With the ball in freshman guard Cam Christie’s hands in the closing seconds of the Gophers’ victory over the Texas-San Antonio Roadrunners on Friday night at Williams Arena, the game’s outcome had long been decided, and the verdict was already in on Christie’s Gophers debut.

But with this team sitting on 99 points, Christie didn’t really have much choice. He let go a 3-pointer that found the bottom of the net — his fourth 3 of the game — adding an exclamation point to the Gophers’ 102-76 victory.

Christie, a 6-foot-6 guard from suburban Chicago, who missed the Gophers’ season-opening win over Bethune-Cookman due to illness, finished with 18 points and a big smile on his face.

“I had an idea,”  Gophers coach Ben Johnson said with a smile when asked if he knew Christie was going to shoot. “To his credit, I also knew he wasn’t going to force it. So it was good that he kind of got it in the rhythm and the flow of what we are trying to do.

“He didn’t just go and jack it. But, again, I think it’s how we’ve practiced, and how we’ve preached taking good shots and letting the ball move. There was a carryover of that tonight.”

What made Christie’s performance that much more impressive is the act that he has had little practice time due to the illness.

“It was rough to miss the scrimmage and the first two games,” he said. “My teammates did a good job of keeping me included, and I just had to stay confident in myself.

“I was cleared last Thursday and it was good to get back into the swing of things. And then it was good to get back out there.”

Johnson said he saw enough from Christie in practice to know that he was ready to contribute.

“He took good shots, shots that he’s taken in practice,” Johnson said. “He was playing with pace, and he didn’t really try to force the issue. He’s  good shooter, and he made them.”

The Gophers were without center Pharrel Payne, who Johnson said “tweaked” a foot injury he has been dealing with. Isaiah Ihnen took his place in the starting lineup, and all he  did was score 20 points on 7-for-7 shooting, including 5-for-5 from 3-point range.

Ihnen has made his way back after missing the past two seasons due to knee injuries.

“He’s a good player,” Johnson said. “The guy lives in the gym, sand his work ethic and getting up shots is second to none on our team. We preach to him, if you get your feet set the right ones are going to go in because they’re the right ones.”

Ihnen is just thrilled to be back on the floor.

“It’s surreal,” he said. “I’ve been out for two years and I didn’t know if there would ever be the day I would be back out here playing in a Gopher jersey. So just being out there and being able to compete, and to have the confidence of my coaches, there’s nothing that compares to that feeling.”

Junior forward Dawson Garcia, who led the Gophers with 23 points and 14 rebounds in the win over Bethune-Cookman, had another strong game, with 22 points, 6 rebounds, 3 assists and 2 blocks.

The Gophers took control of the game midway through the first half and led 54-30 at the intermission. Christie entered the game with the Gophers up 9-7. He missed his first shot but then rattled off three consecutive 3s to give the Gophers a 24-14 lead.

The Gophers limited the Roadrunners to 30.6 percent shooting in the first half and 40.8 percent for the game, allowing their opponent to few uncontested shots.

“We took some steps forward (defensively),” Johnson said. “We aren’t going to score 100 points every night, so we have to defend. We have very capable defensive players. we have to be able to rely on that.

“It’s a work in progress.”

Related Articles

Men’s basketball: Gophers learning from other Big Ten upsets

Gophers men’s basketball coach Ben Johnson higher on recruiting class than national rankings

What’s biggest difference in Gophers men’s basketball after last two season openers?

Gophers men’s basketball: Parker Fox, Isaiah Ihnen bonded through ‘ridiculous’ knee injuries

Gophers men cruise to win over Macalester in exhibition game

BUFFALO, N.Y. — The Wild got captain Jared Spurgeon back on Friday, but no one player is going to change the narrative for Minnesota, which finally got a decent start only to watch another mistake turn into the go-ahead goal.

J.J. Peterka scored twice, and his steal at the blue line led to Jeff Skinner’s go-ahead goal on a breakaway early in the third period as the Buffalo Sabres held off the Wild, 3-2, at KeyCenter Arena.

Kirill Kaprizov and Joel Eriksson Ek scored power-play goals, but the Wild ended their three-game trip through New York with consecutive losses. They lost to the Rangers on Thursday when a Brock Faber pinch turned into a three-on-one go-ahead goal in a 4-1 loss at Madison Square Garden.

This time, Jonas Brodin dropped a pass back to Kaprizov at the Sabres’ blue line late in the second period with the game tied 1-1. Kaprizov reared back to send the puck deep, but Peterka poked it away before it got to him.

That sent Peterka and Jeff Skinner the other way, and Skinner beat Filip Gustavsson left side to make it 2-1. Peterka buried a one-timer off a rush early in the third period for a 3-1 lead the Wild couldn’t match.

Eriksson Ek pulled the Wild within a goal on a power play with 7:33 remaining, the 100th goal of his career. But Minnesota, which pulled Gustavsson with just under two minutes remaining, could never catch up.

Gustavsson made 26 saves.

Spurgeon, playing his first game since being injured in a preseason game on Oct. 5, deflected a pass off the post in the final seconds, but Devon Levi made 31 saves for the Sabres, who improved to 6-1-1 against the Wild in the teams’ last eight meetings.

After 18 minutes of back-and-forth chances, the Sabres broke the seal when Henri Jokiharju sent a wrist shot from the high slot through traffic to beat a screened Gustavsson for a 1-0 lead at 18:02.

It was the 22nd first-period goal the Wild have surrendered this season, most in the NHL, but this time they answered. With 1:26 left in the period, Ryan Johnson was penalized for cross-checking Ryan Hartman, and the Wild began their second power play.

The teams went to a faceoff in the Sabres’ zone with 37.7 seconds left, and Joel Eriksson Ek won the draw. Mats Zuccarello corralled it and passed to Matt Boldy, who turned and sent a cross between the circles to an open Kaprizov, who one-timed in through the pads of a diving Devon Levi to tie the game 1-1 at 19:30.

The Wild nearly added another goal before the period ended when Eriksson Ek skated a puck to the crease and pulled it back before trying to stuff it into a corner from behind the net. It was a good scoring chance, and the center banged his stick on the ice after the buzzer sounded.

The second period played out in similar fashion, the teams trading blows without luck until the last two minutes, when a big play by Paterka started a breakaway finished by Jeff Skinner after the Wild had just won a draw in Buffalo’s end.

Brock Faber corralled the puck and sent it cross ice to Brodin on the left board. The defenseman moved a soft pass back to the blue line for Kaprizov, but Peterka poked it away — and forward — as Kaprizov was winding up to send the puck deep. Skinner took control and skated at Gustavsson.

When the goalie committed, Skinner went to his left and skid the puck into the left corner between the post and Gustavsson skate for a 2-1 lead at 19:02.

Buffalo quickly built on that lead in the third period, which started with more than a minute of power play time for the Sabres because Kaprizov was called for interference late in the second period.

The Wild killed that power play, but a couple of minutes later, Tage Thompson skated hard out of his zone and past the Wild’s blue line and dropped the puck to Skinner. He sent it back to Thompson down behind the goal, and he zipped a pass to the crease, where Peterka was waiting for a one-timer.

That made it 3-1 Buffalo at 3:33.

Related Articles

Wild get captain Jared Spurgeon for Friday’s game in Buffalo

Brock Faber falls on his sword after Wild’s 4-1 loss to Rangers

Wild hoping to see another recharged veteran when Zach Bogosian hits the ice

Wild trade Calen Addison to San Jose, acquire Zach Bogosian from Lightning

Wild needed contributions from newcomers this season. So far, so good.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Playing prep hockey for Edina, Jimmy Clark said he learned to love being on the team that everyone in the audience hated. Perhaps that experience served the Minnesota Gophers rookie well in his first trip to Yost Ice Arena — known as one of the most hostile places for visiting teams in all of college hockey.

Clark scored late in the second period and again in the third as the Gophers rallied from a two-goal deficit and beat Michigan 4-3 on Friday in one of their biggest road tests of the season.

The Gophers (5-3-1 overall, 1-2-0-0 Big Ten) got their first conference win thanks in large part to a 37-save performance from goalie Justen Close. Bryce Brodzinski got Minnesota on the board after it trailed less than two minutes into the game, and Brody Lamb netted the game-winner with 3:28 to play. Gophers coach Bob Motzko admitted that Close may have stolen the game for Minnesota, which was dominated by the Wolverines for long stretches of the game.

“Every once in a while it’s called ‘highway robbery’ and we got away with one tonight,” Motzko said in a postgame press conference. “We were doing fine until we took our penalties and that reared its head. They got the 3-1 lead and we were not good until Jimmy Clark gets a big goal. …That gave us a game again. Without that there was no game.”

Michigan fell to 5-5-1 overall and 1-3-1-0 in the conference despite getting goals from Frank Nazar, Rutger McGroarty and Dylan Duke. The Wolverines took a 3-1 lead into the final seconds of the middle period before Clark started Minnesota’s comeback.

“It’s huge to show the team we were in this game and we can beat these guys,” Clark said. “It might not have been our best night, but we can get it done and that’s what we did.”

All week, Motzko had warned his team about the danger of taking penalties versus the Wolverines, who have the nation’s most dangerous power play. And then, in the second period, the Gophers did just what the coach had warned them against. Duke and McGroarty scored man-advantage goals, and the Wolverines took a commanding lead at home.

Minnesota’s best chance to get back into the game in the second came when Michigan’s Mark Estapa was ejected for contact to the head on Gophers forward John Mittelstadt. But Michigan stood firm and killed the five-minute major penalty.

But Clark started the rally in the final seconds of the period, getting his second collegiate goal, then knotted it in the third, finishing off a rush to the net with Connor Kurth. Lamb’s game-winner gave him his first three-point game as a collegian. The Gophers closed it out despite a frantic Michigan push with goalie Jacob Barczewski on the bench.

“Our D core did a great job those last five minutes, good sticks, taking bodies and kept them off the score sheet,” Lamb said.

Barczewski finished with 23 saves for Michigan, which has now lost three in a row.

Extra pucks

The Gophers were without center Aaron Huglen, who was ill all week and did not make the trip to Michigan. It was the second year in a row that he has missed the road games versus the Wolverines due to illness.

With freshman goalie Nathan Airey still not at full health and unable to travel to Michigan, the Gophers have officially added sophomore Matt Bryant to the roster. Originally from La Crosse, Wis., Bryant skated for the U’s club team last year and was officially listed as their third goalie on Friday, behind Close and sophomore Zach Wiese.

John Mittelstadt, who wears No. 19, left the game in the second period after he was bloodied by the high hit from Estapa. The Gophers forward returned to the game in the third period wearing a No. 25 jersey with no nameplate on the back, as his regular jersey was bloodied in the collision.

Related Articles

College men’s hockey: Gophers settle for tie in Duluth

Back to business, Gophers men’s hockey team holds off Bulldogs to snap three-game losing streak

Badgers humble Gophers men’s hockey team in new coach Mike Hastings’ return to his home state

Men’s hockey: North Dakota hands No. 1 Gophers first loss

Men’s hockey: Gophers mix old, new talents to subdue Fighting Hawks