Minnesota’s speed and hustle struggles lead to semifinal exit vs. Michigan

The Michigan Wolverines on Saturday night may have played their best defensive game of the year. They held the Gophers to 24 shots on net and a lot of those shots were served from the right point, including Minnesota’s lone goal provided by Jimmy Snuggerud with just over a minute to go in regulation. Besides great defensive zone cloggage by Wolverine defenders, it didn’t help how unlike Jake Barczewski’s other appearances versus Minnesota, where he averaged 5.38 GAA and an 83 percent save percentage, the former Canisius netminder and present-day Michigan goalie was playing out of his mind.

“Their goalie kind of stood on his head for a while,” Gr. F Bryce Brodzinski said after playing his 183rd game in a Gopher uniform and his last on home ice. “He made a bunch of key saves that I thought should’ve gone in.”

That defense turned into great offense as the Maize and Blue were lit up most notably during a 17 shots on goal second period as they were either breathing down Justen Close’s facemask or shooting wide open wristers from either circle. Even before that, in the opening twenty minutes 4 out of Michigan’s 7 first period shots on goal were from forwards centimeters from the crease. It was out of pure luck the Gophers were not down multiple goals at the end of the first frame. Unfortunately this has been a current and critical theme of error for Minnesota in the form of pure hustle, unless they sharpen up for the NCAA Regionals, they could be one-and-done.

This match against Michigan and the previous game against Penn State are really concerning for a Golden Gopher team who seemingly has found their groove in the second half of the season, at least defensively. Offensively, these past two games the team has looked lost leading to heavy defensive shifts tiring out players for blazing offensive attacks. Minnesota Head Coach Bob Motzko doesn’t want lessons right now, he wants to see evolution from his squad that, before Saturday night, only had four losses since the first half of the season.

“That second period we lost a bunch of draws in our o-zone and iced the puck a handful of times,” said Motzko. “So, that line then had the spend the whole shift defending then they came back, were tired and not into the game.”

Fr. F Jimmy Clark pointed out Saturday night that communication is monumental for good puck possession. It can be really tough to talk to your other teammates when you are short of breath after long defensive stretches.

Clark and the whole Gopher hockey team preaches to get “pucks in deep” but most of those lousy icings that Motzko was referring to may have been the result of dumping the puck deep without many successful chases. Just like against Penn State it seemed that Michigan outhustled the Gophers. Motzko also pointed out that his players didn’t “bend their knees” enough, pointing out that they were outhustled. This isn’t quite the best news for a team entering a postseason where they should be in the best shape possible.

Outside of Oliver Moore and Rhett Pitlick, Minnesota needs to find forwards who are able to fly at all times and establish a constant forecheck. They cannot just hope for the other team to turn the puck over creating ample offensive zone opportunities for traditional catch and shoot goal-scoring forwards such as Jaxon Nelson, Jimmy Snuggerud and Bryce Brodzinski. There needs to be some sort of success playing in an up-tempo game or they may face an early exit in either Sioux Falls, SD or St. Louis, MO in two weeks.

“We had an excellent week,” said Motzko. “We thought, ‘here we go, we’re ready’, and I wish I had better things to say.”