27 January 2024
Two weeks after top-ranked Ohio State came into Ridder Arena and handed the Gophers two lopsided losses, the ripple effect continues.
Gophers coach Brad Frost shook up his lineup Friday night in the first game of a home-and-home series with Minnesota State Mankato at Ridder and saw a lot of things he liked as well as some things that still need to be addressed after a 4-3 win over the Mavericks.
The No. 5 Gophers (19-5-1 overall, 13-5-12 WCHA) gave up a 3-0 lead in the third period but were able to pull out the victory on Abbey Murphy’s second goal of the game with seven minutes to play for their third straight win.
The Gophers’ top three lines were all different, as were the defensive pairings. The top line found Ella Huber moving to left wing and Emma Kreisz sliding over to center. Huber also scored, her first goal in nine games.
“Just trying to gather information,” Frost said of the changes. “Any time you get swept big like we did against Ohio State, that’s an opportunity as a coach to say let’s change things up.
“Murph was awesome tonight. Ella was great. Emma, as a freshman center, played the position really, really well. And our power play was really big.”
The players were neither surprised nor upset by the changes.
“We faced adversity, which always comes in a season,” Murphy said. “We’ve done a lot of thinking and talking as a team and with the coaching staff. Just trying to do the little things right, and all the details.
“Obviously, today we came together at the end. It’s not fun giving up a three-goal lead, but we figured it out at the end — together.”
Huber, who has played center since high school, took the decision in stride and felt playing wing made it easier to focus on offense.
“It was getting tough, I guess,” Huber said of her goal-scoring drought. “I try not to only focus on that, but after (nine games) you definitely do. So I just try to focus on the little things; keep working and they’ll come.”
Overall, Frost was pleased with the results.
“I thought we did a lot of good things that we hadn’t been doing in the past couple weeks,” Frost said. “We were winning races, we were winning battles. And I felt like we were in pretty good control of the game going into the third. Obviously, we let that slip away.”
But it clearly was an up-and-down performance by the Gophers.
The Gophers went on a power play at 2:29 of the first period and cashed in at 4:18 when Huber banged in a rebound for her ninth goal of the season.
The Mavericks got their first power play midway through the period, and while they didn’t score the momentum shifted to the visitors for the remainder of the period.
MSU’s forecheck kept the Gophers hemmed in their own end for the last half of the period. The Mavericks outshot the Gophers 11-6 in the period.
The Gophers had a clear edge in play in the second period and scored twice to take a 3-0 lead into the third period. Scoring on one of her signature moves, Murphy circled the MSU net with the puck, carried it back out to the blue line and motored down right wing before beating Mavericks goaltender Suzette Faucher with a wrist shot under the crossbar.
Peyton Hemp picked up her ninth goal of the season, beating Faucher on a wrist shot from the left-wing circle. But before the third period was half over, the Gophers’ lead was gone.
Mavericks left wing Jamie Nelson, a senior from Andover, scored a pair of goals to get MSU back in the game. The Mavericks pulled even at 13:12 on a power-play goal by Jennessa Gazdik.
“We got put on our heels a little bit,” Frost said. “We need to do a better job of responding in those moments. To say, ‘OK, enough’s enough, let’s get back to our game.’’
Murphy’s second goal of the game, her 24th of the season, came on a pretty cross-crease pass from Huber for a backdoor tap-in. Murphy’s two goals ended a five-game goal-scoring drought.
“I was feeling the itch,” she said with a smile.
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