The Gophers have had several setbacks recently with players getting hurt.

"Heading into last week, Nick [Leddy] gets hurt on Friday," Lucia said referring to the freshman defenseman who has a broken jaw. " Then we don't have him."

Leddy is out until mid-December, but has started skating a bit.

"And then that impacted the whole practice when Jay [Barriball] got hurt on Tuesday," Lucia said.

Barriball is out for the season after surgery for a torn LCL in his right knee.

"Everybody is just quiet when an injurty like that happens," Lucia said, "and then knowing he is going to be out the rest of the year."

Actually, coaches and players did not know the extent of Barriball's injury for sure until Thursday but they suspected the worst.

"And then on Saturday, Hoff has allergic reaction and he can't play."

Junior forward Mike Hoeffel, who is allergic to peanuts got sick before the second Wisconsin game. He was scratched from the lineup. But he recovered quickly.

His father Tom told Lucia after the first period that Mike was ready to go in. It was too late, Lucia told him.

Lucia said the coaches have talked to the players about the injuries. "It's a team game, not an individual game," he said. "Somebody else is going to have an opportunity to step in. The guys did a really good job with that on Saturday night and hoepfully that is a good sign. Now we won three of four, and hopefully we can build on that."

"All in all in the weekend we played pretty well," Gophers coach Don Lucia said. "Even Friday night, we didn't have a great first period but the second and third period we played pretty well. We had some good looks late in the game on Friday when it was 3-2 to try to tie it. We didn't.

"They came down and scored with less than two minutes to go when you are pressing and trying to make a play to get the tying goal. But I was impressed the way we came back and played on Saturday."

The Gophers won 5-2 in the second game.

"We played with some grit and blocked shots and did some things you need to do in order to win games."

"We were able to play with the lead. It seems when we are able to play with a lead this year we have won. Scoring that first goal was obviously important on Saturday night."

Sophomore forward Nick Larson is practicing on defense with the Gophers down to six healthy defensmen.

"He was actually doing that earlier in the year," Lucia said. "When the year began we thought Nick might be able to make a pretty good defenseman because he is 6-1, 190 pounds. He can skate well, he has good feet. he was a righthander, which we didn't have a lot of righthanders.

"And as a centerman he is used to defending down low. ... Whether he is going to play defense for good? No. But we want him to practice at that so if we need him, that he would be in a position to do that."

* My post on Tuesday on the Gophers roster shrinking to 22 players had 5,879 views. Thank you all for checking it out. And no, I didn't click on it continuously for two hours. Maybe twice total.

ASSORTED SHOTS

NEW DEFENSEMAN

THE DON ON SPLIT IN MADISON