As Minnesota prepares to open the Fargo regional with a game versus Massachusetts on Thursday, longtime Gophers fans will likely reminisce about their last date with the Minutemen, and the play that lifted Minnesota to an overtime win.
March 2022 in Worcester, Mass., the Gophers had trailed UMass 2-0 and 3-1, but had clawed their way back to force overtime in their NCAA regional opener. Aaron Huglen, then a freshman, got the puck along the end boards and refused to let it go for a full 10 seconds, changing directions and shielding his possession from the Minutemen defenders, until he could get a pass to Ben Meyers, who scored the game-winner.
In a bit of sad news for the Gophers, Huglen, now a senior, won’t get the chance for one more crack at UMass. Coach Bob Motzko confirmed on Monday that Huglen’s season, and his college hockey career, are done, after the Roseau, Minn., native suffered a left leg injury in Minnesota’s first round Big Ten tournament series loss to Notre Dame. He did not break the leg, as had been reported elsewhere.
“It’s terrible. I’ve played on a few teams with him even before this, and I’ve known him for 10 years. It’s just devastating,” Gophers co-captain Mike Koster said. “I feel for him, but it just shows his character that he has been here every day since, talking to the guys, cheering us on, making sure all the guys are ready and giving the young guys his two cents. He scored some big goals for us in these games before.”
Huglen, 24, had five goals and 14 assists for the Gophers in 38 games this season. The Fargo regional would have been a kind of bookend to Huglen’s career, as he played for the USHL’s Fargo Force before joining the Gophers.
He said the one silver lining with the injury has been the extra time he has gotten with the newborn daughter that he and wife Maddie welcomed in February.
Goalie decision huge
Of the Gophers’ 25 wins headed into the NCAA tournament, sophomore goalie Nathan Airey has 12 and fifth-year goalie Liam Souliere has 13. Motzko used both of them in the Big Ten playoffs, and said he has made a decision about who will start versus UMass, but is keeping that under wraps for now.
“They have been very, very good goaltenders for us, and we need them to be that again,” Motzko said.
Airey is the physically bigger of the two, and teammates say he has an “all business” approach on the ice. Souliere, who turned 26 earlier this month, brings more experience to the table, having led Penn State to within an overtime goal of the Frozen Four two years ago before transferring to Minnesota.
Feelings for a foe
With their myriad of intense meetings on the ice over the past 80 years or so, and their proximity on opposite sides of the Red River of the North, it is easy for North Dakota fans to hate Minnesota, and vice-versa. But for Motzko, a distaste for Fighting Hawks coach Brad Berry was never part of the rivalry. Berry, who coached the Hawks to the 2016 NCAA title, was fired by North Dakota on Sunday after his team missed the national tournament for the second time in the past three years.
“We have this hatred with North Dakota, but Brad Berry makes it hard, because he’s such a great guy and a great family guy,” Motzko said. “So as much as we want to battle, when we’re behind the scenes, he’s a guy that we all like and we read his record, it’s pretty crazy.”
In 10 seasons coaching the Hawks, Berry’s teams were 227-119-35, and won the NCHC regular season title five times, but he could never replicate the success of that first season running the program, when North Dakota won its eighth national championship.
In the ensuing nine seasons, Berry’s teams won just one NCAA tournament game and missed the 16-team field four times. His 2020 North Dakota team was ranked among the best in the nation, but the NCAA tournament was cancelled in March of that year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Aaron Huglen (Courtesy of Gophers Athletics)
