The Minnesota Golden Gophers men’s hockey team will again look to pick up the first win of the Brett Larson era against a ranked opponent this weekend. At least this time they will have the home ice to aid them. But, will they have the crowd advantage? That is to be determined as #3 North Dakota comes into town to once again participate in one of the most anticipated rivalries of all of college hockey. The Fighting Hawk fans appear ready to take advantage of a down Gopher team and their suppressed fan interest, and the unusual Thursday/ Friday series caused by the Gopher football homecoming game against Iowa on Saturday. Both games are sold out for this series, but with the expectation that many in the crown will be wearing green and black, not maroon or gold.
The Gophers are still looking for their first win on the season after a blowout loss and a tie at #3 Minnesota-Duluth last weekend. Friday’s game was a disaster for the Gophers as the Bulldogs could not be stopped and Minnesota’s offense once again struggled to show any relevance as Minnesota would lose 7-1. Saturday the Gophers clawed back from a 2-0 second period deficit with a pair of Brody Ziemer goals to force overtime where Gopher goalie Luca DiPasquo stood on his head and bailed out his team time and time again to earn the 2-2 split. Minnesota would win the shootout that meant nothing, but maybe that was enough of a spark to try and get this team moving in the right direction.
The biggest thing the Gophers need to do is find some offensive consistency. The Gophers have yet to score more than two goals in a game and are averaging just 1.5 goals per game. You won’t beat many teams doing that. Minnesota needs some of their new freshman and transfers to play up to their potential and to see returning players like LJ Mooney and Javon Moore find a way to make an impact on the score sheet.
Defensively the Gophers have received decent goaltending from DiPasquo with the exception of the Friday night game at UMD. Keeping your opponents to 2 or 3 goals should be enough to get a win. He needs some help.
North Dakota comes into the series with a 4-0-0 record and last weekend recorded back to back 5-0 shutouts of Bentley. They previously swept Bemidji State the weekend before. Will Zellers leads the team with six points, all of which came in the opening weekend. In goal the Fighting Hawks have split the net between Jan Spunar and Caleb Heil with the freshman Heil picking up both shutouts a weekend ago.
The Fighting Hawks have dominated on special teams so far this season going 6-16 on the power play and a perfect 9-9 on the penalty kill. Minnesota will be at a disadvantage 5×5 as well, but will absolutely need to find a way to score on the power play and keep UND off of theirs. The Gophers are 2-7 on the power play this season and are giving up goals on the power play 35% of the time. Not great.
Minnesota will look to at least keep the trend of the recent history between the two schools going. The last four series between Minnesota and UND all have ended in splits. Minnesota leads the series 152-138-16 all-time and is 80-54-8 all-time at home. But all of those numbers will be tested strongly this weekend.
Thursday night’s game is set for a 7 PM puck drop and will air on Fox9. Friday’s game will start at 6PM and will air on Fox9+.