Junior left wing Ryan Stoa’s preseason goal was to stay healthy for more than two games.

Mission accomplished. He has six goals in six games after playing only four periods last season until suffering a knee injury which required surgery.

His next goal? “Just stay healthy all year and keep doing what I am doing, I guess,” Stoa said. “Working hard every day, that’s the main goal.

“When things are going good,” Stoa said, asked about his and the team’s early success, “you are on Cloud Nine. Pucks are bouncing for us. That’s just a tribune to our hard work. We work hard. And the harder we work, the better we do.

“You can see we did not work hard Saturday the first period. Then we came out second and third period and worked a little harder and we got a little more bounces.”

 

Saturday’s game with Minnesota State Mankato was scoreless after the first period before the Gophers scored three goals in the second period and three more in the third to win 6-3.

Four of the U’s goals came on power plays. “That’s our job, to put team’s behind us when we get the opportunity to do that,” Stoa said. “And we did that Saturday night. It’s good when you can win the specialty team battles, especially the way the league is being called now, you give yourself a good chance to win.”

Stoa’s line, with junor Jay Barriball at right wing and freshman Jay Schroeder at center has 11 goals between them. Stoa has six, Barriball three — halfway toward his total of six last season — and Schroeder two.

“We complement each other pretty good,” Stoa said. “A couple of quick guys and I can bruise it up in the corners. And those guys are not afraid to get in the corner. All three of us have the scoring touch and that’s good.”

The Gophers’ opponent this weekend, for the first time this season, is a nonconference team. So does the approach change? “It’s the same old,” Stoa said. “It’s just that the rivalry might not be there. But it’s a good measuring tool for us because they are a powerhouse in Hockey East.

“It’s about us. We have to work hard and do the little things, block shots and [goalie Alex] Kangas is going to give us a chance to be in the game.”

More power play goals will help the Gophers, too. So how were they able to score four in one game to match their season total from five earlier games? “We were just moving the puck without thinking,” Stoa said. “Just moving it before we had to and that was opening up spots. Another thing is, we were getting pucks to the net. A couple of the goals were rebounds.”

 Â

This entry was posted on Friday, November 7th, 2008 at 12:34 am 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.