Gophers men’s hockey team snags a victory over Penn State and share of Big Ten title

The Gophers did not win the Big Ten hockey regular-season title outright, and they won’t have a first-round bye into the conference tournament semifinals. Michigan State made sure of that by beating Notre Dame on Saturday to complete a sweep of their series in South Bend, Ind.

That gave the Spartans at least a share of the title, and they owned the tiebreaker over the Gophers based on their 2-0-2 record against Minnesota this season.

Later Saturday in State College, Pa., the Gophers earned a share of the Big Ten title, beating Penn State 5-3 as Mike Koster scored the winning goal on a five-minute power play with 3:04 left in the third period. Matthew Wood scored twice and Mason Nevers and Oliver Moore a goal each for the Gophers, who got 30 saves from Liam Souliere.

“They had no quit in them,” Gophers coach Bob Motzko told reporters at Pegula Ice Arena, referring to his players. “… We needed to find a way to win that because we’ve earned and deserve the right to be Big Ten champs. We’ll share it with Michigan State."

Minnesota (24-8-4, 15-6-3 Big Ten) matched Michigan State with 50 points in the standings and will play host to last-place Notre Dame (10-23-1, 4-19-1) in a best-of-three Big Ten quarterfinal series on Friday through Sunday. The regular-season title is the Gophers’ seventh and third in four years.

Simon Mack, Matt DiMarsico and Charlie Cerrato scored for Penn State (18-12-4, 9-11-4). Arsenii Sergeev made 27 saves.

The fact that the Gophers didn’t win the outright regular-season title can be tied to their performance in seven Big Ten games that stretched past three periods. Minnesota went 1-3 in 3-on-3 overtime and 0-3 in shootouts, securing only one extra point in the standings.

The good news for the Gophers is that the Big Ten tournament and NCAA tournament do not have 3-on-3 hockey or shootouts. Overtime is straight hockey: five skaters and a goalie for each team playing 20-minute sudden-death overtime periods until a winner is decided.

Saturday’s game hinged on a five-minute major penalty and game misconduct taken by each team.

With the Gophers leading 2-1 on goals by Wood and Nevers, Jimmy Snuggerud appeared to give Minnesota a 3-1 lead at 19:35 of the second. Instead, officials reviewed a hit delivered by Gophers 6-foot-1 defenseman Ryan Chesley to the head of Penn State 5-5 forward Danny Dzhaniyev. Chesley was given the major and game misconduct, and Snuggerud’s goal was wiped out, with play restarting at 17:36, the last previous stoppage before the penalty.

“I don’t like the call on Chesley,” Motzko said. “That was as inadvertent as it comes. It was a very little guy on a big guy. … We had taken over the game at that point."

Penn State quickly tied the score 2-2 at 18:26 when DiMarsico tapped a rebound past Souliere.

With the score tied 3-3 at 12:25 of the third, Penn State forward Reese Laubach received a five-minute major and game misconduct for slashing Gophers defenseman Sam Rinzel in the head. Sergeev was spectacular, making five saves, but Koster pinched in, took a pass from Jimmy Clark and beat Sergeev with 29 seconds left in the man advantage and 3:04 left in the third.

Moore added an empty-netter with 25 seconds to play.