The No. 10 Gophers men’s hockey team continues to play well throughout the new year. They dominated No. 11/12 Notre Dame en route to a 5-1 victory on Friday night to remain undefeated against the Fighting Irish this season.
The game started with a lot of back-and-forth play, as either team struggled to take control of the pace. It took 6:05 for the first shot on goal to occur, which also happened to be the game’s first goal by the Gophers.
Senior Grant Cruikshank flew down the left side of the ice to create an odd-man rush, kept the puck for himself, and fired a wrist shot from the left faceoff dot to score his fourth goal this season and give the Gophers an early 1-0 lead.
After Cruikshank opened up the scoring, Minnesota (15-10) dominated play the rest of the way.
Two minutes later, freshman Tristan Broz added to the Gophers’ early lead with 11:20 remaining in the first after he re-directed junior Jackson LaCombe’s shot from the right circle.
To put the cherry on top for Minnesota’s strong first period, senior Blake McLaughlin worked his way past the goal line and fired the puck toward the middle of the zone. Then, it banked into the net after hitting the backside of Notre Dame’s goaltender Matthew Galajda to give the Gophers a 3-0 lead with 8:51 remaining in the first.
McLaughlin’s tally marked the first career point for Minnesota junior goaltender Justen Close, who recorded a secondary assist on the play.
As the Gophers hit the ice for period two, they quickly returned to dominating Notre Dame.
Just 37 seconds into the second period, senior co-captain Sammy Walker extended Minnesota’s lead to 4-0 after burying a cross-crease pass from freshman Matthew Knies.
The Fighting Irish scored their lone goal on the man advantage after Trevor Janicke deflected Chase Blackmun’s shot from the blue line to cut the Gophers’ lead to 4-1 with 3:36 remaining in the second.
With Notre Dame cutting into Minnesota’s large lead, it seemed like the Fighting Irish started to gain momentum. However, the Gophers quickly responded just before the end of the second period.
McLaughlin scored his second goal of the night with 35.7 remaining in the period after firing the puck into the back of the net off a cross-crease feed from junior Bryce Brodzinski to cement Minnesota’s 5-1 victory.
Earlier this week, Motzko mentioned that the line of McLaughlin-Walker-Brodzinski needs “to amp it up.” And the veteran line for the Gophers did just that as they combined for three goals and two assists in the win.
Close had another great performance for Minnesota between the pipes as he recorded a .966 save percentage after making 28 saves on 29 shots faced.
Twelve Gophers’ players recorded at least one point in the win, highlighted by Broz’s game-winning goal in the first period. The winning tally marked the first game-winning goal of his career.
Minnesota will look to finish undefeated against Notre Dame this season when they take on the Fighting Irish on Saturday, Jan. 29, at 5 p.m.
