Jordan Leopold’s power-play goal with 1:09 left in regulation capped a four-goal comeback as Minnesota salvaged a 5-5 tie against Michigan Tech at MacInnes Arena on Saturday night.<\/p>\n
The Golden Gophers (6-0-1, 1-0-1 WCHA) trailed 4-0 and 5-1 before mounting their rally.<\/p>\n
“Our guys never gave up,” said Minnesota head coach Don Lucia. “They competed and worked right until the end. When you’re down 4-0 on the road … to come back and get a point is big.”<\/p>\n
Michigan Tech had a chance to win in overtime after the Gophers’ Jeff Taffe was assessed a slashing penalty, but couldn’t capitalize.<\/p>\n
“I was disappointed with Jeff at the end in overtime,” said Lucia. “At times we lost our focus tonight and guys got frustrated.”<\/p>\n
Leopold had a goal and two assists for Minnesota, while John Pohl scored a goal and added an assist.<\/p>\n
Freshman Bryan Perez had a hat trick for Michigan Tech (2-3-1, 0-3-1) and freshman defenseman Clay Wilson scored twice. Cam Ellsworth made 36 saves in his first collegiate start.<\/p>\n
“Every game teaches you a little something different,” said Tech head coach Mike Sertich. “Tonight and last night it was how to play with a lead.”<\/p>\n
The Huskies got the home crowd into the game early, reeling off four first-period goals and chasing Gophers’ freshman netminder Travis Weber.<\/p>\n
“Travis wasn’t on tonight,” said Lucia. “We didn’t give him much help, either.”<\/p>\n
But Adam Hauser came in and stopped 18 of the 19 shots he faced to give his team the stability it needed to fight back.<\/p>\n
Wilson made it 1-0 at 6:29 when his shot from the left point eluded Weber. The Huskies made it 2-0 at the 7:50 mark when a streaking Perez redirected Brady Greco’s pass from the boards through Weber’s legs.<\/p>\n
Wilson netted his second goal at 15:40 when he finished an outstanding individual effort by beating Weber to the far side from in close.<\/p>\n
With Minnesota’s Mark Nenovich off for interference, Tech took a 4-0 lead when Perez beat Weber with a wrister at 17:05.<\/p>\n
The Gophers finally got on the board when Grant Potulny tipped in a shot by Leopold just seven seconds after the Huskies’ Justin Brown had gone off for holding.<\/p>\n
Perez completed the hat trick 1:28 into the second period during a delayed penalty.<\/p>\n
Troy Riddle made it 5-2 at the 8:11 mark when he flew up the right side and beat Ellsworth with a low shot to the far side.<\/p>\n
Freshman Jake Fleming scored his first collegiate goal while the Gophers were shorthanded to cut the margin to 5-3 at 15:29 of the period.<\/p>\n
Pohl pulled Minnesota to within a goal when he scored on the power play 8:04 into the third period. Despite being a man short, the Huskies still got caught back, allowing Pohl to fly up the right side and tuck a nice shot over Ellsworth’s shoulder and just under the crossbar.<\/p>\n
“Tech came out and played an extremely good game tonight,” said Lucia. “They played a lot tighter and physical. They played the way they wanted to play. This is a tough league and you have to work hard every night.”<\/p>\n
Said Michigan Tech senior center Brad Patterson: “As a team we thought we had them on the ropes most of the weekend, except for 10 minutes yesterday and five minutes tonight. It’s disappointing to get a tie, but we know that they’re the best team in the nation and we can play with anyone.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Jordan Leopold’s power-play goal with 1:09 left in regulation capped a four-goal comeback as Minnesota salvaged a 5-5 tie against Michigan Tech at MacInnes Arena on Saturday night. The Golden Gophers (6-0-1, 1-0-1 WCHA) trailed 4-0 and 5-1 before mounting their rally. “Our guys never gave up,” said Minnesota head coach Don Lucia. “They competed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22374,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2376"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2376"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2376\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2376"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=2376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}