The Gophers played their first and only exhibition game on Friday and beat BC 3-1. Unfortunately, they did not play Boston College, the defending NCAA champions.

They edged the University of British Columbia in an exhibition game before an announced crowd of 9,320. That may have been the number of ducats sold, but the actual number of bodies was closer to 6,000.

The game was not on TV or radio, like all 34 regular-season tilts will be. So, if you were not there, I want to fill you in. Let’s start with a staple of Sid Hartman columns in the past. They say: … (I quote three players and the coach.)

* Junior defenseman Brian Schack of the Gophers: “It was a good start. It’s going to be a lot faster in the WCHA.” … Schack was listed as an extra player on the team line chart, but jumped in and played with sophomore Kevin Wehrs on the third pair of D. He filled in for freshman Sam Lofquist, a late scratch because of an injury.

* Sophmore goalie Alex Kangas: “It was obviously a good start. We moved the puck well. Guys played pretty passionately to start the year. No complaints so far. Obviously we have some stuff to work on before next week.” … Kangas, the team MVP last season, played 1-1/2 periods and stopped all 10 shots he faced. Next weekend the Gophers have a home-and-home series with St. Cloud State.

* Sophomore wing Mike Hoeffel: “[Goals] will come in time. We just have to keep working hard. If we keep putting the puck on net, it is bound to go in, right? It’s early in the season, we will have our opportunities.” … Hoeffel had a team-high six shots on goal and was a plus-one.

* Coach Don Lucia: “I was happy. We had great puck movement. I thought we played well as a five-man unit tonight. We got a lot of people involved. At times, I thought we were a little too unselfish. We have to learn to shoot more. But for the first game, I was very pleased.

“Really, when I looked at our line-up, I didn’t have any disappointments tonight.”

What about going 0-for-5 on power plays? “That will get better as we get more time to practice it. We have some guys that can move it, now we just have to deliver more pucks to the net.”

Any particular line look good? “We had a lot of shots, we had a lot of great scoring chances. Jordan’s line did a really good job. At times, I thought they overpassed. They have to shoot more.”

What about Kent Patterson, the freshman goalie who gave up a goal on the first shot he saw but made five saves afterward? “That’s what I was pleased with. The first shot goes in when he went down early. Then he stayed up the rest of the game, so that was good.”

What happened to freshman defenseman Sam Lofquist? “He got him by a puck at the end of practice [Thursday], so he was just too sore [Friday night]. He will be fine by Monday.”

Anybody get hurt tonight? “No.”

SPEAKING OF LINES

Lucia went with the same lines the Gophers had in practice on Wednesday, which I attended and provided the names in a previous post.

Freshman Jordan Schroeder centered the first line, which started the game. He had two juniors on his wings, captain Ryan Stoa and Jay Barriball, the top returning scorer from last season. … Schroeder had four shots on goal, Stoa two and Barriball five.

Mike Carman centered the all-junior second line. Ryan Flynn and Tony Lucia were his wings. … Flynn had five shots.

Freshman Nico Sacchetti centered sophomores Patrick White and Mike Hoeffel on the third line.

And the fourth line had freshman Taylor Matson at center with senior Justin Bostrom on one wing and freshman Jake Hansen on the other.

The defensive pairs were sophomore Cade Fairchild with Dave Fischer — they started the game; freshman Aaron Ness with senior R.J. Anderson, and Wehrs, a sophomore, with Schack.

GAME HIGHLIGHT

That’s easy. It was Taylor Matson’s penalty shot with 2:28 to play. The Gophers were short-handed, when Matson roared in from center ice while a BC was hooking and jabbing at him.

Matson broke free near the goal, but appeared to lose control of the puck. Goalie Francois Thuot stuck his stick out and knocked the puck away. Before that happened, Mariucci fans buzzing in anticipation of another goal.

THE BREAKDOWN

Lucia used 22 of the 23 players on the bench. Only sophomore forward Drew Fisher did not get in. Four other players were not in uniform: Lofquist, who was hurt; freshman goalie Jake Kremer, and freshmen forwards Nick Larson, who is being brought along slowly, and Joey Miller. Larson attended the U in 2007-08 but did not play hockey last season because of a back injury.

Defenseman R.J. Anderson was the only Gopher who was a plus-two.

There has been a lot of talk about the possibility of more penalties this season with two referees working every game and new rules protecting the puck carrier. But the Gophers had only five penalties. Five different players each had one for two minutes.

British Columbia is now 2-6 in exhibition games, 0-4 against WCHA teams.

PLAY BY PLAY

First period: The puck is dropped at 7:07 p.m.  Sophomore D Cade Fairchild had the first of the Gophers’ 44 shots on net at 49 seconds. It came from the right point.

Junior C Mike Carman had the first penalty for throwing an elbow at 1:23. The Gophers iced the puck twice in easily killing off the BC power play.

The Gophers had their first power play at 6:23. Freshman Aaron Ness and sophomore Kevin Wehrs manned the two points. Carman’s line was down low. On the first change, Fairchild and Fischer came in at D, and Schroeder’s line came out.

BC goalie Gerry Festa wandered way out of his crease to play a puck by the endboards on the right. The shots were 7-5 Gophers with 8:47 left in the first period.

Barriball and Ness, a D not shy at all to go to the net, go in on a 2-on-1. Barriball gets the puck last and gets tripped. It’s a penalty on BC.

Five seconds after the pp expires, Ryan Flynn scored on second effort. He is camped a few feet from the left post. He jumps on a rebound and hits the post, then shoots again and the assistant captain scores.

BC has another power play at 15:24. In the last seconds of the period, Schroeder has a great chance from 20 feet in the slot.

Second period: Schroeder’s line gets the first shift again. Bariball makes a nifty behind the puck pass, but doesn’t connect.

R.J. Anderson scored at 1:49. He scores from between the circles, 30 feet out. The shots are 16-6 U.

Festa makes a slick-looking, scoop save on a low shot from Flynn at 5:24.

Patrick White makes it 2-0 Gophers with an unassisted goal at 6:16. He pulls the trigger from the top of the left circle. He finds a hole on the far right side.

Gophers goalie Alex Kangas, after making 10 saves, is replaced with 10:06 lefty in the second period. The shots are 22-10 U. A handful of pucks are thrown out on the ice. His replacement, freshman Kent Patterson, takes a few warm-up. Not many.

As the referees are ready to resume the game, BC changes goalies. Francois Thuot comes in. He gets no warm-up shots. The BC coaches are complaining about something. Maybe because Thuot didn’t get a chance to warm up. If that is the case, why didn’t the Thunderbirds switch goalies at the same time as the Gophers? Strange.

Hoeffel, 6-2, 197, collides with BC second line center Brandon Campos, a 5-9, 180 freshman with 7 minutes in the period. Campos goes down and slides into the boards and stays there. He is helped off the ice with a leg injury of some kind. He is putting minimum weight on one of his legs.

Wehrs take a big shot; Thuot makes a glove save.

At 13:55, the Gophers get another power play. This time Lucia puts four forwards out there — Schroeder’s line and Hoeffel — and Fairchild, the one D.

On the next change, it’s Carman’s line with White as the fourth forward and one D, Ness. They get scored on. Tyler Ruel, a fourth-line center for BC, scores from the top of the right circle. He beats Patterson high on his glove side.

(I was looking for Gophers jerseys with names on them. I see two Fischers and one Fairchild jersey in the stands.)

BC gets a penalty with 19:58. Period ends with Gophers holding a 34-11 advantage in shots. It was 21-6 this period.

Third period: Ness and Wehrs are used together on the power play which carried over from the second period.

Patterson stops a 2-on-1 two minutes into the period. It’s his first save. He saw only shot in 10 minutes the previous period.

The Gophers get their fifth pp at 2:56. Hoeffel fires from 10 feet, but Thuot traps the puck somewhere between his leg pads. Freshman Jake Hansen puts a long hard shot on net, but Scott Lynch, a BC defenseman, keeps it from going into the net after it bounces off the goalie.

BC really looks tired. It’s the Thunderbirds’ fourth game in eight days. They were at Alaska Anchorage last weekend, at St. Cloud State on Wednesday, and at Mariucci this night. Who made that sked?

The Gophers seem to be working the puck near the net more consistently. And the crowd is “ahing” repeatedly at close chances. None of the shots go in.

Shots are 41-14 — what do you call those numbers which are the mirror image of each other? Inverse, maybe – with 5:35 left.

Barriball has a great chance from the left side with 3:47 left. It’s stopped.

BC gets a pp at 16:51. The penalty killers are three forwards Schack, Matson and Bostrom and defenseman Wehrs.

Matson has a short-handed breakaway, gets hooked but misses his penalty shot with 2:28 left. He will get razzed by teammates on this one is my guess.

BC pulled its goalie at 18:08. The students in the crowd, most of them are by the school band, chant “USA, USA.” There are many worst chants, I suppose.

D David Fischer tussles with a BC player at 19:49. Both get unsportsmanlike conduct penalties.

The horn sounds. Do you feel like you were there?

The stats recap: The Gophers attempted 70 shots to BC’s 26. Minnesota had 44 shots on goal, another 16 were blocked by the defense, 10 missed the net.

On five power plays, the Gophers had 10 shots on goals, a number that has to improve.

How was this game so close? Remember the 2007-08 team played an NCAA record 16 overtime games, tied a school record with nine ties and played in 35 games decided by two goals or fewer.

It may take a while for this team to figure out how to bury inferior teams.

Over and out for now.Â

This entry was posted on Friday, October 10th, 2008 at 11:18 pm and is filed under Gophers men's hockey. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.