Fifth-year senior Taylor Heise scored three goals in her second consecutive game as the No. 5 Gophers women's hockey team routed Merrimack 9-2 on Friday night at Ridder Arena in the second game of the East/West Showcase.
Minnesota scored six goals in the third period to pull away, the first four in a stretch of 77 seconds.
"It was cool to see us come back from a shaky first period," said Heise, who has 18 points in her past five games. "We made some mistakes that we don't normally make, but we came back much better in the third. We knew after the second period that people were feeling it now."
"First period was a little sloppy," Gophers coach Brad Frost said, agreeing with Heise. "It was our worst period in a long time and we obviously got better as the game progressed. We talked about shot volume in between the second and third period after only getting 12 in the first two periods."
Sophomore goalie Skylar Vetter, who came in with three straight shutouts for Minnesota, had that streak ended when Katie Kaufman, a former Mounds View standout, scored at 15 minutes, 21 seconds of the second period on a power play.
Her final shutout total of 261 minutes, 30 seconds is the third longest streak in program history.
Freshman defenseman Nelli Laitinen put the Gophers (15-3-2) ahead almost nine minutes into the game. Heise's rebound in front made it 2-0 Minnesota early in the second period and Abigial Boreen made it 3-0 midway through the period on a power play.
Catie Skaja, Heise, Grace Zumwinkle and Madison Kaiser had first four goals in the final period in a quick span. Peyton Hemp and Heise the final two.
