UMD Goaltender Hunter Shepard Returning for 2019-2020 Season

The UMD Bulldogs National Champion men's hockey team UMD has lost two players early to the NHL this spring, but good news arrived today from their goaltender.

DuluthNewsTribune.com is reporting that Hunter Shepard will return to the team for the 2019-2020 season.  Confirmation of the decision arrived through a Kelly Hinseth tweet, which you can see below.

According to the DNT:

Shepard, who was a finalist this year for the Mike Richter Award as national goaltender of the year, owns a 0.97 goals against average and .954 save percentage in his eight NCAA tournament starts. He has a career 1.84 GAA and .924 save percentage at UMD with 54 wins and a school-record 15 shutouts. He's started a school-record 81-straight games at UMD.

This will help soften the blows of losing junior wing Riley Tufte and sophomore defenseman Mikey Anderson to the NHL.

The Bulldogs still await decisions by two more sophomore defensemen, Dylan Samberg and Scott Perunovich, who have not publicly announced whether they will return to the team, or leave for the NHL.

Perhaps Hunter Shepard's announcement will persuade them to also return for another run.