ā€˜Uā€™ Downs Sun Devils 5-1 in Opener

by | Mar 2, 2019 | Headlines, RRSN News | 0 comments

ā€˜Uā€™ Downs Sun Devils 5-1 in Opener

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MINNEAPOLIS ā€“ Six Minnesota skaters recorded multi-point games as Gopher Hockey picked up a 5-1 victory over No. 12/11 Arizona State in the first-ever meeting between the two programs on Friday night at 3M Arena at Mariucci.

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The Gophers (15-15-4 overall, 11-10-3-0 Big Ten) gave up the opening goal to the Sun Devils before proceeding to rattle off five-unanswered tallies to open the final weekend of the regular season. Sammy Walker, Brent Gates Jr., Rem Pitlick, Tyler Sheehy, Blake McLaughlin and Tyler Nanne all recorded two-point performances for the Maroon & Gold.

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The Maroon & Gold have now won four of the last five contests while Mat Robson has allowed just one goal in each of the last two games.

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Arizona State (21-11-1) jumped out to an early lead when Jake Gifford found the net at 3:53 of the first period on the Sun Devilsā€™ first shot on goal of the game. It was the only blemish on Robsonā€™s night as the junior goaltender made 14 saves to pick up the win, improving to 12-11-4 on the year.

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From there, it was all Gophers. McLaughlin and Sam Rossini set up Walker with the equalizer for his 10th goal of the year at 15:47 of the first period before Nanne and Walker fed McLaughlin for the eventual game winner at 14:04 of the second stanza. McLaughlin now has four goals on the year.

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Minnesota added three more in a penalty-filled third period. Nanne scored his fifth goal of the season just 40 seconds into the final period off assists from Gates and Ryan Zuhlsdorf followed by power-play goals from Pitlick and Gates. Pitlick picked up his team-leading 18th goal of the year at 9:42 off an assist from Sheehy while the pair then turned around to set up Gates at 16:06. Pitlick leads Minnesota and ranks tied for fourth in the nation with a career-high 40 points this season while Sheehyā€™s 38 points moved his career total to 146 (tied with Trent Klatt for 32nd in program history).

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The Gophers finished the night 2-for-10 on the power play and 4-for-4 on the penalty kill while outshooting Arizona State 42-15 in the victory.

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Minnesota closes out the regular season on Saturday night with a 7:00 p.m. CT nonconference battle against Arizona State on FOX Sports North PLUS. Ticket information is available at GopherSports.com and 1-800-U-GOPHER.

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Notes: Minnesota will honor its nine-member senior class prior to Saturdayā€™s game against the Sun Devils ā€“ the Gophers are 8-0-2 over the last 10 years in the regular season home finale, typically celebrated as ā€œSenior Nightā€ā€¦Minnesota is 5-0-0 when McLaughlin records a multi-point performance and 4-0-0 when Walker does soā€¦Minnesota has now won its last five ā€œfirst-everā€ games with an opponent and has now played 58 of 60 active NCAA teams (Bentley and American International are the exceptions)ā€¦Ryan Norman became the 10th active Gopher to play in 100 career games on Fridayā€¦Gates (28 points) and Nanne (12 points) both reached new single-season career highs for points.

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