Faced with a must-win situation, coaches often will talk about the need for their best players to be their best players.
The Gophers and coach Brad Frost found themselves in that situation on Saturday afternoon at Ridder Arena after a surprising 5-4 loss to Minnesota State Mankato the night before in the opening game of their best-of-three WCHA quarterfinal series.
The Gophers’ top line delivered in spectacular fashion, combining for 11 points, including nine in the first period, as the Gophers jumped on the Mavericks early in a 7-1 victory.
The deciding game will be played Sunday afternoon at Ridder, with the winner moving on to the WCHA Final Faceoff, beginning Friday at Ridder.
Sophomore left winger Josefin Bouveng led the charge with two goals and three assists, right winger Abbey Murphy had two goals and two assists and center Ella Huber collected a goal and an assist.
“They led us really, really well,” Frost said. “Not just in the locker room and on the bench, but kind of putting their money where their mouth is.”
Bouveng said she and her linemates didn’t talk more than usual about the need to be productive. “But I think we all knew what was going on, that we would have to play well,” she said. “We started out pretty well, and that set the tone for the whole game.”
Asked if she thought it was her best performance as a Gopher, Bouveng said, “It’s hard to say, but we scored a lot of goals in the quarterfinals, so I will value that pretty high.”
Frost acknowledged that he didn’t sleep well Friday night after the performance by his team. He woke several times, he said, entering notes into his phone. He shared those notes with the team before the game.
“There was some stern messaging,” he said. “Here we are in Game 36, and it should be automatic by now in terms of how we play. We just went a little rogue (Friday) night.”
Huber expressed her confidence after the loss on Friday that the Gophers would bounce back. Bouveng said she felt the same way.
“It was all up to us,” she said. “We know we are the more skilled team, and if we decide to play the right way we can beat them. I’m glad we did that today.”
Bouveng gave the Gophers a 1-0 lead with an unassisted goal at 4:24. After forcing a turnover inside the Mavericks’ blue line, she weaved her way toward the net and beat Mankato goaltender Hailey Hansen on a wrist shot from the slot.
Huber scored her 15th of the season and fourth in two games when she buried a centering pass from Murphy from behind the net. Bouveng scored her second of the game less than two minutes later.
Using one of her signature moves, Murphy circled the Mankato net with the puck before setting Bouveng up in the slot. The Mavericks got on the board with a power-play goal at 14:14, but a 4-on-4 goal by Madeline Wethington and a power-play goal by Murphy gave the Gophers a 5-1 lead heading into the first intermission.
“Once we got that first one — and then second one — we’ve just been preaching that we need to continue to extend the lead,” Frost said. “We did that with five in the first.”
Second-period goals by Murphy and Madison Kaiser put the Gophers up 7-1. Playing with the big lead, the Gophers held the Mavericks to three shots on goal in the period and 18 in the game.
“We played with so much better structure, discipline, the details,” Frost said. “When we play like that we are going to be tough to beat.”
Briefly
Murphy leads the nation with 33 goals, the most by a Gophers player since Dani Cameranisi had 33 in the 2015-16 season. One more goal would tie Murphy with Hannah Brandt for the seventh-most number of goals in a season in Gophers history.
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