Minnesota State Mankato — the Gophers’ next opponent – had a rough Friday night. UMD beat the Mavericks in Duluth 4-0.

The Mavericks outshot the Bullodgs 39-30 but UMD goalie Alex Stalock was on. The young man from South St. Paul is the the fist goalie to shut out MSU since Denver’s Peter Mannino on Nov. 16, 2007.

Mike Zacharias had 26 saves for the Mavericks.

Jack Connolly and Jordan Fulton scored for the Dogs in the first period. Connolly got another goal in the scond and Mike Gergen go the fourth goal in the third.

MSU, 3-3-0 in its last six games, is 11-12-3 overall, 7-10-2 in the WCHA. UMD is 12-7-6, 6-6-5.

The rematch is tonight at 7 p.m. in the DECC. 

The Gophers play at MSU on Jan. 30, then the Mavericks play at Mariucci the next night.

LUCIA THANKFUL BEFORE ILLNESS

I was going through some old notes and found this interview with Don Lucia before Thanksgiving. Given his medical problems, which started just before Christmas, I thought I should share this:

Q) Coach what are you thankful for?

A) I am thankful to have the opportunity to be around a great group of guys. We have a fun team to work with. Our staff – I feel very fortunate that I have a job that I wake up every day and love to go to work. And, when you have a good group like this, it makes it even more fun.

OTHER NOTES

Bemidji State women’s hockey coach Steve Sertich said that ground on the new complex which will house the hockey rink should be broken in March.

Meantime, he has his fingers crossed that the WCHA will admit the Beavers men into the conference. The school’s women’s team already belongs to the WCHA.

“It would be a real plus to have both teams in the WCHA,” Sertich said.

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 24th, 2009 at 12:29 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.