Gophers men’s hockey team roars all the way back, then leaves Wisconsin behind

Bob Motzko assessed a first period Friday night that saw his Gophers men’s hockey team trailing Wisconsin by two goals, and he delivered a succinct message in the locker room.

“Enough! Enough!” he said. “It’s ending right now. And the guys responded.”

The response came in spades, especially from Minnesota’s top line of junior Jimmy Snuggerud and freshmen Erik Pahlsson and Brodie Ziemer, who combined for 12 points in the Gophers’ 5-2 victory over the Badgers in front of 10,747, the third-largest crowd in the history of 3M Arena at Mariucci.

Snuggerud started the comeback with a second-period goal, then scored in the third and added two assists. Ziemer tied the score in the second and capped the win with an empty-net goal while also contributing two assists. And Pahlsson scored the go-ahead goal in the third and had three helpers.

The victory capped an up-and-down January for the fourth-ranked Gophers (20-6-3, 11-4-2 Big Ten), who went 3-3-1 in conference play in the month and will try to sweep their border rival in Saturday’s 5 p.m. series finale. Sluggish Friday starts against Ohio State and Michigan State crept into their game, and Motzko wanted to end that quickly.

“That first period is something that we’ve been seeing for a while, and we needed to dig our heels in and fight,” Motzko said. “… The next two periods, we played like we needed to play."

Helping the cause was goalie Liam Souliere, who made 33 saves in his first Friday start of the season after being the Saturday starter in a rotation with Nathan Airey. Motzko said Airey was under the weather.

Wisconsin (11-13-3, 6-10-1) built a 2-0 lead on first-period goals from Simon Tassy and Ryland Mosley. Goalie Tommy Scarfone made 23 saves.

Held to five shots on goal in the first period and 11 shot attempts in the opening 20 minutes, the Gophers found their game in the second. Minnesota won 14 of 20 faceoffs in the second, led by six wins from center Jimmy Clark. That enabled the Gophers to keep possession of the puck and let the top line go to work.

Snuggerud scored at 12:49 of the second, cutting the lead to 2-1. On the play, Ziemer hit Snuggerud with a stretch pass into the Wisconsin zone, and Snuggerud sniped a laser over Scarfone’s left shoulder and into a miniscule window, bringing a roar back to the building.

“Between periods, Paul Martin [assistant coach and 14-year NHL veteran] was standing next to me,” Motzko said. “I said, ‘For 40 years, I’ve been a coach in the USHL or college. I’ve never seen that before. You must’ve seen that in the NHL.’ Paul said, ‘I didn’t see that in the NHL.‘ “

Ziemer knotted the score 2-2 at 18:57 of the second, banging home a rebound after Scarfone denied Pahlsson’s wraparound attempt.

Pahlsson scored the winner 5:43 into the third, wiring a shot through Scarfone’s five-hole on a rush.

Snuggerud scored his 20th goal of the season, making it 4-2 at 17:28, and Ziemer added his empty-netter at 17:48. Snuggerud became only the third Gopher to score 20 or more goals in his first three seasons. The others: John Mayasich and Dick Daugherty, both from 1952-54.

Milestone aside, Snuggerud was pleased with the response.

“We’re tired of not having good starts, and we did it again tonight,” he said. “Obviously, we’ll have to improve on that. We came back strong in the second and third, and we’re happy with that.”