Men's NCAA hockey: Holy Cross 4, Gophers 3 (OT)

GRAND FORKS, N.D. - Before Friday night's NCAA West regional game between the Gophers and Holy Cross at Engelstad Arena, talk focused on seeds.

Once the game was over, it was all about a season turning to dust.

A Gophers team that spent much of the regular season ranked No. 1 in the country will be remembered not as the dynamo it was in losing only one of its last 20 regular-season games, and not for its offensive talent. No, it will be remembered as the best team to ever lose to a No. 15 seed in the NCAA tournament.

When Holy Cross scored 53 seconds into overtime for a 4-3 victory before an appreciative crowd of North Dakota fans, the Gophers found themselves in hockey purgatory.

"I have no emotions right now," Gophers senior defenseman Chris Harrington said.

Offered Gophers captain Gino Guyer: "I can't describe what it feels like."

Similarly, Gophers coach Don Lucia praised his players for working hard, but said the emotion necessary to win in the postseason simply wasn't there.

"This time of year, you have to feed off emotion," he said. "For whatever reason, this team has lacked it in the past few weeks."

Lost in the shock of the loss will be that the Gophers didn't play a bad game. They outshot the Crusaders 38-28 and forced Holy Cross goaltender Tony Quesada to make a number of quality saves.

The Gophers failed to score on seven power play opportunities, but they had their chances.

"We didn't connect, and it cost us," said freshman Phil Kessel, who scored the Gophers' second goal. "The goalie made some good saves. What can you do?"

Holy Cross, champions of Atlantic Hockey, played a smart, aggressive game and came away with the biggest victory in its program's history.

"We played pretty well," Holy Cross coach Paul Pearl said. "There were four or five instances where they overwhelmed us in our zone, but we did a nice job in those times."

The Gophers didn't lead in the game until early in the third period. It was a lead that lasted all of five minutes.

Holy Cross captain Tyler McGregor scored the game-winner, batting the puck past goaltender Kellen Briggs after his centering pass hit the skate of Gophers defenseman P.J. Atherton.

Briggs had moved away from the near post in anticipation of the puck going to the front of the net. That left the short side wide open for McGregor.

"When you get a chance like that," McGregor said, "you don't want to screw it up."

The Gophers will have to live with not being able to take advantage of the opportunity they were presented.

"We didn't play up to our capabilities," Guyer said. "Somewhere along the way we lost a step from where we were. We worked hard this week in practice, but we never got it fully back."

And now it is over. The Gophers said they weren't guilty of looking past Holy Cross, even if most observers thought a showdown with North Dakota for the right to go to the Frozen Four was on the horizon.

Beyond that, perhaps another meeting with Wisconsin in Milwaukee.

Gophers junior forward Danny Irmen said it all ended too early.

"We weren't ready to lose," he said.