Records coming down quickly for women’s hockey

Noora Raty’s list of awards is extensive. The senior goaltender was named Finland’s best hockey player twice. She was the WCHA’s goaltending champion two seasons ago and she’s been minding the net in the Olympics since she was 15.

On Saturday, Raty reached yet another milestone by becoming the all-time wins leader in Gopher history.

Raty earned her 84th win against the program’s most hated rival, the University of North Dakota, where the Gophers pulled off a 5-1 victory in Grand Forks after a shaky start to the game on Saturday.

The team started the third period tied with UND at 1-1, but managed to put together a forceful attack that would  help Raty achieve a career record of 85-17-8 (follwing subsequent win on Sunday).

Junior forward Amanda Kessel did not break the record for 10th place in all-time leading points scored as I predicted Friday; that’s only because she sat out Saturday’s game due to an undisclosed injury.

Sunday, however, Kessel earned three points with a pair of goals and an assist, which makes her tied for tenth place with Emily West at 158 career points.

I’m going to go ahead and say that Kessel will break into the top ten in the next game and will most likely be making a serious run for the top spot by the end of the season.

The team walked away with their fifth sweep of the season against No. 8 UND ending the weekend with a 4-2 victory.

Alongside Kessel, Kelly Terry and Milica McMillen also notched a couple of goals.

Shots on goal ended up being 33-18 in favor of Minnesota.

The ladies improved to 10-0-0 on the season, a start that hasn’t been matched since the 2004-2005 season.

Coming up, the team has a short week before they travel to Duluth for a pair of Friday and Saturday games against the University of Minnesota-Duluth Bulldogs.

The Bulldogs will host the Gophers coming off a split with No. 6 ranked Boston College.