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Gopher Coaches Show: Motzko’s team surging to end regular season
Gophers men’s hockey head coach Bob Motzko chats about his team winning 8 of the last 10 games before heading into an important postseason for the program in the coming weeks.
MINNEAPOLIS - The University of Minnesota men’s hockey team is getting ready for its biggest weekend of the 2020-21 season, hosting Michigan in the final regular season series with a chance to win the Big Ten regular season title.
This week on the Gopher Coaches Show, coach Bob Motzko joins Hobie Artigue to talk about the Gophers hockey season and what lies ahead for the No. 3-ranked team in the country. Minnesota is back after a weekend off, having its series at Penn State postponed due to COVID-19 issues within the Nittany Lions’ program.
The Gophers are 19-5 overall, 15-5 in the Big Ten with two games to play. They have 45 points and sit one point behind Wisconsin, who travels to Michigan State this Friday and Saturday. Minnesota can win the Big Ten and earn the No. 1 seed for the league tournament with a win and tie against Michigan. The Big Ten Tournament will be played at Notre Dame, March 14-16.
The Gophers started the season 10-0 and were the top team in the country for a few weeks. They enter the Michigan series having won four straight games before last weekend’s games were postponed. They're 10-4 at 3M at Mariucci Arena this season.
"The sky is the limit for this group. If we can stay healthy, stay injury-free, things that are going to come and get on top of our game. We’ve got goaltending, we’re a strong defensive team and our guys believe in each other. They want this," Motzko said. "We really talk about the 100th year of Gopher hockey and we really wanted to set our flag down to hold up the strong tradition of this program. Our guys, we’ve talked about it, they believe in that."
Minnesota has two more games before the Big Ten Tournament, then the NCAA Tournament and the pursuit of a national championship. Watch the full video for the Gopher Coaches Show with Bob Motzko.