Border Battle weekend predictions?

I think we put a solid weekend together and sweep the hated Badgers.

Stan said:

I think we put a solid weekend together and sweep the hated Badgers.

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I agree. We put 120 minutes of solid hockey together for the first time since MSU. If the defensemen pull their heads out of a certain body cavity, I think we have a great weekend.

We've left a couple of points on the table already this year and that can come back to haunt us. We need to come out aggressive early both games, get the crowd into it and not give UW much to feel confident about.

Go Gophers!!

We need 4 points this weekend. It is a necessity at this point.

There are no necessities at this point. Sorry.

We need to do something about that Alt-Reily pair. Its a gong show when they are on the ice together. They are both capable of making some nice plays (and they both had some last night), but they get themselves into these situations where one of them makes a dumb decision and the other one makes a dumb decision while trying to deal with his partner's dumb decision.

Holl isn't the answer because he looked lost on defense all year last year. I don't want to split up Helgeson and Marshal, because Marshal is looking really sharp this year (I was very critical of his play in our end last year, but he looks good) and I want Marshal to have license to take some chances in the offensive zone with the knowledge that our best defensive defenseman has is back. I think Lucia has always undervalued Parenteau. Maybe the following pairs would work out for us:

1. Helgeson-Marshal (love this pair for the reasons discussed above)
2. Schmidt-Alt (I think Alt is generally solid enough defensively that he can open up Schmidt's offense similar to how Helgeson does it for Marshal, and Schmidt is solid enough defensively to recover from some of Alt's snafu's in the neutral zone)
3. Parenteau-Reily/Skjei (we returned all our defense from last year and that was a national semifinal team, I see no reason to be trying to force two freshmen into the lineup at D. I think Parenteau is solid defensively and could provide some solid support for the freshmen alternating for the other spot on his line)

I like this. I don't know how many times you looked at the Defenseman on the ice together, and they looked totally bewildered as to where they were supposed to be.

Good to get the win tonight!! Wow UW sure is chippy and they bitch a lot. I hate their style of play (sounds like their hoops team!)

I wanted 4 points but 3 is the next best thing.

Go Gophers!!

BleedGopher said:

Good to get the win tonight!! Wow UW sure is chippy and they bitch a lot. I hate their style of play (sounds like their hoops team!)

I wanted 4 points but 3 is the next best thing.

Go Gophers!!

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Completely agree. They're coooonstantly bitching. Drives me nuts.