Speedy Minnesota Gophers forward Oliver Moore has played several games against Michigan State goalie Trey Augustine in his two seasons of college hockey, and has spent several more games and practices as Augustine’s teammate with Team USA.
They have played together both in the National Team Development Program pre-college, and as recently as this month when the two college enemies worked together to grab a second consecutive World Juniors gold medal in Ottawa.
Minnesota’s Oliver Moore, center, and Brody Lamb fight for position during a 3-3 tie with Michigan State on Dec. 13 at 3M Arena at Mariucci. The Gophers were 0-1-1 in the two-game series, and now the teams meet again this weekend in East Lansing ranked No. 2 and No. 3 in the Pairwise rankings. (Brad Rempel / Gophers Athletics)
But if Gophers fans are hoping that he has learned all of Augustine’s secrets by now, Moore says there is still much work to be done.
“I’ve had a couple of years to evaluate him now, it feels like, and I haven’t figured him out yet,” Moore joked this week, as the Gophers (19-5-2 overall) met with the media ahead of their trip to Munn Ice Arena, where the second-ranked Spartans await. “I’m looking forward to playing him, for sure.”
The Gophers, ranked third nationally, face Michigan State (19-3-2) in a two-game series that could go a long way to determining the eventual Big Ten champion — a title that the Spartans are defending after Minnesota had won the previous two.
Both teams are virtual locks for the NCAA tournament, with Michigan State writing one of college hockey’s great stories of resurgence under third-year coach Adam Nightingale. The Spartans hovered at or near the bottom of the Big Ten standings for the conference’s first decade, but won the regular season and playoff titles a year ago, and Nightingale was named Big Ten coach of the year.
Augustine, a Detroit-area kid who was originally committed to Michigan and instead followed Nightingale to East Lansing, is a Red Wings draft pick and one of the major factors in the Spartans’ success, leading the Big Ten with a dozen wins. They also feature one of college hockey’s top-producing forward lines in Isaac Howard, Daniel Russell and Minnesota Wild first-rounder Charlie Stramel.
In December, Michigan State visited Minneapolis and earned a shootout win in the opener, then trailed 3-1 with under 10 minutes to play in regulation and mounted a furious third period comeback to beat the Gophers 5-3 in the series finale.
“We gave up three (goals) in two minutes. … I hope there’s a lesson in there for us,” Gophers coach Bob Motzko said.
Minnesota is coming off a home split with Notre Dame in which they ran all over the Irish in a five-goal first period on Friday, then had to play from behind much of the game on Saturday, eventually falling in overtime when former Minnesota Mr. Hockey winner Blake Biondi ended it for the visitors in what was like his final game played in his home state.
Motzko evaluated his team with a baseball analogy, saying that the Gophers have been swinging for the fences on every shift recently, which sometimes leads to home runs and sometimes leads to strikeouts. The coach said he would prefer they play for singles and doubles versus the Spartans.
“We need to settle in a little more. We are playing really well, then we’re coming back,” Motzko said. “We need to settle in, and that’s just what we’re kind of going through. If we get punched, we punch back, and we’ve kind of needed to get punched lately. We need to kind of steady the ship.”
Friday’s game is a 6 p.m. CT start and can be streamed on B1G+, with the Saturday rematch facing off at 5 p.m. CT and televised by Big Ten Network.
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