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DULUTH — Minnesota Duluth enters the 2026-27 men’s hockey season with the reigning Hobey Baker Award winner, an experienced core that came within one victory of the Frozen Four and a national ranking that places the Bulldogs squarely among college hockey’s leading contenders. The rebuilding has produced a team with considerably more to defend than its reputation.
Ranked fifth in the preseason USCHO.com poll, UMD opens Friday against Long Island University at AMSOIL Arena, with faceoff scheduled for 7:07 p.m. The teams meet again Saturday at 6:07 p.m., beginning a season in which the Bulldogs’ established scoring and returning leadership will be measured against the challenge of replacing their starting goaltender.
The expectations have substance. UMD finished 24-15-1 last season, reached the National Collegiate Hockey Conference championship game and advanced to the NCAA Albany Regional final, where Michigan ended its season with a 4-3 victory. The Bulldogs outshot the Wolverines 33-27, including 16-6 in the third period, leaving a returning group with direct experience of how little separates a regional finalist from a Frozen Four team.
That experience now belongs to players entering the middle and later stages of their college careers. Junior forwards Max Plante, Zam Plante and Jayson Shaugabay, junior defenseman Ty Hanson and junior forward Callum Arnott give UMD a developed offensive foundation. All five of the Bulldogs’ leading scorers from last season return, accounting for a combined 209 points.
For coach Scott Sandelin, entering his 27th season, the opportunity is to turn that continuity into another sustained championship pursuit. His tenure has included three NCAA titles and six Frozen Four appearances, establishing the standard against which a promising UMD roster is inevitably measured. This team has enough proven production to invite those comparisons, although its standing will ultimately depend on how well it handles the less celebrated demands of defending and winning close games.
Max Plante is the centerpiece. The Hermantown native returns for his junior season after winning the 2026 Hobey Baker Award, earning first-team All-America honors and being selected the NCHC’s player and forward of the year. He produced 52 points on 25 goals and 27 assists in 40 games, with six game-winning goals and 15 multiple-point performances.
His preseason recognition reflects the confidence surrounding his return: All 33 voters selected him to the preseason All-NCHC team. A Detroit Red Wings draft pick, Plante gives UMD an established offensive leader who can finish chances and create them, forcing opponents to account for both threats when deciding how aggressively to pressure the puck.
Zam Plante makes that assignment considerably harder. The junior center finished immediately behind his brother in the NCHC scoring race with 51 points, including 20 goals and 31 assists, and also earned preseason all-conference recognition. The Pittsburgh Penguins prospect provides another proven source of offense rather than leaving the Bulldogs dependent on one player’s production.
Zam scored 10 power-play goals last season and finished on a seven-game scoring streak, collecting six goals and six assists during that stretch. His production through the closing weeks is particularly relevant for a team trying to extend its season: UMD’s returning offensive leadership includes a player who was still generating points when the schedule reached its most demanding stage.
Shaugabay gives the Bulldogs a third returning forward who exceeded a point per game. The Warroad native collected 43 points in 40 games, leading UMD with 32 assists and adding 11 goals. His assist total tied for fifth nationally, and he registered 11 multiple-point games, including five with at least three points.
His development illustrates how this roster has been built. Shaugabay scored 26 points as a freshman before increasing his production by 17 points last season, giving UMD a more accomplished playmaker as he enters his third year. Alongside the Plantes, he provides evidence that the Bulldogs’ offensive expectations rest on players who have already improved substantially against college competition.
Arnott represents another important part of that progression. He finished his sophomore season with 12 goals and 15 assists in 40 games, including six power-play goals. His continued development could help UMD distribute scoring responsibility and sustain pressure when opponents devote their strongest defensive matchups to the Plantes and Shaugabay.
The Bulldogs also added experience through the transfer portal. Senior forward Barrett Hall arrives from St. Cloud State after scoring 10 goals and adding 18 assists in 36 games, with six power-play goals. A former alternate captain for the Huskies, Hall brings three seasons of college experience and an established record against NCHC opponents.
Junior transfer Peyton Platter adds another experienced option after recording eight goals and 13 assists at Alaska Fairbanks last season. He ranked fourth on the Nanooks in scoring and led the team in average ice time at 19 minutes, 17 seconds per game. His background gives UMD a forward accustomed to substantial responsibility as Sandelin and his staff assemble their combinations.
The incoming class adds a particularly compelling local connection. Freshman Victor Plante joins older brothers Zam and Max after two seasons with USA Hockey’s National Team Development Program. He recorded 21 goals and 48 points in 57 games with the Under-18 team last season and contributed a goal and four assists in five games at the Under-18 world championship. Detroit selected him in the second round of the 2026 NHL draft.
Freshman forward Kade Kohanski also arrives from Hermantown, renewing connections that predate college. Kohanski played on Hermantown’s 2022 Class A championship team with Zam and Max Plante and Hanson, giving the Bulldogs another player familiar with several members of their core. That shared background does not guarantee college success, but it helps explain the continuity running through this particular roster.
Hanson is central to the team’s identity on defense. The junior earned second-team All-America honors last season after producing 36 points, and he averaged a team-high 25:37 of ice time. He enters the season having appeared in 76 consecutive games, combining offensive production with the durability to handle a heavy workload.
Hanson and Max Plante will serve as co-captains, with senior defenseman Aaron Pionk and Zam Plante wearing alternate captain’s letters. Pionk brings 113 consecutive appearances and three full seasons of experience. All four captains are from Hermantown, placing the team’s formal leadership in the hands of players with deep local connections and substantial experience within the program.
The defensive group offers different physical profiles around that leadership. Junior Adam Kleber and senior Brady Cleveland are both listed at 6-foot-5, while sophomores Grayden Siepmann and Jake Toll provide additional returning options. Freshmen Keith McInnis and Carter Murphy join a group whose effectiveness will be especially important as UMD establishes its goaltending.
That is the most consequential personnel change. Adam Gajan left after his sophomore season to sign a two-year entry-level contract with the Chicago Blackhawks, creating an opening at a position that can determine whether an offensively talented team becomes a championship contender. The Bulldogs must replace the goaltender who carried their starting workload through last spring’s postseason.
Junior Ethan Dahlmeir supplies returning college experience. In 10 appearances last season, he went 5-2-0 with a 2.33 goals-against average and a .910 save percentage. Those results give UMD an experienced option, although a larger workload would present a different test from the role he filled behind Gajan.
Freshman Carl Axelsson arrives with a strong junior résumé. The 6-foot-4 Swedish goaltender posted a 28-14-1 record and a 2.48 goals-against average in 44 games for Muskegon of the United States Hockey League, and Utah selected him in the fourth round of the 2026 NHL draft. His father, Niklas, played goal for UMD from 1993-95, adding another family connection to the roster. Sophomore Cole Sheffield completes the Bulldogs’ three-goaltender group.
Special teams provide a major reason for optimism. UMD converted 42 of 142 power-play opportunities last season, a 29.6% success rate, while allowing opponents 14 goals in 125 opportunities. The returning personnel offer the possibility of preserving that advantage, although expecting identical results would overlook the adjustments opponents will make and the roles that must be reassigned.
The conference outlook puts those strengths in perspective. UMD was picked third in the NCHC preseason media poll with 273 points and seven first-place votes, behind Denver’s 304 points and North Dakota’s 302. Denver received 14 first-place votes and North Dakota 12, making the Bulldogs one of only three teams selected by voters to win the league.
Denver returns as the defending national champion, while North Dakota won last season’s Penrose Cup and also reached the Frozen Four. Western Michigan was selected fourth in the league, followed by Miami and Colorado College. St. Thomas enters the expanded 10-team conference picked seventh, ahead of St. Cloud State, Arizona State and Omaha.
Nationally, the preseason poll places Denver first, Michigan second, Michigan State third and North Dakota fourth, immediately ahead of UMD. Western Michigan is eighth. Those rankings frame the Bulldogs as a credible Frozen Four candidate, while also showing that some of their most difficult competition will come within their own conference.
There remains a meaningful gap between that projection and last season’s conference performance. UMD finished 11-12-1 in NCHC play despite its strong overall record and postseason advancement. The next step is greater consistency across the conference schedule, where a title challenge requires accumulating points over months rather than producing one successful stretch in March.
Long Island provides the first examination, and its recent results argue against treating opening weekend as a formality. The Sharks finished 14-18-1 last season but won 6-2 at Minnesota and 5-2 at Merrimack. Their power play converted 24.1% of its opportunities, giving UMD an immediate reason to make discipline a priority.
Brendan Riley enters his second season as LIU’s head coach after taking over in April 2025. The Sharks’ current roster includes returning forwards J.R. Perdion, Sixten Jennersjö and Dylan Kinch, providing an experienced offensive group for the program’s first meetings with Minnesota Duluth.
Perdion recorded 11 goals and 14 assists last season, while Jennersjö matched his 25 points with eight goals and 17 assists. Kinch added nine goals and 15 assists. Returning goaltender Daniel Duris started 31 games, finishing with a 3.29 goals-against average, a .900 save percentage and two shutouts.
LIU also brings a familiar name to northeastern Minnesota. Freshman goaltender Dane Callaway is listed as a Duluth native who attended Hermantown, creating another local connection in a weekend already rich with them. He joins Duris and sophomore Lukas Renaud in the Sharks’ goaltending group.
UMD’s early schedule should provide several different tests before conference play begins. After LIU, the Bulldogs visit Augustana on Oct. 9-10, host Minnesota on Oct. 16-17 and play a home-and-home series against Bemidji State on Oct. 23-24. Miami visits AMSOIL Arena for UMD’s NCHC opener Nov. 6-7.
The schedule also includes the Friendship Four in Belfast, Northern Ireland, on Nov. 27-28, with Connecticut, Providence and Colgate completing the field. Later home series against Denver on Jan. 22-23 and North Dakota on Feb. 26-27 could become significant measures of the Bulldogs’ progress toward their conference and national goals.
The case for Minnesota Duluth is built on production that already exists: accomplished scorers returning together, a defense led by an All-American and experienced additions who can broaden the lineup. The questions are equally concrete — establishing dependable goaltending, sustaining special-teams execution and turning last season’s uneven conference record into a stronger weekly standard.
Friday begins the work of answering them. For a Bulldogs team with this much returning talent, the opportunity is to carry the promise of September through the demands of winter and arrive in March equipped to win the game that stopped it last spring.
