MINNEAPOLIS—Addison DeBoer scored short-handed in the first period, and Richard Bachman made 21 saves in goal as Colorado College held on to beat Minnesota 1-0 on Sunday.
Bachman stopped nine shots in the first, five in the second and seven in the third to notch his third shutout of the season as the teams split the weekend series. The ninth-ranked Tigers (10-6-4, 7-5-2 WCHA) are 8-1-1 this season in the second game of a series.
“That was as perfect as we have been all year executing our team defense,” Bachman said. “We were blocking shots and doing the little things, which is nice.”
The Gophers (8-3-5, 7-2-3) were shutout at home for the first time since Jan. 19, 2007. Minnesota played without its third- and fifth-leading scorers, Jay Barribal and Mike Carman, due to leg injuries and were shutout for the first time this season.
“Being able to get chances is a positive, but you also want to finish and help the team out a little bit,” said Gophers forward Ryan Flynn, who misfired on an open net in the third period. “Overall, I think we played well. We need to get more shots to the net. We had a lot of shots get blocked tonight.”
Alex Kangas stopped 22 shots for second-ranked Minnesota, which is 1-3-1 in its last five games.
DeBoer’s third goal of the season came on a rebound as Kangas stopped an initial shot by Andreas Vlassopoulous. DeBoer was alone on the opposite side to score on an open net.
After Colorado College allowed three power-play goal in the series opener, the Tigers’ penalty kill was vital early on. The Gophers—which entered the game third in the country in power-play conversions—went 0-for-3 with the man advantage in the first.
“Being able to kill penalties in the first period set the tone,” Colorado College coach Scott Owens said. “If we would have given up one or two, it would have been an emotionally tough thing to get over after (Saturday) night. We were better in blocking passes. We were better blocking shots. And, of course, Richard looked sharp right from the very first five minutes of the game.
“We get a fortunate short-handed goal. We could have made life easy on ourselves with a power-play goal in the second period, but that isn’t our M.O. this year. We had to grind it out.”
Since starting the year 4-1-1 in conference play, Colorado College has gone 2-4-1 in its last seven WCHA games.
