SATURDAY COLLEGE HOCKEY ROUNDUP: No. 4 Minnesota shuts out No. 6 Michigan for second straight night; No. 1 Michigan State rallies from 2-0 for OT win at Wisconsin; UMass PP puts away No. 11 BU; No. 2 Denver gets OT win for series split with No. 7 WMU

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For the first time since 1943, No. 4 Minnesota shutout No. 6 Michigan on back-to-back nights, completing the weekend sweep with a 2-0 blanking of the Wolverines (Photo: Jim Rosvold)

Certainly Michigan, one of the nation’s top college hockey programs, doesn’t get shutout on back-to-back nights too often. Well, the last time that rival Minnesota did that, Franklin D. Roosevelt was the president.

Eighty-one years after, the No. 4 Gophers once again completed that feat, shutting down the No. 6 Wolverines for the second-straight night, 2-0, blanking a Michigan team that two weekends ago scored 16 goals in two games against Penn State.

The year was 1943 the last time Minnesota whitewashed a weekend with the Wolverines. After Saturday’s 6-0 victory, Saturday required a first-period goal from Sam Rinzel on the power play and an empty-net tally by Jimmy Snuggerud for the decisive weekend sweep.

Minnesota improves to 8-0-0 in Big Ten play.

Goaltender Liam Souliere 22-save shutout on Saturday followed crease mate Nathan Airey’s 32-save blanking on Friday.

Minnesota improves to 15-2-1 overall, while Michigan drops to 10-5-1 having lost three of four games.

POLL | PAIRWISE | SCOREBOARD | STANDINGS

No. 1 Michigan State 3, Wisconsin 2 (F/OT)

The top-ranked Spartans rallied from 2-0 down and Isaac Howard scored with 2:00 remaining in overtime to help Michigan State split the weekend series at Wisconsin, 3-2.

Wisconsin still earns four-of-six points on the weekend against the nation’s newly-minted No. 1 team after Friday’s 4-0 victory.

The Badgers seemingly were writing a similar script to Friday early in the rematch. Owen Lindmark gave Wisconsin a 1-0 lead on the power play with 3:42 remaining in the first and Christian Fitzgerald extended that advantage at 3:16 of the second.

Michigan State finally struck on the power play in the second when Charlie Stramel, a transfer from Wisconsin, scored in the building he used to call home.

Joey Larson knotted the game at 2:24 of the third to set up Howard’s heroics.

Massachusetts 4, No. 11 Boston University 0

UMass took advantage of a penalty-plagued game by No. 11 Boston University, scoring three times on the power play to post a 4-0 shutout of the Terriers to win the opening game of a two-game home-and-home series.

They two clubs will faceoff again in Amherst on Wednesday.

Boston University was whistled for 46 minutes worth of penalties, including majors to both Cole Hutson and Brandon Svoboda. The Svoboda major proved most costly for the Terriers, who allowed two power play goals during the five minutes at the end of the second period to give UMass a 3-0 lead.

Daniel Jencko, Lucas Olvestad and Kenny Connors all notched power play tallies for the Minutemen and Ryan Lautenbach, who gave UMass the 1-0 lead early in the first, scored what turned out to be the game-winner.

Michael Hrabel earned the shutout by making 32 saves.

No. 20 Clarkson 3, No. 13 Dartmouth 2

It was a lost weekend for No. 13 Dartmouth, which followed up a loss at home on Friday against St. Lawrence with another defeat at the hands of No. 20 Clarkson, 3-2. Dartmouth has now lost three straight games after staring the season 5-0-1.

Clarkson finished its ECAC weekend with back-to-back wins having defeated Harvard, 4-3, on the road on Friday.

The Golden Knights never trailed on Saturday jumping to leads of 1-0 on Tristan Sarsland’s goal at 12:01 of the first and a 2-1 advantage when Ellis Rickwood scored at 9:45 of the second.

Dartmouth drew even late in the middle frame when Hayden Stavroff scored.

But Aryton Martino’s goal with 2:55 remaining in regulation was the game-winning goal.

Clarkson improves to 5-1-0 in the ECAC and sits just a single point behind first-place Quinnipiac, which posted a pair of 3-1 victories over Rensselaer and Union on the weekend.

No. 2 Denver 3, No. 7 Western Michigan 2 (F/OT)

Second-ranked Denver rallied from deficits of 1-0 and 2-1 with Samu Salminen tying the game with 1:06 remaining in regulation and Carter King netting the overtime game-winner as the Pioneers avoided a weekend sweep in Kalamazoo with a 3-2 victory.

Western Michigan won in regulation on Friday, 3-2, thus taking four of the six NCHC league points against the defending national champions over the weekend.

Alex Bump and Grant Slukynsky tallied for the Broncos while Zeev Buium had the remaining goal for Denver.

 

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