MINNEAPOLIS — It has been said that the most challenging game to play is when you are trying to end another team’s season. If that is the case, the Minnesota Gophers have a notable challenge looming.

In Friday’s Big Ten playoff opener, Minnesota blew open a close game late, beating Penn State 5-1 to lead the best-of-three series 1-0 and push the Nittany Lions to the brink of an early end to their season.

Minnesota improved to 21-9-5 with two goals from Rhett Pitlick and a 20-save night from goalie Justen Close. True to their low-infraction nature, they took just one penalty in the game and killed it in the third period.

“We were in the dentist’s chair for a period and a half until the Novocain wore off, and then we started to play,” Gophers coach Bob Motzko said. “Then it came. Once we started to get pucks deep and we had a good look to us in the second period.”

Penn State (17-14-3) got a first-period goal from Jacques Bouquot and 22 saves from Liam Souliere, but had a rare offensive outage in the middle period as Minnesota pulled away.

But the loss was not without an aggressive effort from the visitors early on. It was obvious in the first that the Nittany Lions had no intention of seeing their season end this weekend, and they played their typical brand of aggressive offense hockey in the opening period. Rinzel gave Minnesota the early lead, but the Lions answered midway through the period.

After what they thought was the tying goal was challenged by Minnesota and waved off due to an offside player, Penn State forged a tie for real just 28 seconds later. Bouquot got lost behind the Minnesota defense and tapped the puck past Close after a nice cross-ice pass from Danny Dzhaniyev.

“It’s too bad we scored a goal that was offside, but we were able to get it back,” Nittany Lions coach Guy Gadowsky said. “I thought we were playing a good hockey game. I thought the second was a little bit scrambly for both teams, especially us, and in the third they were able to capitalize and pull away.”

Then Minnesota got defensive, holding the Lions to just one shot on goal in the second period and re-taking the lead on Jimmy Snuggerud’s first regulation goal since January. Pitlick scored by popping in the rebound of a Cal Thomas shot in the third, then added an empty-net goal to put things out of reach.

“We came out a little bit slow in the first and we kind of got a whooping in the locker room from coach, and I think we knew what we had to do,” said Gophers defenseman Carl Fish, who had a pair of assists in the game. “Basically, their offense comes from our turnovers and it shows that when we limit those, it’s a whole different hockey game out there.”

The Gophers coaches sparked the rally in the middle period by moving Snuggerud to the wing alongside Jaxon Nelson and Mason Nevers, and their line produced the go-ahead goal.

“Made one switch there maybe halfway through the second period,” Motzko said. “And it worked.”

Gadowsky said his team needs to show resilience in the series’ second game to extend the Lions’ season.

“I expect the same response that we had when that goal was called off,” he said. “The guys stayed true to the course and played and came back and that’s a microcosm of what has to happen (Saturday).”

Extra Pucks

The combination of U of M students being on spring break, the Big Ten Women’s Basketball Tournament being played across the river at Target Center and the Minnesota State High School Hockey Tournament happening in downtown St. Paul left 3M Arena at Mariucci with its smallest crowd of the season. The official announced attendance was 4,296, which was in sharp contrast to the two regular-season home games versus Penn State, which drew an arena record two-game crowd of 21,310.

“Tough night to have a home game. There’s this basketball player about two miles from here…Caitlin Clark, she started, so we were watching that,” Motzko said, referring to the Iowa hoops star. “But the ones who showed up for us were loud tonight. There’s a lot going on in this city tonight, but the fans here were great.”

Close assisted on Pitlick’s empty-net goal, giving the Gophers’ goalie four helpers for the season.

Game two of the best-of-three series is at 3:30 p.m. CT Saturday afternoon.

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