Gophers goalie Justen Close had a solid performance in net on Saturday night in St. Cloud. (Bjorn Franke, University of Minnesota athletics/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

The first of two weekend games between the Gophers and St. Cloud State was an exciting one, even if offense was hard to come by.

Jaxon Castor made 23 saves, fourth-line center Aidan Spellacy scored in the second period and host St. Cloud State beat the Gophers 3-0 on Saturday night in a showdown of top-five men's hockey teams before a sold-out Herb Brooks National Hockey Center.

"I've got no fault with how the Gophers played tonight," Gophers coach Bob Motzko said after falling to 2-2 against the team he coached for 13 seasons. "That was one hard-fought hockey game. And we made one mistake, they scored on it."

Kyler Kupka and Grant Cruikshank added empty-netters in the final minute — Cruikshank scoring from his stomach — for the fourth-ranked Huskies (15-4), who visit 3M Arena at Mariucci on Sunday for the back end of this home-and-home series.

The third-ranked Gophers (15-6) thought they took the lead early in the second period when Jaxon Nelson tipped in the puck, but St. Cloud State challenged and Nelson was ruled to have played it with a high stick.

The Huskies then scored for real just past the halfway point of the period, when Spellacy took a dropback pass from Joe Molenaar and fired it past Gophers goalie Justen Close. The goal was the third of the season for Spellacy.

"We were rusty in some areas of our game that we're going to get back on top of from an offensive standpoint," Motzko said. "They blocked 17 shots tonight. In a 1-0 game, we were coming. We were getting better. We needed one to get through the wickets and I think we'd have won the game. But we didn't get it through."

Close made 19 saves for the Gophers, who played with their four players back from winning a bronze medal at the world junior championship in Canada earlier in the week. Forwards Logan Cooley and Jimmy Snuggerud were on a line together, and defensemen Ryan Chesley and Luke Mittelstadt also played.

The Gophers fell to 19-19-6 all-time at St. Cloud State.

" If we could have scored a goal, we could have had a different outcome tonight," Motzko said.

This is the third series this season the Gophers have played an opponent ranked No. 5 or higher in the USCHO poll. Of the Gophers' 21 games this season, 15 have been against an opponent ranked in the poll.

Back from playing for the United States world junior tournament team, Luke Mittelstadt peered in during a stoppage in play Saturday night. (Bjorn Franke, University of Minnesota athletics/The Minnesota Star Tribune)