I am torn as to how this weekend went. I agree that the goaltending struggled, but so did many other aspects of the game.
I feel as though the offense was trying to hard and was forcing too many passes and shots. The quality shots they did have they just didn't capitalize on. We had so many open net shots and our offense panicked and ieither overshot or sent it straight to the goalie. Our passing was way off and it always seemed to end up on a Duluth stick.
The defense had their fair share of mistakes. It seems that with Hale gone we just aren't the same hard-hitting team that I loved to watch. It's hard to readjust to a new defensive linemate after palying with someone you're used to reading for over half the season.
If Jones wouldn't have gone down Josh would have never been put in the position he was. Being a goaltender myself I can see where Josh saw it to be the right decision to come out of the net and charge the oncoming forward. Whether anyone thinks that was the right decision or not Josh thought it was, he just went down too soon. We'd all be singing a different song if Josh would have made that save and it would have stayed tied or we would have gone up one. He did give up a lot of rebounds, but as I recall the Bulldog's goaltender rarely froze the puck in their end. We just couldn't put it away and they did. Parise and bochenski could not get a goal to save their lives until the very end.
We can place the blame on bad goaltending or poor reffing. We can place the missed shots and fallen defensemen, but in my opinion they just didn't paly together it seemed as though it was more of an individual effort rather than a team. We're missing the fire that I watched them play with at the beginning of the season. I don't know who is going to provide the spark, but I pray that it happens soon.
Go Sioux!!
