After sweeping Penn State in their opening weekend of Big Ten play, Minnesota is 7-1-0, the team’s best start since beginning the COVID-shortened 2020-21 season with 10 wins in a row.
The seven wins in eight games is the Golden Gophers’ best start under Bob Motzko outside of that truncated season.
“A lot of guys feeling confident about their offense and we’ve scored some goals,” said Motzko. “We thought even going into last week, it’s not going to stay at that pace, but we’re off to a good start.”
Heading into that series against Penn State, the Gophers were averaging 5.5 goals per game, with 14 different Gophers contributing to the 33-goal total through six games. That high voltage production came to a halt against the Nittany Lions. Minnesota beat Penn State 3-1 Friday, scoring the only power-play goal the Nittany Lions have given up so far this season. Jimmy Snuggerud and Jimmy Clark each had two goals on the weekend, with Clark’s game-winning goal Saturday with 26 seconds left in regulation.
“It was a lot tighter than we’ve seen at some points,” said Motzko. “Penn State’s an excellent skating team so they do a good job in the neutral zone, clogging it up, and with their speed, they can get to spots and make it hard.
Motzko said that he told his team the Monday before the Penn State series, “We haven’t been punched in the nose yet. I want to know how we respond. Well, we got punched in the nose and I like how we responded,” adding that he liked how the Gophers played “when it was tight.”
“Our power play gets a big goal Friday night and that was the difference,” said Motzko. “The next night, it was just a fight to whoever could find a way to get one in.”
In the 1-0 win, the Nittany Lions limited the Gophers to 12 total shots on goal. “I liked how we played in those minutes,” said Motzko. “We stayed with it. We stayed strong.”
Motzko said that there are several factors that are contributing to Minnesota’s fast start, one being the way the Gophers’ defense is playing both sides of the puck.
“We really felt like our defensive core could take a massive step forward in being offensively productive for us,” said Motzko. “Our ‘D’ core was excellent a year ago, but they had nine goals.”
Now that the Gopher blue line is more veteran, Motzko said that’s a “catalyst for us,” leading to a much more offensive-minded defense.
Two Gopher defensemen alone have combined for eight goals through eight games this season. Sophomore Sam Rinzel and junior Ryan Chesley have each netted four goals. Rinzel, a first-round pick of the Chicago Blackhawks in the 2022 NHL Draft, had two goals total in 39 games last season. Chesley, a second-rounder with the Washington Capitals in 2022, had four goals through 75 games in his first two seasons with Minnesota.
Minnesota’s blue line isn’t sacrificing defense for scoring. The Gophers are holding opponents to 1.62 goals per game with a .895 penalty kill percentage.
Sophomore Nathan Airey and grad transfer Liam Souliere have split time evenly in the Minnesota net. Backing up Justen Close, Airey played three games last season with an .865 save percentage and 3.23 goals-against average. Airey is 4-0-0 this season with significantly improved numbers (.908 SV%, 2.00 GAA).
Souliere earned the shutout win against his old teammates Saturday night, his first of the season, his first since March 2023, and the fourth of his career. Souliere has settled in nicely with the Gophers, with a 3-1-0 record, a 1.25 GAA and a .948 SV%, stats that put him among the top 10 goalies in the nation in both categories and numbers that at least so far surpass anything from Souliere’s four seasons with Penn State.
An offense that’s clicking, a defense that is increasingly comfortable at the opposite end of the ice and two goalies combining for the 10th-best GAA in the nation – it’s all a powerful combination, one that Motzko attributes to maturity, especially that of Minnesota’s junior class. Chesley isn’t the only junior seeing improved numbers.
Forward Connor Kurth had seven goals in 37 games last season and 21 total points. Thanks in part to his hat trick against Air Force Oct. 11, Kurth has a team-leading six goals. Brody Lamb had 12 goals in 39 games last season and has five so far with a hat trick of his own against St. Thomas Oct. 26. Juniors have accounted for 21 of Minnesota’s 37 goals this season.
“I call that a junior class that’s now become upperclassmen,” said Motzko. “They’ve been through great wars with us in the last two years … so we’ve got an upper-class group with a lot of confidence and they’re being joined by a younger group – Jimmy Clark in his sophomore year, Ollie Moore – it’s just that we’ve got tremendous depth inside our forwards, solid depth, and we can contributions through all our lines.”
Even with the Gophers’ early success, Motzko is cautiously optimistic about how the season may transpire.
“You don’t win championships early, but you can lose them,” said Motzko. “Early you want you to be really relevant, hanging in there. You want to put yourself in a good spot.
“The key is, get in the [NCAA] tournament. Get in the tournament and you’ve got a chance. There was a time not many years ago at the start of a given year [when] there were probably eight or nine teams that had a true chance to win a title. Now, there could be 15, 16 that have a true chance to win it. The key is to get in the tournament.
Minnesota hosts Wisconsin this weekend, a 2-6-0 team coming off a road split with Notre Dame. The Badgers lost 3-2 in overtime Friday and won 2-1 Saturday.
Motzko knows that “for sure” the series with Wisconsin will be very hard fought.
“They were on an hour before us [Saturday] and we got to watch the early part of their game against Notre Dame, and they took it to Notre Dame in the early stages of the game,” said Motzko. “They looked really solid.”
Last season, the Gophers were 5-3-0 through their first eight games, and two of those three losses were at home against Wisconsin. Minnesota eventually went 1-2-1 against the Badgers last year, with the final two games going to overtime.
