Gophers on road, which is not necessarily bad

"We have to score more goals on a consistent basis and for whatever reason, the goal-scoring issue has been more of a problem [at Mariuccia Arena] than it even has been on the road," Gophers coach Don Lucia said on Monday during his weekly radio show on WCCO.

St. Cloud State swept the Gophers 4-3 in St. Cloud and 4-1 at Mariucci this past weekend.

The Gophers are 7-8-1 at home, 5-4-1 on the road.

"It is continually all about tryng to improve," Lucia said. "You can't worry about where you are. All you can worry about is, we need to get better in areas A, B and C. And work on thiose areas. And you hope the rest of it will take care of itself and they have success.

"It's not an excuse, but the reality is, we were down on some guys with the injuries. It hurt us not having [Mike] Hoeffel this weekend. He has had a great career against St. Cloud and he wasn't able to play. Our leading scorer [Hoeffel has 11 goals] had an impact."

Hoeffel had six goals and one assist vs. the Huskies. His teammates who played combined had 12 goals. Hoeffel is out with mononucleosis.

"Hopefully this [weekend] will be the last two games we play without him," said L:uca, whose team has a bye week the first weekend in February. "I thought the other guys stepped up. I thought they competed and they worked. They had good scoring chanes. We hit a couple pipes. And we had some really good looks we didn't finish on and some open nets we didn't finish."

"Give St. Cloud credit for how they played," Lucia said. "Their goaltenders [Dave Dunn and Mike Lee] played well. Both of them on Friday and Saturday night. The frustrating part when I look at our season, there has been four or five really winnable games that we have been involved in, but we haven't been able to do it.

"They had results in areas you want to see. Obviously, the scoreboard is important but you want to be consistently doing the things that help you win games. And we have been doing that. There is a reason why we are 7-2-1 in the last 10 games [going into Saturday]. Now you lose a couple. That is going to happen. Now you get back on the horse and say you have to do that again."

Next up is a series at Alaska Anchorage. "We know they are a big, strong, physical team," Lucia said. "They are a good defensive team, They are playing good hockey right now. We played pretty well up there when we have gone up there, too. We have to play patient and smart. Get to the area in front of the blue paint and try to score goals."

Lucia said the Gophers don't have to change much. "We played well enough to win this weekend and we have to play the same way this upcoming weekend" at Alaska Anchorage, he said.

The Gophers swept the Seawolves 5-1, 4-1 on Oct. 30 and Nov. 1 at Mariucci.