At about the 12 minute mark of the third period I knew I'd been at another pretty good hockey game. It wasn't everything that Friday night had. UAA's time in CC's zone was shortened. CC trapped more often tonight and as usual UAA struggled through the neutral zone. That effort results in less than energetic cycles when you finally do get the puck in deep. Again tonight UAA got a lot of good looks. Though I'd say the "mad-scramble" count was down. CC's trapping coupled with heartbreakingly good chances that came up short for UAA and you think you've got the keys to the worst loss of the season. But neither of those made it so. What did make the difference tonight was the palpable loss of pressure in the tires. Somewhere between the 4th and and 11th minute a slow leak started. Somewhere along there Peter Cartwright had the best chance of the night with lots of time from the doorstep but couldn't beat Bachman. By the 12th minute of the period it was all going flat. It was over before CC scored their second power play goal of the night to go up 4-1. Walsky got the game winner with just :32 seconds left in the 1st on a nice rush through the heart of the Seawolves and smart flat shot. It would have been nice if one of the 5 guys in front of Olthuis put a body on him or something but alas that wasn't to be.
It's rough to watch the tires go flat like that. We discussed whether it might have been useful to call a timeout around the 12 minute mark because the previous 5 minutes of hockey had been pretty disorganized and uninspired. Maybe it's hard for coaches on the bench to see when their team's shoulders drop one by one? I'd speculate that it sure couldn't hurt to take a timeout and try to put some air back in the tires. But then again, the guys have to learn how to pull themselves up out of those doldrum situations I suppose. So there are arguments either way at best. So I blame flat tires. It wasn't that the engine wasn't turning or even they wheel's; they both were. But with flat tires you just can't get anywhere can ya. It was a collective lack of confidence that slowly spread across the team. At 2-1 the Seawolf players still believed that could come back; at 3-1 ... not so much.
<:Begin-long-loudmouthed-crazy-fan advocacy rant here:> I was nonplussed with the power play's effectiveness tonight. I'm curious whether Kevin Clark is really best utilized at the point when we're a man up. Much of our power play work tends to occur in the corners so Clarkie is away from the puck. There are two places to run a PP from. Up top and down low. Up top means you work the puck high first looking for an opening or trying to get a defender to over-commit and hit the backdoor. Clark isn't effective there. Having to maintain an eye on his blueline responsibilities seems to cause him to lose focus and mishandle the puck. Very unClark-like play. I'm all about him having his stick on the puck on the power play. But it ain't happening when he is on the point. It just ain't. Put Clarkie behind the net next weekend and let him quarterback the power play from there. I've never liked forwards on the blueline on a power play. Let the guys that are most used to keeping the puck in the zone do that. Plus ... every defenseman on the team has a strong shot. I guess I just see that whole "behind the net putting it on a platter for his net crashing teammates theme" as potentially more impactful. Clark's puck handling skills are high enough that defenders will have to respect it and he'll have time to create something. There's plenty of blueliners with good heads and hands that can play the point on the power play. And after all that's what they're here to do. <:end-long-loudmouthed-crazy-fan advocacy rant here:>
It's rough to watch the tires go flat like that. We discussed whether it might have been useful to call a timeout around the 12 minute mark because the previous 5 minutes of hockey had been pretty disorganized and uninspired. Maybe it's hard for coaches on the bench to see when their team's shoulders drop one by one? I'd speculate that it sure couldn't hurt to take a timeout and try to put some air back in the tires. But then again, the guys have to learn how to pull themselves up out of those doldrum situations I suppose. So there are arguments either way at best. So I blame flat tires. It wasn't that the engine wasn't turning or even they wheel's; they both were. But with flat tires you just can't get anywhere can ya. It was a collective lack of confidence that slowly spread across the team. At 2-1 the Seawolf players still believed that could come back; at 3-1 ... not so much.
<:Begin-long-loudmouthed-crazy-fan advocacy rant here:> I was nonplussed with the power play's effectiveness tonight. I'm curious whether Kevin Clark is really best utilized at the point when we're a man up. Much of our power play work tends to occur in the corners so Clarkie is away from the puck. There are two places to run a PP from. Up top and down low. Up top means you work the puck high first looking for an opening or trying to get a defender to over-commit and hit the backdoor. Clark isn't effective there. Having to maintain an eye on his blueline responsibilities seems to cause him to lose focus and mishandle the puck. Very unClark-like play. I'm all about him having his stick on the puck on the power play. But it ain't happening when he is on the point. It just ain't. Put Clarkie behind the net next weekend and let him quarterback the power play from there. I've never liked forwards on the blueline on a power play. Let the guys that are most used to keeping the puck in the zone do that. Plus ... every defenseman on the team has a strong shot. I guess I just see that whole "behind the net putting it on a platter for his net crashing teammates theme" as potentially more impactful. Clark's puck handling skills are high enough that defenders will have to respect it and he'll have time to create something. There's plenty of blueliners with good heads and hands that can play the point on the power play. And after all that's what they're here to do. <:end-long-loudmouthed-crazy-fan advocacy rant here:>
5 comments:
In happier news Curtis Glencross had a great night. 2 goals including a 4 on 4 overtime game winner over Calgary.
malainse
I think that somehow these 2 losses while come back to haunt us. I know that any dropped points is bad, but losing games like this, the ones you should've won, really really stand out.
I agree with James, we are basically forced now to go into Duluth and sweep or at the very least to take 3 points in order to begin a climb from the cellar, 5th place is once again seeming like a pipe dream.
About the powerplay. I agree with you Donald about Clark some, but there is a much more looming problem, and I hate to say it because I love all our guys. But, the fact remains that having Cartwright on the PP is bad news. He has consistently had trouble burying anything. He had by far the most and the best scoring chances this weekend and nothing. Seriously that was probably the biggest difference in the series. If he could have, or we had someone else there that could have scored then both games might have been totally different. In our last four series, three of those teams have been able to shut us out. Mainly in my opinion because we have not had the knack for burying the puck around the net as we did with a little more frequency earlier. Some of that is the level of competition in the WCHA and some because our team is young, but at this point no more excuses I expect wins.
"losing games like this, the ones you should've won"
haha
tiger, UAA SHOULD have won the Friday game. They outplayed your guys from the drop of the puck to the end of the game.
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