Jan. 5, 2007

From Minnesota Athletics

Beginning the game with only nine forwards and losing another to injury during the game, the top-ranked University of Minnesota men's hockey team used a gritty effort to roll to a 5-1 win over Minnesota State tonight in front of 4,706 fans at the Midwest Wireless Civic Center in Mankato, Minn. The Golden Gophers (18-1-3, 10-0-3 WCHA) got points from 11 different players, including multi-point nights from Ryan Flynn (1-1--2), Jay Barriball (1-1--2), Blake Wheeler (0-2--2) and R.J. Anderson (0-2--2) to push Minnesota's school record and nation's best unbeaten streak to 21 games (18-0-3, 10-0-3 WCHA).

The Maroon and Gold had five different goal scorers and got points from eight of its nine forwards. Left wing Tom Pohl was held without a point, going out of the game in the first period with an upper body injury. Despite skating with only three lines (defenseman Brian Schack moved up to the third line to replace Pohl), the Golden Gophers moved their unbeaten streak over Minnesota State (6-13-3, 4-9-2) to 17 games (14-0-3).

With the win, Minnesota also moved its winning streak to six games, its school-record road unbeaten streak to 21 games (17-0-4, 14-0-3) and its WCHA game unbeaten streak to 25 contests (21-0-4). The Golden Gophers will skate with a full lineup in the season series finale on Sunday at Mariucci Arena as Mike Carman, Jeff Frazee, Erik Johnson, Kyle Okposo and Ryan Stoa return from Team USA's bronze medal showing at the 2007 IIHF World Junior Championship in Sweden.

The Golden Gophers took a 2-1 lead into the first intermission with goals by Jay Barriball and Justin Bostrom, and a Maverick tally in between. Minnesota got the scoring started at 3:41, using nice puck movement on the power play to set up Barriball for his 12th goal of the season. Getting a pass low on the left side from Blake Wheeler, Alex Goligoski found Barriball in the slot to wheel around and beat MSU goaltender Mike Zacharias low to the stick side.

The Maroon and Gold re-gained the lead at 17:17 with Bostrom's first goal of the season and first since Jan. 13, 2006 vs. North Dakota. Tony Lucia gained the MSU zone and dropped a pass to Mike Vannelli who went deep into the zone and found Bostrom alone on the far side to knock the puck into the open net on Zacharias' glove side. For the period, Minnesota State out-shot Minnesota 15-11. During the period, the Golden Gophers went down to eight forwards as Tom Pohl suffered an upper body injury midway through the stanza.

The second period saw Minnesota add to its lead with Mike Howe's third goal of the season. At 3:18, R.J. Anderson gained the puck at the point and fired a shot into traffic. The puck flew high in front of the net, deflected off of Ryan Flynn and fell to Howe who knocked it into the net with his skate on Zacaharias' stick side. For the period, each team notched 12 shots on goal.

The Maroon and Gold padded its lead in the third period with goals from Flynn and Jim O'Brien. At 14:03, Flynn and Wheeler skated into the MSU zone on a 2-on-1. Wheeler fed Flynn who tried to drop a pass to Ben Gordon. Instead, the puck deflected off a Maverick defensemen and into the open net for Flynn's fourth goal of the season. Gordon got the second assist to help Flynn notch his second career multi-point game.

The Golden Gophers wrapped up the game's scoring at 15:37 with O'Brien's fourth goal of the year. Barriball flipped the puck out of the zone with a Minnesota State defensemen misplaying the puck in the Maverick zone. O'Brien pounced on the loose puck in the slot and beat Zacharias with a backhander to the 5-hole. Anderson got the second assist to record his first career multi-point game. For the period, Minnesota out-shot Minnesota State 9-7.

The Mavericks finished the game with a 34-32 advantage on the shot board. Minnesota went 1-for-6 on the power play, while MSU was 1-for-2. Briggs earned the win for the Golden Gophers, making 33 saves to improve to 10-0-2 on the season. Zacharias was saddled with the loss, making 27 saves to fall to 4-4-3.

The Golden Gophers and Mavericks close out the season series Sunday night at 7:07 p.m., at Mariucci Arena. The game will be televised on FSN North and broadcast on WCCO 830 AM.