WCHA first-round playoffs
No. 8 seed St. Thomas at No. 1 Gophers women
6 p.m. Friday, 4 p.m. Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday (if necessary), Ridder Arena. Stream: Big Ten Plus
Gophers at a glance: Top-ranked Minnesota (26-7-1, 21-6-1 WCHA) is coming off a home-and-home sweep of St. Thomas by a pair of 7-1 scores and will try to run its record to 6-0 against the Tommies, a first-year Division I program, in this best-of-three series. Taylor Heise, the nation's leading scorer with 60 points, was named to the All-WCHA first team, Abigail Boreen to the second, Emily Brown and Madeline Wethington to the third, and Peyton Hemp, Ella Huber and Emily Zumwinkle to the all-rookie team. .
Tommies at a glance: St. Thomas (5-25-1, 3-23-1) posted two wins over St. Cloud State and one over Bemidji State in its first WCHA regular season and has a nonconference sweep over Rochester Institute of Technology. First-year Tommies coach Joel Johnson led Team USA to a silver medal in the Beijing Olympics. Goalie Saskia Maurer and defenseman Nicole Vallario helped Switzerland reach the bronze medal game, in which it fell 4-0 to Finland.
Other first-round matchups (Friday-Saturday-Sunday, all on Big Ten Plus)
No. 7 seed St. Cloud State at No. 2 Ohio State (5 p.m., 2 p.m., 2 p.m.)
No. 6 Bemidji State at No. 3 Wisconsin (7 p.m., 3 p.m., 2 p.m.)
No. 5 Minnesota State Mankato at No. 4 Minnesota Duluth (2 p.m., 2 p.m., 2 p.m.)
