University of Minnesota Athletics
Peltier Scores Twice as Gophers Tie Seawolves
3/1/2008 12:00:00 AM | Men's Hockey
Derek Peltier staked Minnesota to a two-goal first period lead, but Alaska Anchorage to send the Gophers to their school record tying ninth tie of the season.
Minnesota, which played its eighth overtime game in its last 12 outings is now 13-13-9 overall and 7-11-7 in the Western Collegiate Hockey Association. The Gophers have played a national-high 12 overtime games this season with the opponent scoring the tying goal in 11 of those games. Alaska Anchorage snapped a six-game losing streak and is now 7-18-8 overall and 3-19-6 in the league. The Seawolves also set a school record with their eighth tie of the year.
Peltier opened the scoring with Minnesota’s fastest game-opening goal of the season just 27 seconds into the contest. Patrick White sent a long pass ahead to Blake Wheeler, who brought the puck into the zone and dumped to Peltier for the one-timer. Minnesota has scored first in 26 of its 35 games and never trailed in the game.
Alaska Anchorage had a five-on-three power play for 1:26 of the first period, but Minnesota killed off both penalties and scored shortly after with another tally by Peltier. With Minnesota on the power play, Peltier launched a shot from the point that was assisted by Mike Carman and Tony Lucia at the 13:59 mark. It was only Minnesota’s fourth shot of the game as the Seawolves owned a 12-9 advantage in shots for the period.
The Seawolves countered with 36.6 seconds left in the first period on a long shot from Paul Crowder that Minnesota goaltender Alex Kangas got a piece of, but could not gather in. Josh Lunden and Nils Backstrom assisted the goal.
Neither team scored in the second period, though Minnesota had the better of the chances with a 12-5 advantage in shots and both power play chances.
Ken Selby tied the game for Alaska Anchorage, wristing a shot past Kangas at 14:02 of the third period. It was the first career goal for Selby, a fourth-line sophomore forward playing in his 17th game and fifth of this season. The goal was assisted by Sean Wiles and came following a long stretch of back-and-forth action that went 4:20 without a stoppage of play.
Minnesota had numerous quality chances in the final minutes of regulation and held a 9-8 edge in shots for the period. Gophers’ forward Evan Kaufmann was whistled for tripping as time expired, giving the Seawolves a two-minute power play to open overtime, but they managed just one shot on goal.
Each team had three shots in the overtime with Minnesota holding a 33-28 advantage in shots for the game. Both teams also had five power plays with the Gophers getting the only man-advantage goal. Kangas made 26 saves for Minnesota and Jon Olthuis had 31 saves after allowing two goals on the first four shots of the game for the Seawolves.
The teams will play again on Saturday at 10:07 p.m. central time.
