One night after Minnesota and Minnesota State combined for 19 power plays but only one man-advantage goal, the Gophers turned on the power en route to a 6-3 win at the inaugural State of Minnesota Hockey Showcase.<\/p>\n
Fifth-ranked Minnesota scored four power-play goals, including Jordan Schroeder’s first two collegiate tallies, and broke the game open in the third period to coast to a win after playing four straight overtime contests against the No. 12 Mavericks.<\/p>\n
“It took us a period to get going tonight,” said Minnesota head coach Don Lucia. “Obviously the power play was big — much better tonight in getting some pucks through, and that was the difference in the game.”<\/p>\n
“The power play was huge tonight,” said Gopher defenseman Cade Fairchild, who assisted on four goals. “When that thing’s clicking, it’s going to be tough to stop.”<\/p>\n
Despite the loss, Minnesota State head coach Troy Jutting saw some good things from his players.<\/p>\n
“Believe it or not, I thought it was one of the best games we’ve played all year … other than on the shorthanded situations,” said Jutting, whose team outscored Minnesota at even strength.<\/p>\n
“I think tonight was the fewest penalties we’ve taken all year,” he added. “But if you go to the box eight times against a team that has skilled players like Minnesota does, they’re going to get you.”<\/p>\n
And they did. With the Gophers trailing 2-1 midway through the second period, Schroeder scored the first of four straight Minnesota goals, firing the puck home from high in the right circle on a cross-ice pass by Fairchild.<\/p>\n
On the power play again three minutes later, David Fischer gave Minnesota its first lead of the game at 14:48, taking a pass high in the zone from Aaron Ness and easing his way toward the net before unleashing a pinpoint blast through a mess of bodies.<\/p>\n
The puck landed just inside the left post to produce Fischer’s first goal of the season, Ness’ first point as a Gopher and a 3-2 Minnesota advantage.<\/p>\n
Minnesota extended its lead to two at 11:41 of the third, with Mike Carman redirecting a shot by Fischer over MSU netminder Mike Zacharias (32 saves) for a 4-2 score and some breathing room for the first time on the weekend.<\/p>\n
Finally, after a Kael Mouillierat penalty, the Gophers put the game away with their fourth power-play goal of the evening. Schroeder did the honors once more, knocking home a cross-crease pass from captain Ryan Stoa.<\/p>\n
With the outcome essentially in the books, MSU’s Jerad Stewart scored with just under two minutes to play, and Ryan Flynn added the empty-netter for Minnesota to account for the final score.<\/p>\n
“It’s kind of a relief,” said Schroeder about getting his first pair of goals, although he leads the team with six assists. “The past couple of games I had some chances, but it was a team effort.”<\/p>\n
The first period didn’t bear much resemblance to Friday night’s choppy shotfest, with only four penalties. Much of the period was played in the neutral zone, with few grade-A chances and most of the shots coming from the perimeter.<\/p>\n
The Mavericks opened the scoring at 2:34 of the second period with a rebound goal. Rookie winger Mike Louwerse put it through the five-hole of Alex Kangas (25 saves) to give MSU a 1-0 lead.<\/p>\n
But penalties to Minnesota State’s Brian Kilburg and Ben Youds gave Minnesota a five-on-three shortly thereafter, and the Gophers took advantage with Ryan Stoa’s sixth goal of the year.<\/p>\n
The Gopher captain worked a two-man play with defenseman Cade Fairchild that ended with Stoa putting away a hard-angle shot at the five-minute mark. The assist was Fairchild’s first of four on the evening, after scoring just one point in the Gophers’ first five games.<\/p>\n
On a subsequent five-on-three of MSU’s own, Louwerse promptly converted again, scoring off the rebound of Kurt Davis’ point shot for his second goal of the game and fourth of the season.<\/p>\n
Another brief two-man advantage ensued for Minnesota State, but to no avail. The Gophers started their turnaround shortly thereafter, thanks to their reactivated five-on-four offense.<\/p>\n
“The power play can be streaky,” said Lucia. “You can go 0-for-10 one night and get four the next.”<\/p>\n
Both teams see action next weekend, with Minnesota (4-0-2, 4-0-2 WCHA) hosting New Hampshire in a nonconference series and Minnesota State (3-2-1, 1-2-1 WCHA) making the long trek northwest to visit Alaska-Anchorage in WCHA play.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
One night after Minnesota and Minnesota State combined for 19 power plays but only one man-advantage goal, the Gophers turned on the power en route to a 6-3 win at the inaugural State of Minnesota Hockey Showcase. Fifth-ranked Minnesota scored four power-play goals, including Jordan Schroeder’s first two collegiate tallies, and broke the game open […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"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\/9073"}],"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\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9073"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9073\/revisions"}],"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=9073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9073"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=9073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}