Gophers men's hockey plays to a tie with Alaska

The official result is a tie, but Minnesota came up short in a shootout.

Former St. Cloud State coach Bob Motzko faces off with the Huskies for the first time as head coach of Minnesota Sunday, Dec. 29, 2019, at 3M Arena at Mariucci. / Zach Dwyer, zdwyer@stcloudtimes.com, St. Cloud Times via Imagn Content Services, LLC

It'll go down as a draw, but the third-ranked Gophers men's hockey team did come out on the wrong end of a shootout in a 1-1 tie with Alaska Friday night at 3M Arena at Mariucci in Minneapolis. It's Minnesota's first tie of the season.

The Gophers (12-2-1) ran into a hot goaltender Friday night as Alaska's Nicholas Grabko stopped 36 of the 37 shots he faced. Beckett Hendrickson's game-tying goal 14 minutes, 45 seconds into the second period was his lone blemish.

Hendrickson knotted it up after Minnesota fell behind early, as Braden Birnie's goal 7 minutes, 52 seconds into the game gave the Nanooks (4-6-3) an early one-goal advantage. After Hendrickson tied it, there were over 30 scoreless minutes.

Nathan Airey stopped 19 of 20 shots for the Gophers, and after a scoreless third period and scoreless overtime session, it went to a shootout that counted for no more than bragging rights. The U, however, didn't get to claim those rights as Matthew Wood, Connor Kurth and Jimmy Snuggerud all came up empty. Chase Dafoe got the first attempt past Airey, which ended up being enough for Alaska to prevail in the shootout. But nevertheless, the official result is a 1-1 draw.

"There were a lot of good things, the only thing bad was we didn't score another goal; that was it," Gophers coach Bob Motzko said in a statement. "We've been in a handful of these games where we have to manufacture a goal. We missed the net a handful of times when our guys were paying the price to get there. You have to make the other goalie work sometimes, and we let him off the hook a little bit."

The Gophers meet the Nanooks for the finale of their two-game series at 5 p.m. Saturday back at Mariucci.