Got to watch the last half of the game at Senser's nice to finally get to watch some hockey again. Nice effort by the Sioux. Whether they are playing better all around, or if they are just well suited for the small surface they looked good in my mind tonite. Duluth had much difficulty getting offensive flow going, and our defense was very strong in our own end. Duluth rarely had a chance to get anything set up in the offensive zone. Most of the time our defensemen were in the face of the puck carrier and disrupting their efforts. We got to a lot of loose pucks and cleared the zone fairly effectively.
I continue to be very impressed with Stafford's puck handling skills. What a nice pass over the Murray for Murray's goal. I don't know whether to credit Murray for a fantastic move that made the goalie look bad, or to rip Reichmuth for over committing to Murray because he lost his shorts out there big time. I haven't seen a Sioux forward burn a goalie that badly in quite a while.
Very very impressed with Jones' goal. As someone said, it was a true sniper's goal. The puck was over on the goalies right side, and came to Jone's who basically was all alone on the left. Jones floated in to the circles and then just ripped a seeing eye shot over Reichmuth's left shoulder. Isaac was dropping down on the shot and had his glove ready above his left pad, so had a long way to go to try and pick that puck out of the air over his shoulder. Couldn't get there on time. Beautiful shot by Matt. Now Matt, try staying out of the box a bit.
I was not real close to the TV so it was hard to see if all the penalty calls were ticky tacky or legit calls. Sure were a lot of penalties tonite on both teams.
Was very happy to see the Canady-Kaip-Marvin line out there a lot near the end of the game. To be honest, I don't think they got enough time earlier on. Everytime I saw Canady on the ice tonite he was doing a great job forechecking, disrupting, and winning races to the puck. They were out near the end of the game when Peluso made a bid to get his butt kicked by another western Canada kid (Kaip). Peluso crosschecked Greene into Parise and Kaip right over and gave Peluso the falling check across the back (in hockey lingo I think that means "stay the heck away from my goalie"). They got seperated pretty quickly. However, looked like Marvin lost his helmet and had to be seperated from someone, maybe Czech.
Sioux defense looked very very good out there. Did I see Radke play tonite? I couldn't always see the numbers well.
Prpich appeared to have a very good game tonite. He was very noticeable on both ends of the night and made a very nifty move to nearly score a (shorthanded?) goal.
Parise seemed to play pretty well. He got an absolute gift at one point when a rebound went off his pad in front of the open net but the Bulldog forward couldn't get his stick on it, then shot it right back at a sprawled Parise instead of into the net. Very lucky there. The goal he gave up he did have covered but I don't blame the whistle. In almost the same instant Parise covered the puck a bulldog player got their stick under his glove and the puck slid out. Looks like almost no one noticed it except the lone Bulldog player it slid out front to who easily roofed it. I think that is more good hustle by Duluth than a bad call by the ref. I know this, I would have been ticked if our forward did that but the whistle was blown. It was THAT quick.
Sioux moved the puck very well tonite, especially in the offensive zone. Really zipped the puck around, and made some very good plays. Murray made an astounding move behind the net with the puck in an attempt to get the puck out front. It wasn't successful as he lost the control near the goal line but it was a thing of beauty. He had his back to the Sioux forward who passed him the puck to his right side. Brady never turned to face the puck. He put his stick over to his right with the blade angled at 45 degrees to catch the puck and carry it while he leaned and skated out front in an arc. At least that's the way it looked to me. Too bad he couldn't keep control of it. Seeing that kind of stuff is what I love about hockey. That and Stafford dancing with the puck across the blueline. Good stuff.
Was also very impressed with Zajac. He's also got very good puck skills. Not so flashy but just effective. At one point he was a one man penalty kill forecheck/cycling team that held the puck low in the offensive zone for many seconds while the Bulldogs tried to wrestle it away from him.
Overall, I would think the Sioux are pretty happy with the game tonite.
I'm curious what Hak had to say after the game if anyone heard it.
Hope we can keep it up tomorrow. I suspect Duluth didn't play as well as they did last weekend at Wisconsin. They didn't seem to have much going for them tonite. Hopefully we can hold them off tomorrow, and continue to put in some goals. If we can take tomorrow's game too, that will help erase the pain from losing to AA last weekend.
