Rivalry games raise excitement, expectations, and when it comes to Minnesota college hockey, bragging rights for best program in the state of hockey. The University of Minnesota is riding a streak of five regular season conference titles, but after getting swept by St. Cloud State in October, the Gophers also are riding a streak of losses to in-state schools.

The Gophers led both nights against the Huskies during the latest rivalry series, but St. Cloud State rallied for a series sweep, handing Minnesota their 14th loss in their last 15 games against in-state rivals. The only Gopher victory in that span was a 4-0 win over Minnesota State on Nov. 13, 2015.

“I want to believe it has nothing to do with the in-state games or anything, we can’t finish,” Leon Bristedt said. “It’s all about executing; it’s all about finishing and winning games. Unfortunately, we haven’t found a way of really doing that with in-state rivalries, but we can only look forward to new games coming up. We can look back and learn, but what’s happened, it’s in the past.”

The past is hard to ignore with this group.

Minnesota has sustained six of their 14 losses in the third period. The 2016 North Star College Cup saw the Gophers take a 2-1 lead against Bemidji State and lose 4-2, and the next day tie Minnesota State in the third period only to lose in overtime. Minnesota played the Huskies close in their Nov. 27, 2015 series opener, but gave up two late goals to lose 3-2 and then lost a turnover filled affair 7-4 in the second game of the series. The Gophers also took a 2-0 lead on Minnesota State Nov. 14, 2015 only to give up two goals in the third period and lose in overtime 3-2.

“It’s not like we take these games easier, or lighter than other games, we have these marked on our calendar as I assume they do too,” Justin Kloos said after North Star Cup last year. “But for some reason we’ve just came up short of the last almost year and a half now.”

Photo by Brent Cizek for Minnesota Hockey Magazine

The recipe for disappointment in many of the in-state games has been turnovers and poor special teams. In-state schools have outshot the Gophers 507-425 in this stretch and only twice did Minnesota have a shots-on-goal advantage. The power play scored on 10 of 50 chances during this stretch, but their penalty kill allowed 23 goals on 68 opportunities—killing penalties at just 64 percent.

Steve Johnson admitted that the recent record against in-state team is in their heads.

“Minnesota should be the best, it’s unacceptable. We’ve got to learn to play our game, get pucks deep, go to work, and play the game the right way” Johnson said.

Gopher coach Don Lucia decided after the Huskies series that he would have to change the way they practice to change the way Minnesota performs in these rivalry games.

“That’s obviously been a focus, and we talked to guys that we just have to change the way we practice,” Lucia said. “We have to be better along the walls, we have to be better below the circles on each end of the rink. We’re not getting enough in-zone offensive time for possession.”

The emphasis was more five-on-five drills and small area drills in practice to change the mindset so players realize if they lose the puck, they’ve got to work to get it back.

“The practices here have been way harder, not as much skating, but way more battling. Some guys have been almost on the edge of fighting, and I think that’s how practices should be,” Bristedt said. “Looking back at practice before we’ve done a lot of rushes and things, and you can see that’s where we score our goals off the rush and on the power play, but I think working down low and battling more is the recipe for winning more games.”

Minnesota will get a chance against Minnesota State Nov. 18 and 19 for a home and home series, and then against Minnesota Duluth and either Bemidji State or St. Cloud State in the North Star College Cup Jan. 27 and 28 for a chance to redeem themselves.

“I don’t feel any different when it comes to pressure. I notice the attention, I notice like, ‘Hey that this is a bigger game’ but as a player this is something you love and you want to be out there in these kind of games,” Bristedt said.

“I think we’ve been passive a couple times and that’s where we get caught. If we can stay on the hunt, if we can act instead of react, I think that’s where we’re going to have success.”

Story originally published in the November, 2016 issue of our digital magazine. For more stories like this, click HERE to view the November issue and subscribe to have future issues delivered directly to your email inbox. 

The post The ‘U’ Lagging in Bragging appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

These are contrasting times for St. Cloud State and Minnesota

Minneapolis – St. Cloud and Minneapolis are, and always will be, separated by 65 miles of interstate highway running northwest through central Minnesota farm country. The two cities’ Division I hockey programs, however, are traveling different directions this season and the distance is widening as the calendar flips to December.

This past weekend’s Friday-Sunday series between St. Cloud State and Minnesota provided irrefutable evidence of that following the Huskies’ first-ever regular season series sweep of the Gophers at Mariucci Arena.

With 3-2 and 7-4 victories in Minneapolis, No. 7 St. Cloud State (11-3-0, 5-1-0 NCHC) has won seven of its past eight games dating back to a pair of October road losses to Quinnipiac, which currently sits atop the Division I PairWise Rankings. The sweep boosted the Huskies up to No. 4 on that list as they head home to resume conference play on Friday against No. 6 Nebraska Omaha, ranked fifth in the PairWise.

Meanwhile, unranked Minnesota (4-7-0, 0-0-0 Big Ten) has dropped three in a row and four of its past six games dating back to an Oct. 23-24 home sweep of an overmatched Northeastern team. The Gophers open Big Ten conference play this weekend hosting Ohio State (3-9-0) on Friday and Saturday.

St. Cloud State coach Bob Motzko was, understandably, happy with his team’s performance in pulling off such a rare feat.

“This team doesn’t get swept here, hardly ever,” Motzko said. “So we have to enjoy that because they are a good hockey team.”

The last team to pull off back-to-back wins at Mariucci the same weekend was Alaska-Anchorage in that now infamous WCHA first round playoff series in March of 2011. While that weekend had much to do with what the Gophers failed to accomplish, this one was a product of the Huskies simply being better right now.

“Anytime you can get two wins on the road that’s big and especially coming into this building since they rarely let that happen,” senior defenseman Ethan Prow said. “For us seniors this is probably our last time ever playing here so that’s good for us and kind of sets a precedent for the younger guys coming into this building.

“We’ve been there before, we kind of know what it takes and if we wanted to get this thing taken care of on the road it was going to start with us.”

Motzko’s more experienced and deeper team, particularly his seniors, proved to be too much for Minnesota, both in comeback fashion on Friday and playing with a lead on Sunday. Through 14 games, Motzko’s senior class has produced 25 goals among its 71 points.

“Our seniors were large this weekend,” Motzko said. “They were a big part of our offense, especially on the special teams.”

Captains Ethan Prow (left) and David Morley are key components of a St. Cloud State senior class which has the Huskies rolling into December. (Photo courtesy of St. Cloud State University Athletics / Maddie MacFarlane)

SCSU’s five seniors (Jimmy Murray, Kalle Kossila, Joey Benik, David Morley and Prow) combined for 17 points (5-12–17) in the series including two goals and eight assists on a Huskies power play which converted at a sixty-percent clip (6-for-10) over the two games, including 4-for-7 on Sunday.

“When you get those opportunities, if you can take advantage of it, you can change the game,” Motzko said on Sunday. “And that’s what it was tonight. You can write it 10 different ways, it was a special teams game.”

St. Cloud State now ranks third in the nation on the power play at 29.8 percent (17-for-51) and third in team offense at 4.29 goals per game. The Huskies, behind the strong goaltending of junior Charlie Lindgren, are also a top ten team defensively, allowing just 1.86 goals per game.

Minnesota coach Don Lucia, was neither pleased with his team’s lack of discipline nor its penalty kill which saw is success rate fall two full percentage points from 90.6 to 78.6 percent in two games. He could not, however, fault a Gophers’ offense which has only produced 2.55 goals per game this season.

“Scoring wasn’t a problem tonight, we had four,” Lucia said Sunday night. “That was enough to win a game.”

But it wasn’t enough with a lineup featuring no seniors and seven freshmen, including goaltender Eric Schierhorn who, after allowing five goals on 20 shots on Sunday, was replaced by sophomore Nick Lehr to begin the third period.

Lucia, who has been holding steady at 399 wins behind the Minnesota bench for three straight games, said there’s a fine line between where the Gophers are and where they want to be and he does not believe they are as far away as they may seem.

“It’s great that we scored four but we need some guys, especially our juniors, they need to score,” Lucia said. “With so many young guys, we need some of those guys to score.”

While Minnesota’s freshmen (2-4–6 points) outscored St. Cloud State’s rookies (4 assists) in the series, the impact of SCSU’s freshmen (9-29–38) through two months of the season has dwarfed that of the Gophers (6-9–15). Even so, Motzko admitted he’s been holding them back to a degree.

“Our freshmen would be further along if we could play them on the power play,” Motzko said. “They’re power-play players and we’ve kind of got older guys so they’re not getting many looks on the power play and that’s such a developmental time for young guys so we kind of have to do it through practice and gain the confidence because they’ve been a big part of what we’re doing.”

Prow, whose defensive partner is freshman Jimmy Schuldt, said the contribution from the rookies has been huge.

“Anytime that the young guys can step up into key roles and really help us out it plays a big part,” Prow said. “It goes through our whole lineup, it’s very deep and I think everybody’s starting to get their role and they know what to do.”

On the bright side for Minnesota, which outshot the Huskies 33-26 on Sunday, the Gophers scored on both power plays as in the series finale as Minnesota went 3-for-4 with the man advantage on the weekend. In addition, sophomore forward Leon Bristedt factored into five of his team’s six goals in the series to boost his team-leading points total to 12 (5-7–12).

“We play hockey because we love to be together and we love to win and, when you don’t win, it’s tough,” Bristedt said. “We’ve got to try to stay positive and we know we play good sometimes and we’re just going to have to elevate our game a little bit and take it to the next level.”

Minnesota junior defenseman Jake Bischoff who scored his first two goals of the season in the series said, despite the struggles, he believes his team is, “in a good spot.”

“I think over the course of the season we’ve taken some strides and grown a lot,” Bischoff said. “We still have plenty of room to grow but I think we’re getting there.”

St. Cloud State, too, has room to grow and will have that opportunity against UNO and another road test at No. 9 Denver the following weekend.

“It feels great today, now we jump back in a monster league series,” Motzko said. “We have to park it quickly and enjoy it for the night and we’ll take tomorrow off and then get back to work.”

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Gopher rookie Leon Bristedt is honored to be playing for his country

The World Junior Championships are taking place this week in Canada and for the 22^nd consecutive time and for all but one of the tournaments, Team USA is stocked full of Golden Gophers. But it’s the one non-USA player to whom this tournament might mean the most.

Freshman Leon Bristedt, who is suiting up for his home nation of Sweden this week says wearing his countries color is a huge deal

“It’s a dream come true,” the Stockholm native says. “This is something that you dream of as a kid in Sweden when you’re watching all those great players and they are playing in that tournament and it’s something that I want to do.”

Bristedt is experienced in international play. But this time around is a little different. Bristedt isn’t playing in the Swedish junior system, he’s having a phenomenal freshman campaign here in America. The coaches of team Swedish team have been keeping track of him, showing just how important they believe Bristedt is to Team Sweden.

“Our coach has been doing a lot of scouting and even gone to St. Cloud to see what the atmosphere is like.”

And to see what the style of play is like and how Leon has adjusted to it. Bristedt has been only been playing college hockey for a few months but has learned to change his style based on the American system. So switching back to the style he grew up playing will be a bit of a challenge.

“I’ve been over here for 6 months so going back to Swedish style is going to be a little different,” Bristedt admits. “In Sweden you never give up the puck. Not much chip in, chip out…we really take care of the puck. If we can’t enter the zone with possession then we turn away and go back home and try to regroup.”

His college coach, University of Minnesota men’s coach Don Lucia, is well aware of all that goes into the World Junior Championships and understands the honor of being a part of it. He coached Team USA last year, ironically, in Sweden.

“The best way I can liken it is, two weeks of Super Bowl. That’s how big it is up in Canada,” Lucia says. “Every game will be sold out. It will really be a great environment and a great place to test your level and ability.”

Which is exactly what Bristedt will be doing against his own Minnesota teammates. Fellow Gophers Ryan Collins (his current roommate) and Hudson Fasching will be across from Bristedt playing for Team USA this week. Always the consummate professional, Leon has taken the time leading up to the WJC to help his current teammates learn Swedish slang so they can properly trash talk to each other during the games.

“I’ve taught him some Swedish words that he can use to chirp us,” Bristedt beams quite proudly. “I can tell you I taught him to say ‘fatty’ and some other words I cannot repeat here.”

While he’ll be meeting more than a few new Swedish faces this week, there will be one teammate that needs no introduction, Adam Brodecki. The two have not only grown up playing together, they are from the same hometown and even born in the same hospital room just a month apart, according to Bristedt.

“We went to kindergarten together, went to the same school, played on the same hockey team and now we’re playing for the World Juniors together,” Bristedt smiles. “It’s so cool that I am going to play World Juniors with my best friend.”

Leon Bristedt has a lot more to accomplish in the next few years at the University of Minnesota and this experience will clearly have an impact on him and his play. While the World Junior Championship is a big deal in the United States, the NHL is always the ultimate goal. In other countries, it’s international play like the World Junior Championships. Bristedt has now taken the first step, with great honor and humility. A few more stand out years at the U of M and maybe he’ll reach his ultimate goal.

“The only hockey tournament that is bigger (than this) is the Olympic games.”

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