A Look Back Before Going Forward

As is the case every week in the WCHA, (do I really have to say this?) the upcoming series against Michigan Tech is the most important series so far this season for UAA.  But before I get to profiling MTU and generally deriding the city of Houghton, I thought I'd review some things from the DU series that I passed over with all the other less relevant stuff that we've been talking about.

Do I have to say that the Seawolves played two of their best games of the season this past weekend?  Allow me here to give the coaching staff full credit.  Coach Shyiak decided (no doubt against his preferences) to go with a full-on neutral zone trapping scheme against the much vaunted DU offense.  The Seawolves have excellent foot speed and the smaller ice surface at Magness made Dave's choice an excellent one.

Like all teams in the WCHA (that's right ... ALL teams), the Seawolves have employed trapping situationaly this year.  On a couple of occasions UAA has been victimized by other teams trapping them.  If you watched the Minnesota series earlier this season you would have heard their TV analysts going on and on about UAA trapping them.  I'm here to tell you they were wrong.  The Seawolves that weekend played a defensive oriented game.  But it didn't include much if any trapping.  When the DU announcers talked about it this weekend they were exactly right.  It was the first time this season that the Seawolves have used the strategy exclusively.

The one thing that often comes from a good neutral zone trap that we didn't see much of against DU are big turnovers and opportunities for conversion.  While UAA did jump on several chances they weren't as frequent as you might otherwise expect.  When executed well by players with talent, the trap can often lead to blowout wins.  I'll talk about this more in previewing the MTU series but I'm expecting the exact same gameplan from UAA this weekend.  Against a team that isn't DU (err .. MTU), it just might lead to something nice to look at on the scoreboard.

After coaching decisions, the next most important aspect that led to good UAA play this weekend was very consistent goaltending from Jon Olthuis.  There was one error in his play over 125 minutes of hockey.  He stopped 61 shots and let in 4 goals for a .938 save percentage on the weekend and a 2.0 goals against average.  Beyond those numbers though, Jonny O was quite simply a rock.  He was nearly always squared up to shooters.  He stepped up to cut off angles.  He didn't give up juicy rebounds.  With all that praise though, I have no doubt Olthuis would heap kudos on the guys in front of him.

If you watched the World Junior championships then you should have a good understanding of how committed shot blocking can be the difference in a big game.  As talented as the U.S. squad was they would not have advanced and won a gold medal without blocking a lot of shots.  The Canadian team was loaded with shooters.  The Seawolves matched that effort this weekend against DU.  Go count the bruises on Jade Portwood or Nick Haddad if you have any doubt; they both stood out for their backchecking efforts in my mind, which isn't to say that more than a few other Seawolf players aren't walking around with some nice hematoma.  At even strength and especially on the penalty kill the team was monster good denying shot chances.

One of my top players of the weekend would also include both games from Craig Parkinson.  Craig won most of his faceoff's this weekend as usual but, his defensive play both nights warrants praise.  Craig isn't shy about the physical game even though he isn't huge.  It's most usually well-evidenced in the opposing team's zone though.  But this weekend, he hit more people on the UAA side of center ice.  He led a really down and dirty effort on a line with Portwood and Crowell.  I thought all three guys were consistently difficult to play against in all three zones on both nights.

I think Daniel Naslund played two of his better games of the season.  He won 6 of his 8 faceoffs on Saturday night.  I didn't see the breakdown for the Friday night game but a similar win percentage wouldn't surprise me.  Alex Gellert also won 6 of his 8 faceoffs on Saturday night.  It's not worth doing, but if you took a look through both chats this weekend, I bet I said something about "winning faceoffs" frequently.  That will be a good thing for the team if it continues.  Daniel continues to impress me when he is a stick length's distance away from any puck.  Great eye-hand coordination and the strength to keep his stick on the puck cannot be underestimated.

There were oppotunities aplenty for Mickey Spencer this weekend.  Had he converted on all his opportunities on the weekend we'd be talking about rookie of the week honors.  That's how close Spencer was to having a monster goal scoring weekend.  I'm thinking he quite easily could have bagged 4 goals this weekend.  Well, close doesn't count I guess, but definitely worth a mention here.  Maybe Mickey is a "gripping the stick too tightly" candidate?  Wasn't it one of his shots that hit a pipe glanced off the back of Cheverie's leg and then hit the other post? Edit: Nope ... it was Alex Gellert ..

Nick Haddad has clearly established himself as UAA's best penalty killer.  He had another strong performance in that role this weekend.  Bad news for the other team's Power Play percentage if Nick is on the ice and he gets the puck moving the other way.  When a guy can go out and kill off 20-30 seconds of a power play in the other team's zone by himself, you've gotta love him.

Kevin Clark was everything this weekend that I'd want him to be.  He was gritty, opportunistic, offensively dynamic and hard to play against.  He's a big reason that every DU player and fan officially hates the Seawolves today.  Most of all what I like about Kevin is that when he is fully engaged he is a difference maker.  As a senior Kevin looks to me to pretty much be feeling his oats these days.  Great, I hope that's the case.  I'd like to see him go out with a great 2nd half in his last season here.  He fully "made" Nick Haddad's goal to tie the Saturday game.

I really like seeing the Seawolves bounce back quickly from a goal. The Saturday night Haddad goal came just 80 seconds after DU took a 2-1 lead in the 3rd period.  That was really stress reducing for me.  And on Friday after DU had scored the first goal, the guys just continued to work hard and Curtis Leinweber manufactured a game tying goal less than 6 minutes later.

One very big thing left unmentioned here to this point is the outstanding play from the blueliners this weekend.  On Saturday night, guess which strategy Gwoz opened the game playing?  If you guessed neutral zone trap then you win a cigar.  Less than halfway through the period though, George returned to conventional forechecking.  Why?  Because UAA's solid transitions were invalidating his neutral zone trap.

Nils Backstrom continued his excellent defensive play.  Kane Lafranchise replaced Drew Darwitz from Friday to Saturday and both were excellent in their own zones.  Trevor Hunt's play was exceptional again this weekend.  He caught and stripped the puck from Patrick Wiercioch on a breakaway that had goal written all over it.  His smarts carrying the puck often make a difference.  Lee Baldwin was every bit as relevant as the rest of the defenders this weekend.  All in all, it was a great effort from all 7 guys.

But I can't mention defensemen without getting giddy about Brad Gorham's debut.  Brad is more than I hoped he'd be.  I really had no sense of what sort of game he'd bring to the ice.  After this weekend, I'm thrilled to have him for the 2nd half.  He's definitely going to skate a regular shift and by the end of the season it wouldn't surprise me if he was playing loads of minutes.  I thought he was outstanding whether he was keeping the puck in DU's zone or denying them entry to ours with a solid hit or perfect poke check.

Was it just me or do you see guys poke that many checks successfully ever?  Maybe it was a fluke but I remember thinking that.  He sure looked like he has a lot of potential to be a helluva nice addition.  Don't expect Curtis Leinweber to return to the blueline if Brad continues to play as he did this weekend.  Curtis' offensive skills may flourish a bit as he settles in up front as a result.  So am I glad Gorham's long span in NCAA transfer sit-out-land is over?  Oh yeah ...

And if you didn't already notice that I really had no problem with any post game events.  I didn't.  I think they guys were standing up for themselves.  There was a lot of passion from both teams over the last 10 minutes of that game.  And I was happy to see the guys I cheer for send a bit of a message when the other team decided they couldn't win graciously.

What did I miss?