After 262 minutes, 8 seconds (corrected) of hockey over three days, Minnesota will be going to the Final Five. Tony Lucia's goal at 16:59 of double overtime gave the Gophers a 3-2 win over the Mavericks.
It was the third overtime game in the three-game series and the second double-overtime game of the weekend. Gophers goalie Alex Kangas stoped 44 saves for the win. MSU's Mike Zacharias stopped 47 shots. Each goalie stopped 22 shots in extra time.
As for what's next for the Mavericks, they're at the mercy of the Pairwise rankings and the NCAA tournament selection committee. The loss dropped them to a tie for 13th in the rankings, which puts them on the bubble. They have to hope for no major upsets in next week's conference tournaments and that some of the results give them an extra boost in some of the comparisons.
A few quotes from tonight's games:
"It's a shame that one of those teams had to lose. From Friday night at 7 o'clock through tonight's game, I don't know if I've seen a better weekend of college hockey." -- MSU coach Troy Jutting.
"There was no loser this weekend. My heart goes out to Minnesota State after how well they played." -- Minnesota coach Don Lucia.
"I've never scored a bigger goal in my life." -- Gophers wing Tony Lucia.
"In overtime, you didn't see a ton of fatigue. You saw a lot of adrenalin." -- Jutting
"I've never played so much hockey in my life. I went to bed last night wondering if we'd have anything left for tomorrow." -- Tony Lucia.
"It's obviously disappointing, but when you look back at the weekend ... it's going to go down as one of the best three-game series of all time." -- Mavericks goalie Mike Zacharias
"Hopefully, we get to play again. This team has shown a great deal of improvement all season. They played their hearts out. If there's any justice, we'll play again." -- Jutting
2 comments:
Short a few minutes there Shane. Add about 80. Have you heard anything about Lehrke committing?
You're right. Bad math late at night.
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