Jack LaFontaine (10-7-0) put in another impressive performance on his former home track. The Mike Richter Award winner shutout into the third third on Friday and ended the night with 30 parades and 31 shots. In four games at the Yost Ice Arena with the Gophers, LaFontaine stands 3-0-1 against his former team with one shutout and three games with one goal (130 saves from 133 shots in those games, 0.977).
The Gophers took the lead by three goals in the first period when Brock Faber scored his second goal of the season to open things up before Chaz Lucius got two hits for the first multi-goal of the freshman’s career in the second half of the period scored game. Lucius has now scored five points (four goals, one assist) over this distance in three games in a row.
In the second period, the Gophers extended their lead with goals from Blake McLaughlin and Jonny Sorenson – both goals were prepared by Sammy Walker.
Michigan (12-5-0, 5-4-0-1-2-0) snapped LaFontaines shutout offer with a goal from Thomas Bordeleau early in the third period.
The Gophers, however, refused to let the hosts get any closer, despite a trio of power play opportunities in the final verse. The ‘U’ ended the night with a 5-on-5 penalty kill. The Wolverines had a 31-30 lead in shots at the start of the series.
Comments from the coach
“We’ve trained at a really high level and now we’ve made it two Fridays in a row,” said Minnesota’s head coach Bob Motzko. “We have a chance tomorrow (the first half) to finish strong against a damned team.”
Remarkable
With two assists in the win, Walker is now two points ahead of the 85th member of Gopher Hockey’s 100-point club. The senior is Minnesota’s top scorer with 98 points (41 goals, 57 assists) in 122 games and would be the first gopher to reach 100 points since Rem Pitlick in 2018/19.
Next up: first half final
Minnesota ends the first half against Michigan on Saturday, December 4th at 6:00 p.m. CT (TV: Big Ten Network; Stream: FOX Sports App; Radio: 1130 KTLK-AM / 103.5 FM).
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