Gophers Skating Uphill In Loss To UNO

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The Gophers (9-3-2, 4-3-2 WCHA) took on the University of Nebraska-Omaha Mavericks (9-3-1, 5-1-1 WCHA) tonight at Mariucci Arena in front of 9,997. According to the Gopher Coaches and Players, UNO is the best team they've faced so far this season. Coming into the game, the Mavericks had a very good record, a Goaltender that hadn't lost a game (7-0-1) this season, and some pretty imposing Defenseman, not one of them standing less than 6-2. They got good goaltending, timely scoring, and some pretty tight defense on their way to a 3-2 win over the Gophers. For their part, Minnesota didn't do much to help themselves.

Here is what I saw...

  • The Gophers did do a good job of taking away the vision of the UNO Goaltender in the first two periods, something they have stressed they needed to do more of.
  • Sam Warning returned, and he played well. He was physical, especially early, and seemed like he had a lot of jump. It's good to have him back in the lineup.
  • Overall, I don't know what it was with the Gophers tonight, but everyone seemed a little bit "off". Not necessarily bad, just off. They looked sluggish. and couldn't seem to manage little things like passing a puck. There were a few times when someone would throw the puck across the ice to where nobody was. They were tentative, and almost seemed intimidated by UNO. Bottom line is they got outskated and outworked.
  • Like the rest of the team, Adam Wilcox was off. He wasn't bad, he just never looked comfortable. There were several times where he couldn't find the puck, or didn't have it when he thought he did. He hasn't been off this year, so it really showed tonight.
  • Brady Skjei needs to have a little more awareness of his surroundings. He stood behind the net with the puck, and got pick pocketed by a UNO forechecker. No harm done on the play, but it's going to cost the team one of these times. He was also getting manhandled out there a little bit physically. I'm sure that will change as he gets older and continues to grow, but for now, he's struggling at times.
  • Don Lucia had Skjei and Mike Reilly together on the penalty kill early in the second period. He's the coach, and he's proven himself as a very good coach, but that pairing makes me very nervous. I don't think they've proven themselves individually, so why would you put them out there together on the Penalty Kill?
  • Gophers were losing too many important face-offs in their own zone. On two successive face-offs in their end, they lost, giving up good looks at the net for UNO, and decent scoring chances.



Here are the post game comments...

UNO Head Coach Dean Blais:

Regarding his big Defenseman…. "Yeah, their 6'8", 6'7", 6'4", 6'4", 6'2" and 6'2". The other two guys were too small, so we left them at home (laughing)"
"We talked about having a simple game, get it in, get it out. I didn't think it was a cheap game at all. I think we moved the puck good on the power play, but so did they. I thought (Goaltender) John Faulkner should have maybe had that second goal, but then he had four or five other great saves. At the very end we had guys block shots that maybe saved a goal. I think it was back and forth momentum, but I don't think we're used to the size of the ice yet. A lot of these guys haven't played on an olympic sized rink"


Nate Schmidt:

Regarding the Gophers struggles…. "When you only get seven shots on net in the last thirty six minutes, we're not producing a lot. We didn't execute our game plan. They played high octane. We just can't put together two periods like we did in those last two and expect to win"

Regarding the UNO Defense…. "They played extremely well. They got to play with the puck in front of them all night. They're real lanky guys. They've got a lot of length, and they're really good about keeping you out of the middle of the ice. With the long reach they can easily bat the puck out of the air, and they don't let the puck behind them. They just play really well and keep the pucks in front of them. I can speak for all defenseman when I say it's a lot tougher to play the puck behind you than when you're playing with it in front of you the whole game"


Minnesota Head Coach Don Lucia:

Regarding his thoughts on the game…. "The chain fell off the bike tonight. We had no chain coming up the rink at all. We didn't do enough to give ourselves the chance to win tonight. We played an OK first period, and thought we'd keep it going, but we didn't. We had a big turnover at the end there to give them the game winning goal. We were disjointed. We just couldn't make plays. We had guys in the slot ready to hammer a puck, and it hit him in the skate. For whatever reason, guys didn't seem to have their legs tonight. We had a great skate this morning. There was no cohesiveness for us tonight. I don't want to take anything away from UNO, they played great. They just kept coming. Their top line played well, and were involved in all of their goals. They were the better team, and they deserved to win the game"

Regarding his teams lack of shots in the last two periods…. "When you don't manage the puck very well, that's going to happen. We lost a lot of draws in specialty situations, and only had seven shots in the second half of the game. We only attempted twenty seven shots, and that's not like us"

Regarding Sam Warning…. "I thought he was one of our better forwards tonight. Not having played for a month, he seemed to have decent energy, made some plays, had an assist on the first goal and that was good to see"

Regarding what they need to do to win on Saturday night…. "We have to complete a few passes coming up the rink, and make it harder on them than we did tonight"

The Gophers will take on the Mavericks again tonight at Mariucci. Game time is 7:00 PM (Central), and will be broadcast on Fox Sports North Plus.
 

Great to see the Gophs get a win last night. Benching Alt instead of Reily may have been a good motivational move, but Reily keeps driving me nuts back there. I saw him miss a chance to make a play on the puck in our own end because he dodged a hit and left the puck instead of playing the puck and taking the hit. It reminded me of Ness in the worst possible way.
 

I feel really bad, because every week it seems like I'm pointing out all of the bad that either Reilly or Skjei have done. But, I think it's glaring. And I'm hearing the same thing from a lot of the media guys. But when we discussed it, and I asked the question "why didn't they redshirt him this year?", they pointed out that, because Skjei is a high draft choice, you have to play him right away. If he's not going to play here, why would he stick around. It's a good point. Hopefully they come around soon. I would much rather praise their play than bash it.
 

That sounds like a plausible explanation, but I really don't like it. I want us to dress the 18 skaters we think give us the best chance to win a hockey game. If we assume because they are a high draft pick, they might leave if we don't play them. However, its no guaranty they don't leave if we do play them. I also think that makes it tougher to recruit depth players (I wouldn't want to skate for a team if the system I saw told me that "you can't earn a spot over the blue chippers even if you outplay them, because they might get better and we want them to stick around").
 

What I don't understand, is I thought we were told that the Defenseman would be playing wing until Sam Warning got back from injury. Warning is back, but Parenteau was playing Wing on Friday, if I remember correctly. And then he sat Alt on Saturday. Something has been out of whack with Alt this year, but even his worst game doesn't compare to Skjei and/or Reilly's play. Lucia said of sitting Alt "sometimes it's good to sit out and watch the game". Well, I think that's good advice for Reilly and Skjei too.
 


It does seem like a broken record, but Skjei is having a terrible game. He missed a good scoring chance fanning on a shot, he almost gave up a goal and killed Wilcox with that stupid cut out front of our own goal, and then he just created a great scoring chance for CC with a really bad turnover in our end.
 

Speaking of broken records, don't know if anyone else noticed this, but every time Reilly or Skjei made a bonehead play, FSN's Kevin Gorg would comment about how bad the play was, but then follow it up with something positive about how much potential insert Skjei or Reilly here have. I really like Gorg, and think he's got good hockey sense, so I think I'll take a page from his notebook. Then I can speak up about their poor play, and still sound positive.
 




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