Gophers Force Game Three with Fighting Irish
Minneapolis, Minn. — Minnesota might have given away game one of the conference tourney Friday night, but they made sure not to let that happen in game two Saturday. The Gophers got goals from Oliver Moore, Connor Kurth, Matthew Wood and Brodie Ziemer and a steady performance from goaltender Nathan Aiery making 20 saves in a 4-2 win over Notre Dame.
“We were just a little too loose last night. It didn’t feel like a playoff hockey game for us,” said Kurth. “Just bringing some more energy, and the word I would use is jam. We just didn’t have enough jam last night, we used up our only mulligan in playoffs and no more now, so you gotta bring the jam every night from here on out.”
The win forces a game three in the series on Sunday and the game plan won’t change much after the first two games.
“I like what we did last night. We just made a couple mistakes, we chased the game, we had to come back and battle, and we needed to get some breaks,” said Minnesota coach Bob Motzko. “I like how we’ve been playing for the last month, month and a half… We’re running all four lines through, putting pressure on the other team, spreading our offense around, and solid defense. I think they only had six grade A chances last night.”
The one big emphasis with the Gophers play from Friday to Saturday was putting Notre Dame goaltender Owen Say to work. Minnesota missed the net 21 times and had 15 shots blocked out of their 68 shot attempts. Saturday the Gophers still missed the net 15 times and had 17 shots blocked, but it seemed like some of the shots wide were actually attempts to make indirect passes off the end boards or looking for tips from traffic out front rather than picking corners.
“Our emphasis was just to hit the net tonight. I don’t know the number of how many times we missed it last night, but sometimes it happens when you’re just trying to be too cute and pick corners,” said Kurth. “So it was just about hitting the net and getting to the net tonight, because their goalie has been playing great. So get some traffic to him and that’s the plan for tomorrow as well.”
While the traffic was certainly an emphasis and was there for Moore’s first goal of the game and his 12th of the season that came on the power play to tie the game in the second period, the Gophers also got a couple odd man chances that they made sure to capitalize on to extend the lead.
Jimmy Clark picked off a Notre Dame zone exit attempt 4:16 into the third period and quickly led a transition opportunity to the net. Kurth attacked the far post, Wood trailed high, and Clark waited for a window to open up for making a pass across the slot to Kurth and the junior converted for his 17th goal of the season.
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“I was screaming at him, letting him know I was there, because I just figured I’d be open there,” said Kurth. “He made a sick pass, he waited for the lane to open and I could have skated that in the net — so that was all him.”
Minnesota extended the lead to two goals a few minutes later on a rush chance spurred by a Ryan Chesley 100 ft stretch pass angled off the boards right to Kurth.
“I couldn’t believe he put it on my tape. That was ridiculous,” said Kurth. “He was like a quarterback there. He just hit me on a Hail Mary. I didn’t even see it. It just was like, right in front of me.”
The pass was placed in the only spot that Kurth could collect it and still be able to protect it from the Fighting Irish defender and Kurth made sure to keep possession until he could get it out towards Wood for a scoring chance. Wood converted the chance up top for his 16th goal of the season, extending the Minnesota lead to two goals.
“We needed some big plays out of our top guys,” said Motzko. “Kurth and Wood — that was a great effort, battling that guy down low and getting the puck out to Matt. We need that in the playoffs.”
Minnesota’s Brodie Ziemer got the empty net goal after Sam Rinzel calmly collected a puck off a wall battle, made a tape to tape pass to Jimmy Snuggerud who then played the puck into space for Ziemer for a breakaway chance that he could have skated into the goal.
Motzko heads into the final game of the series confident with the way his team has been playing overall and seems to have turned to Aiery in goal after a couple mistakes by Liam Souliere on Friday night.
“Both of our goalies have been good all year. There was just one little stretch when we were down in January. [Aiery] is 12 and two now, and he’s had a really good year,” said Motzko. “When he got sick, we kind of switched over to [Souliere] and then we flip back [to Aiery.] There’s not a lot of science in it. We’ve got a lot of faith in both of them. I thought [Aiery] was really good last night, calm.”