If you need extra motivation for the national championship game, you're doing something wrong.
Exactly. It is disrespecting Clarkson if one thinks that they wouldn't have won the NCAA title without this Wickenheiser type of plot line.
Clarkson had them on their heels the whole game, and the Gophers couldn't pull it out in the end.
Funny how we watch the same games but remember them differently. Clarkson came into the 2013-14 season as a senior-laden team that those who followed the sport looked to as perhaps the favorite to win the title. The Olympics didn't do anything to pluck nurses from its roster. People backed away from them to an extent after they had a stretch in October where they were winless over three games, and in November, tied Brown and lost to Harvard. The nurses seemed to always be going to overtime with some team who wasn't all that good.
Minnesota was a great team the year before, but it had lost the trio that finished as the final three in the Kazmaier voting the year before. Losing Kessel and Nora was huge, but they had people to fill those holes, if not quite at the same level. The big hit was on the blue line, which had been a position of strength for back-to-back NCAA titles.
In addition to losing, Bozek, they lost two more Olympians in Jalusuo and Stecklein. Minnesota had to fill three spots on the blue line, and they tried a bunch of different people: Garzone, Burns, Haley, Cline, Wolfe. The latter would go on to make big plays in big moments during her career, but at the time, she was a first-year player who had been switched from forward to D out of need. Even two of their core three, Ramsey and McMillen, were very offensive D who were stronger attacking than they were defending. The bright spot was Gillanders, who unlike some of her teammates, had a strong Frozen Four.
Minnesota managed to hide its flaws at D for much of the year, in part because the forwards were so strong. Three lines could score at any time. In those days, Brandt and Menefee always combined to anchor a top line, Bona reached 60 points on the second line, and Terry and Cameranesi scored important goals from the other line. That's the closest I can remember to Minnesota having three first-line quality lines. When things would fall apart, Leveille held it together until somebody made a play.
For more than two full seasons, the Gophers won every game but two. They fell behind UND 3-0 in the first period the day that the streak ended, and their comeback effort couldn't get an equalizer to go. Versus OSU, they were two minutes from closing out a win when everybody on the ice made bad decisions that helped the Buckeyes to tie. In all the other games, somebody made a play at crunch time, whenever it came. The later the game got, the stronger the Gophers were.
I don't remember the Golden Knights having Minnesota on its heels for the whole game. I remember a hard-fought, closely contested game for the most part. Late in the first period, Minnesota is a couple of minutes from taking a lead into the locker room. Leveille goes to cover a puck, misplays it, and credit to Clarkson, it winds up in her net. For the next two minutes of game action, the Gophers weren't on their heels, they darn near tipped over. They weren't used to having their goalie be the reason that things weren't going well. The one goal BU scored in the quarters was a shot from long distance that she didn't handle, but other than that, they were in control. Against Wisconsin in the semis, she was shaky throughout, and Minnesota looked vulnerable. All weekend, she seemed to be off her angle, and seemingly innocent shots would find room inside the post. Twice, Minnesota had to erase deficits against Wisconsin.
When Clarkson scored again on a tip on a delayed penalty, and then scored on the resulting PP after intermission, UM was two down with less than two periods to play. After tying that up before the second intermission, it looked to be the Gophers game to win, as they so often had in the third period. Instead, Clarkson was the team that looked to have energy.
Were the nurses more inspired -- the overused clich? of wanting it more? Was Minnesota too complacent? Or had playing from behind for much of the weekend left them without enough gas in the tank to overcome a championship-caliber team. Who knows, maybe none of these things, maybe all of them. What is certain is that four minutes after Clarkson took the lead with another goal from distance, MacAulay stripped McMillen at the blue line and went down and scored a highlight-reel goal. The Gophers tried and got one goal back, but they weren't likely to get two back on a goalie the quality of Howe.
