophers and has a .917 save percentage and 3.46 goals against average in 138:55 of play against Minnesota.
? UND scored four power play goals in 10 attempts Friday against Bemidji Stae and currently is ranked fifth in the nation in power percentage (22.1 percent). In league games, the Fighting Sioux lead all WCHA teams with a 23.4 power play percentage.
? The Sioux killed 10 of 12 BSU power play opportunities over the weekend and have now killed off 45 of their opponents' last 50 power play chances, a 90 percent penalty kill success rate.
? UND is now 9-0-0 this season when scoring four or more goals in a game.
“Iron Man” Porter leads nation in career games played: UND senior captain Chris Porter (Thunder Bay, Ontario) played in his 158th collegiate game this past weekend in the series against Bemidji State. Porter has never missed a game in his college hockey career and is 13 games short of the WCHA record for consecutive games played (171), shared by Wisconsin's John Johannson (1980-84) and Colorado College's Calvin Elfring (1994-98).
The second-longest current streak is 149 games by Michigan's Jason Dest, who missed only the first game of his college career.
According to research by the UND media relations office, Porter has played in more career games than any current NCAA college hockey player, men's or women's, Division I or Division III. The research is based on rosters and statistics compiled on www.collegehockeystats.net, the official source for NCAA hockey statistics.
As of Sunday, Dec. 17, there were 4,508 NCAA college players listed on more than 212 teams on collegehockeystats.net. The total included 1,575 Division I men's players, 775 Division I women's players, 1,193 Division III men's players and 965 Division III women's players.
According to UND research, current all-time national games played leaders (through Jan. 20) are: Porter (158 games), Michigan's Jason Dest (149 games) and Michigan's T.J. Hensick (149 games).
The leading Division I women's games played leader (as of Jan. 20) is St. Lawrence's Crystal Connors (144 games). The leading Divison III men's games played leader (through Jan. 20) is Plattsburgh's Ryan Busby (111 games). The leading Division III women's games played leader (through Jan. 20) is Middlebury's Emily McNamara (101 games).
**For the complete release with stats, polls and much more please clink on the link provided at the bottom of this page (PDF document -requires Adobe Acrobat Reader)**
