Self-inflicted wounds proved costly for No. 11 Colorado College on Friday night and its bid for home playoff ice later this month.

With a shootout loss following a 2-2 tie, the fourth-place Tigers was unable to pull further away from Western Michigan, which lost and fell into a tie for fifth place with Omaha in the National Collegiate Hockey Conference standings.

The tie was good for one point, but CC missed a critical opportunity with three regular-season games remaining and home playoff ice still up for grabs.

“It’s not like we are drastically better than them, but you have a (2-1) lead going into the third and it doesn’t go our way,” Tigers coach Kris Mayotte said. “Yeah, I feel like we left some (points) out there.”

Two five-minute major penalties in the first and third periods kept the Tigers from finding their footing.

“We created a lot of our problems,” Mayotte said. “We talked about the emotion of today and how we need to be mature and controlled. We did not execute that part of the game well tonight.”

Colorado College’s leading scorer Noah Laba sparked the Tigers during the major-penalty-free second period, setting up CC’s first goal on a rising shot by Gleb Veremyev with 6:25 left, invigorating an announced sellout crowd of 3,602 at Ed Robson Arena. CC rode that sudden shift in momentum and drew a late UMD penalty that Laba cashed in. The New York Rangers draft pick whipped the puck toward the Bulldogs net front, spinning and firing wide of the net as the clock wound down.

Sometimes you’re lucky. Laba’s wide shot went in off UMD defender Quinn Olson’s stick blade and past goalie Matthew Thiessen (18 saves) for the 2-1 lead with 14 seconds left in the second.

Earlier that period, UMD went ahead 1-0 when Anthony Menghini forced in a rebound inside the near post after a Bulldogs faceoff win in the CC zone.

In the third period, UMD would tie it at 2-2 during 4-on-4 play when Connor McMenamin scored on a breakaway against CC sophomore goalie Kaidan Mbereko (24 saves).

“The penalty kill was phenomenal,” Mayotte said. “Kaidan made big saves when he needed to and controlled a lot of rebounds.”

But missing out on the standings points

“We need to clean that up and start faster (Saturday),” Mayotte said. “We need to learn to harness our emotions in a positive way. They need to understand that (undisciplined play) is hurting us.”