MINNEAPOLIS – A six-hour bus ride to Omaha, Neb. could be the last trip the University of Minnesota hockey team will be taking for a while.
The Gophers are hoping it's not their last road trip of the season, though.
This weekend's series against the University of Nebraska-Omaha is the final road series of the regular season for Minnesota and the home sweep of Bemidji State last week gave the Gophers home-ice advantage for the first round of the WCHA playoffs. If No. 6 Minnesota can keep its season going, the WCHA Final Five will be held in St. Paul at the Xcel Energy Center.
Should the Gophers (21-11-1, 17-7-0) advance to the NCAA tournament, they would likely play their regional games in St. Paul, as well. The next possible time Minnesota would need to leave the state is for the Frozen Four, which will be held in Tampa, Fla.
Gophers redshirt-sophomore Zach Budish is focused on this weekend's series against the Mavericks (14-12-6, 11-8-5 WCHA), but acknowledged what's ahead, mapping out the entire possible playoff travel scenarios.
"We've talked about it," Budish said. "To do what we want to do this year, we don't have to leave the state of Minnesota. We're pretty fortunate with that and we've got to just take care of Nebraska this weekend and go from there."
This weekend involves one more road trip though. Even though it could be his last trip for Minnesota, senior Jake Hansen isn't looking forward to getting a pair of six-hour bus rides over with and hoping to continue his career in-state.
"I'm not a big traveler," said Hansen, who has career-highs with 11 goals and 18 assists this season. "I can't sleep on those buses. It's not too bad going there, but the worst is driving back. Even after a ‘W', six hours all you want to do is get in your bed and go to bed.
"We've got one goal in mind and it's getting four points this weekend."
Nebraska-Omaha has won two of its past three games and is tied for fourth in the conference. The Gophers recovered from a sweep at Denver University to beat Bemidji State University by a combined 7-1 score in two wins last weekend.
Minnesota leads the WCHA with two weeks left in the regular season with 34 points, two points ahead of the University of Minnesota-Duluth and four points ahead of Denver. Last weekend's sweep vaulted the Gophers from No. 14 to No. 7 in the Pairwise rankings.
"I like the way we rebounded and played from start to finish," Minnesota coach Don Lucia said. "We had six really good periods of hockey. We were able to have good starts and strong goaltending, strong specialty team play and it was kind of a total team effort last weekend."
Last season, Nebraska-Omaha came to Mariucci Arena and swept Minnesota in its first year in the WCHA. The Gophers are hoping they can return the favor.
"It's something we still remember obviously," Hansen said. "It was early in the season last year and we definitely let down our coaching staff, let down ourselves and our fans. We played two sloppy games, two poor games.
"Especially at home, it's kind of embarrassing to be out in front of your fans and just we got outplayed both games. This year we're looking to get a little revenge back on them. We respect them as a team. They were a good team last year and they're a good team this year."
The Mavericks are coached by Dean Blais, the former University of North-Dakota coach and are the WCHA's top penalty-killing unit. Offensively, they are led by Matt White (16 goals, 21 assists) and Terry Broadhurst (16, 19).
After this weekend's series, Minnesota is hoping it gets the chance to travel again, next time to Tampa in late March.
"That's the ultimate goal," Budish said. "I think that's everyone's ultimate goal. So, we've got to put ourselves in a position to get in the tournament and pretty much anything can happen when you get there. Like I said, we're just focused on this weekend and the big picture is we obviously want to be in Florida at the end."
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