Jimmy Snuggerud, the high-scoring right winger for the Gophers men’s hockey team, entered Saturday night’s game at Notre Dame on an eight game goal-scoring drought. That’s an eternity for the St. Louis Blues first-round draft pick, who scored 21 goals last season and had 18 this year.
Make that 19, and the latest came at an opportune time.
Snuggerud beat Notre Dame goalie Ryan Bischel 78 seconds into the three-on-three overtime period, giving Minnesota a 3-2 victory over the Fighting Irish in South Bend, Ind.
“We call it a minor slump; he calls it a major slump,” Gophers coach Bob Motzko said of Snuggerud. “That was a big-time response.”
And an important one, too. The Gophers, who were humbled 6-1 by the Fighting Irish in Friday’s series opener, improved to 19-8-5 overall and 12-6-4 in the Big Ten. They have 37 points and are third in the conference standings, five points behind second-place Wisconsin, which has four games remaining to Minnesota’s two.
“Our guys battled all night long,” Motzko said. “That’s how we’ve been playing the last month, month-and-a-half. We wanted last night to be an aberration.”
Connor Kurth and Jaxon Nelson also scored for the Gophers. Justen Close made 24 saves and assisted on Nelson’s tying goal. Notre Dame (15-15-2, 10-10-2) got goals from Justin Janicke and Jayden Davis. Bischel stopped 36 shots.
The Gophers, who entered the series on a 9-1-1 run, are idle next weekend before finishing the regular season with a home series against Michigan on March 1-2.