Missing equipment, missing players and missing opportunities against St. Cloud State, the road continues to plague Minnesota.
The Gophers fell to 1-8-1 in true road games this season, losing 5-2 to the top-ranked Huskies in St. Cloud and matching the number of games the team lost away from Mariucci Arena in 2016-17.
“Playing on the road you have to come out and really dominate the first ten minutes,” said Minnesota junior Brent Gates Jr., who finished with a goal and an assist. “If you come out and let the fans in the game — especially in an environment like this — the first 10 minutes, it’s going to be tough to battle back. You’re going to be chasing the game.”
Mikey Eyssimont twice scored Saturday for St. Cloud State (13-2-3, 7-2-1-0 NCHC) in the first two minutes of a period to help keep the Gophers at bay at Herb Brooks National Hockey Center.
“That was as good as our team has played,” Huskies head coach Bob Motzko said. “We were on top of pucks and our defenseman were real solid.”
The two teams agreed to a Saturday-Sunday series in order to accommodate the 2018 U-20 World Juniors contingent on both teams, including Motzko, who served Team USA head coach. Still, it wasn’t enough. None of the WJC players were able to play Saturday thanks to in no part of their own.
Minnesota’s Casey Mittelstadt and Ryan Lindgren, along with SCSU’s Ryan Poehling, arrived in Minnesota from Buffalo just before noon.
Their hockey equipment did not make the connection, however.
“It was probably a blessing. Part of me didn’t want to play them,” said Gophers head coach Don Lucia about Lindgren, a sophomore defenseman, and freshman center Mittelstadt. “Now they don’t have worry about playing four (games) in four (days).”
Despite being without a second of the team’s top-three centers in Tommy Novak, who is week-to-week with an upper-body injury, Minnesota’s Mike Szmatula got the road team off to a 1-0 lead less than three minutes into the game. It lasted six minutes before Robby Jackson tied the game for St. Cloud State on the power play.
“If you want to play with a team like that, you need to play better. We have to elevate our game”
Eyssimont wasted no time, kicking off the second period by going around a Gopher defenseman and scoring in the opening minute. Freshman Easton Brodzinski followed up minutes later with his seventh goal of the season to make it 3-1 St. Cloud State.
The Huskies held Minnesota (12-10-1, 4-7-1-1 Big Ten) without a shot on goal for the first 12 minutes of the period.
“Right off the bat, we didn’t come out with enough energy surrounding our play. They got it quickly going and one led to another. Up two goals like that quick in the second period, it’s hard to bounce back,” Minnesota junior captain Tyler Sheehy said. “We weren’t strong enough on a couple of those goals and it ended up costing us.”
Faking a pass on a three-on-one, Eyssimont instead put the puck between the legs of Eric Schierhorn, who made 29 saves. Gates tipped a puck in to make it 4-2 and Sheehy hit the post to nearly cut the lead to a goal, but Jack Ahcan restored the three-goal lead.
Jeff Smith stopped 21 shots Saturday for St. Cloud State. Minnesota’s power play continued to struggle by failing to score for a fifth straight game
The Gophers will have to wait two more weeks for another crack for a road win. Both teams travel to Minneapolis on Sunday to complete the two-game series at Minnesota’s home rink.
“The fun thing about playing a really unique team like this is that you find out about your own team. I think we can play better than we did tonight,” said Lucia, who called SCSU the best team he had seen this year. “The bar is there. If you want to play with a team like that, you need to play better. We have to elevate our game.”
Puck drop Sunday is set for 6 p.m.
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