ST. CLOUD, Minn. — You usually expect something scary to happen on Halloween night.
No. 7-ranked St. Cloud State made sure that happened as the Huskies exposed their archrival’s flaws and delivered the first major scare into Minnesota’s season behind a raucous crowd of costume-clad Husky fans.
Jonny Brodzinski had a goal and two assists, Patrick Russell added two assists of his own and the Huskies dominated No. 1 Minnesota in a 4-1 victory, handing the Golden Gophers their first loss of the season.
“It was a good win for us,” said Huskies’ coach Bob Motzko. “We won the little battles – goaltending and special teams.”
It was only the fourth win in the last 11 matchups for SCSU over Minnesota, but it did snap a two-game losing streak to the Gophers.
“They were hungry for this game,” Minnesota coach Don Lucia said of the Huskies. “They played extremely well. They were the better team.”
“It was an all-around tough game for us,” added Gophers’ forward Seth Ambroz. “We didn’t have it today.”
In two tough Friday losses this season, St. Cloud State never really came out of the gates in losing 3-1 to Colgate three weeks ago at home and 5-1 at Union last weekend. But they played much better against the Gophers from start to finish Friday night and made a statement against their former WCHA rivals in the process.
“Like Coach said, we started Fridays out just terrible,” Brodzinski said. “We wanted to come with a different attitude this Friday – just put the foot down on the gas and just keep it going.”
Fresh off ending a 17-game winning streak by the Dutchmen on the road last Saturday, the Huskies put their foot on the gas after the opening puck drop to make good on Brodzinski’s word.
SCSU opened the scoring nearly 15 minutes into the first period. Brodzinski dished the puck to Kalle Kossila, who was left all alone in the slot. He wristed the puck past Minnesota goaltender Adam Wilcox and it went top shelf for his first goal of the season to put the Huskies up 1-0.
Near the end of the first period, a smattering of players got tangled up in front of Wilcox. The puck ended up sitting in the crease to his right and David Morley came to put it away and double St. Cloud’s lead with three seconds remaining. A hooking penalty on Minnesota defenseman Mike Reilly was called on top of it and SCSU carried most of their ensuing power play into the second period.
[photoshelter-gallery g_id=”G0000E74OHEvv0Nc” g_name=”20141031-Minn-St-Cloud-JGR” f_show_caption=”t” f_show_slidenum=”t” img_title=”casc” pho_credit=”iptc” f_link=”t” f_bbar=”t” fsvis=”f” width=”500″ height=”375″ bgcolor=”#AAAAAA” bgtrans=”t” btype=”old” bcolor=”#CCCCCC” crop=”f” trans=”xfade” tbs=”4000″ f_ap=”t” linkdest=”c” f_fullscreen=”f” f_constrain=”f” twoup=”f” f_topbar=”f” f_bbarbig=”” f_htmllinks=”f” f_enable_embed_btn=”f” f_show_watermark=”f” f_send_to_friend_btn=”f” f_smooth=”f” f_mtrx=”f” f_up=”f” target=”_self” wmds=”llQ6QNgpeC.p1Ucz7U.f2JfE75FikjD3RzRD.YA7ynCRTGv66HpVC63mOY_T9KswXebhEw–” ]Through 20 minutes, SCSU was simply playing with more fire in their game. The four penalties that Minnesota ended up taking in the first period hurt them as they spent a lot of time on the penalty kill and in their defensive zone, which allowed the Huskies to generate their forecheck and scoring chances.
“I was disappointed in the penalties we took in our zone,” Lucia remarked. “St. Cloud won on the point of attack.”
The lone goal in the second period came off the stick of Brodzinski. When Reilly was still in the penalty box for his hooking penalty, Brodzinski let loose a monster slap shot high in the slot that found its way into the net to give St. Cloud State a 3-0 lead just 1:12 into the middle frame.
Early in the third period, Minnesota started to unravel. Kyle Rau and Wilcox were called for penalties nine seconds apart in the opening two minutes of the third period, giving SCSU a lengthy 5-on-3 power play. The Huskies cashed in on Joey Benik’s second goal of the season about a minute and a half later. Benik, who was denied on many chances through the first two periods, finally got rewarded for his effort when he managed to put the puck past Wilcox from the side of the net at 3:11 to make it 4-0.
A minute later, Minnesota broke the shutout bid as Hudson Fasching took a pass from Reilly and rang it off the right post and into the net behind Huskies’ goaltender Charlie Lindgren for his fourth goal of the season. By then, it was too late for the self-destructing Gophers.
“We just didn’t match their intensity,” Ambroz said.
Despite the fact that Minnesota’s 4-0 victory over SCSU ended the Huskies’ season last March, Brodzinski insisted that it didn’t play any factor in Friday’s game.
“We weren’t really even thinking about that,” Brodzinski said. “We just took it as another game.”
After spending a lot of time in the penalty box in the Union series last weekend, Motzko stressed staying out of the box in practice this week. The Huskies responded and they only committed three penalties to keep Minnesota’s top-ranked power play in check and limit their chances.
“We took a lot of stupid penalties the first four games,” Motzko said. “That was our key emphasis tonight-to stay out of the penalty box.”
“We just tried not to take stick penalties,” Brodzinski added. “No offensive-zone penalties. I think we really tightened up on that.”
