Gophers Upset Ohio State, Play Wisconsin for WCHA Title

Friday’s win guarantees the Gophers a home NCAA Quarterfinal

The last time the Minnesota Golden Gophers played the Ohio State Buckeyes, the Gophers saw Ohio State erupt for five unanswered goals and turn a 3-2 Minnesota lead into a 7-3 Ohio State win. Comeuppance is sweet. In their WCHA Final Faceoff semifinal matchup Friday in Duluth, the Buckeyes took an early 2-0 lead over the Gophers. Minnesota would turn around and score the next six goals in the game picking up a huge 6-2 win and advanced to the WCHA Championship game where they will face #1 Wisconsin Saturday afternoon at 2PM.

Ohio State has held an advantage over Minnesota in the recent past. They went 2-1-1 against the Gophers this season and took eight out of a total 12 possible points in the season series. They can score in bunches. Yet, when they put the puck behind Gopher goalie Hannah Cark twice in the first ten minutes of the game to take a 2-0 lead, nobody on the Minnesota bench panicked. They regrouped and capitalized on a series of Buckeye mistakes and dominated the rest of the way.

Minnesota got themselves back in the game via the power play. The Buckeyes took three penalties in the opening period, and the Gophers made them pay on two of them. Abbey Murphy scored her first of the game and the 100th goal of her career on the second power play of the opening period. She took a feed from Gopher defender Sydney Morrow and snapped the puck past Buckeye goalie Amanda Thiele to cut the lead to one.

Just over four minutes later with the Buckeye’s Emma Peschel in the box again after getting out after Murphy’s goal, Minnesota would tie the game at 2-all on a Ella Huber power play goal on a rebound of a Murphy blast.

The Gophers would take the lead for good in the second period when Audrey Wethington picked up a lose puck and center ice and scored on a perfectly executed 2 on 1 with Natalie Mlynkova.

They extended that lead to 4-2 nearly four minutes later when Ava Lindsay took a pass at center ice and outskated the Buckeyes to set up another two-on-one. She took the shot instead of passing, and it went past Thiele.

The turning point of the game came early in the third period. The Gophers had to kill off 1:30 of a 5×3 power play with the Buckeyes looking to cut the Gopher lead. They did, and two minutes later Murphy put the dagger into the Buckeyes cleaning up a scrum in front ad finding the back of the net to make it 5-2 Minnesota. Chloe Primerano would add an empty netter after the Buckeyes pulled Thiele with over three minutes to play down three, and the Gopher would skate into the WCHA title game with a 6-2 win.

Murphy now has 101 goals in her Minnesota career—7th best all time in the Maroon and Gold. She is just one behind Natalie Darwitz for 6th on the list with at least two games left in her Minnesota career.

The win sets up another classic Minnesota/ Wisconsin postseason game for all the marbles. The Gophers and Badgers have faced one another for the WCHA title nine previous times, with Wisconsin holding a 6-3 edge on those games. Incredibly, it will be the first time since 2019 that the two teams have faced one another in the WCHA Championship Game. The Badgers won that one 2-1 at Ridder Arena.

This year, there will be no pressure on the Gophers, while the world expect the Badgers to win. Wisconsin this season has been the most dominant women’s college hockey team the nation has seen in a long time—maybe going back to Minnesota’s undefeated season run. Wisconsin’s top line has the top three scorers in the nation with Casey O’Brien eclipsing 80 points in yesterday’s win over UMD—the first player to do that in nearly 8 seasons. Badger goalie Ava McNaughton has been stellar in goal, so much that she got named to the US World Championships roster that will compete in April. The Badgers are the prohibited favorite—so the Gophers have absolutely nothing to lose.

Minnesota will look to win their 9th WCHA Playoff Championship in school history. They last one in 2003 when they defeated Ohio State at Ridder Arena. But it will not be easy. Wisconsin dominated Minnesota this season going 4-0 and outscoring the Gophers 23-6. In Madison in February the Wisconsin Badgers delivered the biggest beat down in the history of the series between the two schools winning 8-2. They are an incredible team, great top scorers, amazing depth, and a star in net. If Minnesota is to pull off the upset it will take a full team effort.

The good news for the Gophers is after their win over the Buckeyes, they literally have nothing to lose. Minnesota clinched a top-4 pairwise ranking with the win and will host a NCAA Quarterfinal at Ridder Arena next Saturday. If the Gophers win against the Badgers, they will be the #3 seed and will host the winner of a first round game between Minnesota-Duluth and the NEWHA Champion—either Sacred Heart or Long Island. If the Gophers lose to Wisconsin they will be the #4 seed and will host the loser of the ECAC Championship game between Cornell and Colgate. The winner of that game will leap over the Gophers into the #3 seed. The NCAA Frozen Four is at Ridder Arena this season, so the Gophers will have the chance to try and ride out home ice the rest of the way after Saturday’s game in Duluth.

The WCHA Championship game is set for a 2 PM faceoff and will air live in Minnesota on Fox9+, and stream on B1G+.