Gophers Defeat Penn State 5-1 in Game 1 of Big Ten First Round

Minnesota is one win away from advancing to the semifinals

The Minnesota Golden Gophers got off to a sluggish start, but once they shook off the rust the Gophers cruised to a 5-1 win over the Penn State Nittany Lions in the opening game of their best-of-three Big Ten First Round Playoff series. Minnesota will go for the two game sweep Saturday afternoon looking to advance to the Big Ten Semifinals for the sixth consecutive season.

Penn State had the early jump on the Gophers in the first few minutes of Friday’s game, but then they made a critical mistake. Just over seven minutes into the opening period, the NIttany Lions took possession of the puck behind their own net when Jimmy Dowd tried to make a clearance pass out of the zone. Unfortunately for him he throw the puck right to Gopher defenseman Sam Rinzel who ripped a slapshot past PSU goalie Liam Souliere to give the Gophers an early 1-0 lead.

The lead would be short-lived as Minnesota gave up the tying goal not once but twice. The Nittany Lions appeared to tie the goal about 90 seconds after the Rinzel goal, but the Gophers challenged that the play was offside and it clearly was. The goal was called back and Minnesota kept their 1-0 lead for about another 90 seconds until Jacques Boucout skated right past Ryan Chesley and tipped a nice pass past Justen Close to tie the game at one. That’s how the first period would come to a close.

The second period got off to an even more slow start. Neither team recorded a shot on goal for the first eleven and a half minutes of the period. You read that right. Minnesota coach Bob Motzko decided to make a switch to his lines and moved Jimmy Snuggerud to the “second line” to play with Jaxon Nelson and Mason Nevers while Bryce Brodzinski moved to play with Oliver Moore and Rhett Pitlick. Yeah…it worked. With 5:39 left in the second period the Gophers dumped the puck in deep and Nelson picked it up behind the PSU net and put a perfect backhand pass on the stick of a streaking Snuggerud who beat Souliere to give the Gophers a 2-1 lead.

Minnesota would outshoot Penn State 9-1 in the second period but not score another goal. It seemed like the rust had been shaken off and the Gophers started to show their dominance of the Nittany Lions.

The third period belonged to the Gophers. Just 2:18 into the period the Gophers made it a two goal lead when Aaron Huglen tipped in a blast from the point by Carl Fish.

Eight minutes later the Gophers made it 4-1 when Rhett Pitlick lit the lamp on a rebound of a Luke Mittelstadt shot.

Pitlick would add his 18th goal on the season into an empty net to get the Gopher crowd Culvers with 3:01 to play to round out the scoring and give the Gophers a 5-1 win in Game 1.

Minnesota will return to Mariucci at 3:30 on Saturday afternoon to try and earn the series sweep and advance to the Big Ten Semifinals. The last time the Gophers did not make the Big Ten semi’s was in 2018 when they were swept by Penn State in the opening round.

Minnesota also got a gift from Ohio State on Friday night when the #7 seed Buckeyes upset #2 seed Wisconsin 3-1 in Madison. If the Buckeyes can win one more over the Badgers on either Saturday or Sunday evening, and the Gophers eliminate Penn State, the Gophers would host a Big Ten Semifinal at home next Saturday—likely against Michigan. The Wolverines came from behind to defeat Notre Dame 5-4 in the first game of their playoff series in Ann Arbor on Friday. If Wisconsin does come back to advance, they will host the Gophers if they were to advance on Sunday in Madison as the Wisconsin State Basketball Tournament has the Kohl Center occupied through next Saturday.

Saturday’s game will face-off at 3:30 PM and will air live on FS2. Plenty of tickets are available if you want to go in person.