Midway through the third period Friday night at Anderson Arena, the St. Thomas men’s hockey team appeared well on its way to securing the job at hand — gaining control of their own destiny in the battle for the CCHA regular season championship.

Leading Augustana 3-1, the 15th-ranked Tommies seemed on the verge of moving into first place, two points ahead of idle Michigan Tech in the penultimate week of the season. In the end, Augustana had other plans.

The 18th-ranked Vikings scored with just over five minutes to play in regulation to make it a 3-2 game, then tied it in the final minute after pulling their goalie. They then won the shootout following three-on-three overtime for a 4-3 victory.

The Tommies came away with one point, which moved them into a tie for first with Michigan Tech, but the mood was somber on the home team’s side.

“We were just too loose,” St. Thomas coach Rico Blasi said of the sudden turn of events in the third period. “That’s a good hockey team. I thought it was a good game for 55 minutes, and then we lost our focus and they made us pay.”

The Vikings were a desperate team in the third period, and their added influx of intensity helped tilt the game in their favor.

“I think we got away from our game and it ended up giving them some momentum,” Tommies captain Lucas Wahlin. “It ended up biting us in the butt. We didn’t play a full 60 minutes.”

“Once the momentum swings in the other team’s favor, it’s often hard to get it back. “It think we’ve just got to stick together,” Wahlin said. “Obviously, there’s ups and downs in hockey games. That’s how it is every night. We’ve just got to come together even closer, and tonight we didn’t do that.”

The Vikings looked like a different team from the middle of the third period on. So did the Tommies.

“We had the puck on our stick a couple times and we just didn’t make the play,” Blasi said. “We didn’t execute.”

Trailing 1-0 after first period, the Tommies scored twice in the second period. Alexandros Gaffney took advantage of a Vikings turnover to score his 17th goal of the season at 6:07 of the period from in tight.

Then, with the teams playing four on four, Tommies defenseman Hayes Hundley collected his sixth of the season at 13:59 on a wrist shot from the slot.

When Wahlin scored on a power play at 6:07 of of the third period to give the Tommies a 3-1 lead, the Tommies looked they were going to eliminate the Vikings from the mix in the wild chase for the CCHA title.

Now, the Vikings are one point out of first, and are sure to have a lot of life on Saturday night.

As for what he wants his team to take from the loss heading into the weekend finale, Blasi said, “We have to take the first 55 minutes and finish the job.”
Wahlin had his own take.

“It’s a must win,” he said.

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MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Anthony Edwards returned to Minnesota with his All-Star Game MVP award and scored 40 points to help the Timberwolves hold off Dallas 122-111 on Friday, the 10th straight loss for the Mavericks.

Rudy Gobert #27 of the Minnesota Timberwolves dunks the ball against the Dallas Mavericks in the first quarter at Target Center on February 20, 2026 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. (Photo by David Berding/Getty Images)

Rudy Gobert had 22 points, 17 rebounds and three blocks and Naz Reid added 21 points for the Timberwolves, who squandered a 17-point first-half lead before Edwards took over down the stretch.

Tyus Jones tied the game at 103 on a floater with 6:55 left, capping a 12-2 spurt for the Mavericks and ending a stretch of 36:32 during which the Timberwolves were ahead. But Edwards answered with a step-back 3-pointer and Reid hit one too less than a minute later, and the Mavericks never grabbed the lead.

Edwards, who has eight 40-point games this season, had 14 points in the fourth quarter.

Khris Middleton had 18 points and Marvin Bagley added 15 points and 13 rebounds for the Mavericks, who are on their longest losing streak in 28 years.

The Mavericks last won on Jan. 22 against the Golden State Warriors. They played without star rookie Cooper Flagg for the second straight game, whose sprained foot needed more a little time to heal than the All-Star break afforded him. Max Christie (ankle) was also out for a team that’s also missing Kyrie Irving and Dereck Lively with injuries for the remainder of the season.

The Timberwolves started 8 of 13 from 3-point range, posted a 40-point first quarter and ballooned their lead to 17 points late in the second quarter before a lackadaisical start to the second half. Julius Randle finished with just 13 points on 4-for-15 shooting.

Gobert was given a flagrant foul in the second quarter that will trigger an automatic one-game suspension due to his running season total.

Minnesota hosts Philadelphia at 6 p.m. Sunday in a game televised on FDSN.

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Going scoreless on three power-play opportunities is atypical for the Hill-Murray girls’ hockey team.

After all, the Pioneers entered Friday’s Class 2A state semifinal scoring on 47.83% of their opportunities.

Hill Murray celebrates after defeating Edina 3-2 to win a Class 2A semifinal game of the State Girls Hockey Tournament at Grand Casino Arena in St. Paul on Friday, Feb. 20, 2026. (Craig Lassig / Special to the Pioneer Press)

Given one more chance at 5 on 4 late in the third period, Hill-Murray did not waste the opportunity.

Emily Pohl scored on a rebound with 3:13 remaining and the Pioneers beat Edina 3-2. The initial shot from Jaycee Chatleain narrowly missed a defender.

“We’ve said all throughout playoffs we don’t really need to change anything. We just need to play our game and be confident in that. Going into that power play, we were just confident in ourselves,” said winger Sophie Olson, one of just two seniors on the roster.

“Their power play is lethal and up until that last goal we read them like a book. We played really, really well. We were blocking shots. We weren’t giving them any real looks,” Edina coach Sami Cowger said.

Seeking its fourth title in nine appearances since 2014, the Pioneers will face Holy Family Catholic or Centennial/Spring Lake Park in Saturday’s 7 p.m. final back at Grand Casino Arena.

This is the third year that Hill-Murray and Edina met in the state tournament, splitting the past two championship games with Hill-Murray winning 5-4 in double overtime last year and Edina winning 2-0 in 2024. Hill-Murray also beat Edina 4-3 early this season.

“I didn’t expect anything different and that it would come down to that final buzzer. Obviously, just wish it would have gone the other way at the end there,” Cowger said.

With its goalie pulled, Libby Moe hit the post for Edina (21-5-3) and an Audrey Davis shot through traffic was stopped by Piper Tam, who finished with 20 saves.

Lorelai Nelson tied the game 5:34 into the third period with her fourth goal of the tournament, but the fourth-seeded Hornets could not get one more.

Hill-Murray is now 25-3-1, but only four of those wins were by less than three goals.

“A very gritty win for a group of kids who necessarily that’s maybe not their M.O. But at the end of the year, you have to win in that way, you have to play gritty, you have to play strong. And some very skilled kids found a way to do that,” Pioneers co-coach John Pohl said.

Hannah Rychley converted a feed from Gwynn Skoogman midway through the first period for a 1-0 Hill-Murray lead, but Hazel Schenkelberg answered for Edina with a wrister from the left dot a little over four minutes later.

Olivia Braunshausen scored the lone goal of the second period by driving down the slot to put home a rebound. Taylor Miller was stopped twice at the post and the puck trickled out.

Braunshausen has goals in back-to-back games after scoring twice in the Pioneers’ first 27 games. However, the defender is fifth on the team with 20 assists.

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Lindsey Vonn had another surgery on her badly broken left leg Friday and remained hospitalized nearly two weeks after her terrifying crash in the Olympic downhill.

Vonn flew home to the United States last weekend after a week of treatment for a complex tibia fracture and at least four surgeries at a hospital in Italy.

“Made it through surgery,” Vonn said in her latest post on Instagram. “It took a bit more than 6 hours to complete. As you can see, it required a lot of plates and screws to put back together.

“With the extent of the trauma, I’ve been struggling a bit post op and have not yet been able to be discharged from the hospital just yet,” Vonn added. “Almost there. Baby steps.”

Vonn added on X next to an X-ray showing metal screws and other hardware inside her leg, “I’m bionic for real now.”

Vonn was attempting to win a medal at the Milan Cortina Games at age 41 with a torn ACL in her left knee and a partial titanium replacement in her right knee. But she got hooked on a gate 13 seconds into her run — resulting in a spinning, air-born crash that sent her careening down the mountain in Cortina d’Ampezzo.

Because her skis did not release during the crash, the fall has raised safety issues among the skiing circuit.

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