Minnesota Women’s Hockey: Gophers Clean Up WCHA Monthly Awards

On Tuesday the WCHA announced their monthly awards for the month of January, and for the third time in four months it was Minnesota Gophers sophomore goaltender Skyler Vetter getting some hardware. Minnesota also took home the WCHA Forward of the Month once again, but this time it was Grace Zumwinkle winning the award instead of fellow senior Taylor Heise.

Vetter was named the WCHA Goalie of the Month for January after finishing the first month of the year with a perfect 7-0-0 record with a 1.20 GAA and a .941 Sv%. She can add that to her other two Goalie of the Month awards for October and December. For the entire season Vetter is 19-3-2 with a 1.7 GAA and a .927 save percentage. In just WCHA play those numbers rise of 17-1-2, a GAA of 1.44, and a save percentage of .939. She has won 11 straight starts headed into this weekend’s massive home series against #1 Ohio State at Ridder Arena.

She also piked up her 6th WCHA Goalie of the Week award this week for her performance at #6 UMD last weekend. She earned a sweep for the Gophers stopping 55 of 59 shots.

Zumwinkle won the sixth WCHA Monthly award of her career and first this season after finishing January with eight goals and eight assists in eight games for the Gophers. She currently ranks first in the nation in goals (21) and second in points (47) behind only Heise. Heise was previously named the WCHA Forward of the Month for October, and the National Forward of the Month for December.

Earning WCHA Rookie of the Week Honors for the first time in her career was forward Josefin Bouveng. The Sweden native recorded a goal and an assist in Saturday’s win for the third multi-point game of her career. She currently ranks first among Gopher rookies in scoring (9g-6a) this season and has scored a goal in each of the last four WCHA series.

Minnesota enters the weekend ranked #3 in the nation and hosts #1 Ohio State in a huge weekend series. Minnesota has a two point edge on the Buckeyes with six games left in the regular season. Minnesota took four of a possible six points against the Buckeyes in Columbus back in October winning 4-2 on Friday night and then earning a 4-4 tie but giving up the extra shootout point in Saturday’s contest. It’s the second of three back to back to back series against ranked teams for Minnesota as Wisconsin comes into Ridder Arena next weekend.

This weekends games face off at 6 PM Friday and 2PM Saturday, and with no men’s hockey series this weekend there is absolutely no reason not to pack Ridder and try to cheer the Gophers onto a pair of huge wins that can put them in the drivers seat for back to back WCHA Regular Season titles.