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Gophers are back in their comfort zone

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Minnesota beat St. Cloud State for a fifth consecutive time as the teams opened their best-of-three, first-round WCHA playoff series.

By ROMAN AUGUSTOVIZ, Star Tribune

Last update: March 14, 2009 - 9:22 AM

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WCHA FIRST-ROUND PLAYOFFS GOPHERS 4, ST. CLOUD STATE 2 • Game 2: vs. St. Cloud State • 7:07 tonight • Mariucci Arena • TV: FSN Plus (live), FSN (tape delay at 10 p.m.) Radio: 950-AM

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The Gophers' hex over St. Cloud State continued on Friday. The Huskies are the only team that Minnesota managed to sweep this season. Twice so far, with a third sweep in the Gophers' sights.

On Friday, the Gophers beat the Huskies for a fifth time in a row in the opener of their best-of-three, WCHA first-round series. Junior winger Jay Barriball's goal at 13 minutes, 41 seconds of the third period was the game-winner as Minnesota edged St. Cloud State 4-2 at Mariucci Arena.

Barriball's goal gave the Gophers a 3-1 lead. The Huskies' Garrett Roe scored his second goal of the third period, on a power play, with 3:40 left to create a little suspense.

Trailing 3-2, St. Cloud State pulled goalie Jase Weslosky in the last minute. That gave Ryan Stoa, captain of the Gophers (16-12-7), a chance for an empty-netter with seven seconds for the final margin. It came on his 10th shot on net of the game.

Gophers goalie Alex Kangas made 29 saves and had a shutout through two periods.

"[Kangas] was timely," Gophers coach Don Lucia said. "He had a couple big saves. He saved the ones you are supposed to, and you steal a couple, and that's what you have to have."

Kangas said his teammates kept most of the Huskies' shots to the outside, took only four penalties and scored early. "Those are all good recipes to win. I figured we might control the first period, being at home and all that, but they would come out with a little more juice in the second and third."

The Gophers looked very comfortable at home in the first period, outshooting the Huskies 14-5 and taking a 1-0 lead on their lone power play. Freshman Nico Sacchetti scored at 12:24 on a rebound from 15 feet out, deep on the right side.

In the second period, Mike Hoeffel made it 2-0 Gophers by beating Weslosky high at 14:57 on a rebound chance from 5 feet out.

"The goalie was sliding the other way, and I had some room," Hoeffel said, "so I just tried to get it up top."

"Obviously, if we can, we want to close it out [today]. We just have to come with the same mentality, preparation we had [Friday] and hopefully it will happen."

St. Cloud State (18-16-3) cut the Gophers' lead to 2-1 on sophomore Garrett Roe's goal at 10:03 of the third period. Linemate Ryan Lasch intercepted a clearing pass just inside the blue line and spotted Roe going to the net.

Four minutes later, Barriball restored the Gophers' two-goal lead with a shot from the top of the right circle.

"I came in and used the defenseman as a screen," Barriball said. "I don't think the goalie saw it too much and it snuck in short side."

Roe gave the Huskies' hope again with a power-play goal at 16:20. He jarred the puck loose in the crease from Kangas, who argued with a referee he had the puck covered to no avail.

For a sweep tonight, Barriball said the Gophers have to repeat Friday's effort. "Get the first couple goals, that's huge in the playoffs," he said, "and we have to have our power play and penalty kill working. We did a real nice job on both of those [Friday]."

Etc.

• Junior winger Tony Lucia missed Friday's game because of flu-like symptoms. His father and coach, Don, said on the FSN pregame show that he expected his son to play tonight.

• There was a large empty section at Mariucci and a lot of scattered vacant seats. Friday was the last day of classes before spring break next week.

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