It’s not exactly like an injury, but that’s 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 to the NHL’s Carolina Hurricanes.
The Gophers, and new starting netminder, junior Justen Close, will close out their nonconference slate this weekend by hosting a rescheduled series with Alaska.
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.
“That came out of left field,” he said during media availability on Tuesday. “It 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.”
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.
“It’s bad timing, you don’t want to lose anybody,” Motzko said. “But 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’s gone just like an injury.”
Motzko said he didn’t dwell on the news, and said it was important for the Gophers to move on. It’s 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.
“Twenty minutes later, I was over it. That’s all you can do,” he said. “We’ve got to get ready for Alaska, that’s our only job, and I don’t mean that with any disrespect to (LaFontaine) leaving.”
LaFontaine hadn’t 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.
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.
“The history’s going to have to be written,” Motzko said of the goalie situation. “We’re going to see in March and April how the history’s going to play out.
“The one thing we’ve got going on our side with (Close) is the guys love him. The guys are going to fight for him, and he’s just ‘OK, I’m ready.’”
Motzko didn’t 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 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’s Youngstown Phantoms this season.
“You have to adapt and move on,” Motzko said. “That’s what we have to do right now. We play Alaska this week and then Michigan, they don’t care. They don’t care if a guy gets injured or goes down, they want to beat you. This is sports, so we’ve got to move on.”
