Thanks to the coronavirus pandemic, we'll never know who would've won the 2020 NCAA men's hockey championship, though the four teams mostly likely to be No. 1 NCAA tournament seeds when the season was called off on March 12 could offer strong cases.

North Dakota was the top team in the PairWise Ratings, the computer formula the NCAA uses to pick its tournament field. The Fighting Hawks had rolled through the rugged NCHC and had a 26-5-4 record.

Minnesota State Mankato was No. 2 in the PairWise and boasted the most wins in the nation at 31-5-2. The Mavericks seemed poised for an NCAA breakthrough, owning a tie and a win over North Dakota and a sweep of Minnesota Duluth in the Twin Ports.

Cornell (23-2-4) was the darling of the two major human polls, ranked No. 1 in both the U.S. College Hockey Online and the USA Today/USA Hockey Magazine ratings.

Then there was Minnesota Duluth, the two-time reigning national champion at No. 4 in the PairWise. At 22-10-2, the Bulldogs didn't have a sparkling win percentage, but they did have the eventual Hobey Baker Award winner in Scott Perunovich and a goalie in Hunter Shepard who had an 8-0 NCAA tournament record with a total of eight goals allowed.

Nine months late, a would-be 2020 NCAA tourney matchup – possibly in the Frozen Four semifinals or even in the title game – happened on Thursday night in the NCHC's Pod in Omaha when top-ranked North Dakota met No. 3 Minnesota Duluth. In a back-and-forth game, the Fighting Hawks and Bulldogs skated a 2-2 tie, with UMD winning a shootout 1-0 for the extra point in the NCHC standings.

The game didn't disappoint, with the Bulldogs (4-0-1) – minus now-professional players in Perunovich, Shepard, Dylan Samberg, Justin Richards and Nick Wolff – taking a first-period lead on Jesse Jacques' goal. North Dakota (3-1-1) tied it 1-1 in the second when fabulous freshman Riese Gaber scored. And third period showed off the star power from each team, first with UND's Shane Pinto scoring a power-play goal on a feed from Matt Kiersted, then with Bulldogs All-America forward Cole Koepke knotting it 2-2 with 3:25 to play.

The three-on-three overtime quickly went to four-on-three when Fighting Hawks center Collin Adams was called for delay of game on the faceoff. UND killed the penalty, and the game eventually went to a shootout, highlighted by Bulldogs goalie Ryan Fanti's poke check to deny Gaber in the second round and decided by Nick Swaney's roofed goal over UND goalie Adam Scheel in the third round.

"A good hockey game – exactly what we expected,'' Bulldogs coach Scott Sandelin said. "We've had a lot of great games with these guys.''

The game's result didn't determine which team was superior – that will be decided by the entire NCHC schedule – but it did offer an early-season look at two of the sports blue bloods. If you missed it, you'll have another chance on Dec. 19 when the Bulldogs and Fighting Hawks meet again during the last weekend of the Omaha Pod.