For the second straight day, Minnesota got a late goal from Sarah Potomak to best Minnesota-Duluth, this time by a 3-2 overtime final.
“Kelly [Pannek] made a beautiful pass and I just tried to put it in the net the best I could,” Potomak said.
Sweet as it was for the third-ranked Gophers (5-1-0, 3-1-0-0 WCHA), it was hard to watch from the other bench.
“1:03 on the clock left to go, and just little breakdowns,” UMD (3-2-1, 2-2-0-0 WCHA) coach Maura Crowell said. “Little breakdowns in these sorts of games are the difference between winning and losing.”
Sometimes, the breakdowns are forced.
“You leave it in Kelly Pannek’s hands, and that kid is just fantastic,” Crowell said. “I see her coming across this way, and I anticipate that across-the-grain play that she made. It was a fantastic finish.”
On a power play two minutes into the third period, Pannek became the 32nd Gopher to reach 100 points in her career when she buried the rebound of a Megan Wolfe shot to tie the score at 2-2.
“Just to know that you’re a part of that group is pretty cool,” the junior said of the milestone.
Later, Pannek was assessed a penalty that spanned the intermission before the extra session.
“It’s definitely a long two minutes, but I have so much trust in the players that are out there,” she said.
Minnesota got the kill, and eventually, Kate Schipper started the final attack into the UMD end.
“They were tired, and the girl came at me,” Pannek said. “I saw their other D, and she wasn’t really aware that [Potomak] was behind her. I knew if I could get around one, if I could slot one through, she’d be in one on one with the goalie. If you get Sarah in one on one with the goalie, it usually goes in.”
On this day, little was going into the net UMD’s goalie was defending.
“I would say the only reason we were in that game was because of Maddie Rooney,” Crowell said. “She was outstanding tonight and she deserved better.”
Rooney finished with 42 saves, and she seemed destined to be the winner after Lara Stalder sandwiched two first-period goals around a power-play tally by Minnesota’s Cara Piazza.
“I think [Stalder] is one of the top two or three in our whole league,” Gophers coach Brad Frost said. “She was tremendous tonight. The things that she’s able to do with the puck, the extra confidence that she’s playing with, and you can see her offensive ability with that first goal and her creativity with the second. She’s at a different level than most.”
The Bulldogs, ranked fourth in the latest USCHO.com Division I women’s poll, next host Bemidji State in what is likely to be a far less free-flowing series.
“I think we have to learn from it,” Crowell said. “It was a fantastic game, and I don’t think we played our best.”
Minnesota heads to Columbus to square off against Frost’s former protege and new Ohio State coach Nadine Muzerall.
“I would imagine that it will be a lot of passion both ways,” Frost said.
