While the MacNaughton Cup will elude the Minnesota men’s hockey team this year, the Gophers earned a distinctly more delicious prize Friday night in a 4-1 win over Minnesota-Duluth.
The Dairy Queen Cup ñ given to the Minnesota-based Western Collegiate Hockey Association team that has the best record against in-state conference foes.
So is the Cup important to coach Don Lucia?
“Only if the coaches get gift certificates,” Lucia said. “We play for it and you want to try and get as many trophies as you can. The byproduct of that was staying ahead of UMD, and that was obviously important tonight.”
Minnesota (15-13-9 overall, 8-11-7 WCHA) owns a 4-1-2 record in the DQ Cup standings, which includes St. Cloud State and Minnesota State in addition to Friday’s competitors.
The Cup, which is in its third year of existence, will go to the Gophers for the second time ñ they also won it in 2005-2006 the inaugural season.
And like that season, the Gophers clinched the Cup tonight (as well as at least seventh place in the WCHA) without sophomore forward Jay Barriball, who missed his third game in the last six with a recurring ankle injury.
With Barriball out, Lucia switched up the lineup ñ putting senior forward Mike Howe up on the top-line with junior Blake Wheeler and senior Ben Gordon.
The move worked out pretty well as the trio came out and gave the Gophers a 2-0 lead in the first period while Wheeler added a long-range, empty-netter in the third.
Gordon and Howe set up Wheeler 37 seconds into the game for the junior’s team-high 14th goal of the year.
“Once the puck got to me, it was a pretty easy goal,” Wheeler said. “Ben had to get it over a couple guys’ sticks, and he put it right on my tape ñ I couldn’t have missed. That felt really good to tap one into the open net, Ben made a great pass.”
Later in the period, Wheeler and freshman forward Mike Hoeffel set up Gordon’s 13th goal of the year during a Minnesota power-play ñ a scoring chance started by Howe.
“Blake, Ben and Mike had a great start to the game, they were firing on all cylinders,” senior forward Evan Kaufmann said.
Kaufmann added a second period goal before Bulldogs junior forward Michael Gergen broke up freshman goalie Alex Kangas’ attempt at his first career shutout.
Lucia said after the game that Barriball will also sit out of tomorrow’s regular season finale as a precautionary measure.
“Had we lost, I would have played Jay tomorrow,” Lucia said. “But since we won, it’s not worth the risk.”
