Minnesota needed one point from Saturday’s contest with Penn State to win its second Big Ten title in as many years.
Getting two points would have made tiebreakers unnecessary, but the Gophers got three when they beat the Nittany Lions 6-2 and completed their weekend sweep of Penn State.
“It feels good,” Gophers senior captain Kyle Rau said. “It kind of worked out. Who would have thought a month or a month and a half ago that we’d be standing here? I’m really proud of the guys and I think we’re really growing as a hockey team and catching our stride at the right time.”
Going back to its days in the WCHA, this year’s title is the fourth consecutive conference championship for Minnesota.
“Last year the road was pretty smooth to get there, this year we had to meander a little bit,” Minnesota coach Don Lucia said. “It’s never easy to win a championship; to our guys’ credit, we came out of the month of January and we’ve played some really good hockey.”
The Gophers had a period near the middle of the season where they went 2-5-1, but responded to go 9-3 down the stretch.
Saturday was also Senior Night for Minnesota, and its seniors showed up multiple times on the score sheet. This year’s crop of seniors has made the NCAA tournament in its three previous years, has advanced to the Frozen Four twice, and the NCAA championship game once. The crew also went its entire career without getting swept at Mariucci Arena.
“Our seniors have done a phenomenal job during the last month,” Lucia said. “It’s not easy to hang a banner and now even the freshmen get to look up some day when they come back and say, ‘You know what? I was a part of that Big Ten championship.’
“Sometimes we’ve had to push and prod this group throughout the season, but we’ve had really good leadership, obviously, with the senior group that has been through so much.”
Penn State drew first blood on Saturday when senior Max Gardiner, who played his freshman season at Minnesota, scored from the slot on a one-time pass from the corner by Zach Sarr.
The Nittany Lions’ lead, however, was very short-lived, and once the Gophers tied the game they wasted little time gaining the lead.
Minnesota scored its first goal about two minutes after Penn State’s. Senior Travis Boyd negotiated his way to the left side of the goal and pounded a shot off the pipe that found its way onto the stick of fellow senior Seth Ambroz, who buried it into the wide-open net for his 11th goal of the season.
“The way we were playing I kind of think that goal sparked us a little bit,” Ambroz said. “It was nice to get a nice little tap-in like that. Boyd made a phenomenal play and I just kind of reaped the benefit of it.”
The Gophers struck again 20 seconds later when Hudson Fasching tipped a blue-line shot by Jake Bischoff past PJ Musico.
Minnesota continued its torrid scoring pace in the second period when it put four more goals past Musico. Fasching said that Lucia emphasized getting the puck to Musico more and said that Minnesota’s bench boss sensed that Penn State’s goaltender was “a little shaky.”
Lucia was right. Minnesota posted four goals before the horn sounded at the end of the second.
Rau tipped Fasching’s shot for the Gophers’ third goal of the game. Penn State’s James Robinson responded by hammering a shot amongst a crowd of players past Wilcox to briefly pull the Nittany Lions to within one goal.
Freshman defenseman Ryan Colins scored his first career goal on a wrist shot from the blue line to re-extend the lead to two goals and Rau and Fasching each scored their second goal of the game to extend Minnesota’s lead to four.
Matthew Skoff replaced Musico in net after Fasching’s second goal. The two teams played a sleepy third period, with Minnesota focused more on defending.
Lucia said that the team didn’t scoreboard watch before the game and claimed that nobody knew about Michigan State beating Michigan.
“To be honest, this game was huge for us for the NCAA tournament,” he said. “That was the most important thing. It was great that we won the Big Ten … but had we not won tonight it would have dropped us maybe to [No.] 17 or [No.] 18 and now you’re forced to win the Big Ten Championship in order to get a bid.”
The loss meant that Penn State finished its second season in the Big Ten with an 18-14-4 record. The Nittany Lions went 10-9-1 in conference play and will be the No. 4 seed in the Big Ten Tournament next weekend.
“We’re thrilled with our season,” coach Guy Gadowsky said. “Absolutely thrilled, and we’re very much looking forward to going to Detroit and seeing if we can make any noise there. I think we came a long, long, way, I think we improved a ton and I think we gained a lot from valuable experiences like [this weekend’s losses].”
