Gophers Dig Deep, Come Out With Win

Twynntown

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The Gophers (10-3-2, 5-3-2 WCHA) rebounded from a Friday night loss, and beat the Nebraska-Omaha Mavericks (9-4-1, 5-2-1 WCHA) 3-2 tonight in a very physical game in front of 10,103 at Mariucci Arena.

Here is what I saw:

  • Very entertaining game all around. It was fast moving, hard hitting, and after the Gophers built a 3-0 lead, two goals by UNO added some drama to the last three minutes of the game But, not just the game on the ice, made it great. So did the following.
    :clap: The Little Chippers between periods are so much fun to watch. Hilarious. To watch them play is one thing, but when the fans are into their little mini game, cheering and reacting to the play, and Goldy is on the ice messing with the kids, it makes for some great entertainment. Watching them attempt to step out on the ice and fall, one after the other, is entertainment in itself. If I were to buy season tickets, I would insist that I had an unobstructed view of the end of the ice that they come out on, just to watch them pile up on the ice outside the door like Lemmings going over a cliff.
    :clap: Goldy was top notch Saturday night. Maybe the best I've seen so far. Full disclosure, I sometimes find myself watching Goldy in the stands when I should be watching the game.
    :clap: Neal Broten made an appearance. One of the greatest, and most decorated hockey players of all time made a rare public appearance at the game, along with brothers Aaron and Paul. One lucky fan not only won a $100 gift card, and 10 burgers from Wendy's, but he received an autographed Gopher hockey jersey signed by all three Broten's. Lucky dog!
  • Gophers came out flying and scrapped hard in the first period. Hate to use the same old cliche', but they truly looked like a well oiled machine in the first period, which is exactly what they needed after Friday nights showing. Smooth skating and slick tape to tape passing. They were making great drops and getting solid shots off of one time passes, whereas last night they were botching their shots, along with just about everything else.
  • Much more physical game. Fortunately, UNO missed on a few runs that they took at Gopher players. Probably the hardest hitting game i've seen this year. The sound of boards rattling was pretty prevalent the entire night.
  • Forgive me for consistently picking on the young guys, and let me just say that you don't come to the Gopher Hockey program unless you are HIGHLY skilled and have a ton of upside. But that being said, is there any chance we could try Brady Skjei and Mike Reilly at forward for a couple of games? They continue to make big mistakes on defense, and since Don Lucia has been playing many of the defenseman at forward this year anyway, why not try these two? They've obviously got a lot of talent, but I think they've looked silly at times on defense. Tonight's glaring mistake was Skjei having a UNO forward slide the puck through his legs and go around him almost untouched as Skjei dove at him and missed. That allowed the UNO player to go in on goal all alone. Adam Wilcox bailed Skjei out on that one, but when will one of these lapses cost us at a critical time? These guys could end up being the greatest defenseman in Gophers history, but right now, they seem like they're in over their heads most nights.
  • Nate Schmidt hasn't had a bad game this season, in my opinion. He had another very good game Saturday, and at one point in the first period threw himself at one of the UNO players as that player reached center ice with the puck, sacrificing his body to break up a rush by the opponents. He does it all at both ends of the ice. He's a highly skilled, and intelligent player (I misspelled intelligent by the way. Thank you autocorrect!).
  • Kyle Rau looked to be in rare form tonight, chirping at the UNO players in the face-off circle, subtly nipping at em everywhere on the ice, and taking a lot of physical abuse in return. He probably should have earned a charging penalty midway through the third period when he started a hard charge at the UNO defenseman from the blue line, and may have avoided the penalty when the UNO player jumped to the side. Rau still got enough of him to give him a big jolt, much to the dismay of that UNO player. He is one guy that I could focus on exclusively for an entire game and be entertained.
  • To steal a description that Nate Schmidt used Friday night to describe UNO's play, the Gophers were "high octane" through about 3/4 of the game, and then seemed like they let off the gas as the game got into it's latter stages. They started tailing off as the game wore on, and ended up running around, looking a lot like they did most of the game Friday night. Fortunately, they were able to dig deep and hang on for the win.


Here are the post game comments:

UNO Head Coach Dean Blais:

Regarding how he felt his team played…. "It was a hard fought game, and I'm real proud of the way the guys came back on a real good hockey team. They battled hard and got back to respectability after getting our butts kicked pretty good in the first period. I thought we got better as the game went on. We had a couple of undisciplined penalties, which we're really not known for. We were too emotional, and really got off our game. I think Minnesota is the least penalized team in the WCHA, and we're the second least penalized"

Regarding the Gophers game plan in the third period…. "I think their plan when it was 3-1 was get it in, get it out. I think they were a little bit surprised when we scored with two minutes left, but we got a good bounce on that one"

Regarding the Gophers game overall…. "I think they had more energy tonight with Rau, Condon and Bjugstad out there"


Minnesota Head Coach Don Lucia:

Regarding Friday night's game…. "For whatever reason last night was one of those games where they didn't seem to have their legs. It's not that they weren't trying. They were trying to play hard. But sometimes, the harder you try, the worse it gets when you try and do too much. You try to make the play that's not there, it's low percentage"

Regarding juggling the lineup…. "Condon started on the right wing with Bjugstad, but he hardly played there just because he had such great energy. I didn't think Boyd had very good energy tonight so he played a lot of third line center because of that. I thought Tommy (Tom Serratore) had good energy tonight. When we got down to the last ten or twelve minutes it was going to be a 3 line game, so we just took our nine guys that we thought were playing the best, and that's who was going to play. I thought the guys did a good job of adjusting, because one shift they were playing right wing, and the next they were playing center"

Regarding the play of the Defense…. "I thought he (Nate Schmidt) played strong tonight, and Ben Marshall played much better than he did last night. We didn't get many shots, but it all comes down to taking care of the puck. I thought we had a good game from start to finish"

Regarding Saturday night's game…. "They're (UNO) a good team, so you better play well. It's the type of game I expected to have. They're going to came out to play and play hard. You know, that's their identity, and we had to match that. When I looked at our stats from last night, we had fifty turnovers** and seventeen hits. Normally when we're playing good it's in the twenties, and when we're not, it's in the thirties or forties. Well guess what, that's not a good recipe for winning hockey games. That's gotta be reversed. We're not going to get fifty hits a night, but we've gotta finish our checks when they're there. Our in's and out's were much better at the blue lines, and Adam made a couple of good saves when we needed him, and we won the game. It was an important game for us tonight"

**Coach Lucia pointed out that his staff tracks turnovers a little differently than the NHL does. "We consider not making the play that could be made, and giving the other team the puck a turnover"

Regarding sitting players…. "We've got guys who are too valuable of a player not to be playing, but sometimes it's good just to sit and watch the game and see what you need to be doing"

Regarding the play of Tom Serratore…. "I give him credit. He's a lunch pail guy, and there's a reason why he's got four 5-on-5 goals. He's getting the hard goals"

Regarding the play of Nick Bjugstad…. "He's got eight goals on the season, and he's on pace to have twenty plus goals. He did a much better job, and this is something we talked about with him, getting in a better position to shoot a puck. Getting in a better position to receive the pass and shoot it. It's not just him, it's a lot of our guys. You've gotta keep moving your body in the offensive zone and get in a shooters position"

Regarding Dean Blais pulling his goalie with five minutes left in the game…. "They were on the power play, and down by two. It didn't surprise me, it was a good gamble"


Nate Schmidt:

Regarding the game Saturday night…. "They didn't hand it to us tonight, we had to work hard for all of our goals. They came from hard fought plays. We had a really good energy in the hallway before the game. You could tell that guys were ready to roll tonight. There was good energy on the bench, good energy on the ice"

Regarding the play of the defense…. "I thought that we played pretty good defense. There's some areas that I'd like to clean up of my own. I thought it was a more complete performance out of our whole D corps tonight. I thought we played pretty well as a staff. They (UNO) didn't have nearly as many odd man rushes as they did last night, which I thought was a credit to our defenseman, and a credit to our forwards keeping the puck down low. Take care of the puck and we give ourselves a chance to win""

Regarding the amount of turnovers the Gophers had on Friday night…. "We want to flip flop those numbers between hits, and blocks (blocked shots) and turnovers. We want to make sure hits and blocks are around the fifty combined. That was definitely a major emphasis by our coaching staff today"

Regarding the physical game with UNO…. "Any WCHA weekend you're going to get a couple of bumps and bruises. They're a big team and they finish all their checks. They're going to be a tough team to play down the stretch. Maybe we'll see them again, hopefully in the playoffs. It was a good series"

Regarding the big UNO defenseman…. "I want to think I'm one of the bigger guys out there, but when you look over at their D, you realize you're not even close (laughing). You're looking up at em when you're skating by them. You just gotta use your height and weight to the best of your ability"


Erik Haula:

Regarding the game Saturday night…. "We wanted to come out hard. Losing on a Friday at home doesn't feel very good. We wanted to make sure we did everything today to get a win. It doesn't matter who you play, it's all about the energy, and the way we play. When we manage the puck and play physical, that's when we're at our best. I think we did a pretty good job today"

Regarding the physical game with UNO…. "Yeah, we've got some ice packs going, but that's how it is in the WCHA. It's a lot of bangin', and it's physical"

Regarding the play of Nate Schmidt…. "He has a really good stick, he's real good on his skates, and he makes good decisions out there"


The Gophers will take on the Colorado College Tigers next weekend in Colorado Springs. Game time is 8:30 PM (Central) Friday night, and 8:00 PM (Central) on Saturday. The games will be broadcast on Fox Sports North PLUS.
 

Flattered that Coach Lucia reads this stuff, and tried Reilly at Forward this weekend. He had a goal and nearly had a nice assist on a play where he waited with the puck for the play to develop, and then fed a teammate cutting to the net with a perfect pass. I think that shot may have hit the post and kicked out. Try him there again after he comes back from the Junior World team? Maybe give Skjei a look at Wing?
 

I'd rather not give Skjei a look at wing. You hit it on the head with your post on the other thread about needing consistency. I like Reily better as a forward, he plays like a forward who, in high school, played defense because he was good enough to get the puck all the way back behind the goal line and go end-to-end with it. I think his skill set allows for some crafty moves, but I only want that kind of craftiness when there is a pair of defensemen behind you. I don't know if I like Holl at wing, but I know I hate him on the blue line, so I am ok with giving him a shot up front. I think Skjei looks like an actual, two-way defenseman who just isn't good enough for the college game yet. I still love Parenteau (referencing your other thread again, Parenteau is the kind of guy where you don't hear is name called and that is a good thing), and I think Alt would get better if he didn't have to keep worrying about what Reily is going to do next. Marshal, Schmidt, and Helgeson have played pretty well this year.
 

Good point regarding Alt. Playing babysitter might be throwing his game off. I know we're only about the halfway point, but Offensively he's going to have to get on the gas if he's going to come close to his numbers from last year. He's only got 2 points on 2 assists this season. Last year he ended with 22 points on 5 goals and 17 assists.
 




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