This time, overtime belonged to Minnesota.
A night after losing a double-overtime game, No. 15 Minnesota defeated No. 10 Minnesota State, Mankato 2-1 in overtime, winning on Mike Carman's goal 7:33 into the extra session. The win forced a decisive third game in the best-of-three playoff series.
Mankato (19-15-4) won Friday's game 1-0 after more than 97 minutes of scoreless hockey.
On Saturday, Minnesota (16-15-9) wasted little time starting Saturday's scoring, as Justin Bostrom gave the Gophers a 1-0 lead at 6:07 of the first period.
Both Mankato goalie Mike Zacharias (35 saves) and Minnesota's Alex Kangas (26 saves) continued their stellar play from the series opener. The two goalies have stopped 140 of 144 shots for a .972 save percentage.
Mavericks freshman forward Andrew Sackrison finally tied the game with a power-play goal at 11:09 of the third period to send the game to overtime, the third extra session of the weekend.
Notes: Minnesota State will be playing its first Game 3 at home. The Mavericks are 0-3 in third games. They lost 10-0 to North Dakota in 1999 when they were an affiliate member of the WCHA, 6-5 to Minnesota Duluth in 2004 and 3-0 to North Dakota in 2006. In all three instances, the Mavericks won Game 1. ... The two teams ended up tied for 11th in the Pairwise rankings at the end of the night. ... Game 3 will be at 7:07 p.m. Sunday. Tickets went on sale immediately after the game. The Alltel Center box office will open at noon Sunday.
3 comments:
I had the pleasure of enjoying the Friday game a row behind Trevor Bruess' mother, aunt and godmother. They were as understandably pleased with the outcome as I was crushed. Jon Kalinski will haunt my nightmares ... his awareness and ability to be in the right place at the right time are astounding.
After Friday, I expected the Mavs come out flat tonight. It seemed like the Gophs controlled the pace for the first two periods tonight and seemed to have a few more relevant scoring chances, but the Mavs thouroughly dominated the third period and overtime.
(You could have heard a pin drop in that building between the Gophers' first goal and the Maverick goal)
I couldn't help but feeling like the Gophers got away with the win tonight - tomorrow should be interesting. Although I expect more scoring Sunday, I also expected it tonight.
How about these goaltenders?!? Zacharias is doing snow angels in the crease - his positioning is textbook. Kangas is playing outside his mind ... this is the kind of hot goaltending the 'U' has been craving with some of the scoring we've been putting up the last few years without a solid goalie.
This series is truly turning epic...
Anybody else think the way they're choosing to sell these Sunday tickets is idiotic?
How are they selling the Sunday tickets? I have my student ticket but I still need to pick up two more for my girlfriend and my brother. We checked ticketmaster and there's nothing listed. I sure hope the thing doesn't sell out prior to tomorrow...
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