Beavers host No. 1/3 Gophers for New Years Eve exhibition

Bemidji State Men’s Hockey hosts No. 1/3 Minnesota at Sanford Center

The Bemidji State University Men’s Hockey team wraps up play during the 2022 calendar year Saturday with a New Years Eve exhibition with No. 1/3 University of Minnesota at Sanford Center. The game will not count towards season standings and statistics.
 
The Beavers (9-5-4, 7-2-3 CCHA) face the No. 1/3 Golden Gophers (15-5-0, 10-2-0 B1G) for one exhibition game to ring in 2023 with puck drop slated for 5:07 p.m.
 
The game will be televised live on FOX9+ as well as stream online at FloHockey.tv with play-by-play and color commentary provided by Beaver Radio Network. A radio broadcast can also be found on 92.1FM or online at www.beaverradionetwork.com.
 

The Beavers will face the Gophers for the first time since 2019 and first time hosting them since 2013.

Minnesota owns the all-time series record at 20-2-1 that began in 2000 and have won the last two meetings back in 2019 and 2017.

Bemidji State’s last win against Minnesota came on Jan. 30, 2016 where the Beavers earned a 4-2 victory in game one of the North Star College Cup final at the Xcel Energy Center.

The Beavers are 0-6-1 when hosting the Golden Gophers.

Bemidji State and Minnesota crossed paths in the former Western Collegiate Hockey Association from the 2010-11 season through 2012-13. When the two were members of the same conference, Minnesota was 7-0-1 against the Beavers.

Minnesota earned a 5-2 victory in the semifinal game of the Mariucci Classic in their last meeting on Dec. 28, 2019. Tied 2-2 with 2:50 to play and out-shooting the Gophers 30-15 in the game, Blake McLaughlin scored with 2:50 to play to give UM the lead and then added two empty-net goals in the final 1:17 to cap-off the 5-2 victory.

Fifth-year senior Ross Armour scored the first goal of the game for his third goal of his sophomore campaign. Then freshman Will Zmolek earned an assist on the play for the fourth of his career. The two are the lone active skaters to record points in their careers against Minnesota.

Fifth-year senior transfer Kaden Pickering leads all active skaters with two career games versus the Gophers after facing them twice while at St. Lawrence University.

No goaltender on the BSU roster has faced the Gophers.

In the final polls of the holiday break, Bemidji State failed to receive votes in the latest USCHO.com top-20 national poll (Dec. 12) prior to its series at Minnesota State University, Mankato but is receiving votes in the latest USAToday/USAHockeyMagazine poll (Dec. 19). The Beavers make their return to the USAToday/USAHockeyMagazine poll after a four-week hiatus.

Minnesota travels to Bemidji as the top-ranked team in the USAToday/USAHockeyMagazine poll and third-ranked team in the USCHO.com poll.

Bemidji State sits 22nd in the PairWise rankings while Minnesota is the top team in the rankings.

Bemidji State enters Saturday’s New Years Eve clash on a hot streak and have won its last three games and are 4-1-1 in its last six games.

The Gophers have also been hot as of late and have won its last four games and are 8-1-0 in their last nine games.

The Beavers are coming off on of their most successful weekends back on Dec. 15-16 where they swept No. 16 Minnesota State on the road for the first time since 2006.

BSU is currently tied for first in the Central Collegiate Hockey Association standings with 25 league points and have two games in hand with co-leader No. 16/17 Michigan Technological University.

Minnesota leads the Big Ten Conference standings with 30 points and holds an eight-point lead over second place Penn State.

The Beavers are led offensively by Canisius College fifth-year transfer Mitchell Martan who has posted 14 points off six goals and eight assists. He is 11th in the CCHA averaging 0.78 points per game and sixth with 57 shots.

Martan is followed by senior defenseman Elias Rosén who is tied for second among CCHA defenseman with 13 points off one goal and 12 assists.

Rosén has the hot hand as of late and has posted nine points (1g-8a) over the last eight games.

Freshman Lleyton Roed (6g-6a) and junior Eric Martin (3g-9a) are tied for third on the team with 12 points.

Sophomore Alexander Lundman leads the team with seven goals this season which is tied for 11th in the CCHA.

Roed is tied for sixth among CCHA rookies with 12 points.

Rosén has been hot as off late and has eight points (1g-7a) in his last six games. Bemidji State is 6-1-2 when Rosén records a point.

After missing a game due to injury, sophomore Jakub Lewandowski returned without missing a beat and totaled three points (2g-1a) in the Beavers’ series at Minnesota. He was named the CCHA Forward of the Week for the first time in his career for his efforts.

Senior defenseman Will Zmolek has also been hot and has six points (1g-5a) over the last five games including back-to-back two assist games on Dec. 10 and Dec. 15.

Zmolek has also shutdown opposing forwards and leads the team and is fourth in the CCHA with 37 blocked shots. Fellow senior Kyle Looft follows and is fifth in the league with 35.

A lot of BSU’s success can be attributed to sophomore goaltender Mattias Sholl. Sholl is 7-3-4 this season and is tied for the CCHA lead with a .922 save percentage and leads the league with a 1.95 goals against average.

Among goalies who have played in 700 or more minutes this season, Sholl ranks eighth nationally in save percentage and is tied for third in goals against average.

Sholl is coming off a weekend where he stopped 65-of-69 shots against No. 16 Minnesota State and earned his third CCHA Goaltender of the Week accolade.

He has shared the net with junior Gavin Enright who has appeared in four games and is 2-2-0 with a 2.96 goals against average and .888 save percentage but Sholl has started the last six games between the pipes for BSU.

Bemidji State has scored 14 power-play goals in 58 attempts for a power-play percentage of .250 which is third in the CCHA.

The Beavers’ penalty kill has allowed 12 goals in 57 opportunities for a penalty-kill percentage of .789 which is sixth in the CCHA.

Bemidji State is one of the least penalized teams in Division I and is third in the nation by averaging just 7.06 penalty minutes per game.

Fifth-year senior Ross Armour co-captains the team with senior defenseman Kyle Looft while senior Elias Rosén and senior Will Zmolek serve as alternates.

Tom Serratore is in his 22nd season at the helm of the Bemidji State Men’s Hockey program and owns a 363-332-96 career record.

He is 2-18-1 all-time against the Gophers.