Gophers men’s hockey loses 3-2 in overtime to No. 1 Michigan

The weekend of Jan. 16 and 17 offered the Gophers men’s hockey team, a squad in the midst of a rebuilding season, a chance to gauge itself against the top-ranked team in the nation, Michigan.

The verdict: The Gophers grew up a lot on this Saturday, got another stout performance from goalie Luca Di Pasquo, but left stunned and unsatisfied after falling 3-2 in overtime to the Wolverines at 3M Arena at Mariucci.

Jayden Perron scored 2:09 into 3-on-3 overtime, jumping on an errant drop pass by Gophers center Tanner Ludtke and skating in alone to beat Di Pasquo. The Gophers (8-14-1, 4-8 Big Ten, 14 points) got one point in the conference standings for reaching overtime, while the Wolverines (20-4, 11-3) secured two points in front of an announced crowd of 9,852.

“They scored all three of their goals tonight on turnovers and three last night,” Gophers coach Bob Motzko said, still irked from the 5-1 loss a day earlier. “We had total control of the puck, and you can’t do that [commit turnovers] against Michigan.”

On the winning goal, Ludtke was leaving the Minnesota zone and dropped the pass back intended for Brody Lamb, but the freshman didn’t get enough on his pass, and the puck slowed enough for Perron to grab it. The goal was a gut-punch to the Gophers, who played with much more intensity and energy than they did in the series opener.

“We played better, but we’ve got to find consistency,” Lamb said. “Obviously, it stings. But we’ve got to learn from it.”

Lamb and Brodie Ziemer scored second-period power-play goals for the Gophers, who erased a 1-0 Michigan lead. A night after tying his career high with 47 saves, Di Pasquo stopped 45 shots as Michigan outshot Minnesota 48-28.

Down 1-0 and outshot 15-3 after one period, the Gophers came out the for the second with much more vim and vigor, and 34 seconds into the period, Jimmy Clark nearly scored from the blue paint, but Michigan goalie Stephen Peck made a pad save. The Gophers kept pressing and turned the game on the power play.

Minnesota got its first power play at 4:31 of the second when Michigan’s Luca Fantilli was called for hooking. Peck made back-to-back saves on shots by Ziemer and Lamb before the Gophers scored. LJ Mooney took a shot from the right point that Peck knocked down but didn’t control. The puck trickled to the goalie’s right, then Ziemer spotted it and dived to knock it home, knotting the score 1-1 at 5:43. Luke Mittelstadt got the second assist.

The score didn’t stay tied for long.

With Michigan’s Aidan Park in the penalty box for slashing, Lamb hammered a shot past Peck from the right circle to give the Gophers a 2-1 lead, with Mittelstadt and Ziemer earning assists.

“Tonight was a complete reversal in our effort and our physicality,” Motzko said. “We made it a hockey game.”

Michigan responded late in the second when T.J. Hughes intercepted a Gophers pass in the neutral zone, raced into Minnesota’s zone and wired a shot past Di Pasquo at 18:56 to tie the score 2-2.

In the third period, Michigan carried play again, holding Minnesota without a shot on goal until 8:09 had expired. The Wolverines outshot the Gophers 16-4 in the third, but Di Pasquo, the Michigan State transfer who has taken over the starting job, was solid.

“He’s giving us a chance,” Motzko said. “He’s getting comfortable. … He’s a battler, and so we’re getting really comfortable with him."

The Gophers sit in fifth place in the Big Ten and have a sub-.500 record, an uncomfortable spot for this program.

From the start, this was going to be a challenging season for the Gophers based on what they lost from the 2024-25 squad. Their top five scorers — Jimmy Snuggerud, Connor Kurth, Matthew Wood, Oliver Moore and Sam Rinzel — plus standout defenseman Ryan Chesley, left early for pro hockey. Those six combined for 89 goals and 125 assists, or 57.8% of the Gophers’ goals and 47.9% of their assists last season.

BOXSCORE: Michigan 3, Gophers 2 (OT)

Big Ten standings

Motzko felt his team was making strides late in the first half of the season. The Gophers gained only one of 12 standings points available against Penn State and Michigan to start January, and his hope is that they recaptured some momentum against the Wolverines.

“That’s what we have this year with this young group,” Motzko said. “We took steps the first half. Now, we’ve got to get it back the second half and continue to move forward.”

That won’t get any easier the rest of the way. They still have another series left with the Wolverines and No. 2 Wisconsin, plus two series against No. 4 Michigan State, which just swept Wisconsin and is host to Minnesota on Jan. 23-24.