University of Minnesota Athletics
Minnesota Drops 8-7 ot Thriller to St. Cloud State at WCHA Final Five
3/17/2006 12:00:00 AM | Men's Hockey
Hobey Baker Award candidate Ryan Potulny had a career night for Minnesota, scoring four goals and adding an assist on Irmen's goal to push his nation-leading totals to 38-25- -63. Potulny had a hand in the Golden Gophers' last five goals to record his first career five-point and four-goal game and his fourth hat trick of the season. Also posting a career night was senior defenseman Chris Harrington with four assists.
The Golden Gophers took two first-period leads, only to see the Huskies strike back as the game went into the first intermission tied at 2-2. Minnesota struck first at 9:36 with Ben Gordon's 12th goal of the season. Blake Wheeler took a Chris Harrington's pass and skated down the right side, passing to the slot for Gordon to beat SCSU goaltender Bobby Goepfert to the stick side.
Just 1:21 later, Matt Hartman made it 1-1 with his ninth tally of the year. Matt Stephenson's shot from the point deflected right to Hartman at the side of the net to beat UM netminder Kellen Briggs to the stick side.
At 13:33, the Maroon and Gold re-took the lead as Alex Goligoski intercepted a SCSU clearing attempt and fired a wrist shot from the high slot to beat a screened Goepfert to the glove side. The goal was Goligoski's career-best 10th of the season.
Less than two minutes later, St. Cloud State knotted the game at 2-2 as Andrew Gordon deflected a Justin Fletcher shot in front to beat Briggs to the stick side for a power-play goal. Brock Hooton was credited with the second assost. For the period, the Huskies out- shot the Golden Gophers 16-8.
The second period was a crazy offensive stanza with St. Cloud State out-scoring Minnesota, 4-3, to take a 6-5 lead into the second intermission. The Huskies began the period with goals by Gordon at 00:58, Casey Borer at 3:50 and Grant Clafton at 5:54 to take a 4-2 lead. Following Clafton's goal, the Golden Gophers pulled Briggs in favor of backup Jeff Frazee. Potulny began UM's comeback with a power-play goal at 9:43. Using nice puck movement, Harrington fed Kessel who passed across the slot for Potulny to beat Goepfert high to the glove side.
The Huskies re-gained the three-goal lead at 11:40 with Brock Hooton's unassisted goal at 11:40. Minnesota turned the puck over in its own zone with Hooton gaining possession and beating Frazee with a wrist shot high to the glove side.
From there, Potulny but the Golden Gophers on his back to complete his pure hat trick and pull UM within one goal at the second intermission. At 14:08, Potulny took a Danny Irmen pass on the right side and beat Goepfert high to the glove side for a power-play goal. Harrington picked up the second assist on the play.
Potulny then made the score 6-5 with a dramatic power-play lamplighter with only 0.4 seconds remaining in the second period. Kessel gained the puck behind the net and passed out front for Potulny to beat Goepfert to the short side. Harrington earned the second assist for his first career four-point game. For the period, Minnesota out-shot SCSU 17-12.
St. Cloud State looked to have put the game away in the third period when Hooton scored on a breakaway at 16:21, but the Maroon and Gold rallied with two goals in the final two minutes to force overtime. Irmen made the score 7-6 at 17:59 with his 16th goal of the season. Potulny grabbed the puck behind the net with Stoa sliding a pass to Irmen to beat Goepfert to the glove side.
With Frazee pulled in the waning moments of the period, Potulny knotted the game at 7-7 with 15 seconds left on the clock. Taking a feed from Irmen, Potulny fired a one-timer from the right circle to beat Goepfert to the glove side. Kessel earned the second assist on Potulny's nation-leading 38th goal of the season. For the period, Minnesota out-shot SCSU 20-7.
Matt Hartman played the hero for the Huskies in overtime taking a Nate Raduns pass to gain the zone and beat Frazee with a wrist shot to the stick side. Dan Kronick picked up the second assist on the goal. Minnesota out-shot St. Cloud State, 6-3, in the extra session.
For the game, the Maroon and Gold out-shot the Huskies, 51-38. Frazee earned the loss with three goals allowed on 16 shots to fall to 6-3-2, while Goepfert earned the win with 44 saves to improve to 20-13-4. Briggs allowed five goals on 22 shots.The Golden Gophers went 2-for-4 on the power play, while St. Cloud State was 1-for-3.
Minnesota will take on Wisconsin in the WCHA Final Five third-place game at 2:37 p.m. St. Cloud State will then face North Dakota in the title game for the right to earn the Broadmoor Trophy and the league's automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.
In the day's first semifinal, fourth-ranked Wisconsin owned a 2-0 lead late in the first period, but No. 8 North Dakota scored twice in the period's final two minutes and twice more in the second period to edge the Badgers, 4-3. UND's Rylan Kaip scored the first two goals of his career and the top two lines accounted for two goals and five assists to advance to Saturday night's WCHA Final Five championship game.
Game Notes
Minnesota leads the all-time series vs. St. Cloud State 40-20-9, including a 4-3-1 mark in neutral site games, 1-2-0 mark this season and a 5-3-0 record in the postseason.
The Golden Gophers are unbeaten in 12 of the last 14 meetings (10-2-2) with the Huskies.
Seven of the last eight meetings have been decided by two goals or less.
UM is 16-12 all-time in the WCHA Final Five, including a 7-6 mark in semifinal contests.
Under Don Lucia, the Golden Gophers are 6-8 in the WCHA Final Five.
Minnesota is 8-6-1 vs. the 2006 WCHA Final Five field this season. UM is 1-2-0 vs. St. Cloud State, 3-1-0 vs. North Dakota, 2-2-0 vs. Wisconsin and 2-1-1 vs. UMD.
Under Lucia, the Maroon and Gold is 30-11-0 in the postseason. UM has not had a losing postseason since 2000-01 when the team went 2-3-0.
Gino Guyer leads the team in career postseason scoring with 4-15--19 in 23 career games, followed by Ryan Potulny (12-7--19) and Danny Irmen (9-7--16).
Minnesota is 11-6-0 all-time at the Xcel Energy Center.UM has won nine of its last 11 games (9-3-0) at the St. Paul arena. Minnesota is 7-6 in the postseason at the X.
The Golden Gophers are 20-2-1 in their last 23 games. UM is out-scoring its opponents 110-53 during that span.
Current Golden Gopher streaks:
- Danny Irmen: eight-game point streak (4-8--12)
- Ryan Stoa: six-game point streak (5-5--10)
- Ben Gordon: three-game point streak (3-4--7)
- Blake Wheeler: three-game point streak (2-5--7)
- Phil Kessel: three-game point streak (3-5--8)/ three straight multi-point games (3-5--8)
Chris Harrington: two-game point streak (0-5--5)
Minnesota’s nation-longest unbeaten streak came to a close at 14 games (13-0 -1).
The Golden Gophers’ season-long eight-game winning streak came to an end.
Under Don Lucia, Minnesota is 21-10-7 as the nation's No. 1 team, including a 9-2-2 mark this season.
Minnesota is 16-4-4 vs. unranked opponents this season.
UM is 18-7-2 in games played in Minnesota this season.
The Maroon and Gold is 21-1-0 when scoring more than three goals and 14-1-0 when scoring more than four. UM allowed more than four goals for the first time since a 5-5 tie to UAA on Feb. 12, 2005, a span of 49 games.
Minnesota has scored four or more goals in 23 of 39 games this season and in 17 of the last 23 games.
The Golden Gophers are 21-3-4 when scoring first, 5-3-2 when tied after one period and 3-4-0 when trailing after two periods.
UM is 10-5-0 in one-goal games, 4-1-0 in two-goal games and 13-1-0 in three-goal or more games.
The Golden Gophers have not been shut out since Dec. 3, 2005, a span of 23 games. That ranks third in the WCHA behind Minnesota State (33) and Colorado College (27).
The Maroon and Gold is unbeaten in 23 of the last 28 games (22-5-1) in the months of March and April.
Since the beginning of the 2001-02 season, Minnesota is 14-7-0 in neutral site games.
This season, UM is 5-3-1 vs. teams from the state of Minnesota.
Minnesota is 5-2-4 on NHL-size rinks this season.
Minnesota owns a 27-3-1 record this season when it has a player get two or more points in a game. Ryan Potulny leads the team with 18 multi-point games and 11 multi-goal games this season.
Out of 27 games played this season, Danny Irmen has been held without a point in only seven contests. Minnesota is 20-1-1 when he tallies a point.
The Final Five semi-final between Minnesota and St. Cloud State set an all-time WCHA Final Five single game attendance record of 19,353, eclipsing the tournament game record of 19,306 set in the 2004 Final Five championship game. Friday night’s game also broke the previous Friday evening game record of 19,208, also first set in 2004.
