Friday night in Duluth went badly. No. 9 Minnesota Duluth beat No. 20 Minnesota 7-1 at AMSOIL Arena. The Bulldogs scored first when sophomore forward Luke Bibby found the net inside the opening minute.
Minnesota did answer in the 1st period. Freshman forward Jacob Kvasnicka scored late in the frame, and it turned out to be the Gophers' only goal of the night. The 2nd period decided the game. LJ Mooney was given a 5-minute major for boarding, and Duluth scored 3 power-play goals before the penalty ran out. The Bulldogs kept adding on in the 3rd and were up 7-1 with more than 15 minutes still to play.
Saturday was a different game. Duluth scored at 19:31 of the 1st period and again at 4:28 of the 2nd for a 2-0 lead. Then Ziemer took over. At 5:48 of the 2nd, 80 seconds after the Bulldogs' second goal, he scored his first of the season off a feed from Evan Murr. At 11:48 he tied it on the power play with a between-the-legs finish. Those were Ziemer's first goals of the 2026-27 season.
Neither team scored in the 3rd. Minnesota thought it had the go-ahead goal, but it was waved off because the puck deflected off an official. That left the game to Luca Di Pasquo. He stopped 34 shots through regulation and overtime, made a key save late to force the shootout, and then stopped 2 of 3 Duluth attempts. Cullen and Mooney scored for Minnesota, and Mooney's attempt won it. Mooney is now 3-for-3 on career shootout attempts, and the Gophers have won 4 straight shootouts.
The shootout doesn't change the result. This was a nonconference game with no conference points on the line, so it goes in the books as a 2-2 tie. Minnesota is 0-3-1 overall and 0-0-0 in the Big Ten. Duluth is 3-1-2 overall and 0-0-0 in the NCHC.
The Gophers still don't have a win, but Saturday looked a lot better than Friday. They came back from 2 goals down on the road against a top-10 team, the power play scored the tying goal, and Di Pasquo made the saves that kept it close. Next up are North Dakota and the Gophers, who meet October 22-23.
