Gophers lose netminders' duel

Janet Hostetter, Associated Press

Colorado College players celebrated a 1-0 victory over the Gophers on Sunday.

In a faceoff between two top WCHA goalies, Colorado's prevailed, sending the U to a two-week break in second place.

By ROMAN AUGUSTOVIZ, Star Tribune

Last update: December 15, 2008 - 12:15 AM

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COLORADO COLLEGE 1, GOPHERS 0

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Two of the top goalies in the WCHA last season were freshmen Richard Bachman of Colorado College and Alex Kangas of the Gophers. Bachman was the league MVP, Kangas was his team's MVP.

This season, expectations for both were high, but each has struggled recently. Sunday, though, they were impressive. The second game of the Tigers-Gophers series at Mariucci Arena -- Minnesota won the first 4-1 -- was a duel of netminders. First goal wins.

CC got it. Junior winger Addison DeBoer of Spring Lake Park scored a short-handed goal for Colorado College at 15 minutes, 2 seconds of the first period. Bachman did the rest, stopping 21 shots as the Tigers beat the No. 2-ranked Gophers 1-0 for a weekend split. The last CC shutout at Minnesota was 2-0 on Dec. 17, 1955.

The Gophers had won eight of the past 11 meetings with Colorado College.

"Richard looked sharp right from the very first five-minute segment of the game," Tigers coach Scott Owens said, "[and] we get a fortunate short-handed goal. We could have made life easier on ourselves with a power-play goal in the second period, but that is not our M.O. this year. We had to grind it out. This is a tough building to play in, tough building to win at."

The Gophers killed off five penalties, four in the middle period, including two 5-on-3 situations totaling almost two minutes.

With a victory, Minnesota (8-3-5, 7-2-3) could have tied Denver for the WCHA lead. Instead, the Gophers go into a two-week break in second place with 17 points in the standings, two behind DU and one ahead of CC and Wisconsin, who are tied for third.

Junior winger Ryan Flynn probably had the Gophers' best scoring chance with eight minutes left in the third period. After a pass from Mike Hoeffel, Flynn was 5 feet from the net and had an open left side.

Sophomore Tyler Johnson of No. 10 CC (10-6-4, 7-5-2) got his stick on Flynn's as he was trying to shoot. The puck went wide. Gophers fans in the announced crowd of 9,910 groaned.

Bachman said he had a save on that play -- "I got that with the toe of my right pad, just barely"-- although he was not credited with one.

"Shots and goals were tough to come by today," Gophers coach Don Lucia said. "Both teams really dug in defensively."

Minnesota was held to a season-low 21 shots and was shut out for the second time. Kangas had 22 stops.

Andreas Vlassopoulous, a junior center, set up DeBoer's game-winner. Vlassopoulous blocked a Gophers shot to start a rush the other way. It ended with him passing across the low slot to DeBoer on the right side.

"I was going to the net, hoping he was going to try to pass it through," said DeBoer, who had more than 20 family members and friends at the game.

It was DeBoer's third goal of the season, all huge. He had CC's second goal in a 2-2 tie with Denver, the overtime goal in a 4-3 victory over Alaska Anchorage and this one.

"[The puck] squeaked through, and [DeBoer] was just there to tap it in, all alone," Kangas said. "There was not much anybody could really do."