Gophers coach Don Lucia said the Gophers made sure they had players back all game long against Michigan. "Our D's gaps were better [Sunday]," he said. "You take away speed with tighter gaps and with our forwards back and better positioning.
"We had some clips after Michigan State where we had a couple guys getting beat with a pass. We wanted to make sure we did a better job of defending the red line and they did. The guys responded in great fashion.
"Michigan is a very good team. And we had to play a very good game to win [Sunday].
"We have a young group. Sometimes you take two steps forward and may take a step back. This is a good step forward for us. We had five freshmen forwards playing for us and two of them scored goals [Sunday]. And the young D came in and did a good job. Cade [Fairchild] and Helgy [Seth Helgeson] responded because they had off nights on Friday."
Fairchild is a senior, Helgeson a sophomore.
"The freshmen struggled a bit as a group Friday and that is going to happen. As long as the trajectory is still climbing, kind of like the stock market. As long as it is going up longterm, fine, but there is going to be some bumps along the way.
"[Sunday] was just a good effort on our part. They were into it on the bench, they blocked shots. They did the things we have to do to be successful. We are not a great team. We are a young team that's learning. We can play with anybody if we can play like that."
Lucia said he told his players the stats in the Gophers' five losses at home before the Michigan game. "In four of them we took a penalty in the first two minutes of the game," he said. "And then all of a sudden we are down. And our goaltending had not been real strong in those games.
