Minnesota took home some hardware as they wait to find out their NCAA Tournament fate
The Minnesota Golden Gophers have had two weeks off to practice and try and get back in gear before they begin play in the NCAA Tournament next week. Minnesota went down to Rochester last weekend after losing their Big Ten First Round Series to Notre Dame and had a public scrimmage. They returned back to Minneapolis to get in full gear and ramp up for their initial NCAA Tournament matchup, but got to take a bit of time to look back on their regular season effort as the Big Ten announced their year end awards earlier this week.
Headlining the awards for the Gophers was sophomore defenseman Sam Rinzel being awarded the Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year. Rinzel is the fourth Gopher skater and sixth all-time recipient, to earn the top defensive honor from the league and first since Brock Faber won the award in back-to-back years from 2021-22 to 2022-23. They join two-time winner Mike Reilly and Jake Bischoff to have helped the Gophers to win 50% of the awards ever handed out. Rinzel had a great second season in the maroon and gold setting career highs in goals (10) and points (31). He paced the conference and ranked sixth nationally for goals and points by a defenseman in 2024-25. He was also named to the All-Big Ten First Team.
Joining him on the All-Big Ten First Team was forward Jimmy Snuggerud. Snuggy becomes just the sixth player in program history to earn three postseason awards from the conference as he and Jackson LaCombe are the only two Gophers to be named to the first or second team three times. The Minnesota captain leads the Gophers offense with 49 points, which ranks second in the B1G and fifth nationally. He set a career high by finding the back of the net 22 times, one more than his freshman and sophomore totals, with a conference-leading 19 of the goals coming during league play. Snuggerud tallied a point in 29 of 39 games played this year and put together 16 multi-point performances. Adding to those honors was the fact that on Wednesday he was named one of ten finalists for the Hobey Baker Memorial Award as the best player in the nation.
Four other Gophers were named to the All-Big Ten Honorable mention team. Junior defenseman Ryan Chesley had a breakout offensive season. His 8 goals doubled his previous career high and ranks 11th among NCAA defensemen. Chesley surpassed his point total from his first two college seasons combined with 20 in 2024-25 thanks to four multi-point performances. He also leads the Gophers in blocked shots with 68, which sits 17th nationally and second in the conference.
Junior forward Connor Kurth had a great earth start to the season and has come on again at the end of the year. Kurth has more than doubled his offensive output from his first two NCAA campaigns. He has set career bests in goals (17), assists (21), and points (38) to tie for second in scoring for Minnesota in 2024-25 after putting up 32 combined points as a freshman and sophomore. He is the nation’s plus-minus leader at plus-31, and he currently leads the Gophers with six appearances of three or more points this season.
Grad student goalie Liam Soulere has had as good a season as the Gophers could have asked after he transferred from Penn State during the summer. Souliere has recorded career bests of a 2.28 goals-against average and a .918 save percentage. Thanks to a 13-7-2 overall record, he has tallied double-digit victories in three-straight years and picked up the 50th win of his NCAA career against Ohio State in February.
Junior U Conn transfer Matthew Wood has also been as good as advertised. Wood has been on a heater as the season has wound down as he takes a four-game point streak and 11 points in the last 10 games into the NCAA Tournament. Wood’s 17 goals and 21 assists for 38 points, ties him for second on the team and ranking 27th in the country.
Bracketology:
As the final weekend of the NCAA Hockey conference playoffs takes place this weekend, all the Gophers can do is sit back and watch things play out. Minnesota can end up anywhere between #3 and #6 in the final pairwise rankings depending on the results of the conference tournaments this weekend. That difference can potentially mean the different between a #1 seed and playing in Fargo for the first two rounds of the NCAA tournament, or potentially a #2 seed and needing to travel east, possibly even to Penn State for the opening rounds.
If you want Minnesota to achieve the best potential pairwise outcome, this is what you want to happen this weekend. First, you want Northeastern to upset Maine in the Hockey East Semifinal on Friday. If Maine wins on Friday night they will guarantee that they will finish ahead of the Gophers in the pairwise. In fact, you would want Northeastern to pull off a pair of upsets and knock off either Boston University or UCONN in the Hockey East Championship game as the Hockey east Champion is guaranteed to leap over the Gophers. Finally, you want Western Michigan to lose at least once this weekend—whether that to North Dakota in the NCHC Semifinals, or in the Championship Game to Denver or Arizona State. A Western Michigan NCHC title leaps the Broncos over the Gophers. Obviousl the worst case scenario is a Maine win, then a loss to UConn or BU, and a Western Michigan NCHC title which would drop the Gophers to #6 in the pairwise and make the potential that they could be headed away from Fargo a possibility.
As for their opponents, in the opening round if they remain a #1 seed it is most likely that they would face CCHA Champion Minnesota State unless multiple upsets would occur this weekend in the ECAC and NCHC tournaments. With Penn State and Michigan both sitting in the four line as of now, they would try to avoid inter-conference opening round games, and with Minnesota and Michigan State as #1 seeds, it would nearly guarantee a matchup against the Mavericks. But if Arizona State or North Dakota wins the NCHC, and anyone besides Quinnipiac wins the ECAC, that would kick both Michigan and Penn State out of the field and open up the possibility of either Quinnipiac or even Fargo host North Dakota being the Gophers opening opponent.
If Minnesota falls to the #2 line, that open up a lot more possibilities. Most likely that would result in either a 2023 NCAA Championship rematch against Quinnipiac, or a rematch of the 2022 first round game against UMass.
So, lots is up in the air for the Gophers, and all they can do is sit back and watch it all play out. They will find out just like the rest of us where and who they will face in the NCAA Tournament when the selections are announced at 2 PM Sunday on ESPNU, just prior to the Women’s NCAA Championship Game.