Just thought I'd add in my 2 cents worth on the NoDak-Minn series.  I wimped
out and wasn't at Friday night's game, which Carol described quite well
anyway.  The only thing I have to add from watching it on TV is that the
Gophers took 17 minutes to get off their first shot (a goal by Laylin).
Stolp really won that game for them (someone told me Stolp means "pipe" in
Norwegian.  Not a bad name for a goalie if that's true!)
 
Saturday's game belonged to Gopher freshman Darby Hendrickson.  Again, the
Gophers started out kind of slow, in part due to taking a couple of
penalties.  In the first period the Sioux took 1-0 and 2-1 leads, but both
times the Gophers responded by evening the score within less than a minute.
Dixon Ward scored first for North Dakota on a power play with a rising shot
that went just under the crossbar.  Trent Klatt responded 30 seconds later,
knocking in a perfect feed from Larry Olimb.  Duberman of North Dakota
scored on his own rebound after a Gopher defender coughed up the puck in his
own end.  49 seconds later Gopher freshman Steve Magnusson evened the
score at 2-2 on a 2-on-1 break.
 
The second period was when Hendrickson went to work, scoring 2 power play
goals, the first just 51 seconds into the period.  The second was scored
by popping in his own rebound.  On his third goal, Hendrickson received the
puck with his back to the net, spun around, and threaded a shot outside the
goalie's skate and inside both the defender's skate and the post for an
Ivory-Snow pure-as-they-come hat trick.  (This netted him just one hat in
our rather inclement weather;  it was a North Stars' cap.)  Mike Muller
scored from the point by bouncing one off a North Dakota defender at 17:28.
At this point, North Dakota still had not had a shot in the period, despite
having had 2 power plays.  The Sioux finally managed a shot on net at 19:02
of the period.  The Gophers reacted to this encroachment upon their territory
by taking a 7-2 lead on John Brill's goal 22 seconds later. The crowd in
Mariucci (over 7400, despite the lousy weather and the holiday weekend)
gave the Gophers a standing ovation for their play in the second period.
 
The third period was relatively quiet, scoring wise.  It was a penalty-marred
period, as some of the Sioux just got frustrated.  The box score in the
paper shows a lot of penalties, but there were some pretty flagrant ones in
the last few minutes that Shepard just ignored.  Of course, some of those
probably led to the coincidental roughing penalties.  The only scoring
to come out of all this was when Gopher freshman Justin McHugh scored his
first collegiate goal on the power play at 19:17.  That made the final
8-2, with 5 of the Gopher goals going to freshmen.
 
I noticed that North Dakota still had Jace Reed listed on their roster,
although he is recovering from transplant surgery and won't be playing
any this season.  Is this just an honorary thing?  I believe they said
during the telecast Friday night that the Gopher JV team would be
playing the Warroad Lakers' Senior team in Grand Rapids, MN (Reed's
hometown) to raise money for his medical bills.
 
Pam
Go Gophers!!!