In a game that often resembled a winter afternoon of wide-open pond hockey, Minnesota showed exactly why it’s the nation’s top-ranked team.<\/p>\n
Down 3-1 in the second period, the Golden Gophers erupted for five goals in a span of less than six minutes on their way to a 7-3 win over Michigan Tech before a crowd of 2,555 at MacInnes Arena on Friday night.<\/p>\n
“It took us a bit of adjustment to getting back to the small rink,” said Minnesota coach Don Lucia, whose team had played its previous four games at home on its wide, Olympic-sized ice sheet. “You’ve gotta win one-on-one battles and I don’t think we did that in the first period. We picked up our game after the first period.”<\/p>\n
“You can’t take any time off against a team like that,” said Michigan Tech head coach Mike Sertich of his team’s second-period lapse. “[Minnesota] knows how to win and we’re learning how to win. They gave us a pretty expensive lesson [on] how 60 minutes of puck-control hockey works.”<\/p>\n
Jeff Taffe scored twice and added an assist for Minnesota (6-0-0, 1-0-0 WCHA). John Pohl, Troy Riddle, and Nick Anthony each had a goal and an assist.<\/p>\n
Jon Pittis, Ryan Lenton, and Rob Rankin scored for Michigan Tech (2-3-0, 0-3-0). Brett Engelhardt added a pair of assists.<\/p>\n
Pittis gave the Huskies a 1-0 lead 6:02 into the game. After Pittis and Colin Murphy worked to force a turnover in the Minnesota zone, Engelhardt sent a pass from the boards to the front of the net, where Pittis slipped the puck through the legs of Gophers’ goaltender Adam Hauser.<\/p>\n
The Gophers tied the game at the 11:17 mark when Riddle’s shot from the left circle went over Tech goaltender Brian Rogers’ shoulder and found the top right corner of the net.<\/p>\n
The Huskies regained the lead on Lenton’s first collegiate goal at 14:23. The sophomore defenseman alertly followed the play to the net and slid a loose puck into the net after Hauser failed to control the rebound from a Murphy shot.<\/p>\n
Tech took a 3-1 lead on Rankin’s first collegiate goal 6:46 into the second period. Frank Werner’s shot from the left side of the net trickled through Hauser’s pads and sat on the goal line, where Rankin poked it across.<\/p>\n
But after that, the floodgates opened.<\/p>\n
Pohl, one of 12 Minnesota players drafted by an NHL team, got credit for a goal when his centering pass from the side of the net along the goal line went off the skate of Tech defenseman Tom Kaiman and past a surprised Rogers at 8:03.<\/p>\n
“That lucky goal goes off [Kaiman’s] skate and it seemed to change the whole momentum,”said Lucia.<\/p>\n
The Gophers needed just eight seconds after Greg Amadio went off for holding to make it a 3-3 tie. Pohl controlled the puck after a faceoff and sent it to defenseman Paul Martin, who beat Rogers from between the circles at 9:10.<\/p>\n
Taffe gave the Gophers a 4-3 lead when he scored from the low slot at 10:26. Just nine seconds after Nick Anthony had given Minnesota a two-goal lead, Erik Wendell raced in and beat Rogers to make it 6-3.<\/p>\n
Taffe scored with 37 seconds left in the third period to finish the scoring.<\/p>\n
“We need to play a complete game tomorrow,” said Lucia. “It’s an adjustment getting back to WCHA play against a better and stronger opponent.”<\/p>\n
Said Sertich: “In the third period, I think it’s more of taking a little step to get back on the bike after you get tossed. We could have easily rolled up the tent and went away, but I thought we competed fairly hard. A couple guys took some costly penalties and learned a costly lesson again. But I’ll be patient and they’ll get another chance, and if they continue to do that they’ll be out of the lineup.”<\/p>\n
Saturday night’s rematch will begin at 8:05 ET. The game will feature two of the nation’s promising freshman goaltenders in Minnesota’s Travis Weber and Tech’s Cam Ellsworth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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