Grace Zumwinkle scored the first two goals and had two assists as the No. 4 Gophers women's hockey team routed St. Thomas 7-0 on Friday night at Ridder Arena in the opening game of their best-of-three, first-round WCHA playoff series.
Grace Zumwinkle, Taylor Heise lead Gophers to 7-0 rout of St. Thomas in WCHA playoffs
Zumwinkle scored Minnesota's first two goals, Heise got the fourth and the last against the Tommies in a first-round playoff series.
February 25, 2023 at 2:20AM
Zumwinkle has 24 goals this season and 108 in her career. Taylor Heise, another fifth-year senior, also had two goals, giving her a team-high 27, and one assist.
"We really established things from the drop of the puck. Our team was ready to go and played with great pace," Gophers coach Brad Frost said.
The second-seeded Gophers (26-5-3) scored early, in the middle and late of the opening period to take a 3-0 lead. Zumwinkle got her first goal at 1 minute, 4 seconds and her second at 12:58 on her only two shots on net that period. On the first goal, Abbey Murphy was stopped on a rush up to the net, but Zumwinkle tapped in the rebound for her ninth game-winning goal of the season. On Zumwinkle's next goal she was screening goalie Saskia Maurer, when she used her stick to redirect a shot.
With eight seconds left in the period, Murphy made it 3-0 on a power-play goal from the top of the right circle. It was her 25th goal.
That lead soon grew to 4-0 when Heise made a nifty move over a defender and skated in alone on Maurer in the first minute of the second. The Gophers added one more goal in the second and two more in the third.
Skylar Vetter made 15 saves for the victory. Maurer had 34 saves and Maggie Malecha 10 for the Tommies (8-26).
The No. 1 Ducks will be in Madison, where the Badgers are rested coming off a bye week. Meanwhile, while USC and Nebraska square off at the L.A. Coliseum.
