The top point-getter had her most productive night of the season for the Gophers women’s hockey team on Friday.
Abbey Murphy scored twice as part of a career high-tying five-point night and Minnesota dominated St. Thomas 5-0 in the opener of the final series of the 2024 calendar year for each team.
Josefin Bouveng also scored twice for the third-ranked Gophers (12-4-1, 8-4-1 WCHA). Ella Huber, who centers Murphy and Bouveng, had two assists at St. Thomas Ice Arena. Murphy and Huber will play for Team USA and Bouveng for Sweden in the Six Nations Tournament that begins Wednesday in Finland.
Freshman Hannah Clark made 14 saves as the Gophers improved to 17-0 all-time against St. Thomas. Minnesota outshot St. Thomas 49-14 and had 64 more shot attempts.
Dani Strom stopped 29 shots through two periods and Maggie Malecha made 15 third-period saves for the Tommies (5-12-2, 2-10-1), whose winless streak is now eight games.
Minnesota blew the game open in the second period, scoring three times before St. Thomas had its second shot of the frame.
On the power play, Bouveng converted a Murphy feed for a 2-0 lead at 10:06. Murphy used a defender as a partial screen to put home a wrister 89 seconds later.
Murphy, who had a hat trick Nov. 22 against St. Cloud State, converted a feed from Chloe Primerano to make it 4-0 at 14:35. Primerano scored in the third. Murphy’s previous five-point games were last season against St. Thomas and Bemidji State.
St. Thomas won four games to start the season but has gone 1-12-2 since and had to deal with the Nov. 19 resignation of former coach Joel Johnson.
Despite the potential adversity, the Tommies have been playing better, including a 5-4 overtime loss to No. 6 Clarkson and a 1-1 tie with No. 12 Penn State last weekend at the Smashville Showcase in Nashville.
But the Gophers made it hard to build off that success.
An early goal waved off for being offsides, Minnesota nonetheless got the lone first period goal with Bouveng scoring for the first time in eight games potting a rebound of a Murphy shot.
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