I thought tonight's game was fairly evenly played game with both teams showing better efforts than the night before. Eidsness was the difference for UND. Bryce Christianson played equally well but the puck luck didn't go his way. Part of that was the effort from UND but part of it was just two fortunate bounces. The Seawolves had a fortunate bounce of their own on their goal. I suppose if you eliminate the "puck-luck" that UND still wins.
Penalties, penalties, penalties. 15 of em? 15 freaking penalties? Sigh. Of all the goals scored against the Seawolves this season a grand total of 11 have come when nobody was in the box. Let me say that again:
I'm not counting extra-attacker goals or empty net goals which are technically even strength; one was a shorthander. I am counting goals that came just after penalties expired. If that doesn't reinforce the need to stay out of the box then I don't know what does. In only 4 games have the Seawolves taken fewer penalties than their opponent. 3 of those were non-conference games.
Again tonight UAA's power play was unable to take advantage when the opportunities came. I've got no hugely insightful observations about why other than to blame it on mishandled passes. For a power play to click you've got to have solid control of the puck and I thought too often this weekend that incompleted passes cost them. UND aggresively jumped on every missed pass and more often than not on the weekend those situations turned into a puck leaving the offensive zone. When that didn't happen it was still enough of a disruption to ruin any chance that might have otherwise occurred.
You have to be happy to have the two points from the weekend on the road. Hopefully, the guys aren't exactly satisfied with that though. That's about all I've got. I'm never big on writing much following a loss.
Oh yeah ... Tarek Howard = PUTZ.
Penalties, penalties, penalties. 15 of em? 15 freaking penalties? Sigh. Of all the goals scored against the Seawolves this season a grand total of 11 have come when nobody was in the box. Let me say that again:
The Seawolves have given up ONLY 11 goals when nobody was in the box.
Again tonight UAA's power play was unable to take advantage when the opportunities came. I've got no hugely insightful observations about why other than to blame it on mishandled passes. For a power play to click you've got to have solid control of the puck and I thought too often this weekend that incompleted passes cost them. UND aggresively jumped on every missed pass and more often than not on the weekend those situations turned into a puck leaving the offensive zone. When that didn't happen it was still enough of a disruption to ruin any chance that might have otherwise occurred.
You have to be happy to have the two points from the weekend on the road. Hopefully, the guys aren't exactly satisfied with that though. That's about all I've got. I'm never big on writing much following a loss.
Oh yeah ... Tarek Howard = PUTZ.
9 comments:
The Sioux came out and played much better against the Seawolves. Eidsness should definitely be the starter the rest of the season. He made some amazing saves that kept your team at bay.
See you again when UND visits UAA. Looking forward to seeing you rile up more Sioux fans when the two teams face each other again.
The funny thing is that Howard is the best of the commentators they have on, he calls it both ways which I like. He takes a bit of getting used too I suppose.
That guy made me long for Doug Woog.
I was just commenting last night after the game that it's amazing they're only giving up 2 or 3 goals a game considering how much time they spend on the kill.
So far the Seawolves have proven to be "decent", which is a step up from the "lousy" grade of the past 3 seasons. The frustrating thing is that I think they could move up another peg or two to "good" or maybe even "great" if they could stay out of the box.
On a positive note though, a road split against a tough team isn't bad.
Exactly. A split on the road is postive, positive, positive. Especially against a storied franchise and 12,000 fanatics and a baker's dozen NHL picks. Great experience for the Sea Dogs. Penalties are now the name of the game everywhere as the new NHL trickles down. (Me, I liked the old way. The game at least had flow.) Anyway, this group of Sea Wolves have proved they can play with anybody. Last night's game could have gone either way.
Penalties are the price of admission, the wolves just to need to be more aggressive on the power play, shell these goalies....a lot of goals are scored when traffic in front of the tender blocks his view....
nookskiller, UAA is doing a much better job of screening goalies and crashing the net. They have some guys who like to camp out in front of the crease, and I haven't seen that kind of aggressive play since Brush was the coach. (But the same goes with the penalties, Brush's team was a rumble tumble one with a ton of penalty minutes).
great weekend 4 the boys, WALSKY better watch out this weekend
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