MINNEAPOLIS — Due to the youth of the University of Minnesota hockey team and a couple forgettable seasons, not many players have had the chance to play in St. Paul at the Xcel Energy Center for the Gophers.
Just two players — Jake Hansen and Nico Sacchetti — have been members of a team that advanced to the Final Five of the WCHA tournament, played annually at the Xcel Energy Center. Minnesota's last trip to the Final Five was in 2009 and the team lost, 2-1, to Minnesota-Duluth in its first game.
Now that they finally get another crack, Hansen and the Gophers want to stick around a little longer this time.
"It's just exciting to get back there," Hansen said. "Obviously we've had struggles here the last three years. To be able to have success and win the MacNaughton Cup and now go down there as the No.1 seed. Guys are pretty pumped and pretty jacked to be playing Friday night."
By winning the WCHA regular-season title and the MacNaughton Cup, Minnesota earned the right to the No. 1 seed and a first-round bye in this week's Final Five tournament. The Gophers swept Alaska-Anchorage in two games last week and will face the winner of St. Cloud State and North Dakota's opening-round game. The Fighting Sioux are the defending champions.
The tournament begins Thursday with Michigan Tech facing Denver at 2 p.m. and the Huskies and North Dakota play at 7 p.m. Minnesota-Duluth, the No. 2 seed and defending NCAA champions, will face the winner of the first game in a 2 p.m. game on Friday with the Gophers set to face off at 7 p.m. The finals for the Broadmoor Championship trophy are Saturday at 7 p.m.
Coach Don Lucia, whose teams have advanced to the Final Five in 11 of his 13 years as Minnesota coach, is excited to be back in the Final Five and knows he will only get one more possible opportunity as the Gophers move to the new Big Ten Conference opening in 2013-14.
"Certainly makes me kind of sad because I think we have had the premier college hockey conference tournament in the country with the proximity of all of our teams," Lucia said. "And what makes it fun is, you go to the games this week and you're going to see jersey of all the teams in the league and people do make it a focus and a destination weekend. This weekend especially. It's going to be 70 degrees out and we have a great field that's going to be there and it's kind of a celebration of hockey in our region at the collegiate level."
With Minnesota eighth in the Pairwise rankings, its place in next week's NCAA tournament is likely safe. The Gophers also know they will likely be headed back to the Xcel Energy Center a week later for the NCAA West Regional.
So, with any anxiety about making the NCAA tournament for the first time since the 2007-08 season, Lucia hopes his team is able to relax and focus on this week's opponents.
"The good thing is we know we're going to be playing next week, so that takes a little bit of the pressure off," Lucia said. "But we want to perform as well as we possibly can. The guys are excited to get back to the Xcel Center and like every team right now, our goal is to be playing on Saturday night.
"It will be a great environment for our players and for me, just to evaluate how they perform in that environment. The good news is that no matter what we'll be right back down there the next weekend."
Minnesota went 3-1 against each of its possible opponents Friday, sweeping St. Cloud State and North Dakota at Mariucci Arena and then splitting on the road. The Gophers had mixed success against the other side of the bracket, splitting two games with Michigan Tech and getting swept by Denver, in a series that actually snapped Minnesota into its late-season run. Since losing both games in Denver, the Gophers have won seven of their past eight games.
Minnesota also swept Minnesota-Duluth on the road in an early-season series.
The Gophers aren't worrying about whom their opponents might be, but they couldn't hide that North Dakota is considered one of their biggest rivals.
"Obviously North Dakota's one of our biggest rivalries and those games tend to get a little crazy," sophomore Erik Haula said. "But now it really doesn't matter. It's another game and another game we need to win."
Minnesota enters the Final Five with some momentum, thanks in part to Haula. The Gophers narrowly beat Alaska-Anchorage 2-1 in the first game last weekend and were down 3-1 on Saturday before scoring six straight goals to win 7-3. For the nation's third-highest scoring team, averaging 3.56 goals-per-game, Saturday was only the second time they had scored more than three goals since Jan. 14.
Haula had two goals during the six-goal outburst and has scored five goals in the past three games. But leading goal-scorer Nick Bjugstad scored for the first time in four games. Zach Budish had his first goal in seven games. Defenseman Seth Helgeson scored his fourth goal and first since Dec. 9 and Sam Warning scored for the first time in five games. Jake Hansen scored the first goal of the game to snap a five-game goal-less streak.
"That was something definitely on the guys mind and coaches kind of called out a bunch of players that should be scoring more," Hansen said. "And to have that scoring outburst was huge and you could definitely see in the locker room it was just one after the next and I think guys kind of loosened up after that and started playing their game."
They're hoping to keep playing a little longer now.
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