Finally on a Friday, Gopher hockey gets just enough offense to win

Minneapolis - Jake Hansen scored a goal and assisted on another as the Gopher hockey team snapped out of its recent Friday night funk. The Gophers defense held St. Cloud State to just 13 shots on goal in a 2-1 home win.

Coupled with Minnesota Duluth's home tie versus Michigan Tech, the Gophers opened up a three-point lead atop the WCHA. It was a night where the offense wasn't particularly effective for Minnesota, but they defense was smothering. Goalie Kent Patterson won his 18th game of the season with a dozen saves.

"We had better defensive flow than offensive flow tonight," Gophers coach Don Lucia said. "Kent looked sharp. We didn't come cleanly up the rink a lot and turned a lot of pucks over that took some rhythm away from us offensively, but we did enough to win."

The skinny

Despite leading the WCHA and being ranked as high as second in the nation in at least one poll, the Gophers entered the weekend struggling on Friday nights, having dropped their previous three WCHA series openers.

"Every week we prepare for this, and that's something that the coaches talk about," Hansen said. "We've been too inconsistent and for some reason Friday nights have been a major issue for us."

On this particular Friday there was not a ton of flashy offense, but what was lacking there was made up for in a commitment to clog passing lanes and not give St. Cloud State's offense a chance to get rolling.

"It wasn't a game that was up and down. It was a more cautious played game, but we found a way to win," Lucia said. "I told our guys, it doesn't matter how you win, it was just getting a big two points."

The Huskies had flurries, but struggled to get pucks through to Patterson. Defensively, the visitors played a strong game as well, but allowed the Gophers to capitalize on a minimal number of miscues.

"I thought we played a pretty good defensive game," Huskies coach Bob Motzko said. "We made two critical mistakes and they scored on both of them."

Turning point

The Gophers led 2-1 with a little more than five minutes to play in the game when first Mark Alt, and then Seth Helgeson, took penalties, giving the Huskies a pair of golden opportunities to tie the game. That's when the Gopher defense was at its best, holding the Huskies without so much as a shot on goal over the four minutes of power play time.

"We had decent (puck) movement, but we made it way too easy," Motzko said. "Some missed passing and not passing at the appropriate time for them to kill those off."

Numbers game

• 10/22/11: The last time Huskies goalie Mike Lee had played in a game. The junior was hurt in practice and just returned to the lineup this week.
• 13: Blocked shots by the Gophers, including three each by Alt and Nate Schmidt.
• 1: Third period shots by the Huskies, the fewest shots by a Gophers opponent in a 20-minute span this season.

Health watch

Tangled up with Bjugstad along the boards early in the third period, Huskies top line center Travis Novak went down awkwardly, with his right ankle twisting under his body. Novak didn't get up from the collision until he was helped off the ice and taken straight to the trainers room. With the Huskies already missing top forward Drew LeBlanc, who suffered a gruesome compound fracture of his leg earlier in the season, their offense has taken some notable hits.

Summary

First period
Gophers - Jake Hansen 10 (Haula), 13:26

Second period
Huskies - Ben Hanowski 10 (Prochno, Festler), 4:26, PPG
Gophers - Nick Bjugstad 21 (Hansen, Rau), 11:49

Third period
No scoring

Shots: Gophers 7-10-9-26; Huskies 7-5-1-13. Saves: Gophers, Kent Patterson (12-13); Huskies, Mike Lee (24-26). Power plays: Gophers 0-for-3, Huskies 1-4.

Three stars
1. Jake Hansen
2. Nick Bjugstad
3. Ben Hanowski

Coming up

This was so much fun, they'll do it again on Saturday night, but with a change of venue added to the mix. The Huskies and Gophers will play, for the last time this regular season, on Saturday night in St. Cloud.