Kangas, puck luck on Gophers' side this time

Gophers senior co-captain Tony Lucia said goalie Alex Kangas was "the man" on Saturday in Minnesota's 5-1 victory over North Dakota.

"He has been solid for us all year," Lucia said. "Every goalie is going to have a couple goals get by him that he wishes he would have had. But, for the most part this entire year, he has been outstanding. And tonight finally proved that he is a premier goaltender in this league and in the nation. He deserved everything."

Asked about the Gophers scoring three goals in a little over three minutes in the second period, Lucia said, "Sometimes when you have the momentum going you just have to keep putting pressure. And we talked a lot about going north-south, pushing the puck real quick and trying to catch them in transition. We did a nice job of that and really attacked their defense."

Lucia said the Gophers have learned a lot from mid-October, when they went to Grand Forks and lost the first game 4-0 and tied the second 3-3 at the Ralph. "We weren't a young team, we had veterans," Lucia said. "But it's always tough coming in and they had some games under their belt. And we definitely have ironed out some of the wrinkles on our team.

"Our forward have really made strides. That's a test]ament] to the five goals we were able to score. I hope we haven't peaked yet because there is still quite a bit of the season left but we are making strides and we are very happy with the way some of the guys are stepping up."

Lucia suffered a hand injury when hit by a puck but said he is fine as is teammate Jacob Cepis, who bumped his head when he was knocked to the ice.

"It is just precautionary," Lucia said, referring to Cepis sitting out the third period. "We were up 5-0, there is no point in sending him back out there. If things get dirty, we don't want a goal-scorer like Jacob to be suffering for a longer period of time."