After two days of waiting, Minnesota Duluth finally found out its opponent for the WCHA Final Face-off, and it's a familiar foe.
The third-seeded Bulldogs and second-seeded Minnesota Golden Gophers will meet for a fifth time in 2016-17 at 5:07 p.m. Saturday in the second WCHA semifinal at Ridder Arena in Minneapolis as part of the league's championship weekend. Top-seeded Wisconsin will play fourth-seeded North Dakota in the first semifinal at 2:07 p.m. at Ridder.
Both the Gophers and Fighting Hawks needed Game 3 wins on Sunday to reach the Final Face-off with the Gophers beating Bemidji State 3-2 at home and the Hawks needing overtime to get by Ohio State 2-1 in Grand Forks.
The Bulldogs and Gophers split the regular season series with Minnesota winning 4-3 and 3-2 in overtime Oct. 14-15 in Minneapolis. UMD won the most recent series 3-2 and 5-3 in Duluth.
In addition to battling for a spot in the WCHA postseason championship game, the Gophers and Bulldogs are battling for a home quarterfinal game in the NCAA tournament. UMD, ranked third in the Pairwise, could lock up a home NCAA tournament game with a win Saturday over the Gophers, who are sitting fifth.
