Women's Hockey 2023-24 Season -- Part 2: The Regular Season

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Cub Family 4-Packs Now Available - University of Minnesota Athletics

This year's Cub Family 4-Packs includes football, men's and women's basketball and men's and women's hockey games.
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Gophers Women's Hockey at Ridder Arena is great entertainment and a great value.

Family 4-Packs available for Women's Hockey:

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Big series coming up this weekend in Ohio! Two big WCHA teams clash with important implications.

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2024-25 Women's Hockey Schedule - University of Minnesota Athletics

The official 2024-25 Women's Hockey schedule for the University of Minnesota Gophers
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Minnesota will also host Ohio State in January.

Ohio State is led by Coach Nadine Muzerall who led Ohio State to school firsts in #1 national ranking and NCAA Championship.

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2024-25 Women's Hockey Roster - University of Minnesota Athletics

The official 2024-25 Women's Hockey Roster for the University of Minnesota Gophers
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Gophers starting first line the last game.
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From Gophers social media, they fly to Ohio.

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Gophers women's hockey vs. Ohio State series preview: broadcast info and analysis

Rachel Blount's analysis: The undefeated Gophers are heading into a showdown at Ohio State. The Buckeyes, NCAA runner-up last season, have added six standout transfers.
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Women’s Ice Hockey: Muzerall coaches Buckeyes against alma mater Minnesota in top-10 matchup

Head coach Nadine Muzerall knows the University of Minnesota all too well. A two-time All-American and national champion, Muzerall was a standout player for the Golden Gophers on the ice. Now, she will lead the No. 2 Ohio State (5-1-0, 4-0-0 WCHA) women’s ice hockey team against No. 4 Minnesota...
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- - Women's Ice Hockey Coaches - Ohio State

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Nadine Muzerall, former Gopher player and assistant coach, and head coach of Ohio State
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"....A two-time All-American and national champion as a player at Minnesota, Muzerall spent five years behind the bench as an assistant coach with the Golden Gophers. The first women’s hockey player to be inducted into her university’s hall of fame, she helped guide her former team to four national championships and five-consecutive spots in the title game. During her tenure she coached five Olympians (Mira Jalosuo, Megan Bozek, Amanda Kessel, Anne Schleper, and Lee Stecklein), none of whom had made Olympic rosters prior to Muzerall’s arrival.

While serving as a member of the Golden Gophers staff, Muzerall’s teams accrued a record of 182-14-8, including a perfect 41-0-0 record during the 2012-13 season. 13 Minnesota team records are held by squads the she either coached or played for.

Regarding her playing career, Muzerall was a prolific player for the Golden Gophers. An All-American in 1998 and 2000, she also earned Team MVP honors during those seasons. As a freshman in 1998 and a senior in 2001, she was a Patty Kazmaier Award finalist. She still sits atop the all-time goals scored list with 139 and graduated as the career points leader for Minnesota. She holds the honorable distinction of having won multiple national championships as a player and as a coach as the same institution: 2000 and 2001 as a player, 2012, 2013, 2015, and 2016 as a coach...."
 
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2nd quarter and no penalties yet for Ohio State including this non-call:

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The Ohio State rink is kind of a dump. Surprising for a major sports school like that.


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And another non-call takedown of Gopher Abbey Murphy.

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Disgraceful officiating. The Ohio State attacker skates intentionally into the Gophers goaltender Skylar Vetter and initiates a wrestling mugging -- interference -- that Vetter has to fend off with her blocker -- while the play is active and Ohio State trying to shoot. Nothing called on Ohio State, and the play continues.

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The referee officiating is disgraceful.
 
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I know football has yet to play, but I see gopher sports losing every match-up this weekend. Where's the MIB neurolyzer when you need it?
 

Abbey Murphy is getting hot, having some words here with the Ohio State player.

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Gophers tie it up! A shot with a deflection by the approaching Gopher to the goal for the score!

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Ohio State scores and takes the lead.

Abbey Murphy responds to tie the game again.

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Tie game goes to overtime. Ohio State is the faster, more agile skating team. Minnesota is bigger and more methodical, a change from last year's wider-open attack style.

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Brutal weekend for Gopher sports. Football struggling with MSU, both hockey programs got swept and VBall will get swept by Wisconsin on Sunday.
 

The top of the polls should remain unchanged. Quinnipiac lost both games this weekend, including to a St Lawrence team they should have beat. This is after beating a good Yale team. Minnesota should have split with Ohio State but for the allowed cheating by lowly Ohio State on Friday costing Gophers multiple power plays. Disgraceful game last Friday in the WCHA.

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Gophers beat Minnesota State friday in a home-away series. Friday they played in Minneapolis. Tonight they play in Mankato. It was an interesting game with flavors to it.

Forward Abbey Murphy, Forward Ava Lindsay, and defender Nelli Laitinen scored. Gophers held Minnesota State to one early goal. Gophers power play kill looks strong.

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At times Minnesota State looked strong. They had their moments but couldn't capitalize. Minnesota didn't pay a price when leveling penalty hits in retaliation for Minnesota State trips, strong on the penalty kill.

The trend for opponents to get physical with Gophers forward Abbey Murphy continued Friday. She was taken down several times without a penalty. One was real controversial where she took a big spill, the arena calling for a penalty, and then oddly a Gophers player was sent to the box for seemingly nothing. And Murphy again later was send to the ice in a big spill and nothing called, yet Minnesota was called durign the game. Earlier in the game, after Murphy was taken down, she came back and leveled a cross checking penalty in retaliation and was sent to the box. The Gophers played more physical as the game progressed.

I didn't see what happened but the Gophers were swarming the Minnesota State goaltender with shooting and then the play came to an end. Then the goaltender appeared to be hurt. She came out of the game and did not return.

The Gophers at times looked smooth and deadly, and at other times their passing was a bit off or made some mishaps. Some things to work on but the Gophers are good. There's upside with this group too.

I'm guessing the Gophers are looking ahead to the post season when they should be gelled and with a regular season goalie rotation keeping Gophers goaltenders from getting beat up by post-season.

Gophers legit have two strong goaltenders. Lucy Morgan played well.

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Forward Peyton Hemp moved up to the first line.

The team has lots of playmakers not mentioned. They're fun to watch.
 

Emma Kreisz and Madison Kaiser scored for the Gophers to beat Minnesota State 2-1. I didn't see the game. Minnesota State has good players and good except the top of the conference has elite teams that make it tough for teams like Minnesota State and St Cloud that look good.

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Season stats to this point:

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Points per Game - Players

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And here's another stat that jumped out to me. Minnesota is 5th in the WCHA (out of 8 teams) at winning faceoffs. Which is fine at over .500 but not that great.

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In yesterday's win against Minnesota State, Ella Huber got smoked:
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Ella Huber - Women's Hockey - University of Minnesota Athletics

Ella Huber (26) Forward - PRONUNCIATION Your browser does not support HTML5 audio. 2023-24 • Junior Season: Named assistant captain WCHA All-Academic Team Ra...
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Huber's the first line center. She's good but this whole group is still new. I see that Bouveng was back at first line left wing.

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OK, so looking back at the faceoffs against Ohio State last weekend, here's what we see:

Friday
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Saturday
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Gophers have three huge games in a row that will clarify if Minnesota is solidly ranked just below Ohio State and Wisconsin -- or -- ranked among or below UMD and Clarkson -- or even Cornell.

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Current rankings (to be updated in a couple days):
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UMD has looked strong after swept by Ohio State. Minnesota kept the games against Ohio State much closer but tOSU peppered Minnesota with shots.

Minnesota's youth movement has upside.

For Minnesota, post-season action is all that matters. Minnesota is not going to win the WCHA regular season championship. But Minnesota could win the WCHA Final Faceoff tournament the second year in a row and/or make a run in the Frozen Four. Then it's about putting together wins, which is hard to do in hockey that has some random/luck.

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St Thomas has three huge games coming up also. St Thomas supposedly is on the rise -- but that's not translating to results yet.

St. Thomas has been at the bottom of the WCHA. The next step for St Thomas would be to leap frog Minnesota State and St Cloud State. I doubt that will happen this season.

St Thomas will have their chance as they play their next three games against Minnesota State and St Cloud State.

St Thomas signed Miss Minnesota Hockey 2023 Ella Boerger of Andover.

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Count me as a skeptic about St. Thomas. If or when they become like UMD, then that would be something because it's very hard to do.
 

SHGopher said:
Season stats to this point:

View attachment 28032


Points per Game - Players

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And here's another stat that jumped out to me. Minnesota is 5th in the WCHA (out of 8 teams) at winning faceoffs. Which is fine at over .500 but not that great.

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In yesterday's win against Minnesota State, Ella Huber got smoked:
View attachment 28035


gophersports.com

Ella Huber - Women's Hockey - University of Minnesota Athletics

Ella Huber (26) Forward - PRONUNCIATION Your browser does not support HTML5 audio. 2023-24 • Junior Season: Named assistant captain WCHA All-Academic Team Ra...
gophersports.com gophersports.com

Huber's the first line center. She's good but this whole group is still new. I see that Bouveng was back at first line left wing.

View attachment 28036


OK, so looking back at the faceoffs against Ohio State last weekend, here's what we see:

Friday
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Saturday
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Click to expand...


Here are the faceoff stats against Ohio State last season (2022-23) for comparison. Let's see what that shows:

Game 1:
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Game 2:
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Game 3:
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Game 4:
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Interesting. At the start of last season the Gophers lost the faceoff battles badly to Ohio State. By the end of the season, Gophers were better than Ohio State. Minnesota then played well in the post-season last season.

Let's hope this year they improve and top out late in the season when it most counts. This current young team is still putting it together.
 


SHGopher said:
GOPHERS SIGN HOCKEY PHENOM


The Minnesota Golden Gophers got a huge recruit as 16-year-old defender Chloe Primerano announced her decision to commit to the program last weekend on her Instagram account.
Click to expand...

theathletic.com

At 16, Chloe Primerano could lead women's hockey's next wave

As women's hockey enters its next generation, Chloe Primerano is making a name for herself at 16 years old.
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In early July, as some of the world’s top young hockey players gathered in Los Angeles for CAA Sports’ annual summer hockey camp, a new face stood out.

Among the players were Berkly Catton, a potential top-10 pick in next summer’s NHL Draft; Ryder Ritchie, who ranked 12th in Scott Wheeler’s early 2024 draft ranking; and Will Horcoff, a 2007-born center bound for the U.S. National Team Development Program and early top 2025 draft prospect.

But this year also included the arrival of Chloe Primerano, a 16-year-old defender, as the first women’s skater to ever attend the camp. Last year, Annelies Bergmann became the first women’s player to attend as a goaltender. And now Primerano, fresh off a season tallying over 1.5 points per game from the blue line in the CSSHL U18 women’s league, was going toe-to-toe with some of the elite boys of the 2006 and 2007 birth years.
 

SHGopher said:
GOPHERS SIGN HOCKEY PHENOM


The Minnesota Golden Gophers got a huge recruit as 16-year-old defender Chloe Primerano announced her decision to commit to the program last weekend on her Instagram account.
Click to expand...
A lot of hype for a defender. Still got two more years, I'll save my excitement until she's in maroon and gold. Gophers must have a timeshare in the Vancouver area, first Sara G and then the Potomak sisters and now with her.
 


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