Gophers Sweep Tommies

ST. PAUL, Minn. — Hockey is an emotional game and players need to keep their emotions in check to keep things from getting out of control.

That wasn’t the case for the St. Thomas men’s squad Saturday night at the Xcel Energy Center. After getting handed a 7-1 defeat Friday at the hands of No. 5 Minnestota, the Tommies were looking to bounce back, but a costly major penalty by Matthew Gleason in the second period led to two Golden Gophers goals and Minnesota ended up cruising to a 6-2 victory to complete the series sweep.

“Obviously, the better team won tonight,” said Tommies coach Rico Blasi. “I thought we played hard. I thought we came out really well again. Our emotions got the best of us, and we took a couple of undisciplined penalties. You can’t do that against a good team.”

When asked if tonight was a learning experience for his team in regard to physical play, Blasi said that playing hard and physical was part of the Tommies’ identity, but they didn’t make better decisions.

“Obviously, we’ve got to keep our hands down and be smart about it, and we didn’t do that tonight,” he said. “So, we’re going to have to continue to focus on that. I think it’s just a mindset in making sure that we do that. We know that. Our guys know that. We got caught up in the emotion tonight, and it’s unacceptable.”

For the Gophers, it was another strong victory as they’ve now won four games in a row with impressive offensive showings. Coach Bob Motzko said that their power play unit needed to step up, and it did as they picked up three goals.

Cooper Gay (No. 20) scored his third goal of the season on Oct. 26 to give St. Thomas a 1-0 lead over the Gophers in the first period at Xcel Energy Center. (Photo courtesy of Shannon Stieg)

“There was a lot of 50-50 hockey last night, and then tonight was special teams,” Motzko said. “Our power play needed to answer the bell, and you have to do that in the season. We needed to get our power play going and got three of them tonight, and that was big. I didn’t like the shorty we gave up at the end, but I also liked some maturity in our team. We kept our cool. We tried to stay out of it and just play hockey and get through it. We got pucks deep at the end, and we made smart line changes and some things you probably don’t want to hear about. But we played with some maturity tonight with a lead, and I liked that.”

Motzko also said that he and his staff emphasized the importance of taking all of the games against the fellow Minnesota schools like UST seriously, since the smaller schools see it as a big event.

“We addressed it this year with our guys at the start of the year,” he said. “There’s been some years that hadn’t been great for us at times, and we kind of challenged our guys. It started with our exhibition game with St. Cloud. That we wanted to really be on top of our game and take our nonconference against in-state teams seriously because they take it seriously against us and they want to come after us. We’ve got great leadership and great veterans that have taken hold of that, and I’m proud of them.”

Lamb takes advantage of Gleason’s major penalty
Just like Friday’s contest, UST struck first. At the 4:19 mark, Tommies defenseman Mason Poolman sent a pass from the point to forward Cooper Gay and he tapped it past Gophers goalie Liam Souliere to make it 1-0.

However, the Gophers weren’t deterred and continued to put pressure on the Tommies and goalie Aaron Trotter. Minnesota caught a break at the 10:42 mark as Trotter made a save on a Ryan Chesley shot, but the shot trickled through his pads and into the back of the net, tying the game 1-1.

Minnesota got on the scoreboard again less than two minutes later while on the power play. A Sam Rinzel shot was saved by Trotter, but the puck was free by the left post and the Gophers’ Brody Lamb tapped it into the open net to put them up 2-1 heading into the second period.

That’s when the Gophers broke the game open. Gleason was whistled for a contact to the head major penalty and a game misconduct. Lamb took advantage, scoring two goals on the lengthy power play to complete his natural hat trick. His second goal of the game came at the 6:43 mark when he one-timed a pass from Luke Mittelstadt into the back of the net, and then his third came at 8:36 when he beat Trotter to the right post to push Minnesota’s lead to 4-1. With less than a minute left in the period, the Gophers’ Aaron Huglen made it 5-1 going into the third.

UST got a goal back while trying to kill another major penalty early in the third as forward Liam Malmquist slid past the Gophers’ power play unit and scored on a shorthanded breakaway at the 4:02 mark. However, any hopes of a Tommies comeback were squashed at the 6:57 mark when Minnesota’s Connor Kurth scored his sixth goal of the season.

Next weekend, the Tommies host CCHA foe Augustana for the first time, while the Gophers open Big Ten play against Penn State.