The men’s college season is a long one. Teams have their ups and downs. Gophers coach Don Lucia said nearly everything was going right for his team before it left for Denver.

Since that trip, a lot has gone bad.

The Gophers’ aura of invincibility was shattered in the second game at Denver when they lost 4-0. Actually, they didn’t play that bad, the shots were pretty close, but they ran into a hot goalie and a desperate team.

Back home, they did play bad last Friday against Michigan. The Wolverines won 6-3 and made the Gophers’ defensemen look slow. Too much turkey perhaps?

What’s worse, in the long run, was the physical beating the Gophers took. Taylor Matson, Jay Barriball and Mike Carman all suffered leg injuries in the game.

Matson is out for the season. The other two for several weeks.

The next night Michigan State, losers of seven in a row, tied the Gophers 4-4. MSU had not scored more than one goal in its previous seven games.

MSU coach Rick Comley said it was a good tie for his team. “We have lost seven in a row, we had not been able to score any goals,” Comley said. “We had more goals tonight than we had in the last six games. It’s been tough for us.”

Wisconsin toyed with Michigan State the night before outshooting the Spartans 53-12 and winning 3-1.

“We had penalty trouble last night and that really got Wisconsin going,” Comley said. “Tonight Minnesota never had a power play until the third period. That helped.”

Minnesota’s Patrick White scored on that one Gophers power play to tie the score at 4-4 which is the way the game ended.

Comley said the Gophers also were hurt when junior forward Ryan Stoa, the team leader with 11 goals, received a major penalty and a game disqualification six minutes into the game.

“That hurt, that was a big loss [for them], obviously,” Comley said.

“Our first eight games were OK. We’ve really struggled since then and now we go home to Michigan for two. That should be exciting. It takes some pressure off to score some goals. Every game we have played we are under such darn pressure because you give up one, you might lose. That’s how it has been. This will hopefully relax them a little bit.”

MSU’s Andrew Conboy, who was on the receiving end of Stoa’s check from behind, went off the ice with one of his arms hanging pretty limp. Stoa rubbed him out into the boards. But Conboy played later.

“He has a dislocated shoulder, so it hurts and then settles,” Comley said.  ”He is playing hurt.”

Comley said he was pleased the way freshman goalie Drew Palmisano did, making 22 saves.

“I was tempted to play Jeff [Lerg again. Jeff is really good,” Comley said, referring to his senior goalie who had 50 saves against the Badgers. “But I am trying to get Drew ready for next year. I like to play freshman goalies on the road, in tough buildings. It is really good for them. He made a real nice save in overtime, he did a good job. And now he leaves here with a positive  feeling.”

Comley was generally please how his whole team played: “We got to the net and did some things we needed to do. I don’t know whether that was a good game for Minnesota or not. I haven’t seen them. But for us, it was a pretty good game.”

MSU has played eight of its last 10 games on the road. “It’s been a grind for us,” Conley said.

GOPHERS DIG DEEP

“A lot of positives tonight,” Gophers coach Don Lucia said after Saturday’s tie. “I thought the guys had to dig down real deep. A lot of young guys that hadn’t had much ice. You are down three bodies to begin the game and Stoa gets tossed five minutes. You kind of look around and say, ‘Who is going to do it for us tonight?’

“I was encouraged how we played, especially the second half being behind two different times by two goals. I thought we played hard right to the end.”

Three players scored their first goals of the season — sophomore Patrick White and freshmen Joe Miller and Nick Larson.

“That’s what we had to have,” Lucia said. “There were not a lot of goal-scorers in our lineup tonight. I’m looking down and there six freshman forwards out of the 11 we had left for the game. And a lot of them had not been in those situations. We had to use them killing penalties.

“Every team is going to be faced with adversity.”

Lucia said his team’s positional play, on some of the MSU goals, was the only thing that disappointed him.

“We couldn’t get worried about who was out against who,” he said, “we just played. And sometimes it is just fun when you just go play and as a coach it was great to evaluate some young guys in the heat of the battle that normally would not get that opportunity. For some guys, they went up in our eyes. Other guys didn’t. It was a great evaluation process.”

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 30th, 2008 at 7:21 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.