NCAA Tournament: Close, Minnesota one win from Frozen Four after tumultuous road this season
By Patrick Donnelly
Word got out in early January. The Carolina Hurricanes were dealing with injuries, and needed a goalie. The solution? University of Minnesota fifth-year Jack LaFontaine.
The Golden Gophers had just completed a sweep of Michigan State on Jan. 8 after splitting five straight weekends. The next day, LaFontaine signed an entry-level contract with the Hurricanes and turned professional.
They were 12-8, but struggling to find consistency in their results. They were now without their starting goaltender, and split three more weekends.
Bob Motzko wasn’t worried.
“When you live in the state of Minnesota, you know, we get a lot of media and social media, and they kept saying the same thing, that we were mediocre. Because we split five straight weekends,” the Minnesota head coach said after his team won 4-3 in overtime to defeat defending national champion UMass in the Northeast regional final. “I thought we were playing pretty good hockey, but we were waiting for some of our young guys to catch up to our game. And we kept playing our young guys.”
Motzko knew all his group needed to do was stay the course.
After splitting with Notre Dame on Jan. 29, the Gophers went on a tear, winning nine straight games before losing in the Big Ten championship to Michigan. But they did enough to earn an at-large bid to the national tournament, and are now one win away from the Frozen Four.
“We had some big wins the first half,” Motzko said. “I know in Minnesota you’re not supposed to lose, but we try to remind everybody the other team wants to win too. And that’s the key to our season. We stayed steady.”
Perhaps he most important piece to Minnesota’s surge is Justen Close. The junior goaltender was thrust into the starting role after LaFontaine signed, and more than delivered. In 19 appearances this season, the junior has a 1.93 goals-against average (tied for seventh in the nation), a .925 save percentage (tied for 11th) and two shutouts. During the Gophers’ nine-game winning streak, Close had a 1.44 GAA and a .948 save percentage.
In his first two seasons, Close had made just five appearances, allowing five goals on 21 shots in 49:32 of playing time.
His impact this season is not lost on his teammates, and it seems there’s no one more deserving of the opportunity and success.
“You can’t say enough good things,” senior co-captain Ben Meyers said.”He’s just the heart and soul, truthfully. I’m tearing up talking about him. He’s a type of guy, who showed up for three years. If anybody asked for extra work at the end of practice, he’ll stay out for them. He’s willing to give anything for this team, and he expected nothing in return. But obviously he was given the starting role, and he’s been unbelievable”
Motzko said that with the departure of LaFontaine, the team had no choice but to forge ahead.
“It’s a shock when you think, you know, we could have been on the outside when we lost Jack, but it was kind of like an injury,” he said. “People around here know we didn’t change. We just stayed consistent. Our guys have such faith”
With Close tabbed as the guy for the stretch run, the Gophers came together to support their teammate on and off the ice.
“He’s just an unbelievable human. An unbelievable student-athlete,” Motzko said. “It’s just not a cliche we’re talking about. So when we threw it to him, our guys rallied around him. And guess what? He’s pretty good goalie, too. If you’ve got around, you know, the real dumb thing was me. Why I didn’t play him before? I’ve said that a few times because he’s been that good. So our team just kept going forward.”
Close came up big again for Minnesota against UMass, making 20 saves and helping to stave off the Minutemen attack in a hostile environment at the DCU Center in Worcester, Mass., which is about an hour away from the UMass campus in Amherst.
Beyond their offensive talent and strong goaltending, Motzko knew his group would need to continue to evolve, given the high-intensity style the Minutemen play. Adding a similar, hard-nosed style to the Gophers’ game has been a point of emphasis all season.
“I thought we grew in the game, and I’m really proud of our group because we battled. We battled tonight,” Motzko said. “The only way to beat UMass is you got to match that grit. We like a little prettier hockey, but we better learn to win games like that. We’re growing as team.
“We’ve been developing that. It just didn’t come this year. We’ve been developing that for a couple of years. Because in today’s college hockey, you’re not going to win without it. And we do recruit a lot of talent. … but you know, the grit and grease are two of the words we opened our season with. That we had to play with grit and grease.”
No. 5/6 Minnesota (25-12-1) will play No. 4/5 Western Michigan (26-11-1) in the Northeast Regional final on Sunday at 4 p.m. with a bid to the Frozen Four on the line.