farce poobah

Hak: * One of those nights where we finished, and we got a gift or two from their goalies. * Duncan's 1st a nice play in traffic. * Dunc's 2nd a great play (seeing the goalie wasn't ready). * Oshie and Dunc's have struggled this year, but they read each other well, at top speed. Had good jump tonight. * Phil with more tough saves tonight than last. * Our play similar to last night, but tonight the puck went in. * Phil was on tonight. Making up a bit for last night. He was ready. * PK strategy was to let them have the outside. And its tough to let them carry the puck around. * SC didn't adapt by starting to bomb it from outside, and we let them pass around the perimeter. * 7 WCHA series - home team wins Friday, road team wins Saturday. Nice that it continued tonight. * We need to string together consistent play. and string some wins together. * Really want to solidify our play with the lead.

Game opening up ....

10:18 left, 2-2 Skating pretty even ...

Mistakes will kill us. No more lapses. Fans too.

18:43 of the second, Roe fell down so it must have been a penalty on us.

PP over. Still 1-0. SOG are now 21-8 (still 0 for SCSU this period?!?) PP moving the puck nicely. Best chance was a point-blank one-timer for Chorney that hit Dunn.

Now 2-1 Gophers in Minneapolis. CC and UW still 0-0. Kaip with a chance. Nice shift. PP coming up.

We look pretty airtight this period (even despite the long change). No SOG for SCSU thru 13: of the second.

Halftime in Minneapolis Wayne State 1 Gophers 1

I hope so. How does it turn out?

Now Miller off the crossbar. 11:30 left, still 1-0 Our forecheck starting to create chances...

Kozek!!!!! 1-0 Sioux!!!!! I guess my feed is REALLY behind.

We have had a number of quality scoring chances, but we're just firing - trying to pick a spot. We need to get that big lug of a goalie moving side to side. ... and stop taking penalties, especially the stick kind.

I agree. The winner should get 4 points.

Exactly. And if you took a couple minutes to fix equipment or a nature break, the legs were already tightening up. It will be interesting to see how these teams are affected by this over the next couple weeks.

The kind of game where you don't want to go more than a few minutes without a shift. A whole new meaning to "cold legs".

We've had a lot of talk about how tough the schedule has been. Everybody so far has been ranked, or is ranked currently. What I didn't realize, until checking in at the USCHO board, was that its possible that all the REST of our games might be against "TUCs" (in Pairwise lingo that is). http://board.uscho.com/showpost.php?p=3487...p;postcount=783 (Tip of the cap to Fighting Sioux 23 for the research ...) ================================== I'm going against the run of play here but I'm optimistic. What we'll see going forward is a shorter bench in key situations, less ice time (against opponent top players) for guys like Marto and Lapoint. We'll see our defensive zone systems start to click, and once everyone gets on the same page, the opponent time-in-zone falls. We've seen what the entire roster can contribute; going forward we'll see roles defined. The forward lines will still get tweaked, but some things seem to be sorting out. These teams ARE different from the Blais teams, which had the amazing speed and quickness to pull off comebacks on a routine basis, especially against lesser caliber opponents (like scoring the tying and winning goals at UMD in the last :30 seconds, to name another comeback). What those teams lacked was the size to fight through the maze of sticks and bodies in games like the national quarterfinals in 1998 and 1999. We've traded size for speed. If I could wave my magic wand, I'd like the ability to hold a lead in the last period. We've allowed too many, and its been on rushes and against our better players. This is concerning. The other concern I have is the health of our top guys. Oshie does not appear 100%; why else does he curl and pass with a near-break on Saturday? We need Lammy to stay healthy, for the backup is untested. And we need #2-4-5-28 to stay healthy.

All in all, it was a pretty D@## good year. I voted for team glory, and the West Regional final, Porter's GWG. But Duncan's Hobey struck a chord, and I think it's because he epitomizes the qualities we like to see in North Dakota hockey players. I expected to be part of a crowd of a maybe a couple hundred, but it was at least a couple thousand. More UND fans obviously than anyone else, and that added to the atmosphere. Wonderful, wonderful moment, that I am still savoring. It couldn't happen to a better guy than Ryan Duncan.

Nice guess - boxscore says 453. http://www.fightingsioux.com/downloads1/30...DB_OEM_ID=13500 If they were to try again with a rivalry game, decent notice, and a better date, it could draw decently. But this had none of those...

Observations based on webcast... I thought we looked good in the neutral zone and decent in our offensive zone, but our defensive zone coverage and puck poise still needs a lot of work. Regan should be #1 star; we could easily have rung up 6 and made their late goals meaningless. But we didn't get it done offensively. I like the chemistry of the new lines; we got consistent pressure from all four lines. Like the faceoff tally; we had possession a lot, which tilts the game in our favor. I like Radke in the lineup, especially if he doesn't take *** penalties, which he didn't tonight. Disappointing that the tying goal was scored with Oshie,Duncan, Chorney out there. I expect to see Genoway on Defense for some time now. Lapoint has flashes of brilliance but has been on the ice for a lot of goals allowed. Ditto Marto. Jones hasn't developed. Expect to see that rotation shortening as the season goes on to 4 - Chorney, Bina, Finley, Genoway. Lammy continues to be solid. The pieces are in place for a run; what kind of legacy do the guys want to leave? Three of them stayed to win a title - this is as good a chances as we'll see for a while I think.

yup - replay on FSN starting at 10pm http://board.uscho.com/showthread.php?t=74484

No condolences here, but final in Minneapolis RIT 4, Gophers 3.

7-4 UNH another ENG 1:00

6-4 UNH with an ENG 1:10 left

now 5-4 - Bina on a rebound 6x5 goal 1:18 left, Sioux timeout