The Gophers men’s hockey team’s (7-11-4 overall, 5-6-3 in the WCHA) upcoming series with Minnesota State (9-9-2) won’t count toward any particular standings or ratings.
But for the emotional state of the team, this could be one of the more important series of the year.
“There is more urgency (in the locker room) than before,” freshman goaltender Adam Hauser said. “Every series that we could have or should have won is serving more of a reminder right now.”
While the Gophers are on the topic of remembering, perhaps they can begin to remember how to put the puck in the net.
Minnesota has been shooting more pucks wide than a placekicker on a windy day.
Goal scoring is something that becomes almost instinctive. A shooter can’t always pinpoint the puck into the net, but he must know where the openings are — something the Gophers are completely clueless about right now.
“I’m a firm believer in scoring goals,” junior winger Dave Spehar said. “I’m not big on scoring chances or on shots-on-goal. We could have 80 shots on goal and no goals, they could have four shots and two goals. Shots doesn’t matter, goals do.”
Spehar currently has a total of six goals and 12 assists, with all six goals coming on the power play. He also has a minus-7 rating, which is unacceptable by his standards.
Not all of the blame should fall on Spehar. But for a team that’s been lagging in the scoring column, Spehar’s power outage has been more noticeable than most.
“I take of lot of the responsibility right now,” Spehar said. “I haven’t been doing my job.”
But he hasn’t been the only one not doing their particular job.
In the Denver series, one of the major factors that sealed Minnesota’s fate was the wealth of odd-man rushes that was crammed down the Gophers’ throats.
“I can’t really explain that,” defenseman Brad Timmons said. “You see things happen. It’s just bad luck right now, we have to hope that the bad luck will turn around to the other team.”
Hoping that the evil mojo will turn to Minnesota State might be asking the higher powers of the universe a little too much.
The Mavericks, who will participate in the WCHA playoffs before joining the league next year, have played their future conference members tough thus far, despite a 2-6 record.
They are coming off a series where they were swept at North Dakota. Minnesota State lost 5-2 on Saturday and 5-4 on Friday. Junior center Aaron Fox scored a hat trick against the No. 1 team in the country in their 5-4 loss.
The Gophers are starting to feel the heat from their losses, but Hauser has a theory on how they can turn it around.
“For our own situation,” Hauser said, “we need to blow them out. We need to win, but one or none is not satisfying.”
Blowing out Minnesota State is something much easier said than done. But a series sweep is something the Gophers should be capable of pulling off.
If they can only put the puck in the net.
“We’ve got to come out and play solid hockey,” Spehar said, “something we haven’t done all year, in my opinion.”