On the power play for four of the first six minutes of the contest, the Gophers cashed in on a UAH penalty at 5:36 of the opening frame when Ben Gordon scored in front of a crowd of 10,015. Senior netminder Marc Narduzzi (Vancouver, British Columbia) faced a tough task in the first stanza as the Gophers poured 22 shots on net. Narduzzi and the Charger defense held Minnesota to the one-goal margin until 18:44 of the period when Ryan Flynn made it a 2-0 contest. UM's Jim OBrien then pushed it to a three-goal margin just before the period closed at 19:36.
The rest of the contest would see the Chargers play the Gophers well, keeping Minnesota off the scoreboard for the final forty minutes of action. After being outshot 15-7 in the second period, the Chargers won the shot battle in the final frame via a 13-11 margin.
Senior winger Grant Selinger (Regina, Saskatchewan) ended UM's Kellen Briggs' hopes of a shutout with a tally from sophomore Joe Federoff (Pittsburgh, Pa.) with 12 seconds remaining in the contest.
With the loss, the Chargers fall to 5-13-1 overall and 0-4-0 all-time against the Gophers while Minnesota improves to 16-1-3 despite missing five of their top players, who are playing in the World Junior Championships. Narduzzi made a season-high 45 saves in the loss while his counterpart Briggs 25 saves to pick up the win.
The Chargers take on the University of Massachusetts Minutemen in the consolation game on Saturday afternoon 4:05 p.m. in the first-ever meeting between the two schools. The championship game features Minnesota against Ferris State, who topped UMass 2-1 via a shootout.