University of Minnesota Athletics
Waiting Game Begins as Gophers Fall in Final Five
3/20/2009 12:00:00 AM | Men's Hockey
Minnesota's NCAA tournament hopes are on hold after suffering a 2-1 loss to Minnesota Duluth on Thursday night at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul in the play-in game of the WCHA Final Five.
Playing the final two periods without starting goaltender Alex Kangas, who left the game after the first frame due to flu-like symptoms, fifth-seeded Minnesota (17-13-7) was out-dueled by the seventh-seeded Bulldogs (19-12-8) despite outshooting Duluth 40-30 during the contest and putting together several excellent scoring chances.
No. 11 Minnesota must now hope to earn an at-large bid in next weekend’s NCAA Tournament. The Gophers have made eight consecutive NCAA appearances.
Playing in front of an announced crowd of 17,611, things did not start well for Minnesota. Kangas, who practiced minimally during the week while battling stomach flu, allowed a put-back goal by Bulldogs’ MacGregor Sharp just 3:46 into the game to give Duluth an early 1-0 lead.
Despite nine other Kangas saves during the first period, Gophers head coach Don Lucia opted to send out backup goalkeeper Kent Patterson for the second period with Minnesota still trailing by a goal. Patterson surrendered a score to UMD’s Matt Greer 14:34 into the second period and finished with 19 saves in 40 minutes of play.
Down 2-0 entering the third, the Gophers’ Cade Fairchild, a Duluth native, cut the deficit in half on a well-orchestrated scoring play with 13:44 remaining in the third period. A hard pass from Jay Barriball just inside the blue line found Fairchild on the opposite side of the rink, and his slapshot whizzed past All-WCHA First-Team goalie Alex Stalock to bring Minnesota within one at 2-1. The goal was the ninth of the season for the sophomore, with Barriball and Jordan Schroeder earning assists on the play.
But the lone goal was all Minnesota could muster as it lost for the first time in four WCHA Final Five play-in games. This season marks just the second time in the conference tournament’s 17-year history that the Gophers have not advanced to the semifinal round.
Stalock paced the Bulldogs with 39 saves, improving to 2-5-2 lifetime against Minnesota. Mike Hoeffel led the Gophers with six shots on goal. First-team All-WCHA selection Ryan Stoa also notched five shots in the loss.
Minnesota had several excellent scoring opportunities throughout the course of the game, but could not break through. Despite entering the game with the nation’s 51st-ranked penalty kill (out of 58 Division I teams), Minnesota Duluth shut out the Gophers during 8:54 worth of power play minutes.
Minnesota-Duluth advances to take on North Dakota in the semifinal game Friday night in St. Paul.
NCAA bids are set to be announced Sunday morning at 10:30 a.m. on ESPN2. Minnesota is currently ranked 14th in the PairWise rankings; 16 teams make the NCAA Tournament.
