Feb. 18th, 2022: Junior goaltender Justen Close proves yet again why he should be considered for the Mike Richter award with his career-high 37 saves in the Gophers’ fifth straight win.
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The phrase “fast-paced hockey” could be used to describe Friday’s game between the two Big Ten teams. A little over six minutes of no whistle hockey before Rhett Pitlick extended his point streak to five games with the early goal beating the sophomore goalie from Ontario, Liam Souliere.
Pitlick, like other Gophers’ freshmen, started off on a ‘slow start’ with only two points in his first six games. His linemate Aaron Huglen started off with one point in his first nine games. But since the departure of the three Olympians, Huglen and Pitlick have a combined for six goals and 13 points in those five games.
When Brock Faber, Matthew Knies, and Ben Meyers left for the Olympics majority of the college hockey world thought this team would struggle, and almost no one would’ve predicted this team to be undefeated in the five games without the three Olympians. But the Gophers continue getting contributions from everyone in their lineup. Justen Close, who was a walk-on goaltender who backed up the Gophers backup Jared Moe for two seasons before Moe left for Wisconsin, stopped a career-high 37 in the 3-1 win over Penn State. Close is now 8-3-0 with a 1.81 goals-against average and a .930 save percentage as the Gophers’ starter.
“They were throwing everything at us and Justen Close was great in goal for us tonight,” Gophers coach Bob Motzko told The Rink Live following the 3-1 win. “He made a couple of saves that really stopped momentum from turning. That’s what you need when you’re on the road.”
Through these five games with the Olympians gone the college hockey community found out one thing, the Gophers are a much deeper team than we know. On the Gophers’ first goal, Sam Rossini the graduate student playing in his first game as a starter since last season shot one on the net from the point, Pitlick picked up the rebound and made it 1-0.
What can we say, the Pitlicks like scoring at Penn State. pic.twitter.com/s9UZSmrAZf
— Minnesota Men’s Hockey (@GopherHockey) February 18, 2022
On the Gophers second goal and eventually the game-winner, Colin Schmidt – who has been in the lineup recently with forwards Jaxon Nelson, Ben Meyers, and Matthew Knies out, picked up his first point of the season and sixth career point on Jack Perbix’s fourth goal of the year.
Before Perbix’s first goal of the game, the Nittany Lions scored with just about a minute left in the first period. Ryan Kirwan notched his tenth goal of the year on Penn State’s 16th shot of the first period. Liam Souliere made 32 saves for Penn State as they fall to 14-16-1 overall and 5-15-1 in the Big Ten.
Later in the third, Sammy Walker who recently joined the century mark for career points, found Blake McLaughlin streaking up the left side. McLaughlin found Perbix up the middle who fired the puck into the empty net for his second of the game making it 3-1. McLaughlin’s assist on the play was his 100th career point, making him the 86th Gopher player to join the 100-point club.
The Gophers will get defenseman Ben Brinkman back for Saturday’s game against Penn State and may get Jaxon Nelson back as well, which should only help the Gophers’ struggling power play more. Also, there is some speculation that the Olympians may be back for the series finale. Nothing is confirmed yet, other than they will be back for the Wisconsin series.