{"id":131434,"date":"2022-01-13T06:00:22","date_gmt":"2022-01-13T12:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/?p=131434"},"modified":"2022-01-12T18:56:12","modified_gmt":"2022-01-13T00:56:12","slug":"this-week-in-big-ten-hockey-losing-lafontaine-now-in-the-past-minnesota-readjusting-goalie-situation-for-rest-of-2021-22-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/2022\/01\/13\/this-week-in-big-ten-hockey-losing-lafontaine-now-in-the-past-minnesota-readjusting-goalie-situation-for-rest-of-2021-22-season\/","title":{"rendered":"This Week in Big Ten Hockey: Losing LaFontaine now in the past, Minnesota readjusting goalie situation for rest of 2021-22 season"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Justen Close and Brennan Boynton will fill the goalie void at Minnesota with the departure of Jack LaFontaine.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It\u2019s not exactly like an injury, but that\u2019s how Bob Motzko wants to treat it.<\/p>\n

After opening up the second half of the season with exhibition wins over the U.S Under-18 Team and St. Thomas and a road sweep at Michigan State, Minnesota lost starting goaltender Jack LaFontaine on Sunday, not to an injury, but to the NHL\u2019s Carolina Hurricanes.<\/p>\n

The Gophers, and new starting netminder, junior Justen Close, will close out their nonconference slate this weekend by hosting a rescheduled series with Alaska.<\/p>\n

Motzko said he was watching football on Sunday when he got the news that the goalie who had started every game for him this season was leaving.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat came out of left field,\u201d he said during media availability on Tuesday. \u201cIt was the second quarter of the Vikings football game when I got the call. They were losing, and when I was done with the news, they were winning.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Hurricanes had a dire situation in net and turned to LaFontaine, who they drafted in the third round (75th overall) in the 2016 NHL Draft. LaFontaine, who used his extra year of eligibility to return to Minnesota this season, started his college career at Michigan before leaving after his sophomore season to go back to junior hockey and joining the Gophers as a junior for the 2019-20 season.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s bad timing, you don\u2019t want to lose anybody,\u201d Motzko said. \u201cBut Jack, he did a lot of great things for us here. He was a great student, he was a heck of a goalie, he leaves here an All-American. Are we happy? No, but it\u2019s gone just like an injury.\u201d<\/p>\n

Motzko said he didn\u2019t dwell on the news, and said it was important for the Gophers to move on. It\u2019s likely that Minnesota will lose multiple players to the Olympic team in February, so the next six games, which include a home series against Michigan and a road test at Notre Dame, become even more important.<\/p>\n

\u201cTwenty minutes later, I was over it. That\u2019s all you can do,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019ve got to get ready for Alaska, that\u2019s our only job, and I don\u2019t mean that with any disrespect to (LaFontaine) leaving.\u201d<\/p>\n

LaFontaine hadn\u2019t put together a season to match his Mike Richter Award-winning campaign last year so far this year, posting a 12-8-0 record with a 2.69 GAA and .900 save percentage, but his departure leaves the Gophers with two goaltenders who have extremely limited experience at the college level.<\/p>\n

Close has played a combined 78 minutes over six games in his three seasons with the Gophers. Freshman Brennan Boynton, a Champlin, Minn., native, has yet to see any action this season. He posted a 26-16-1 record for the Fargo Force in the USHL last season. Close played both exhibition games last week and gave up five goals while making 38 saves over the two games.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe history\u2019s going to have to be written,\u201d Motzko said of the goalie situation. \u201cWe\u2019re going to see in March and April how the history\u2019s going to play out.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe one thing we\u2019ve got going on our side with (Close) is the guys love him. The guys are going to fight for him, and he\u2019s just \u2018OK, I\u2019m ready.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Motzko didn\u2019t make it sound like there was any plan to platoon the two goalies. He did say they were planning on bringing in a third goalie. Brad Schlossman of the Grand Forks Herald<\/i> reported that said goalie was going to be Owen Bartoszkiewicz, who committed to Minnesota in July. Bartoszkiewicz has a 3-6-2 record with a 3.32 GAA and .889 save percentage for the USHL\u2019s Youngstown Phantoms this season.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to adapt and move on,\u201d Motzko said. \u201cThat\u2019s what we have to do right now. We play Alaska this week and then Michigan, they don\u2019t care. They don\u2019t care if a guy gets injured or goes down, they want to beat you. This is sports, so we\u2019ve got to move on.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s not exactly like an injury, but that\u2019s how Bob Motzko wants to treat it. After opening up the second half of the season with exhibition wins over the U.S Under-18 Team and St. Thomas and a road sweep at Michigan State, Minnesota lost starting goaltender Jack LaFontaine on Sunday, not to an injury, but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":94,"featured_media":131435,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[812],"coauthors":[855],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThis Week in Big Ten Hockey: Losing LaFontaine now in the past, Minnesota readjusting goalie situation for rest of 2021-22 season - College Hockey | USCHO.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"It\u2019s not exactly like an injury, but that\u2019s how Bob Motzko wants to treat it. 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