UMD beats Boston U in OT for trip to Frozen Four

Fargo – Adam Johnson scored 1 minute, 57 seconds into overtime to give Minnesota Duluth a 3-2 victory over Boston University on Saturday night in the West Regional final at Scheels Arena.

The win sends the Bulldogs (27-6-7) to their fifth Frozen Four. They will face East Regional champion Harvard on April 6 in Chicago.

The Terriers (24-12-3) edged host North Dakota 4-3 in two overtimes in their first regional game.

Against BU, the Bulldogs took a 2-1 lead with 8:22 left in the third period on Joey Anderson's goal. Patrick Harper of the Terriers tied the score with 3:13 left in the third. Before Harper's goal, Johnson lost a faceoff with Bobo Carpenter and BU put two shots on freshman goalie Hunter Miska that he saved and Kyle Osterberg blocked a third.

In overtime, UMD got a power play when Carpenter was called for tripping at 1:39. Johnson, a sophomore from Hibbing, Minn., got his 18th goal of the season just 17 seconds later. Neal Pionk and Alex Iafallo had assists on the play.

The Bulldogs will take a seven-game winning streak to the NCAA semifinals. Their other Frozen Four appearances were 1984, 1985, 2004 and 2011, when UMD won its only national title. The Bulldogs almost made it there in 2015, too, but lost to BU 3-2 in the Northeast Regional final.

Both teams scored in the first period. Clayton Keller put BU ahead at 7:59; Iafallo answered with a goal with 18 seconds left.

Miska, of Stacy, Minn., had 22 saves for the Bulldogs; Jake Oettinger, the freshman from Lakeville who had 56 saves the game before, had 20 stops for the Terriers.