Two weeks ago, Minnesota coach Bob Motzko said, “You don’t win championships early, but you can lose them.”
After the Golden Gophers split a home-and-home series with Bemidji State, losing 3-1 in the Beavers’ barn last Saturday, Motzko made some remarks that echoed those he made about early season mistakes and successes.
“We made a blunder 10 seconds into the game and that happens,” said Motzko, “but for the next 58 minutes, we had many, many chances.”
That blunder Motzko referred to led to Kirklan Irey’s first goal of the game 21 seconds into the first period, a solo effort capitalizing on a neutral-zone mistake.
Nine minutes later, Irey made the most of the Gophers’ inability to clear the puck from their own zone and gave Bemidji State a 2-0 lead.
“This is a frustrating sport we play sometimes,” said Motzko.
That loss Saturday, only the second of the season for Minnesota, halted the Gophers’ nine-game win streak.
Asked by the Minnesota radio crew after Saturday’s loss what he might have done differently, Motzko joked, “Well, I wouldn’t schedule Bemidji.”
On the “Gopher Weekly Hockey” show Monday, Motzko credited Bemidji State coach Tom Serratore and the way Bemidji State has risen to the occasion against ranked teams for years.
“Our guys played their tails off,” said Motzko. “Bemidji played their tails off.”
Against the Beavers, Motzko said he’s noticed a pattern that’s emerged in games that are too close for his liking.
“We’ve done this a few times now,” said Motzko. “We missed the net on paper 24 times and we went back and watched it on film and it was 15 times that we missed the net. The one-nothing win versus Penn State [Nov. 2] where we scored with 27 seconds to go in the game, we missed the net 19 times. Our game with Omaha when we had the 50-some chances, we get a little cute and we have to stop that.”
That game against Omaha was a 2-1 loss in the title game of the IceBreaker tournament Oct. 12.
“Sometimes,” said Motzko, “we just think we’re going to score, well the other team’s trying so hard and defending so hard – and Bemidji blocked 24 shots on Saturday – we have to be much more patient. We’ve got to bunt to get on base, and we’re going for home runs.”
The Gophers outshot the Beavers 26-10 in the final two periods of that loss, beating Bemidji goaltender Mattias Sholl just once when Matthew Wood scored with less than three minutes remaining in regulation.
As the Gophers were suffering their second loss of the season, long-time rival Wisconsin was sweeping Penn State on the road, 5-4 (OT) and 6-3, improving to 4-8-0 overall.
The six points the Badgers earned in the weekend brought them to 11 total, tied with Minnesota. There is one enormous difference between the Gophers and Badgers that factors into that points total: Wisconsin has played eight Big Ten games to Minnesota’s four.
Another difference: after the first 12 games of the season, Minnesota is seventh in the PairWise rankings and Wisconsin is 37th.
Heading into the series against Penn State with just one B1G win to the Badgers’ credit, Mike Hastings said that because “results need to change,” Wisconsin had to continue its “process.”
Part of that process includes healing a banged-up blueline and getting scoring from a variety of sources.
In his weekly presser before the Penn State series, Hastings said, “We’re a little healthier on the blue line, so that allows us to move Jack [Horbach] back up front. He’s the guy who’s crossed a lot of Ts and dotted a lot of Is for us. Whatever we’ve needed him to do, he has done, and so he’s earned the opportunity to move back to his natural position and I’m hoping he can energize a line just like he did our ‘D’ core.”
Horbach earned his first point of the season in Wisconsin’s 6-3 win to secure the sweep Saturday, the second assist to Christian Fitzgerald’s goal at 7:38 in the first. That was the Badgers’ third goal of four scored within the first 10 minutes of the game.
Nine different Badgers accounted for the 11 goals scored against Penn State, with a Ryland Mosley and Cody Laskosky notched a goal in each game, and the two scored on the same five-minute power play late in the third period of the 6-3 win.
Before the series, Hastings said that he was looking for the return of injured defensemen like Zach Schulz, out for a month with an upper-body injury, to take lengthen the bench a little for the offense.
Said Hastings, “I’m hoping that interjection of just some consistency can help us a bit offensively.”
The breadth of scoring and the first goals of the season by Fitzgerald and Tyson Dyck contributed to a weekend in which Wisconsin’s goal production increased by 38% in just two games. The Badgers had scored a total of 18 goals in their first 12 games of the season.
“Our starts have gotten better,” said Hastings. “Our secondary scoring has gotten better, and when we needed our power play to come through, it did.”
Even before facing off against the Nittany Lions, Hastings was feeling the pinch of time.
“We’re at a point where we’ve got two games left in our last segment here [before a bye week], and we’ve got to squeeze as much out of it as we can, so whatever needs to be done needs to be done,” said Hastings.
That injured Badgers have a bye this week before returning to action Thanksgiving weekend, when they host Alaska Anchorage. Incidentally, the Gophers will host Alaska the same weekend.
These two former WCHA rivals will finish the first half of the season against by facing the same Big Ten opponents in December. Wisconsin hosts Michigan State Dec. 6-7 before traveling to Michigan Dec. 13-14. Minnesota hosts Michigan Dec. 6-7 and Michigan State Dec. 13-14.
Minnesota travels to Notre Dame this weekend (Nov. 22-23), where they’ll face a Fighting Irish team looking to snap a five-game losing streak.
