Fargo Regional

The road to the Frozen Four in St. Louis starts in Fargo, North Dakota for Western Michigan, Minnesota, UMass and Minnesota State. The winner of these four will advance for a chance at the national championship.

No. 4 and the first seed in Fargo, Western Michigan is looking to counteract bad tournament luck. They are 1-10 all time in the NCAA tournament in their 10 appearances.

Western Michigan is coming off a 30-7-1 record on the season including a NCHC championship over Denver and their two Hobey Baker finalists in Jack Devine, and Zeev Buium.

Western Michigan’s scoring is led by Alex Bump with an even 23 goals and 23 assists for a total of 46 points. They thrive on depth scoring with five players all hitting the thirty point mark and two more players at 28 points.

Western Michigan will be playing a sneaky Minnesota State team who is also coming off of a conference championship in the Central Collegiate Hockey Association win on the back of Hobey Baker and Mike Richter finalist goalie Alex Tracy.

Alex Tracy is leading the nation in save percentage at .945, goals against average at 1.43 and the second most wins in the nation with 26. He has also played 37 of 38 of Minnesota State’s games this season.

This game will be all about who’s best is better as we see the top ranked Minnesota State defense face up against the top ranked Western Michigan offense.

Hobey Baker finalist Jimmy Snuggerud leads Minnesota against UMass in the other regional semifinal. Both teams are looking for a bounce back after losing in the quarterfinal of their respective conference tournaments.

This will be a matchup of two high powered scorers in the nation with Snuggerud at 49 points in 39 games and Cole O’Hara of UMass with 51 points in 38 games. It will come down to which offense can take advantage of weaker defenses.

Both defenses fall in the bottom half of the 16 teams in the playoffs in scoring defense. UMass is 15th in the nation in team defense with 2.39 goals against per game, and Minnesota right behind them with 2.46 goals against per game.

One spot to keep an eye out is the matchup on special teams. UMass ranks 10th in the nation with a 24.8% conversion rate and Minnesota ranks 13th at 24.4%.

UMass will look to take advantage as Minnesota takes an average of 2.5 penalties per game, and kills 75.9% of their penalties. Minnesota will have a bit of a tougher time with UMass killing 83.3% of their penalties.

This looks to be an exciting weekend in Fargo, with best on best between Western Michigan and Minnesota St. and a pretty even but likely high scoring matchup between Minnesota and UMass.

Tristan Kunec is a fourth-year majoring in broadcast journalism. To contact him, please email tqk5432@psu.edu.