Gophers' women's hockey rallies to beat UMD

After falling behind 2-0 early in the second period, the No. 1-rated Gophers women's hockey team rallied to beat Minnesota Duluth 5-2 in a WCHA game Friday night at Ridder Arena.

Sophomore forward Kelly Pannek had two goals and an assist for Minnesota (7-0, 5-0 conference), which extended its unbeaten streak against UMD to 15 games (14-0-1).

The Bulldogs (4-5, 2-3), under first-year coach Maura Crowell, took a 1-0 lead on Ashleigh Brykaliuk's goal seven minutes into the game on a power-play goal. It came 43 seconds after a roughing penalty on Dani Cameranesi.

Minnesota dominated the second period, outshooting UMD 22-2, but it ended nonetheless with the score tied 2-2.

Lara Stadler's power-play goal at 6:32 put the Bulldogs ahead 2-0.

An unusual scenario for coach Brad Frost's Gophers. In their first six games, they had never trailed and were tied only once after scoring first in a game — 1-1 early in a 7-2 rout over Ohio State.

Pannek's seventh and eight goals of the season, at 13:50 of the second period and at 17:07, with a man advantage, tied this game.

Freshman Sarah Potomak made it 4-2 at five minutes, with Pannek getting one of the assists. Cara Piazza added an empty-net goal with 1:03 left.

Milica McMillen had three assists for Minnesota, two on power plays. The Gophers were 2-for-3 on the power play, UMD 2-2.

"Tonight was a real hard-fought game," Frost said. "I really liked the resiliency of our team after getting down 2-0 there. To score five unanswered obviously is fantastic. … Duluth is very well coached, they put a lot of pressure on the puck, and they do a lot of really, really good stuff."