Ronda Curtin’s unassisted power-play goal at 10:27 of the third period lifted top-ranked Minnesota to a 1-0 victory over archrival and second-ranked Minnesota-Duluth at Mariucci Arena on Friday.<\/p>\n
The victory extends the Golden Gophers’ unbeaten streak to 17 games and improves their record to 16-2-5 overall, and a first-place 11-1-3 mark in WCHA action. The Bulldogs suffered their first shutout in 44 games and fall to 15-3-3 overall and 10-3-2 in conference play.<\/p>\n
“It was a great team win for us,” said Minnesota head coach Laura Halldorson. “Once again, our determination and character pulled out a huge victory. I’m very proud of our players’ efforts.”<\/p>\n
Curtin intercepted a Duluth clearing attempt at the blue line and blasted the game-winner from the point. The goal was Curtin’s sixth, and her second winner of the season.<\/p>\n
Rookie goalie Brenda Reinen posted her first career shutout, collecting 42 saves.<\/p>\n
The teams battled through two scoreless periods. The Bulldogs held a 13-11 edge in shots on goal in the first period, then were unable to take advantage of a 13-4 margin in the second period.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Minnesota was unsuccessful in four power-play chances in two and a half periods. However, a slashing penalty on Michelle McAteer at the 9:35 mark of the third period opened the door for the Gophers’ fifth power-play opportunity, capped by Curtin’s winning goal.<\/p>\n
Overall, Minnesota went 1-for-6 on power-play opportunities, while Minnesota-Duluth was 0-for-2.<\/p>\n
The Gophers claimed their third shutout win ever over the Bulldogs and improved their all-time series record to 5-4-2.<\/p>\n
The two teams square off in the second game of the series on Saturday at 7:05 p.m. CT.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ronda Curtin’s unassisted power-play goal at 10:27 of the third period lifted top-ranked Minnesota to a 1-0 victory over archrival and second-ranked Minnesota-Duluth at Mariucci Arena on Friday. The victory extends the Golden Gophers’ unbeaten streak to 17 games and improves their record to 16-2-5 overall, and a first-place 11-1-3 mark in WCHA action. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22374,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2885"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2885"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2885\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2885"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=2885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}