Saints Wrap up Regular Season with 40th Win
USHL Dubuque Fighting Saints

Saints Wrap up Regular Season with 40th Win

Published on April 4, 2026 under United States Hockey League (USHL)
Dubuque Fighting Saints News Release


Dubuque, IA - The Dubuque Fighting Saints (40-18-4-0, 84 pts) finished a sweep of the Muskegon Lumberjacks (36-24-1-1-, 74 pts) with a 7-3 win on Saturday night.

It was the 40th win of the season for the Fighting Saints, the fifth time Dubuque reached 40 wins in a season and the third-straight year the team reached that mark.

Dubuque saw a one-goal lead turn into a 2-1 deficit in the first two minutes of the second period on Saturday, but responded quickly. Less than two minutes after Muskegon's go-ahead goal, Melvin Ekman scored his second goal of the game to tie the game at two. The goal started the Saints on a stretch of three-unanswered goals to take a 4-2 advantage in the second.

The second and third goals of that stretch came just 44 seconds apart. Colin Frank scored his 33rd of the season with a highlight-reel goal at 9:02 of the period, assisted by Xavier Lieb and Teo Besnier.

At 9:46, Hudson Lohse took a feed from Trevor Theuer and scored his first-career USHL goal on a backhand shot. The goal put Dubuque up 4-2 halfway through the game.

Muskegon answered with a power-play goal late in the second to cut the Saints' lead to one into the third period. In the final frame, Dubuque scored three more goals with Caden Dabrowski's 15th early in the frame before Eetu Orpana's 15th and Lieb's eighth of the season to lock down the victory.

The Fighting Saints took a first-period lead on Saturday, launching 17 shots on goal in the opening frame. Dubuque only beat goaltender Will Keane once in the period with Ekman's first goal of the game coming on a 2-on-1 feed from Teddy Merrill.

The 2025-26 Fighting Saints join the 2012-13 (45), 2021-22 (40), 2023-24 (41) and 2024-25 (41) teams as the only teams in Dubuque's Tier-I history to win 40 games in a USHL season.

Dubuque will have home-ice advantage in the Eastern Conference Semifinals against the highest-remaining seed in the conference after next weekend's first round.

Check out the Dubuque Fighting Saints Statistics

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United States Hockey League Stories from April 4, 2026


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