The sentiment echoed throughout the emptying Alltel Center arena late Sunday night. Perhaps Minnesota State coach Troy Jutting said it best:

“If there’s any justice, we’ll play again.”

Others wondered if the NCAA tournament committee had a heart and if three overtimes and if 262 minutes of hockey would persuade its members to make sure Minnesota State had a spot in the 16-team tournament field come Sunday morning.

The committee uses its head, though, and not its heart, so the Mavericks will be watching scoreboards and crunching numbers during the WCHA Final Five and three other conference championships around the country this weekend.

In a tie for 13th in the country in the Pairwise rankings, Minnesota State is a classic bubble team. The myriad scenarios that can take place among the remaining games can do anything from locking the Mavericks into the tournament to knocking them out to, yes, giving the committee a chance to prove that their hearts aren’t two sizes too small.

If members were watching the Mavericks’ games against Minnesota, they would have seen the exact type of games they want to showcase in their tournament:

Two double-overtime games. Great goaltending. All-out effort.

“This was the most hard-fought weekend I’ve ever been a part of,” Gophers coach Don Lucia said.

That’s pretty good praise from a coach who won the national championship with the Gophers in an overtime game in 2002 and, while coaching Colorado College in 1998, won a double-overtime game in the national semifinals then lost the title game in another extra session.

“I think every kid — all 40 kids — really laid it out there and played a great weekend of hockey,” Jutting said.

Said Mavericks forward Jon Kalinski, who, a minute before Tony Lucia won the game for the Gophers Sunday night, had a great scoring chance stolen by goalie Alex Kangas: “It was a team effort. Everyone on both teams played their (best).”

Kangas and Minnesota State goaltender Mike Zacharias were the stars of the show. Several longtime hockey observers noted that it was the best performance by a pair of opposing goaltenders they had ever seen.

At the end of the weekend, Kangas had stopped 115 shots, while allowing four goals, and Zacharias had stopped 116 shots while allowing five goals. The two shared an amazing .963 save percentage in the series.

It doesn’t get much closer than that.

Except that the Gophers get to play Thursday while the Mavericks hope they’re not practicing in vain this week.