Five special teams goals powered Minnesota’s men’s hockey team to an 8-4 rout of No. 8 Wisconsin Saturday night, completing a series sweep at 3M Arena at Mariucci.

“You’ve got to throw your first shoutout to our fans. Sold out crowd, enthusiastic, and then our guys didn’t let them down,” Minnesota coach Bob Motzko said. “I know it’s one weekend, (and) we have felt that we don’t get ahead of ourselves, but our guys have just stuck to a great script on working and staying positive.”

Ten different players recorded a point for Minnesota, and Brodie Ziemer and Erik Påhlsson each finished with two goals and an assist for the Gophers, who improved to 10-16-1 overall, 6-10-0 the Big Ten.

Beckett Hendrickson, Brody Lamb, Luke Mittelstadt and Leo Gruba also scored goals, and LJ Mooney finished with three assists for Minnesota, which moved within two points of the Badgers (15-9-2, 8-8-0) in the Big Ten standings.

It was Minnesota’s fifth victory over a Top 10 opponent this season. Next up is a home series against Ohio State on Friday (7 p.m.) and Saturday (8 p.m.).

Tommies win streak snapped

Chasing from the start, St. Thomas’ men’s hockey team tied the game three times before Elias Jansson scored with 6 minutes, 11 seconds remaining to lift Michigan Tech past the Tommies, 4-3, at Will & Penny Anderson Arena.

The loss snapped the Tommies’ NCAA-leading winning streak at 11 games.

Nathan Pilling and Jake Braccini each scored first-period goals to tie the game 1-1 and 2-2, and Alex Gaffney scored his team-leading 16th goal to tie it 3-3 in the third period.

St. Thomas (17-8-3 overall, 14-4-2 CCHA) takes its longest road trip of the season to play Bowling Green (14-6-6, 11-4-3) on Friday and Saturday at Slater Family Ice Arena.

St. Thomas sweeps St. Cloud State

Maddie Brown, Rylee Bartz and Chloe Boreen all scored as the St. Thomas women’s hockey team finished off a weekend sweep of St. Cloud State with a 3-2 victory on Saturday in St. Paul.

The Tommies (12-16-0, 7-15-0 WCHA) won both games by matching 3-2 scores, while sweeping the Huskies (8-18-2, 4-16-2) for the first time in school history. Julia Minotti made 17 saves in goal for St. Thomas.

Brown started the scoring with the lone goal in the first period. Bartz scored her 15th goal of the season 5:40 into the second and Boreen added another tally before the end of the period.

Sofianna Sundelin scored twice in the third, the second coming on a power play, as the Tommies held on.

St. Thomas has a home-and-home series next weekend with the Gophers, opening the series at home on Friday at noon.

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