Minnesota Gophers Dominance Puts Big Ten Title Race in Gear!

Abby Murphy ends her career with 143 career goals—a Minnesota program record. | Brady Paitrick—Gophersports. com The Minnesota Golden Gophers women’s hockey team got a gift last weekend when UConn defeated Northeastern in the Hockey East Championship game.

By that win, the Gophers remained #4 in the NPI rankings and “earned” the chance to host the NCAA Quarterfinal on Saturday afternoon against #5 Northeastern. Unfortunately for the few thousand fans packed into Ridder Arena, they probably wish the game had been in Boston instead. Minnesota’s unfathomable lack of offence since their four players headed off to the Olympic games continued and with great play in net by Northeastern goalie Lisa Jonsson the Gophers lost control of the game early in the first period and never recovered losing 4-2 to the Huskies.

The Gophers came out with incredible fire as the top line of Bella Finale, Josefin Bouveng and Abbey Murphy has two great looks in the first thirty seconds of the game. Murphy was robbed on a rebound by Jonsson in what was an omen for the rest of the game. Jonsson came to play, and unfortunately for the Gophers their own sophomore goalie Hannah Clark did not.

The teams traded chances in the first few minutes of the game, but Minnesota’s overaggressiveness would catch up to them just over five minutes into the action. After a face-off win in the Northeastern zone Murphy picked up the puck and skated in firing a backhand over the goal. Gopher defender Sydney Morrow pinched in deep near the net looking for a rebound, but the puck slid along the boards past her right to Northeastern’s Eloise Caron.