Minnesota hopes they won’t close the tournament Thursday night as well
The Minnesota Golden Gophers will snap their stretch of 18-days without a game when they take to the ice at Scheels Arena in Fargo on Thursday night in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. There they find a foe who also has had an extended break—just 12 days, but still are not coming in fresh off of playing last weekend in the UMass Minutemen. The Gophers are the #2 seed in the Fargo Regional and will hope that they can get themselves up and ready to not end their season after one single NCAA Tournament game.
The first round matchup is identical to the opener the two teams faces in the 2022 Northeast regional in Worchester, Mass. Minnesota was again the #2 seed and faced the #3 seeded Minutemen. The Gophers won that game 4-3 in OT on a Ben Myers goal and then advanced to the region final to face #1 seeded Western Michigan. On Saturday assuming that #4 Minnesota State does not pull the upset, the winner of the Minnesota/ UMass game will face #1 seed….you guessed it, Western Michigan.
Minnesota will need to play MUCH better then they did in their 2-1 series loss to Notre Dame in the First Round of the Big Ten Playoffs. The Gophers looked slow, sloppy and were completely outplayed by the last place Irish. If the Gophers do that again, they will be one and done.
Minnesota will need to overcome a lack of depth yet again. The Gophers will be down a pair of forwards headed into the NCAA Tournament. Fifth year senior Aaron Huglen was injured in the third game of the Notre Dame series and is out for the rest of the season. On Monday Minnesota coach Bob Motzko sad that freshman forward August Falloon would be out “three weeks” with an injury he suffered in practice. Thus, if the Gophers want to have a full four forward lines they will either need to dress seldomly used 5th year senior Nick Michel, or as they did earlier in the season when they had forward depth issues dress defenseman Axel Begley as a forward. The good news is that with three TV timeouts per period and a longer 15-minute intermission compared to just one timeout and 12-minute intermissions in Big Ten play, the Gophers should be able to much easily rely on just three forward lines to do much of the heavy lifting.
Minnesota does have history on it’s side in the matchup with the Minutemen. Minnesota is 5-0 all time against UMass including the 2022 NCAA Tournament win. But as we all now so well, in the NCAA Tournament you can throw out all those numbers.
UMass finished in 6th place in Hockey East this season with a 10-9-5 record and an overall record of 20-13-5. They won their opening round Hockey East playoff matchup against Vermont 2-1 before losing in the Quarterfinals to Boston University 3-2 in OT.
UMass head coach Greg Carvel compared the Gophers to that BU team in his press conference on Wednesday prior to the Fargo Regional. “High-octane offense, create offense the same way, so we feel like we just played a playoff game against a very similar style,” Carvel said. “We liked how we played at BU and we’re basically just going to have the same mindset going in against them.”
Minnesota would prefer to play high octane hockey and not the slow down trap kind of game, but that’s probably what the Minutemen will show them. They can put the puck in the net as they rank 12th in the nation with 3.3 goals per game. Five Minutemen posted 30 points or more during the season with Cole O’Hara (51p, 22 g), Aydar Suniev (36p), Jack Musa (35p), Lucas Mercuri (31p), Dans Locmelis (30p).
Minnesota is 3rd in the nation at 3.85 goals per game but scored four or more goals just twice in their final five games of the season.
Defensively the teams are nearly identical. UMass is 15th in the nation allowing 2.39 goals per game, while the Gophers are 16th at 2.46.
The Minutemen know who their starting goalie will be. Sophomore Michael Hrabal helped Czechia defeat Canada for the second year in a row at the World Juniors Championship and has been very good for the Minutemen. This season he went 18-11-5, with a 2.33 GAA and .926 save percentage, and has been even better since returning from the Wrld Juniors completing the season half of the season at 10-5-3 while posting a .933 save percentage, and a 2.20 goals-against average.
Minnesota is more of an open question. Will it be Liam Souliere who seemed to have the job locked down and then was yanked after a disasterous start in the series opener against Notre dame giving up two horrible goals and looking utterly lost? Or will Minnesota go with sophomore Nathan Airey who has been fine, and frankly nothing more this season. Motzko did confirm late on Wednesday that Souliere will get the start in goal for Minnesota, so hopefully after nearly three weeks of practice he has proven he can be the #1 guy the rest of the way.
Where the Gophers will need to make sure they really pay attention is staying out of the penalty box. Minnesota’s penalty kill is the worst of all 16 teams that earned a spot in the NCAA Tournament. Minnesota’s PK is at 75.9 percent. Meanwhile the Minutemen’s power play is converting at 24.8 percent, the fourth-best among NCAA Tournament teams.
On the other side, the Gophers power play is right behind the Minutemen with a 24.4 percent success rate, and U Mass kills 83,5% of their penalties wiich is 7th best in the NCAA field.
BUT, neither team takes any penalties. UMass averages just 6.6 penalty minutes per game, while the Gophers average 6.7. The only team averaging less——again you guessed it. Western Michigan at just 5.7 minutes per game.
So this game should come down to finding a way to score 5×5. If the Gophers can do that, a likely 2022 rematch with Western Michigan awaits. If they can’t, its one and done and the level of displeasure in the Gopher fan base continues to rise all off-season long. No pressure or anything.
HOW TO WATCH: NCAA FARGO REGIONAL SEMIFINALS
#3 UMass Minutemen vs #2 Minnesota Golden Gophers
Where: Scheels Arena, Fargo, North Dakota
When: 7:30 PM Thursday
TV: ESPN2
Stream: WatchESPN
Radio: 1130 AM/ 103.5 FM/ I Heart Radio