Stanzel’s Sports Takeout — BREAKING TAKEOUT NEWS: 3-20-23.

Sports That Aren't HockeyMinnesota WildMinnesota TimberwolvesBasketballGophersHockey

Mar 20

Written By Ryan Stanzel

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Was a dance weekend, not the round of 32 hoops, around here.

Gustavus won the Division III women’s hockey championship with a three-OT win in title game.

GMH Seeded First, Would Face St. Cloud State or Minnesota State in Regional Final

The top-ranked Gophers will have to just barely leave the State of Hockey to advance to the Frozen Four. But they’ll have to beat one Minnesota team at the Fargo regional.

Supposing the Gophers get past Canisius, the last team in with an upset conference championship win, on Thursday (8 p.m. faceoff), they’d have to play either Minnesota State or St. Cloud State in Saturday’s 5 p.m. regional final. Minnesota State had to score twice with an extra attacker and then win in OT against Northern Michigan Saturday just to make the tournament. St. Cloud, the second seed in the regional, won the NCHC Tournament at The X this past weekend.

It used to be, the NCAA just assigned the teams the way the Pairwise rankings put them. Not the case anymore, and some (most) Gopher fans are upset about that. It’ll be a tough matchup for the regional final for a team that was overwhelmingly the best team in college hockey this season (albeit one which lost the Big 10 Tourney to Michigan on Saturday). However, the second and third seeds (teams ranked fifth through 12th) are mostly ranked so close together, their second round matchup was going to be tough no matter what. But not this tough. The NCAA is sick of empty regionals and knows they’ll have three fanbases eager to skip work Thursday and drive to Fargo. The Gophers have played an NCAA Tournament game in North Dakota once before, the aforementioned 16 vs. 1 upset by Holy Cross in Grand Forks in 2006.

Wisconsin Beats GWH En Route to Women’s Championship

The team of destiny was the team waiting in the weeds all season. Wisconsin, which played third fiddle to Ohio State and Minnesota this season in the WCHA, defeated the Gophers 3-2 in overtime Friday in the Frozen Four, then upended top-ranked Ohio State 1-0 in Sunday afternoon’s NCAA Championship game. The Badgers have won seven NCAA titles - one more than the Gophers.

Minnesota carried a 1-0 lead into the third period but couldn’t shut the door, eventually needing a Madeline Wethington tally with the goalie pulled to force overtime. But the Badgers were the better team in OT.

As mentioned, the Gophers will have big holes to fill next year. Gone are Taylor Heise and Grace Zumwinkle, Patty Kazmeier top 10 semifinalists, as well as top liners Catie Skaija and Abigail Boreen, plus Wethington, Gracie Ostertag and Crystalyn Hengler on the blueline. But they’ll have Abbey Murphy, an improving Peyton Hemp and Madison Kaiser. You have to think there’d be a line of centers a mile long in the portal who want to come play with Murphy.

WCHA has won 19 of 22 Frozen Fours. Only one non WCHA team has ever won - Clarkson, which has won it three times.

Wild Splits vs. East’s Best, One of Worst

The Wild lost 5-2 at home to Boston Saturday afternoon in a game they had two goals (correctly) overturned due to offsides. They rebounded nicely, beating a fading Capitals team 5-3 at The X on Sunday afternoon.

How about Marc-Andre Fleury? Left for dead a month ago, he’s 7-0-0 with a 2.13 GAA and a .936 SV% in his last seven games, per Wild PR. Now, Filip Gustavsson still got the start Saturday against the Bruins and Fleury played against the Caps, but the margin between No. 1 and No. 2 may be getting closer with 12 games left.

Matt Boldy had a hat trick against the Caps yesterday. Ryan Reaves scored for the third time in four games by sticking his body in front of the goalie. Amazing how that works when you’re his size.

So the Wild begins the week one with points in 15 of 16 games, and one point back of Dallas for first in the Central Division. It seems like they’re habitually one point behind the Stars. But they’re only two up on surging Colorado (five straight wins), which has two games in hand. You want to either finish first or hold off the Avs for second. You’re probably not beating Colorado without home ice. Circle March 29 on your calendar, Wild at Avs in a national TV game.

Minnesota hits the road out East this week facing the Devils (third in the conference) Tuesday and lowly Philly on Thursday.

Wolves Losing Streak Hits Three, Plus ANT

Crunch time (pardon the pun) for the Wolves, who lost Friday and Saturday to push their losing streak to three games. They’ve lost five of six overall, and watched Anthony Edwards leave the game screaming with an ankle injury Saturday. He’s not expected to play tonight at the Knicks, but multiple reports say the injury isn’t “as bad as feared.”

But the Wolves have sunk to ninth in the West - they’re only a half game up on the surging 11th place Lakers. The seventh through 10th teams make the NBA’s play-in round.

Minnesota has only nine games left after tonight.

GWBB Hires Plitzuweit as New Head Coach

The Gopher women hired Dawn Plitzuweit (glad I have half a year to learn how to spell that) as their new head basketball coach. It’s a SIX-year contract. Plitzuweit took South Dakota to the Sweet 16 in 2022, and has coaching experience at two other Big Ten schools (Michigan and Wisconsin). She was the head coach at West Virginia this past season.

Loons Remain Unbeaten

The Loons are 2-1 on the young season after a 2-1 win at Colorado on Saturday. Micky Tapias scored in the 82nd minute to secure the victory.

https://twitter.com/MNUFC/status/1637294672799318018

Minnesota will host Vancouver on Saturday - no snow but still not very springlike. The Loons will be without SEVEN key players who will be on international team duty.