Slumping Gophers ‘looking for traction’ with Wisconsin in town

Wisconsin was one of the best teams in men’s college hockey in the first half of the season, forging a 15-3-2 record through Jan. 10 and sitting in the top five of the NCAA Percentage Index (NPI), the formula the NCAA uses to seed and fill its 16-team national tournament.

Over the past two weeks, however, the Badgers are winless, getting swept in Madison by Michigan State and Penn State. That hasn’t fazed Wisconsin coach Mike Hastings.

“You don’t overreact,” he said. “They weren’t throwing a parade for us when we were 15-3-2, and they’re not throwing dirt on us right now when we’ve lost four games.”

Bob Motzko can relate. His Gophers are on a seven-game losing streak — the program’s longest since a nine-game skid during the 1997-98 season — and sit at 8-16-1 entering the Border Battle series against Wisconsin on Friday, Jan. 30 (7 p.m.), and Saturday, Jan. 31 (6 p.m.), at 3M Arena at Mariucci.

“We understand the results, but it is not from a lack of heart and character and effort and trying,” Motzko said. “We’re getting better. We’re looking for traction right now, and if we get a little traction, they’re ready for the reward.”

Traction has been hard to achieve for the Gophers in the toughest stretch of their season. They’ve gained one of a possible 18 points in their last three series against No. 1 Michigan, No. 2 Michigan State and No. 4 Penn State.

That has put Minnesota in a strange position. The Gophers entered Thursday, Jan. 29, at No. 41 in the NPI, and a team likely would need to be No. 14 or better to earn an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament. With six weeks left in the regular season, it appears the Gophers’ only path to make the NCAA tournament would be winning the Big Ten tournament and its automatic NCAA bid.

The Gophers’ issues jump out on the stat sheet. They’re averaging 2.6 goals per game, which is 1.3 less than their 2024-25 pace. They’re giving up 3.4 goals per game, which is up nearly a full goal from last season’s mark (2.5). While Minnesota’s power play has converted on 37.5% (6-for-16) of its chances during the losing streak, the Gophers have scored only three even-strength goals in the six losses to Penn State, Michigan and Michigan State. Ill-timed turnovers have been an issue throughout the skid, too.

During the slump, Motzko has settled on Michigan State transfer Luca Di Pasquo as his starting goalie, and the junior has averaged 42.8 saves in the past four games.

“Luca has been unreal,” Gophers junior forward Jimmy Clark said. “He’s been great. He’s our backbone. He’s kept us in a lot of games.”

Gophers freshman forward LJ Mooney recalled being on squads at the U.S. National Team Development Program that went through lengthy losing streaks and how players dealt with it.

“We just talked about it and became comfortable with each other,” Mooney said. “We talked about what we needed to do, what’s going wrong, what’s going right, all that stuff. And we’ve been doing that in this team, too.”

Motzko believes his players have maintained the right approach and work ethic. That should produce better results.