TAMPA, Fla. — Through one period of play in Saturday’s NCAA championship game, it looked as though Minnesota had solved Quinnipiac’s suffocating 1-1-3 defense.
That’s a system that aligns three players — usually two forwards and a defenseman — across the width of the neutral zone and keeps each of the two remaining players floating on either side of that defensive line.
For the first period and a good while in the second, the Golden Gophers got around that system by holding the puck in their own zone to draw out a Quinnipiac defender, opening up that structured formation and creating space to navigate into Quinnipiac’s end and create some offensive chances.
When they couldn’t force a wedge through that line, the Gophers had some success using the neutral-zone boards to skirt past the Bobcats into the Quinnipiac end.
The result was that Minnesota led Quinnipiac 1-0 after the first after outshooting the Bobcats 7-4.
After the Gophers took a 2-0 lead early in the second, however, Quinnipiac began to apply offensive pressure, risking some open ice in an attempt to get on the scoreboard. The 2-0 game became 2-1 before the midway mark of the second, and for the remainder of the game, the Bobcats outshot the Gophers by more than a 2-to-1 margin.
“Not by design,” said Minnesota coach Bob Motzko, who alluded to Quinnipiac’s “stingy” defense in a news conference Friday, saying that the Bobcats defensive design “keeps doing it cycle after cycle.”
In the championship game, said Motzko, “We changed our neutral zone in the second period, and it worked. We stopped their zone entry. They were making a push.”
In the third period, Minnesota was unable to draw off the centered Quinnipiac defender and create that space, which led to most of the final 20 minutes played in the Gophers’ end and a 14-2 Quinnipiac shot advantage. When Quinnipiac pulled Yaniv Perets for an extra attacker with 3:28 remaining in regulation, the already overwhelmed Golden Gophers were unable to clear, resulting in the Bobcats’ tying goal with 2:47 left in the third.
Jacob Quillan scored 10 seconds into overtime to give Quinnipiac a 3-2 victory and the championship.
“They were coming out hot,” said Minnesota center Aaron Huglen. “Second and third period, they were making a push. And we did the best we could to keep it under control. But they’re a good team and they played well, too.”
Said forward Rhett Pitlick: “Obviously they shut down and they’re a very systemized team. We stuck to our game plan. But it was just a tough game.”
