Barriball shakes off rust quickly, says U ready for Seawolves

Gophers senior captain Jay Barriball needed only a game to get back into the flow.

On Friday, he had one assist but no shots as the Gophers tied Bemidji State 3-3 after a scoreless overtime. The next night, he looked much better and tied a career-high with three assists as the Gophers beat the Beavers 3-2 in overtime."

Barriball, a right winger, had missed the past six games with a knee injury.

"It was a matter of getting that rhythm back," Barriball said. "Getting up to game speed. That's exactly what happened. Friday I was a little tentative. I talked to coach [Lucia]. Tried to get an update on what he saw on the video.

"He said you looked a little tentative. Saturday I got back into the swing of things. I thought I had a pretty good game."

So what does getting three of a possible four points at Bemidji State mean?

"It is obviously going to give us some confidence," Barriball said. "It's about time we won one of those overtime games. It seems like I have been in tons of them here over the last few years. It was good for us. It showed that we could have a comeback win and we could win one of those tough muck and grind type of games."

Barriball expects more close games with Alaska Anchorage this weekend, too. Their best-of-three, first round WCHA playoff series starts Friday.

"You kind of know what you are going to get with Anchorage," Barriball said. "You are going to get a big, older tough type of team. And that's what we saw with them a few months ago. They are tough to play against."

The Seawolves played at Mariucci on Jan. 28 and 29. The Gophers won the first game 5-1, getting one odd man rush after another and scoring on transition. The next night, UAA switched goalies, tightened up its defense and won 1-0. Freshman Chris Kamal made 30 stops.

"The problem with that game is we couldn't find ways to put the puck behind the goalie," Barriball said. "I don't think we played too terrible. We had our chances. We just couldn't find a way to score.

"That is kind of going to be our focus here. We've been doing a better job of [scoring] the last five, six weekends. We are excited for the series."

"It is huge," Barriball said. "Statistically, looking at us, if we get the lead and play with it, our chances of winning are a lot better. That's huge, especially at home. We want to get the fans into it. If we get a lead and just keep pressing, it should turn out pretty well."

The Gophers are 13-3-5 this season in games they score first.

And the stakes in this series are high. The loser is done for the season.

The Gophers are tied for No. 18 in the PairWise rankings, Alaska Anchorage is No. xx. A team has to be in the top 14 for a realistic chance at an at-large NCAA bid.

"The mentality is, we either win -- string a few together here -- or we are done," Barriball said. "It is kind of been like that the last few weeks. We have looked at it as do or die. That's the reason we put ourselves in the position to get home ice. If we continue with that mentality it should be good for us."

"Part of our problem early on [was] we'd win a couple, then lose a couple," Barriball said. "Then win a couple, lose a couple. The biggest problem we had was just consistency, bringing it every night. We didn't do that for a good part of the year and that's why we have had to battle back here in the second half.

"It feels good to string some together and you don't have to string too many together to get pretty far in the NCAA playoffs (if they qualify) and that's our goal."

The Gophers are 26-1 in the first round of the WCHA playoffs at home. Meaning they have won 13 consecutive series at home. 13? Hope nobody is superstitious.

"We are going to look to continue that," Barriball said..

The Gophers one home loss in the playoffs was to Alaska Anchorage in 2007. "I am the only guy on the team that was there. It was tough," Barriball said. "It is never any fun to come back and play on Sunday. And playing three games in a row takes a toll on your body. But we were happy to get that [second] win, I can tell you that."

"We'd like to [win] it in two games, instead of three" this year, said Barriball, referring to the series this weekend.

The two teams have met in the first round of the WCHA playoffs five times, including three times in the past six years. Each series has been at Mariucci.

GOPHERS COULD RISE UP

Adam Wodon, managing editor of College Hockey News, has a blog on which teams stil have a chance to get at-large NCAA bids. The Gophers are the lowest rated PairWise team that could make a big move up, he said.

Wodon on the Gophers:

The Gophers actually have a better TUC record than a number of teams above them, but are slightly behind in the RPI. But because it's so close, a few wins here and a few losses elsewhere, and Minnesota's upside is very strong. It has to start with a sweep of Alaska-Anchorage, which is a TUC.