BUFFALO — Buckle up. When Providence College and Minnesota Duluth collide in the first national semifinal game at the Frozen Four, it projects to be a bruising, low-scoring battle of wills.
The Friars (24-11-6) and the defending national champion Bulldogs (27-11-2) are practically mirror images of each other. Both play a muscular game, don’t give up many scoring chances and have very good goalies.
“As I told our guys this week, if you look at the major statistics across NCAA Division I, Providence and Duluth are almost right next to each other on every stat — scoring offense, scoring defense, power play, penalty kill, save percentage — both of them are .