Not for himself, Souliere was the backup goalie, but rather for goaltending partner Nathan Airey. Souliere felt such urgency to secure the puck from Airey’s first collegiate shutout that he is still uncertain if the final horn sounded before jumped on the ice.

“Was the game over?” Airey asked Souliere.

Souliere’s response: “I might have been on the ice before the game was over. No joke, I might have.”

Souliere got the puck for Airey following his 32-save performance, and the sophomore delivered a message right back. “OK, your turn. You go get one.”

Souliere didn’t disappoint as he stopped 22 shots in a 2-0 victory last Saturday to give the Gophers a sweep of then-No. 6 Wolverines and move Minnesota into the No. 1 spot in both college hockey polls this week.

No plan? It’s working.
Bob Motzko has his team atop the rankings doing something he usually eschews: Employing a goalie rotation. Since Motzko took over as Gophers coach in 2018-19, he has had two goalies start double-digit games only twice in a season. The last time it happened was in 2021-22, when Jack LaFontaine turned pro in January, forcing Motzko to turn to Justen Close. Close started 92 games over the next two-plus seasons.

Gophers goaltender Liam Souliere spent four seasons at Penn State before arriving at the University of Minnesota and becoming part of a successful goaltending duo. (MHM Photo / Jeff Wegge)

But Close’s departure after last spring created an opportunity for Airey, who missed almost the entire first half of 2023-24 because of injury, and also led Motzko to bring in Souliere, a graduate transfer who had spent four seasons at Big Ten rival Penn State.

The fact Motzko hasn’t picked a primary starter is a credit to Airey and Souliere.

“We have no plan,” Motzko said when asked about his goalie plan. “Just keep doing what we’re doing. We didn’t set it out to be a plan; it’s just working out that way right now. Both guys are doing great.”

Souliere’s 1.37 goals-against average is the best in Division I, and Airey isn’t far behind at 1.99. Airey’s 9-0-1 record makes him one of only two goalies in Division I to not have a loss. Souliere has a .943 saves percentage; Airey is at .918.

They have rotated all season, except for a late November series against Notre Dame when Airey got back-to-back starts in a pair of victories. Otherwise, it’s been Airey in the opener and Souliere the following night. Souliere made 28 saves in a 1-0 shutout against his former team on Nov. 2, a night after Airey stopped 21 of 22 shots in a 3-1 win against Penn State.

Tight friendship off the ice
One reason this system has worked so well is because the two have become so close. Talking to them in a lounge just outside the Gophers locker room on Tuesday, you got that feeling that they are more like brothers than hockey buddies.

Airey, 21, is from Cochrane, Alberta, and Souliere, 25, is from Montreal. The two had never met before the offseason and chatted a few times once Souliere arrived. But they hit it off during a trip to the Minnesota State Fair to help promote Gophers hockey.

“We’re both Canadian,” Airey said. “There was poutine and whatnot (at the Fair), so we were kind of comparing that and right away when you have two Canadians on a team, obviously, with Matthew (Wood, who is from British Columbia) as well, you jell right away, that’s just the reality of it. Going around that day we were talking about everything. Whether it was our pasts, or our futures and what we wanted everything to look like, we kind of went through a lot of stuff.”

Souliere appreciated the patience Airey showed in answering his many questions.

“I think I got to kind of show him my curious side,” Souliere said. “He’s a farm boy, and I knew that about him. When we went to go see the animals I was asking a bunch of questions and he was answering them. And he was happy to answer them. He could have been like, ‘Oh, this guy is weird, why is he asking me about, why do goats act like this?’ I knew that he knew a lot about all these types of different things that were happening at the State Fair and just getting to learn them. I also loved his maturity. For a younger guy, he’s super, super mature and calm. I take after that and I’ve learned a lot about that. It’s been great.”

Sophomore Gophers goaltender Nathan Airey has typically gotten the nod in net in series openers. (MHM Photo / Jeff Wegge)

Airey could have decided that after a season recovering from injury and then getting into only three games, with one start, playing behind Close, that he wanted to be the main goalie. But he welcomed the news that Souliere was coming to Minnesota and even requested the two be roommates on the road.

Airey said he had been impressed watching Souliere at Penn State and wanted to be pushed. “It was a no-brainer, I was pumped,” he said.

Airey, though, probably didn’t expect to get along this well with his goalie partner. Souliere already has a degree in finance and in some ways plays a big-brother role in a relationship that goes well beyond just talking about goaltending.

“Our interests are aligned, and that really helps,” Airey said. “We talk finance and I go to him. He’s got a lot of experience with that. We’ve talked relationships before, we’ve talked about a bunch of stuff. Whether it’s on the bus or wherever it is, we always enjoy each other’s company and we’re always on the same page.”

Rotation helps both of them
Their rotation has enabled both to pick up things from the other. Souliere can go to school on an opponent by watching Airey on Friday, and Airey can see how his veteran teammate approaches things on Saturday. The goaltenders offer different styles in part because Airey is 6-foot-3 and Souliere is 5-foot-11.

“Michigan, obviously is a super-skilled team, super-good team, and Nathan did a really, really good job of having calm feet and keeping his hands high,” Souliere said of what he picked up on Friday. “He made so many hard saves look easy and just being able to see that and understand that the success he had was because of those decisions. Not over moving his feet, keeping his hands up, tracking the puck, all those little things.

“I am going to school on Fridays and it’s awesome. I get to just feel the game out and see how he handles it and the things he’s doing that led to success.”

So what does Airey pick up from Souliere?  

“Two things for me,” he said. “First of all, his movement, it’s amazing. Whether it’s sliding, whether it’s feet-to-feet movement, it’s so smooth and crisp and it’s also quick and fast. Powerful. Another thing is he’s got so much experience, his puck movement is amazing. … Just his confidence with playing the puck is top notch. Whether it’s passing it up to a wing and bypassing the d-man sometimes. It’s just plays like that where I can just learn and watch and understand that maybe I have a little more time (to move the puck) than I think.”

Sophomore Gophers goaltender Nathan Airey, shown here in practice this week at Mariucci Arena, enters the weekend with a 1.99 goals-against average. (MHM Photo / Jeff Wegge)

The Airey-Souliere Show will return to Mariucci Arena tonight, Dec. 13, as the Gophers face a Michigan State team (12-2-0) that fell from first to third in the rankings this week.

Souliere, as usual, will be Airey’s biggest fan in the opener.

“It’s easy. I love the guy. He’s a great kid and well raised,” Souliere said. “This is a team game and whoever is doing the job is doing the job, and right now we’re both doing it. It’s wonderful and, to be honest, it’s kind of nice. We get to just talk about the game together after games and we kind of just feed off each other.

“He’ll go on Friday and do fantastic, and it kind of just pushes me to have to do the same. I’m pretty sure that if I do great on the Saturday, he feels the responsibility to keep it up on the Friday and it’s kind of like a give-and-go kind of thing we have going and it’s been awesome.”

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The post Gophers Goalie Tandem appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

The line of Jimmy Clark between wingers Connor Kurth and Matthew Wood was listed fourth. That had been one of the Gophers’ hottest lines entering the weekend and proceeded to combine for two goals and six points in a 7-1 victory over the Tommies on Friday at Mariucci Arena. A night later, it was first line winger Brody Lamb who scored three goals, all on the power play, in a 6-2 victory over St. Thomas at Xcel Energy Center.

Bob Motzko, in his seventh season as the Gophers’ coach, was asked about having such an embarrassment of scoring riches.

“The only problem we have is we have to start a line, that means one line has to be fourth,” Motzko said. “We’re trying to build it into how we have to play selfless hockey and one line after another with the attack. I love how hard they’re working. I love their compete (level) and we have four lines that can get after it.”

This comes as no surprise — at least from a talent perspective.

Talent, compete level have Gophers off to strong start
The Gophers might no longer get all of the top players in the state, but recruiting top-level talent from both inside and outside the state isn’t an issue. The challenge for Motzko is getting that talent to jell into a cohesive unit that wants to grind as much as they want to score.

This is what makes Motzko so happy about a 5-1-0 start in which his team has outscored opponents 33-12, including having seven goals three times, six goals once and five in another.

“If you’re going to win big, the compete in this sport has got to be number one,” Motzko said. “You recruited the talent. They all have a history of having that. But playing with that tenacity and grit and a ground game (forechecking) and being selfless, that’s a learned skill as well. It’s a short snapshot (of the season). I was asked how many games does it take? I said that I usually like the month of October.”

Motzko said this last Friday and the Gophers won’t play again until opening the Big Ten season against Penn State this weekend.

Spend time around the Gophers and the fact they embrace the grit and grind isn’t a surprise. Players talk about how many of them stuck around this offseason to work in the weight room and bond away from the rink. This type of talk can be cliched, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.

“It started in the summer,” defenseman Sam Rinzel said. “All the guys being in the weight room competing, trying to outlift each other or whatever it is. But we can get on each other and we can kind of hold ourselves accountable. I think that’s important for our team … we’re like glue together. So, our team is pretty close.”

The closeness of a team is important, in large part because of what Rinzel said. It enables players to hold each other accountable, without creating division.

“I think everyone on the team has good chemistry,” Wood said. “Everyone loves each other, and that’s a big part of it. Off ice, everyone is just a really good person and I think that really helps.”

Motzko has taken the Gophers to the NCAA tournament in each of the past four seasons, and two years ago his team fell short with an overtime loss in the Frozen Four championship against Quinnipiac. These Gophers are seeking their first title since 2003.

Minnesota’s four lines aren’t the only ones who can produce goals.

High-end defensemen contributing offense
Last season, the blue line combined for only nine. This season, that number is at eight through six games, thanks to four goals apiece by Rinzel, a sophomore, and Ryan Chesley, a junior. Mike Koster’s decision to return for a fifth season after missing the first month of last season because of injury was a big boost to the blue line.

“We really thought in the offseason that our d-corps was going to be much higher-end offensively,” Motzko said. “Obviously with Mikey (Koster) back, but then the three juniors, or upperclassmen, with much more confidence. And Luke Mittelstadt is playing as good as any defensemen I’ve seen in a long time. He’s not being rewarded offensively yet. And (Leo) Gruba is yet to come. So offensively we’ve got a d-corps that can push it and be led by a couple of guys right now. We felt that could happen.”

The biggest question mark is in goal, where sophomore Nathan Airey and transfer Liam Souliere split the St. Thomas series.

Souliere, who was the primary starter for Penn State the past two seasons, is the best bet to take over the full-time role. Souliere had his goals-against average rise from 2.43 to 3.38 from 2022-23 to 2023-24 and his save percentage sank from .917 to .874. Airey was the backup to Justen Close as a freshman but only played in three games.

Close and the Gophers got to the final game of the NCAA Sioux Falls Regional before losing to Boston University. This team is hoping that talent combined with work ethic can take them to a place this program hasn’t been since 2003.

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The post Goals For Gophers appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

The University of Minnesota, for example, has a backlog of traditional rivals that go back to Michigan, Michigan State and North Dakota from the early days of college hockey. More recently, the expansion of Division I college hockey teams within Minnesota has led to ferocious rivalries mainly with the University of Minnesota Duluth, and still more recently, Wisconsin and St. Cloud State, along with Minnesota State Mankato and Bemidji State, and St. Thomas arriving on the DI scene.

By going into the Big Ten Conference, the Gophers pretty well forfeited the intensity of the rivalries with North Dakota, UMD and the other in-state colleges, in exchange for keeping Wisconsin and renewing acquaintances with Michigan and Michigan State. Another thing that is certain is that even if the Gophers don’t consider some of those in-state foes as huge rivals, all of them point to the Gophers as the team they most want to beat.

Gophers goaltender Justen Close got the tip of his pad on this shot by UMD’s Luke Bast (38). (MHM Photo / John Gilbert)

In the middle of November, the Gophers can’t take a weekend off from running a gauntlet of those big rivalries. After a banner season that ended as the NCAA Frozen Four runner-up, the Gophers enjoyed some early weeks as the No. 1-ranked team in the country — despite the signing of five defensemen and three prize forwards that are, frankly, impossible to replace.

The Gophers opened with tune-up victories over Bemidji State and a pair against St.Thomas — including a breathtaking 6-5 overtime win in their season opener against the Tommies. Then things got serious, as Minnesota split a series at North Dakota, then returned to 3M Arena at Mariucci and felt the sting of a pair of setbacks pinned on them by Wisconsin, 5-2 and 3-2.

That set up last weekend’s home-and-home series against UMD, which began under a cloak of emotion as the teams paid pregame tributes both nights to Adam Johnson, a quick and skilled center who played for Hibbing/Chisholm and UMD. Johnson died Oct. 28 after a tragic incident during a game in England when an opponent’s skate made contact with Johnson’s neck.

Tributes have been constant from all around the world, and a celebration of life for Johnson was held in Hibbing earlier this week. Without a doubt, the emotional drain for the Bulldogs left them running on empty for their first game against the Gophers last weekend, losing 5-1 at Mariucci to the speedy Gophers.

The next night, the rivalry shifted to Duluth where UMD rebounded with a 4-3 shootout victory at AMSOIL Arena, which the NCAA counts as a tie. Both games were sellouts, with more than 10,000 at Mariucci and 7,345 at AMSOIL.

Time for a breather? It would be nice, but the Gophers go right to Ann Arbor to face Michigan. For any team, facing North Dakota, Wisconsin’s rejuvenated Badgers, UMD and Michigan on consecutive weekends should earn a trip to Acapulco. But not in the crazy world of college hockey’s biggest rivalries.

“We knew it would be a tough series against Duluth,” said Gopher coach Bob Motzko, after the Bulldogs came back from a lethargic first game for a high-speed and intense rematch. “We knew they’d be better in the second game. And we’re not close to getting into our offensive rhythm yet. They had a quick start and we took two really bad penalties. On the road, you have to be disciplined.”

Rhett Pitlick continues his flight as UMD secures shootout victory. (MHM Photo / John Gilbert)

Back-and-forth between Gophers, Bulldogs
UMD, on the other hand, is also rebuilding a bit, and the experience gained early by the Bulldogs, who started off 3-0-2 with both of the ties being shootout wins, got another shot at the game-deciding plan, which counts for an extra point in league play but is only for deciding official ties in interleague play.

In the second game of the weekend between UMD and the Gophers, the Bulldogs’ Jack Smith scored his first collegiate goal for a 1-0 lead, but Jimmy Snuggerud tied it with his sixth goal of the season for Minnesota. Midway through the second period, Snuggerud took a cross-checking penalty in front of UMD’s goal — one of the bad penalties Motzko later referred to. It was made worse when UMD’s Cole Spicer showed the merits of getting a chance to center the first line and drilled a power-play goal to regain the lead at 2-1. Minnesota again tied it, when Aaron Huglen scored a power-play goal after UMD coach Scott Sandelin might have had a gripe about the hooking penalty Kyler Kleven was assessed to create that Minnesota power play.

Minnesota took a 3-2 lead when Jaxon Nelson scored later in the second period, which ended with Connor Kurth took a last-minute penalty for hooking. The overlapping power play gave UMD’s top sniper, Ben Steeves, a small opening, which was all he needed to drill a perfect pass to the top of the right circle from Luke Loheit at 0:53 of the third period for a 3-3 tie. It stayed deadlocked through to the end of regulation and 3-on-3 overtime, which was mostly 4-on-3 because Minnesota’s Rhett Pitlick was called for an extra man, and then UMD’s Carter Loney was called for tripping Snuggerud as he tried to break out of the Minnesota end to give the Gophers the extra skater.

But repeated blocks of Gopher missiles and some huge saves by UMD goaltender Matthew Thiessen held the tie, and it was on to the shootout, where Thiessen again was the star. Brett Olson skated in and beat Gophers netminder Justen Close inside the left post on the first try, and Thiessen made a big save on Brody Lamb at the other end. Steeves then skated in and whistled a shot past Close on the second UMD try, so when Thiessen went down and stacked the pads to block Pitlick’s shot and send him flying across the crease, UMD had regained its form with a 4-3 shootout victory (though officially a tie).

UMD sophomore Cole Spicer celebrated his goal that gave the Bulldogs a 2-1 lead in Saturday night’s 3-3 tie with Minnesota. (MHM Photo / John Gilbert)

Familiar foe for UMD’s Spicer
Spicer’s goal in the game was another contribution to the rivalry scenario.

“I played two years at the U-18 team in the U.S. Development program,” Spicer said. “When I was there, I was teammates with Snuggerud and Ryan Chesley of the Gophers.”

So, matching goals with Snuggerud was a special treat for Spicer, a sophomore who didn’t play much last year after transferring from North Dakota. Spicer grew up in Grand Forks, and his family has a tradition of great athletes who all played for the Fighting Sioux back in the day when that nickname was proper.

“I committed to North Dakota when I was 14 years old, because my dream growing up was to play there,” Spicer said. “I left high school after one year and played on a Triple-A team in Michigan, then played my junior and senior years on the U-18 team. A year ago, I went to North Dakota and enrolled as a freshman, but they told me because of COVID, some older players had stayed for a fifth year, and they brought in some older junior players, so they wanted me to go back and play another year in junior.”

To say that was a disappointment would be an understatement, so Spicer decommitted at UND and opened his recruiting channels again. UMD associate head coach Adam Krause called Spicer, followed by a call from Sandelin, according to Spicer.

“I accepted their offer right away, because I love the whole culture at UMD,” Spicer said. “Coach Sandelin might have great players or not, but he manages to win. We’ve got a big family here. I’m living with four other guys, and we get together and have other players over to our place every Sunday to watch football and have a lot of laughs. Everybody is a great guy on this team, and I don’t regret what happened to me at all.”

Spicer, who was placed between grad students Quinn Olson and Loheit on the first line when Dominic James suffered a season-ending injury two weeks into the season, now has four goals and is seeing quality time on both the power play and penalty kills. And as rivalries go, he has another one coming up imminently.

North Dakota comes to Duluth for a series to open the NCHC regular season at AMSOIL Arena.

The post Rivalry: Gophers vs. Bulldogs appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

But last week’s action involving Minnesota’s six Division I college hockey teams resulted in some impressive goaltending performances that made headlines in the Big Ten Conference, the National Collegiate Hockey Conference, the Central Collegiate Hockey Assocation, the women’s Western Collegiate Hockey Association for women, and even the NHL.

The Minnesota Gophers stayed at the top of national men’s ratings, despite splitting two games at North Dakota, with the goaltending of Justen Close. He was responsible for the Gophers’ 4-0 victory in game one, and he couldn’t be faulted when he made 32 saves when the Fighting Hawks came back to beat Minnesota 2-1 in the rematch at Ralph Engelstad Arena in Grand Forks.

Close’s first-game victory gave him back-to-back shutouts. But the Hawks got 21 saves from Ludvig Persson, their goaltender of the hour, in game two. Minnesota’s loss didn’t cause it to drop out of the No. 1 national ranking because both Boston University and Michigan, ranked No. 2 and No. 3, also lost over the weekend. The only movement among the top five was North Dakota, which appropriately moved up from fifth to fourth and served notice to their NCHC rivals that they are, indeed, equipped for contention.

Frost gets 2-year extension; WCHA packs top-10 rankings
The Gopher women, also ranking high at No. 4 in the WCHA, gave coach Brad Frost a two-year contract extension because he simply forms a contending team year after year. They stand No. 4 after running up a 5-0 record in the early going, including a WCHA midweek match with ever-improving St. Cloud State. The Gophers lost a lot of offensive firepower from last season, causing Frost to proclaim that it will take a more defensive posture to win this year, and beating the Huskies was a clear example.

Frost’s goaltender was Skylar Vetter, who was trying for the fourth-straight Gophers shutout. Avery Farrell spoiled the shutout big with a goal with 5.2 seconds left in the third period. Minnesota had gained the advantage when Ava Lindsay scored midway through the second period, and Taylor Stewart, a fifth-year transfer from University of Minnesota Duluth, scored a short-handed goal into an empty net with 47 seconds left. Fifth-year goaltender Jojo Chobak — another transfer from UMD — was pulled for a 6-on-3 skater edge. The Gophers won 2-1.

The Gopher women have a big challenge this weekend, with a trip to Ohio State (5-1), which is ranked No. 2 in the WCHA-dominated top 10. Wisconsin, Ohio State, Colgate and Minnesota make up the top-four ranked teams, followed by unbeaten Quinnipiac and Yale. UMD (4-2) is ranked No. 7 with St. Cloud State (7-2) rising to No. 10. 

UMD swept Minnesota State Mankato in WCHA play by 3-1 and 4-1 margins. Mary Kate O’Brien, Reece Hunt and Hanna Baskin scored for the Bulldogs in game one. In the second game, Gabby Krause scored a pair of goals to go with goals from O’Brien and Jenna Lawry. Bulldogs freshman goaltender Eve Gascon made 21 saves in the second game, and she was named WCHA Rookie of the Week for her stinginess. 

An interesting part of this coming weekend’s UMD trip to Bemidji State is that it will be a homecoming of sorts for Hunt. She transferred from Bemidji State to UMD for her fifth year, seeking a master’s degree in business with UMD’s curriculum.

Bemidji State’s Mattias Scholl watches his blocked UMD shot trickle past him. (MHM Photo / John Gilbert)

Cohasset natives shine in net at college, NHL levels
Minnesota-Duluth’s men may have good reason to help the good folks of Cohasset, Minn., a tiny mining town on the Western tip of the Iron Range, build a statue to goaltenders. Hunter Shepard, a Cohasset native, is a former Grand Rapids High School standout who guided the Thunderhawks to the Class 2A state tournament before playing junior hockey on his way to UMD. He was the MVP as the Bulldogs won back-to-back NCAA championships. Shepard recorded 15 shutouts in his days at UMD.

While he continued to do his hometown of Cohasset proud by winning the American Hockey League’s Calder Cup trophy for Washington’s AHL franchise, he was called up to start his first NHL game for the Washington Capitals vs. New Jersey on Oct. 25. That was the same day that current UMD goaltender Zach Stejskal was named NCHC Co-Goaltender of the Week for recording his first collegiate shutout in last Friday’s 4-0 victory over Bemidji State before also surviving a wild, power-play-filled shootout to beat the Beavers 5-4 in overtime Saturday in Bemidji.

“I know I came close a lot of times,” Stejskal said, of getting a shutout victory. “I remember one game we were tied 0-0 against St. Cloud, and they beat us 1-0 in overtime. When we’d win and I’d give up a goal late, I’d always say that shutouts didn’t matter, winning was what was important. But now that I finally got a shutout, I’ve got to admit, it’s pretty neat.”

Both nights, Stejskal had to outduel Bemidji State’s Matthias Scholl, who was victimized by a three-goal first period for the Bulldogs, all on power-play tallies from Matthew Perkins, Luke Bast and Aaron Pionk. The next night was not a pleasant one for either Stejskal or Scholl.

“I thought their goalie (Scholl) played great,” said UMD coach Scott Sandelin. “We looked really confident on our power play in the first game, but there were some unnecessary penalties that we will have to tighten up.”

After a miraculous recovery from cancer, UMD senior Zach Stejskal recorded his first career shutout against Bemidji State to keep the Bulldogs unbeaten at 3-0-2. (MHM Photo / John Gilbert)

Stejskal’s story has a double impact, because he, too, is from Cohasset, Minn., and was a state tournament star at Grand Rapids before playing at UMD. After one impressive season, however, Stejskal was stunned by the news in the fall of his sophomore season that he had testicular cancer and would miss the entire season during treatment. He made it through treatment, got a clean bill of health, made it back last season and has become the No. 1 netminder as a senior for the Bulldogs.

Somebody asked Sandelin what he thought Shepard would be going through in his first NHL start at Washington, and the coach said: “Knowing Shep, he’s probably nervous, excited, and probably won’t show it.”

Unlike the 6-foot Shepard, Stejskal is 6-foot-5, towering over the crossbar, the crease and just about everybody on both teams. Maybe they’ll need twin statues up in Cohasset.

The post Glory to Goalies appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

Fans of the Minnesota state high school boys’ hockey tournament might recognize Lamb’s name from the goal fest he put together on the same sheet during the 2021 tourney. The Byron native scored six of the seven goals for his Dodge County team in a 7-3 quarterfinal victory over a depleted Hermantown squad (pandemic protocols kept most of the top Hawks out of the lineup). Lamb was the leading scorer in that tournament with 10 tallies as he led Dodge County to a runner-up finish to Gentry Academy.

Friday, Lamb scored a pair of third-period goals in a back-and-forth contest against St. Thomas, helping the Gophers achieve an eventual 6-5 overtime victory.

“Obviously it’s a little different play style from what I played in high school,” Lamb said. “The atmosphere was great tonight, obviously two big student sections. It’s always good to play in front of a loud crowd.”

Jimmy Snuggerud scores in overtime to give the Gophers a 6-5 victory. (MHM / Jonathan Watkins)

The crowd, a mix of maroon-and-gold and purple-clothed spectators, was engaged and created a fun atmosphere for the Minnesota/St. Thomas women’s and men’s hockey doubleheader. Looking around the lower bowl for the men’s game with a 7:30 p.m. puck drop was reminiscent of the turnouts for the Class 1A boys’ high school tournament.

Paid attendance for the two games (the women played at 4 p.m., an 8-0 Gophers win) was 11,376; one ticket provided entry for both contests, with St. Thomas as the home team playing at a neutral site but still in its native St. Paul.

“This is my favorite road trip now of the year,” said Gophers coach Bob Motzko. “I’ll be home by 11:02 p.m. We’ll keep it going. Our fans want it, and we’ve got to deliver it.”

Fans were treated to a very entertaining hockey game that helped establish what many hope could be a new in-state, Division I rivalry. St. Thomas, in only its third season as a DI program after moving up from Division III, faced the Gophers for the first time since January 1927 for a regular-season game.

St. Thomas entered the night on the high of splitting a series with St. Cloud State a weekend ago with an overtime victory, while the Gophers officially opened their season on Friday.

The Gophers took a 2-0 lead into the first intermission, but St. Thomas responded with a three-goal second period to grab the 3-2 lead headed for the final 20 minutes of play. The Gophers “got off script,” Motzko said, and St. Thomas capitalized.

“I have no idea who that team was playing in the second period,” Motzko said, of his Gophers.

If any fans lingered in the concourse following the second intermission, they missed out on a ton of action. Only 27 seconds in, sophomore Lucas Wahlin gave the Tommies a two-goal cushion. The momentum appeared to be all St. Thomas. But the Gophers, the nation’s runner-up last season, countered right away. Gophers sophomore Jimmy Snuggerud needed only five seconds into a power play to score his first goal of the game, and only 20 seconds after Wahlin.

Then it was time for Snuggerud’s linemate Lamb to put on his show. Still only 2 minutes, 8 seconds into the third period, Lamb tied the game 4-4 with a perfect top-shelf wrister from the slot. Four minutes later, Lamb struck again for his first collegiate multi-goal game to give the Gophers a 5-4 lead.

Maintaining a positive attitude throughout the third period was key for the Gophers bench, according to Lamb.

“Two-goal lead’s the worst lead in hockey,” Lamb said. “So, I think just staying composed, talking to everyone on the bench, staying positive.”

Gophers goaltender Justen Close made 31 saves against St. Thomas on Oct. 13. (MHM / Jonathan Watkins)

But Wahlin countered again for the Tommies with 6:43 left in regulation. Snuggerud scored the overtime winner to avoid the season-opener upset for a 6-5 Gophers victory. The Gophers avoided what would have been an eye-popping loss, but also put on some entertainment for the fans.

Wahlin, who scored twice and added an assist, credited the Gophers but also noted how the Tommies battled back from being down 2-0 early.

“We’re right there with the No. 1 team in the nation,” Wahlin said. “It is tough. Definitely a good hockey game and a good team.

“They got the last bounce, but it’s the way it goes.”

Saturday, the home-and-home series moved to 3M Arena at Mariucci. The Gophers finished off the sweep with a 3-0 victory, with Snuggerud scoring two a pair of goals before Lamb, who assisted on the second goal, scored an empty-netter in the final minute. The Tommies pressured but couldn’t get a goal past Justen Close, who made 24 saves for the shutout.  

After Friday’s game, St. Thomas coach Rico Blasi said his team was taking the necessary steps to progress and make sure they’re in more games than not.

“So, we were in that game (Friday),” Blasi said. “Do I think we’re there yet? Probably not. But we’re getting close.”

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