Brian Moos / Sports Director

MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. – After giving up seven second period goals on Friday in an 8-1 loss to the Gophers, St. Cloud State needed some sort of bounce back. On Saturday, SCSU traveled to Ridder Arena to wrap up the home and home series. The Huskies would keep pace with the Gophers early, drawing three penalties. However, after freshman Maria Mikaelyan was put in the penalty box for elbowing, Minnesota scored on the major powerplay. The Huskies went through long stretches of getting stuck in their own end.

With a 1-0 score after one, the second period would feel similar to the first. Leading up to that, Minnesota had St. Cloud State dug into their defensive zone for most of the frame. SCSU committing two penalties in the period would not help their cause. St. Cloud State would tie the game at one with less than a minute to go in the period. Senior Avery Farrell chipped the puck off the wall for a Husky breezing past the Gopher defense. Freshman Sydney Lamb, a defender by trade, but used her speed to get a breakaway and finished her chance. A defensive zone turnover moments later would give the Gophers the lead back. Instead of a tie game, St. Cloud State trailed after two.

That 2-1 scoreline would be the point of no return for the Huskies. 20 seconds into the third, the Gophers grabbed a 3-1 lead. Another five-on-five goal along with an empty netter would put the game at 5-1, dooming the Huskies to getting swept on the weekend. When asked about what went wrong for her team today, head coach Mira Jalosuo didn’t much time to mull it over.

“[It was] the critical moments. We tie it up with 49 seconds left in the second period, we cannot flip the puck to the slot. We gotta learn from it,” said Jalosuo. She also pointed out the poor start to the third period as a decider in the game, “First shift of the period is always a critical moment. What do they do? They score a goal. It’s those two goals for me that we have to learn from.”

The Huskies fall to 8-16-2 on the season and are now in seventh place in the WCHA. They will hit the road again next week to take on St. Thomas. That series will be the first of three over the Winter Olympics. The Huskies will be without senior Svenja Voigt (Germany), redshirt-junior Laura Zimmerman (Switzerland), and sophomores Siiri Yrjölä and Emilia Kyrkkö (Finland).