Gophers Drop Friday Game in OT at Penn State

State College, PA – Needing at least an overtime win to control their destiny heading into the final day of the Big Ten regular season, Minnesota came up agonizingly short once again in the extra session.

Thankfully for Gopher fans, 3-on-3 OT and shootouts are not a part of the postseason!

Simon Mack’s overtime tally sent the fans home happy, as the Minnesota Gophers (23-8-4 Overall (1-4 OT), 13-3-1-6 B1G) lost to the Penn State Nittany Lions (18-11-4 (3-1), 7-9-5-2) by a 4-3 final.

The Gophers came out like you’d expect the #2 team in the country to, racking up nine shots on goal in the first five minutes of play and owning the game early on. Mason Nevers’ fifth goal of the year at 2:40 gave Minnesota an early 1-0 lead. However, despite the dominating performance on the ice, Minnesota was not able to expand the lead, and not converting on opportunities when they had the chance is what ultimately cost them the game (as well as a pretty consistent theme of the team this season).

The Gophers squandered two powerplay chances early in the second period, and a fast, aggressive Penn State team found two goals 46 seconds apart in the middle of the period to turn a 1-0 deficit into a 2-1 lead.

Minnesota finally converted on the powerplay at 17:56 of the second on Connor Kurth’s 16th goal of the season to tie the game at 2-2 heading into the third.

In the third period, it was Penn State’s turn to get on the power play. The Gophers took and killed their first penalty of the game at 6:37, but just 11 seconds after the penalty expired Minnesota took another penalty to send PSU back to the man advantage. The Nittany Lions didn’t miss this time, with Danny Dzhaniyev’s wrister finding its way through traffic into the back of the Gopher net at 9:22 of the third.

Minnesota was able to answer right back, when who other than Jimmy Snuggerud got a puck past PSU goalie Arsenii Sergeev at 11:44 to tie the game at 3-3. The score stayed that way throughout the rest of the third period, so the two teams went to the 3-on-3 overtime period to decide the game.

Coming into the weekend, Minnesota needed 5-of-6 total Big Ten points in order to clinch the regular season title, which means that the Gophers would need to win this overtime period and win in regulation Saturday to clinch the championship. However, it was not to be.

Like they did against Omaha, Notre Dame, and Michigan earlier in the season, the Gophers had no answer in the overtime period. Minnesota’s overtime strategy is strange to say the least – while all other teams play a possession game and manage the puck carefully, the Gophers frequently enter the zone one-on-two and turn the puck over. This was certainly the case Friday, as Penn State won nearly every overtime faceoff and dominated the possession. When Minnesota did get the puck, they turned it over – Oliver Moore and Ryan Chesley lost the puck in the PSU zone after not finding teammates to feed the puck to.

Eventually, the disjointed play caught up to them, as PSU’s Simon Mack scored the game-winner 3:02 into the overtime period. Former Nittany Lion Liam Souliere took the loss in net for the Gophers, making 28 saves on 32 Penn State shots.

After MSU took care of Notre Dame Friday afternoon, Minnesota and Michigan State are tied in points heading into the regular season’s final game Saturday night. With the Spartans holding the tiebreaker (head to head points), Minnesota needs to earn at least one point and get some help from cellar-dwelling Notre Dame Saturday in order to capture a title.

Overtime has not been kind to Minnesota this season. The Gophers only OT win was against Wisconsin on Brodie Ziemer’s bat-it-out-of-the-air goal, while they’ve lost four times in the 3-on-3 session (Omaha, Notre Dame, Michigan, Penn State) and another four times in the shootout (Alaska, MSU x2, Michigan). Minnesota has only picked up one extra point in the OT minigame, tied with Wisconsin for worst in the league, and trailing behind Notre Dame (3), Ohio State (3), Michigan State (4), Penn State (5), and Michigan (7). In fact, if the Gophers had won the two shootouts against MSU earlier this season, they’d have clinched the Big Ten title with the overtime result yesterday.

As it stands, the Gophers will be watching the MSU/ND game early to see if they have a chance to raise a banner tonight. Notre Dame hosts MSU at 5PM central time, while the Gophers play Penn State at 7PM. MSU/ND can be seen on Peacock, while the Gophers are on BTN.