January 31st, 2025: The Gophers top line scored all five goals in Minnesota’s 5-2 win over Wisconsin.
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Minneapolis, Minn – The Minnesota Golden Gophers (20-6-3 |11-4-2) entered Friday night’s game against the Wisconsin Badgers (11-13-3 | 6-10-1) without a win in three straight games. After the first period it looked like Minnesota was on its way to four straight.
That was until Gophers head coach Bob Motzko walked into the locker room and said enough is enough.
This Gophers team is highly skilled. They opened the season 11-0-1 and flashed its raw talent and great structure in every game they played in. But recently they have hit a rough patch. They walked into Michigan to face the Spartans and got spanked 9-3 on Friday and followed that up with a shootout loss on Saturday. Before that series they split with Notre Dame at home following an overtime loss on Saturday night.
After an ugly first period against Wisconsin that saw the number 17th ranked Badgers out-work, out-muscle, and out-want the Gophers, Minnesota responded with two solid periods. So what was the message to the team that completely flipped the script?
“Enough. Enough,” Motzko said. “Like it’s ending right now and the guys responded. We needed to play. Guys fed off of that.”
Junior forward and co-captain Jimmy Snuggerud took it upon himself to step up and follow what his head coach said in the locker room. He responded with his 19th goal of the season from long-distance. And quite frankly, I’m not sure there is another guy in College Hockey who would’ve scored on that like he did.
“Yeah, I mean we’re tired of not having good starts and I think we did it again tonight,” Snuggerud said. “Obviously we will have to improve on that but we came back strong in the second and third period and we’re happy with that.”
Snuggerud ended the night with two goals and two assists. His linemates Brodie Ziemer and Erik Pahlsson each finished with four points of their own as well. All five goals came from the Gophers’ first line.
“I said between periods to Paul Martin, who was standing next to me, I’ve been 40 years in the USHL or College and I have never seen something like that before,” Motzko said to Martin on Snuggerud’s shot. “You must have seen something like that in the NHL before and he goes ‘I’ve never seen that in the NHL.’ That was sick. He can do that and he’s feeling it right now. He’s playing his best hockey and he knows it. It’s fun to watch.”
The 6-foot-2 forward ended up scoring his 20th of the season in the third period to cap off his third straight 20-goal season. He became the third Gopher in program history to score 20 goals in each of his first three seasons. John Mayasich and Dick Dougherty are the only other two guys in program history. It was last done in 1954.
After Snuggerud’s first goal, Ziemer picked up his tenth goal of the season after Pahlsson took it hard to the net for a wraparound in front. Ziemer banged home the loose puck to tie the game at 2-2.
Early in the third period, Snuggerud poked the puck free for Pahlsson who picked it up and came flying into the offensive zone before he fired one five-hole past Tommy Scarfone, who finished with 23 saves on 27 shots.
“I mean, it’s what I like to do,” Ziemer said on his goal being the result of him grinding away in the blue paint. “When you’re playing with two guys like that, EP is such a great facilitator and Snuggy is always shooting and getting pucks to the net, so if you get there, you are going to have success.”
They definitely had success. Ziemer finished with two goals and two assists, Snuggerud finished with two goals and two assists, and Pahlsson finished with one goal and three assists.
“Unbelievable,” Snuggerud said on the play of his linemates on Friday. “Being freshmen too, it’s crazy the amount of plays they can make. Ziems has such a good shot and he’s so smart with the puck. And then you give it over to Pahlsson and he’s an unbelievable Swede. He’s so strong on the puck. He always makes the right plays and has so much poise. Playing with them the last little while has been so fun and I’m fortunate to do so.”
On Snuggerud’s second of the night, Ziemer flew into the zone with Pahlsson and Snuggerud behind him. The American freshman dropped it off to the Swedish freshman who found Snuggerud streaking in for a gorgeous tic-tac-toe goal.
I asked Snuggerud if the three of them just know where each other are or if they are yelling for each other.
“I feel like that’s just the chemistry that’s been built,” Snuggerud said. “We scored a similar goal in Wisconsin so you know, we’ve been building chemistry in practice, we’re not really screaming at each other. The plays are just there to be made and it was a great play.”
Friday night’s game started off bad for the Gophers. It was exactly how the last three games previously started. Yet, they dug in and found a way to turn it around. But the nature of College Hockey is, Wisconsin gets another crack at the Gophers tomorrow and you better believe they will try to play how they did in the first period for all three periods.
It will be a test for the Gophers tomorrow.
Motzko said postgame that Liam Souliere’s first Friday night start for the Gophers was because Nathan Airey was sick. They will see on Saturday if Airey can play.