High-end players make the difference in Gophers overtime victory

Greg Carvel could only sit back and shake his head with a mix of awe and frustration.

The Massachusetts men's hockey coach had just seen his team control the neutral zone, deny the Gophers the speed they thrive on when entering an opponent's zone and continuously make Minnesota retrieve the puck from its own zone. It worked for the better part of Friday night's Worcester (Mass.) Regional as the Minutemen twice built two-goal leads.

Still, Carvel's worries came true. "They have an advantage on us that they have some really high-end players,'' he said.

Carvel's words came after the Gophers rallied past UMass 4-3 in overtime, thanks to a couple of clutch goals by two of those high-end players.

Matthew Knies tied the score 3-3 with a power-play goal at 13:17 of the third period, and linemate and U.S. Olympic teammate Ben Meyers scored the winner 8:31 into overtime. That moved the Gophers into the regional final against Western Michigan at 3 p.m. Sunday (ESPN2). Minnesota (25-12) is one win away from an NCAA Frozen Four berth after ending the season of the defending national champion Minutemen (22-13-2).

While Carvel marveled about the talent Knies and Meyers possess, Gophers coach Bob Motzko credited the dirty work that the pair did in turning the game around.

"Grit and grease are two words we opened our season with, [saying] that we had to play with grit and grease, and it comes pretty naturally to the guys that I have here,'' Motzko said, gesturing to Knies and Meyers to his left during the postgame news conference.

Knies, a 6-foot-3, 210-pound freshman from Phoenix, used his size and skill to his advantage throughout the game and came up big when the Gophers needed it most. In the late stages of a third-period power play, UMass defenseman Matthew Kessel tried to clear the zone from the goal line, but his pass hit Knies in the midsection. Knies calmly let the puck drop to the ice, settled it with his stick and sniped a shot over goalie Matt Murray's glove and into the top right corner of the net.

"The goal that Knies had – that's ridiculous, you know?'' Carvel said. "Like Auston Matthews, he grabs the puck, drops it into the top shelf. But what do you do?''

Meyers' goal came with a big assist from Aaron Huglen, who had been centering a line with fellow freshmen Tristan Broz and Rhett Pitlick but was moved to Meyers' right wing on a hunch by Motzko.

"He's really strong now, and that was the reason we slid him over there,'' said Motzko, who resisted making the change during the Gophers' nine-game winning streak. "… Right now, looks like a good decision.''

Huglen showed his strength on the winning play, skating behind the net to the right corner, getting the puck back from Jaxon Nelson, then pivoting toward the net before feeding Meyers on the doorstep for a one-timer over Murray's right shoulder.

"Meyers just out-battles, out-wills our guys,'' Carvel said.

The game also featured some thrusting and parrying between Motzko and Carvel. Motzko wanted the Meyers line going against the top UMass trio of Josh Lopina centering leading scorer Bobby Trivigno and Garrett Wait as often as possible. When Carvel began double-shifting the Lopina line in overtime, Motzko called timeout at 7:34 to reset things because the Meyers line was getting short-shifted. Carvel responded by initially taking his top line off the ice.

"A little cat-and-mouse was going on there,'' Motzko said.

It worked out, though, as Meyers scored 57 seconds after the timeout, sending the Gophers into Sunday's regional final against Western Michigan, which also needed overtime to edge Northeastern 2-1.

"We felt that we were playing the right way the whole game,'' Meyers told KFXN Radio. "It was just stick to it and trust that process.''