Gophers nip St. Cloud State on Hansen, Bjugstad goals

The Gophers won a conference game on Friday night.

Imagine that.

Senior winger Jake Hansen scored the first goal and set up the second as the Gophers edged St. Cloud State 2-1 at Mariucci Arena before an announced crowd of 10,088.

The victory for the first-place Gophers -- coupled with Minnesota Duluth's 4-4 tie with Michigan Tech -- expanded Minnesota's lead over the Bulldogs in the WCHA race to three points.

The No. 3-rated Gophers (18-9-1, 14-5-0) came into this home-and-home series with the Huskies 1-5 on Fridays against their past six WCHA opponents.

Their defense dominated this game, though, holding St. Cloud State to 13 shots and blocking 13 attempted shots. The Huskies, despite having two power plays, had just one shot in the third period.

"They went after the puck," Huskies coach Bob Motzko said. "You could hear them screaming on the bench, 'Get in the lane.'

Gophers goalie Kent Patterson made several spectacular saves when he needed to, lowering his 2.08 goals-against average a little more.

"When you have Kent in net, it doesn't hurt," Hansen said. "He played phenomenal."

As did Hansen. After a seven-game drought, he scored his 10th goal of the season in the opening period. Huskies goalie Mike Lee stopped Hansen's shot on a hard rush to the net, but the rebound went in off one of Hansen's shins.

St. Cloud State (10-13-4, 7-9-3) tied the score 1-1 on tri-captain Ben Hanowski's power-play goal early in the second period. Hanowski got his 13th goal shortly after he rang a shot off a pipe.

An odd-man rush, with Hansen carrying the puck down the left side, restored the Gophers' one-goal lead in the middle of the period. Hansen waited until the last second, then fed Nick Bjugstad for a seemingly easy score.

"I didn't want to whiff on it. I almost missed it. The goalie got a piece of it, so luckily it went in."

The goal was Bjugstad's 21st of the season and fifth against the Huskies in three games. He had a hat trick in the Gophers' 5-0 victory over the Huskies on Nov. 19.

There was one huge positive for the Huskies on Friday: the return of Lee in the nets. The junior from Roseau was making his first start since an Oct. 22 injury and hip surgery in November.

Lee made 24 saves and stopped two breakaways.

"We did exactly what we needed to do," Motzko said. "We needed to shut down the power play, which we did [the Gophers were 0-for-3]. We needed to score on the power play, which we did. We needed to be disciplined, we were."

Actually, their trip went wrong from the start.

"Our bus broke down tonight, we couldn't get here," Motzko said. "The Duluth women had to give us their bus."

The Huskies borrowed the bus the UMD women's hockey team took to a series in St. Cloud.