November 2nd, 2024: Liam Souliere shined against his former team to help the Gophers sweep the Nittany Lions.
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Minneapolis, Minn – Liam Souliere spent four years at Penn State where he established himself as one of the best Nittany Lion goaltenders to go through the program.
Souliere, 25, played 84 games for the Nittany Lions, trailing only Peyton Jones (133) for the most in program history. He recorded 39 wins with Penn State which ranks second behind Jones and has the second highest winning percentage behind Jones in the school’s history.
His time in Penn State meant a lot to him but the decision to move on and come to the Gophers was one he felt was right. The Gophers just lost Justen Close after he played last year as a graduate student. They replaced him with Souliere, who is a current graduate student.
Nathan Airey started the first game against Penn State and picked up his fourth victory of the season on Friday but tonight it was Souliere’s turn and he certainly was ready.
The veteran goaltender turned away all 28 shots he faced in the Gophers’ 1-0 win over Penn State.
“I was trying my best to not think about it too much, but obviously it’s inevitable,” Souliere said on playing against his former team. “I got to the game and just to get the jitters, the nerves, and excitement, it was a super fun game. I didn’t think it was ever going to happen to play against my old team, then it happened, and it was everything that I ever dreamed of. So it’s pretty fun.”
The 5-foot-11 netminder came up big for the Gophers all night but in the second period he stopped all nine shots he faced. Minnesota had only two shots in the second period.
As the saying goes, sometimes your best penalty killer has to be your goaltender and tonight he was a big reason why the PK went 3-for-3.
“Yeah, I mean, our PK is phenomenal. We work on it a lot and props to (Steve) Miller,” Souliere said. “He does a great job preparing us. And, you know, the guys in front of me block a lot of shots. They make it easy for the goalie. They clear it out the net. We got the long-body going on the down low plays, I mean, it’s just a well oiled machine right now. So we got a lot of faith in it. I think we got a lot of momentum from it too. We got a little burst after that and just kept grinding away.”
Gophers head coach Bob Motzko talked about how much Souliere calmed the game down on Saturday and how much the game ran through him. He was smart when it came to playing the puck to his team or freezing it.
“How many times did he catch it and put it right to our defensemen, or freeze it,” Motzko said of Souliere. “That’s just experience and when you are shorthanded, you know losing Snuggy, you lose one guy and it disrupts your bench in more ways than one. But we just kept rolling everybody and Liam had a way to calm things down back there.”
For a guy who is third all-time in Penn State’ history in saves, it had to feel good to shut out his former team. But as Motzko said, he has fit in well with this team. What seems to be a goalie rotation, the Gophers have been getting great goaltending from both their goalies which is great considering what Close meant to this team.
“We are getting used to knowing him. He just looked good in there,” Motzko said of Souliere. “When you’re there and both goalies are just dueling it out, and both look great. Like (he was) calm, cool, collected. The few times he was really under pressure, he never felt it. He made some critical saves. The 2-on-1 and then the tap from below the goal-line on the one-timer and Liam was just laying there waiting.”
The Gophers jumped on Souliere after the game was over, and moments after he tried for the goalie goal with Penn State’s net empty. They also gave him a little water shower in the locker room when he came in.
“Yeah we got him good,” Luke Mittelstadt on jumping on Souliere and the water shower. “He deserved it. We knew we had to have his back.”
Minnesota’s lone goal came with 26 seconds left in the third period. Motzko was forced to juggle line combinations all game after Jimmy Snuggerud got a game misconduct for a hit to the head in the first period.
Come the third period, late in the game, Motzko tapped Jimmy Clark, Aaron Huglen and Mason Nevers on the shoulders and told them to get out there.
Huglen went to the net to pick a screen and Nevers peeled off to the left of Arsenii Sergeev. After Leo Gruba fired a shot wide of the net, the puck rimmed along the boards to Mittelstadt up top.
The junior defender fired a shot towards Nevers, who was open on the goal-mouth, but it was Clark who poked his stick into the slot and re-directed the shot in.
“Nevy was wide open,” Mittelstadt said. “That’s who I was going to but Clarky intercepted it so it doesn’t matter.”
It took only a redirected puck to get past Sergeev who finished the night with 11 saves on 12 shots. The Gophers picked up another sweep and improved to 7-1-0 on the year and 2-0-0 in the Big Ten.