Gophers men’s hockey has key improvements to make before it’s NCAA tournament-ready

If you searched enough last Friday night, you eventually could find the fourth-ranked Gophers men’s hockey team taking on No. 2 Michigan State on the BTN-Plus streaming service. Maybe the game’s relegation to the Big Ten’s version of “The Ocho” was a good thing, because what transpired at Munn Ice Arena likely left a queasy feeling in the stomachs of the Minnesota faithful.

Final score: Michigan State 9, Minnesota 3.

Granted, the Gophers played much better Saturday, securing a 3-3 tie before losing the extra standings point with a shootout loss. That left them with a 19-6-3 overall record and a Big Ten mark of 10-4-2, putting them solidly in second place in the conference, five points behind the Spartans. In addition, they remain No. 3 in the PairWise Ratings, leaving them in line to earn one of the four No. 1 seeds for the NCAA tournament.

Still, the drubbing they absorbed Friday leaves reasons to be concerned because it wasn’t an outlier. Two weeks earlier, the Gophers suffered a 5-1 loss at Ohio State in the Friday series opener. They rebounded quickly, beating the Buckeyes 6-1 in the finale. A week later, they followed up a dominant 5-2 Friday win over Notre Dame with a lackluster, 4-3 overtime loss.

“We delivered a solid message to the guys on Saturday morning [at Michigan State], and they responded,” said Gophers assistant coach Ben Gordon, who handled media duties this week because coach Bob Motzko had a scheduling conflict. “It wasn’t a perfect game on Saturday, but we got headed in the right direction. And if we can come out on Friday and have another solid game, we’ll be rolling the right way.”

That’s the aim as the calendar flips to February, beginning with a home series against Wisconsin on Friday and Saturday. The Gophers want to hone their game to where they’re peaking come tournament time. To do so, they’ll need to address several areas. Here are a few:

Minnesota remains the nation’s top-scoring team with an average of 4.0 goals per game, and when the Gophers reach that average, they are 14-0-0. With a roster featuring 16 NHL draft picks, they showed how dominant they can be in the 6-0 rout of Michigan and in a five-goal first period against Notre Dame, during which they fired off 42 shot attempts in the opening 20 minutes. On the flip side, they’re 5-6-3 when they don’t reach four goals.

“We should probably just get to four,” Gordon joked. “That would be a good way to do things.

“… You want to get to three or four," he added. “You usually end up coming out on the winning side of things if you do. But every night, it’s not going to be that, especially going down the stretch in the playoffs and with games getting tighter.”

History supports that theory. Since the NCAA tournament expanded to 16 teams in the 2002-03 season, only three of the 21 national champions in that span have scored four goals or more in each of their four NCAA games: North Dakota in 2016, Yale in 2015 and Boston College in 2008.

To win an NCAA championship — and that’s Minnesota’s goal — a team almost always needs to win a least one tight, gritty game in the tournament. The Gophers have room to improve on their 3-2-3 showing so far in one-goal games — and especially when they get to overtime, where they’ve only won once in six tries.

“The biggest message was just, you’ve got to play for the guy next to you, and you’ve got to get the ‘me’ stuff out of your game as soon as possible,” Gophers defenseman Luke Mittelstadt said.

The statistical shortcoming that stood out most in the 9-3 loss at Michigan State was the Gophers’ performance on faceoffs. They went 20-44 (31.3%) in the circle, and that played into Michigan State dominating possession. The Gophers were slightly better the next night, going 23-41 (35.9%), but it’s been a season-long weakness. The Gophers have won 47.4% of their faceoffs this season, which is tied for 50th among the 64 Division I teams. The faceoff struggles also impact Minnesota’s penalty kill, which ranks 56th nationally at 74.2%.

“They’re really important,” Gophers center Matthew Wood said of faceoffs. “That’s who starts the play with the puck. And obviously, we’re a great team when we have the puck, so we’ve worked on that and continue to look at what we can do better.”

Motzko last week stressed the importance of the Gophers focusing on their details rather than making wholesale changes. Gordon echoed that, with an emphasis on urgency.

“We’re at the part of the season where there’s not much time for ups and downs anymore,” he said.

7 p.m. Friday and 5 p.m. Saturday at 3M Arena at Mariucci

TV: FOX-9 both nights

Radio: 100.3-FM Friday, 103.5-FM, 1130-AM Saturday

Fourth-ranked Minnesota (19-6-3, 10-4-2 Big Ten) faces Wisconsin (11-12-3, 6-9-1) in the next-to-last home series of the regular season. The Gophers took five of six points from the Badgers in a November series in Madison, winning 3-2 in regulation and 3-2 in overtime. … RW Jimmy Snuggerud is on a hot streak with nine goals and four assists in his past 10 games. His 37 points on 18 goals and 19 assists rank second nationally. … LW Connor Kurth (11-17-28) leads the nation with a plus-26 rating. … The Badgers are coming off a win and a tie against Michigan.