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The No. 3 Bulldogs are back home at Amsoil Arena this weekend, hosting Nebraska Omaha in a two-game series that feels less like midseason maintenance and more like a coronation.
The Bulldogs are 10-2, ranked third in the country, and powered by a top line that’s chewing through the national leaderboard like a buzzsaw.
Friday’s puck drop is 7:07 p.m., Saturday’s is 6:07, and if you haven’t yet seen Max Plante play live, you’re running out of excuses.
Plante, the sophomore waterbug from Hermantown, has 22 points in 12 games — the kind of numbers you only see when someone’s playing a different game than everyone else. He hit 50 career points last weekend in just 35 games, the third-fastest Bulldog ever to do it.
You don’t toe-drag and dance your way into that kind of company. The only two faster? Dan Lempe (26 games, 1976-77) and Keith “Huffer” Christiansen (34, 1964-65).
I saw both of them play. Lempe could shoot the puck like Brett Hull. Christiansen was a magician on skates — the kind of player who’d make defenders look like they were skating uphill while he went around them twice just for fun. They were artists with tape on their sticks, not composite marketing tools.
Hull, when he arrived, was the prototype for a new breed — featuring a heavy, quick release. Bill Watson was in that tier, too, a metronome of production who made 1.5 points per game look ordinary.
Plante isn’t there yet — not even close — but he’s pointing the right direction. He’s more Corey Millen than Hull, darting into holes no one else sees, except he shoots left and has a quicker stick in traffic. He’s slippery, feisty, a little arrogant with the puck — which is precisely what the good ones need. He'll get dirty, which makes him prone for injury. You can’t fake his kind of confidence.
And when he buried that overtime winner last Saturday to sweep St. Cloud State, it wasn’t luck. It was theater. Pure Max.
His older brother, Zam, has been nearly as dangerous, sitting second nationally with 19 points. Their linemate, Jayson Shaugabay, is tied for fifth with 17.
Together, they’ve combined for 22 of UMD’s 44 goals — a trio that looks more like a cheat code than a college line. They’re fast, creative, and always hunting. You don’t stop them; you just hope to contain them to three goals and change the subject.
UMD’s offense is ranked second nationally at 3.70 goals per game. The Bulldogs aren’t peppering teams with volume either — just 347 total shots, 11th-most in the country — which tells you how efficient they are. The power play is sixth-best in the nation (29.5%), and the penalty kill has tightened to top-10 form.
The defensive backbone belongs to sophomore Ty Hanson, tied for the national lead in scoring by a defenseman with 13 points and a +13 rating. Hanson’s already doubled his pace from last season and looks every bit like the next elite Bulldog blueliner in the Scott Sandelin era.
And then there’s Adam Gajan, the steady Slovak in net, who’s already collected 10 wins, tied for most in the nation. His 1.70 goals-against average trails only a handful of goalies, and his minutes rank second nationally. He’s not flashy — just quietly consistent. UMD hasn’t had this kind of stability in goal since Ryan Fanti’s run.
Sandelin, for his part, has seen plenty of these Bulldog eras come and go. He’s closing in on 1,000 games behind the bench — No. 993 this weekend. Only 26 others in Division I have done that. Two national titles, dozens of pros, and now another potential Hobey candidate in Max Plante. His teams always start blue-collar and finish championship-caliber, and this group looks like one of his more dynamic ones.
UMD’s sweep of St. Cloud last weekend wasn’t just another pair of wins. It was a statement. The Bulldogs dominated possession, outshot the Huskies 64-50 over two nights, and closed both games with confidence. Friday’s 4-0 win was a clinic — clean, crisp, disciplined. Saturday was pure chaos — and then, Max Plante ended it, as if ordained.
Now, Omaha rolls into town. The Mavericks have had UMD’s number lately, winning five straight in the series, including a sweep last season. The Bulldogs haven’t beaten them since 2022, and it’s time to change that storyline.
For all the nostalgia swirling around UMD hockey, it’s impossible not to look at the ice and see something familiar — maybe even historic. Lempe had that scorer’s arrogance. Christiansen, that effortless control. Watson and Hull, that predator’s eye for the net.
Plante has flashes of all of them, rolled into a wiry, grinning sophomore who looks like he’s skating downhill when everyone else is gasping for air. He’s not in their class yet — he knows it, Sandelin knows it, everyone in the barn knows it — but he’s got the one thing that matters most: time.
If he keeps this pace, keeps darting through defenses and calling his own number in overtime, we’ll start whispering his name alongside the legends.
And if you’ve been around long enough to see Hull’s one-timers, Watson’s patience and ultra-elite mitts, or Christiansen’s passing and scoring touch, you can see it too — the same glint in Plante’s eyes, the same heartbeat of greatness, just waiting to make Duluth proud of the Bulldogs again.
Write this one in stone: Victor Plante, the youngest of the Plante brothers and a forward tearing it up with the U.S. Under-18 Development Team, is the one with true star power. He joins the Bulldogs next season — and by every indication, he’s the most gifted Plante yet.
