GRAND FORKS, N.D. -- North Dakota has made a habit of it of late of taking its men's hockey games down to the final seconds to secure a win.

North Dakota pulled that off again tonight, seeing a 3-0 lead turned into a 3-2 nail-bitter of a National Collegiate Hockey Conference (NCHC) victory over visiting St. Cloud State.

The victory kept UND alone in first place in the NCHC standings and secured a home-ice berth for the quarterfinals of the league playoffs in two weeks. This marks the 13th straight season UND has earned home ice in the first round of league playoffs.

UND remains three points ahead of second-place Miami with three games remaining for all league teams. UND finishes the regular season at Miami next weekend with the Penrose Cup on the line for the league champion.

Senior defenseman Nick Mattson, who assisted on two of UND's goals and was named the game's No.1 star by the media, is getting used to hectic finishes.

"I'm having a heart attack on the bench,'' Mattson said. "I'll take it, whatever. I'd rather have a blowout. Probably not going to happen very often in this league, the teams are just too good.''

Blowouts are rare in a league where five of the top eight teams in the important Pairwise rankings play in the NCHC. For the first time all season, North Dakota moved into No. 1 in the Pairwise rankings, courtesy of its victory and Minnesota State's 1-1 overtime tie with Michigan Tech. The Mavericks who have the same overall record as UND (23-6-3), dropped to No. 2 behind UND.

UND used a rapid start to the game to get an important jump on the Huskies, who had been 3-0-1 against UND in the last four meetings at REA. Freshman center Nick Schmaltz used a toe-drag move to get off a good slot shot halfway through the period, then gathered in the rebound to slip it past SCS goalie Charlie Lindgren (27 saves) from in tight to make it 1-0 at 11:44.

Senior wing Brendan O'Donnell all but assured a UND victory when he one-timed a Mattson pass to score his 11th goal of the season on a power play to make it 2-0 at 17:36. That was noteworthy because UND is unbeaten in the 21 games (20-0-1) when O'Donnell has scored since he arrived on campus from Winnipeg.

"I don't really think much of it,'' O'Donnell said of the quirky stat. "I don't know really know what to say. I think lucky, probably.''

Senior Connor Gaarder deflected an Austin Poganski shot to make it 3-0 at 5:57 of the second period. That was enough to survive St. Cloud State's potent power play, which converts at a NCHC-best 24.2 percent. St. Cloud State received power-play goals from Ben Storm at 7:58 of the second period and by Joey Benik at 4:47 of the third period to make a run.

The Huskies were 2-4 on the power play, UND 1-3.

The Huskies pulled Lindgren for a sixth attacker with 59 seconds left, but were unable to pot the tying goal. Last Saturday, UND gave up two goals to Western Michigan in the closing minutes when the Broncos pulled their goalie and tied the game before UND pulled it out in overtime on a Drake Caggiula goal.

UND came out with a dominant opening period, outshooting the Huskies 10-3, taking a 2-0 lead, and having a half dozen prime scoring chances. But St. Cloud's strong power play brought the Huskies back and kept the sellout of 11,900 fans in suspense until the final horn.

In a game full of suspense to the end, UND coach Dave Hakstol didn't have time to think about a win clinching home ice for the league playoffs, one of the team goals.

"Tough thing to do in this league,'' Hakstol said of earning home ice in the playoffs. "You've got to take advantage of it. We'll worry about that when we get to a three-game series. For the time being, we'll worry about the back half of the two-game series (with St. Cloud) here.''

Hakstol noted the 5-6 real good scoring chances in the first period that could have stretched UND's lead into a more comfortable margin.

"It's tough to build a lead. We were able to score on a couple of them, take advantage of a power play. That's a good period.''

Where UND wasn't very good was on faceoffs. St. Cloud State cleaned up in the faceoff battle with a 41-24 edge. Not a single UND player had a winning mark on faceoffs while Kalle Kossila was 20-5 for the Huskies.

"The first period was excellent (8-7 for North Dakota),'' Hakstol said of the faceoff woes. "After that, we got our asses kicked. Their guys did a good job in there. We have to do a little better job.''

The two teams close out the series Saturday night at 7:07 p.m. Central. UND's seven seniors will be honored before and after the game, their final regular-season home game.

UND notes: UND senior Connor Gaarder led UND in shots on goal with seven, followed by Nick Schmaltz, Michael Parks, Jordan Schmaltz and O'Donnell, all with three ... Hard-shooting Jonny Brodzinski led St. Cloud State with seven shots ... Joining Mattson in the three-star voting were Nick Schmaltz and O'Donnell, in that order ... Mattson and Paul LaDue were both plus-2 to lead UND in the plus/minus ratings.

Virg Foss covered UND hockey for 35 seasons for the Grand Forks Herald until his retirement. He's now in his 10th season of reporting on UND home games exclusively for UNDsports.com.