{"id":18613,"date":"2014-02-01T23:36:15","date_gmt":"2014-02-02T05:36:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/?p=18613"},"modified":"2014-02-01T23:36:15","modified_gmt":"2014-02-02T05:36:15","slug":"rau-goal-stands-up-as-minnesota-edges-michigan-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/2014\/02\/01\/rau-goal-stands-up-as-minnesota-edges-michigan-state\/","title":{"rendered":"Rau goal stands up as Minnesota edges Michigan State"},"content":{"rendered":"

MINNEAPOLIS — <\/strong>A day after Minnesota and Michigan State tied, the two teams came out Saturday with another close, hard-fought effort. Top-ranked Minnesota won 1-0, despite a strong performance from Michigan State goaltender Jake Hildebrand.<\/p>\n

Hildebrand did everything he could to keep his game in it, stopping 37 of the 38 shots he faced on the night, but the Spartans were unable to score on a Minnesota defense that looked improved from the night before.<\/p>\n

“They were blocking shots, they were backchecking hard, they were defending hard, so space was hard to come by,” Michigan State head coach Tom Anastos said.<\/p>\n

Minnesota’s defense allowed just 19 shots on goal on the night.<\/p>\n

“[Sophomore goaltender Adam Wilcox] didn’t have to make a lot of saves,” Minnesota coach Don Lucia said. “It was something we had talked about. We’ve given up a lot of shots recently. We had to play better defensively and take away more time and space.”<\/p>\n

Minnesota’s defense did just that Saturday, and Wilcox did his job, stopping all 19 shots that came his way.<\/p>\n

“Toward the end of the season … that’s how all of the games are going to be,” Wilcox said. “They’re going to be low scoring. Defenses are going to tighten up; that’s going to kind of be everyone’s game plan.”<\/p>\n

The Gophers came out strong and dominated first-period play, giving up just four shots on goal and taking 16.<\/p>\n

“We anticipated that; we thought we were going to have to weather the storm,” Anastos said.<\/p>\n

For the most part, his team did.<\/p>\n

Minnesota had a near-goal just 2:29 into the game. The shot by sophomore forward Ryan Reilly was originally ruled a goal, but the referees would eventually overturn it.<\/p>\n

Despite a multitude of scoring chances in the first, the Gophers scored just once. Junior forward Kyle Rau’s seventh goal of the season would be the game-winner in a game dominated by the goaltenders.<\/p>\n

With the Gophers’ chances, Rau said he didn’t think his goal would stand as the game’s lone score.<\/p>\n

“I thought we’d get more, but they’ve got a great goalie; we knew it was going to be a close game,” Rau said.<\/p>\n

Michigan State’s offense was unable to crack Wilcox Saturday.<\/p>\n

Anastos said his team came out of the first period thinking they were just a shot away, but the Spartans’ offense, which ranks near the bottom of the conference standings, was unable to capitalize.<\/p>\n

“We’ve got to figure out how to finish off more of these opportunities, both on special teams and five-on-five situations,” Anastos said.<\/p>\n

For Minnesota, Lucia tinkered with his lineup between games, and though Hildebrand stopped almost all of the Gophers’ offensive chances, they scored when they needed to.<\/p>\n

“Even though we only scored one [goal], we had a lot of good quality chances tonight, so a much better game and effort from us,” Lucia said.<\/p>\n

Even though the offense wasn’t abundant, it was enough.<\/p>\n

“Whatever it takes, we’ve got to find a way to win,” Lucia said. “It’s all about how well you play without the puck and defensively, and we did a much better job of that tonight.”<\/p>\n

With the win, Minnesota will take home the Mariucci-Bessone Trophy after going 2-0-2 against Michigan State in regular season play.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MINNEAPOLIS — A day after Minnesota and Michigan State tied, the two teams came out Saturday with another close, hard-fought effort. Top-ranked Minnesota won 1-0, despite a strong performance from Michigan State goaltender Jake Hildebrand. Hildebrand did everything he could to keep his game in it, stopping 37 of the 38 shots he faced on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":22374,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18613"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18613"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18613\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18614,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18613\/revisions\/18614"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18613"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=18613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}