2020-21 Season Opening Series: Penn State at Minnesota: 11/19/20

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Ignatius L Hoops

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www.startribune.com

For Gophers men's hockey team, it's finally time to drop the puck

A young 2019-20 team that gradually improved returns largely intact.
www.startribune.com www.startribune.com


A route back to the NCAA tournament starts with the Gophers facing Penn State, a team that has owned Minnesota of late. The Nittany Lions are 11-2-1 against the Gophers since the start of the 2017-18 season. Penn State scored 8-2 and 6-3 victories in Minneapolis last November before Minnesota got a 3-3 tie and a 3-2 loss in State College in February — both games in which the Gophers held third-period leads.

“They’ve kicked our butt the last handful of years,” Motzko said. “We were closing the gap, but we hadn’t closed it. They were a better hockey team than us a year ago. … But I’ll tell you: We wanted to play that [Big Ten semifinal] game.”
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Very excited to see the progress this year. Every impact player from last year is back and I hope this team can pick up where they left off, and maybe take another step forward.
 

Gophers1992 said:
Very excited to see the progress this year. Every impact player from last year is back and I hope this team can pick up where they left off, and maybe take another step forward.
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We have felt like this before. We shouldn't just be excited to see progress. We HAVE to see progress. I've seen 80-90% of these Gopher hockey rosters over the last 5+ years not get significantly better over their careers.

When Motzko came, this was the year most of us pointed to as the first chance to compete nationally. We need to see it. The Big Ten won't be that good, other than Michigan who will be a title contender based on the talent level.
 


This looks like a solid team. I can't remember the last time I could say that I like the Gopher's D corps. Really like what I've seen from Faber especially. If LaFontaine can keep himself from skating into the corners for the puck this should be a fun year.
 


Very impress with the team tonight especially since it was their first game with new players in the flow. Tomorrow will give us a little better idea, but I believe we clearly will be competitive this year.
 

It was good to see someone walking up the aisle leaving the game early to beat the traffic.
 

Very happy with game 1. A few thoughts.

-Lafontaine looks improved. Goaltending is my biggest concern this year but so far, so good.
-Faber looks like he could be a real impact freshman. Very solid night all around by the D. Johnson is rock solid as well. Lacombe very talented but raises my blood pressure sometimes.
- Forward group is deep and talented. Walker and McLaughlin looked like their usual selves. Goals will follow if they keep controlling the play like that.
- Absolutely love Meyers. Thought he was arguably the best player on the team by the end of last year, and he appears to be taking another step forward. He is the next gopher captain IMO.
-Ranta frustrates me at times, but what a beauty of a goal. Would like to see more consistency out of him for this team to make the leap we are all hoping for

overall nobody stood out as exceptionally bad tonight. We will see how good PSU actually is, but not too much to complain about tonight.
 

One more note - recent gopher teams would have crumbled after Penn st made it a 2-1 game on what looked like a backbreaking goal. Very impressed with the response and the poise of this team.
 



Gophers looked better than last year. PSU looked much worse. We'll have to see, but the Gophers should really be aiming for 6-0 going into the series against a Michigan team that became a title contender instantly with the addition of maybe the best freshmen class ever.
 

Beginning of the season as well for Penn State. I think today's game as well as the games next week will begin to show what we are made of.
 

Great opening to the season. Lots of talent returned. Biggest improvement for me was the defense, wow. Motzko seems to have them all playing his style. Not flashy but very effective.
 







First sweep of PSU since 2016-17. On to OSU Monday and Tuesday. Those are also winnable games.
 


As the announcer said, "it isn't as pretty as last night." Nice to start the season 2-0!
 

I feel like hockey has righted itself now that that the Gophers are beating PSU. Like it should be.
 

Two solid wins. Was not that impressed with the announcer team. I'd do the radio thing but there always seems to be a delay of some sort that makes watching and listening on the radio a bit challenging.

Go Gophers, sweep OSU!
 

PMWinSTP said:
Two solid wins. Was not that impressed with the announcer team. I'd do the radio thing but there always seems to be a delay of some sort that makes watching and listening on the radio a bit challenging.

Go Gophers, sweep OSU!
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They are doing it remotely because of Covid which makes announcing harder. We are lucky as a program to have ALL our first 8 games televised.
 

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