Seawolves 6 - MTU 2

On the strength of two empty net goals in the last two minutes the Seawolves appeared to put a beating on the MTU Huskies.  I say appeared purposely.  A score of 4-2 is a more accurate reflection of how competitive the game actually was.  By no means did UAA run away with this game. 

The Seawolves started off fairly strong in the first 5 minutes getting most of the play while fending off at least one good chance from the Huskies.  But 5:33 in and Tommy Grant finished a play that anyone reading this could have knocked in.  Kevin Clark fired a nice shot in which took a huge rebound wide right to a streaking Grant who simply had to put it into a gaping net.  Nice to see Tommy get a tally as he has been leading the team regularly in number of shots taken without getting too many actual goals.

Just 13 seconds later Jade Portwood tallied his first of two goals on the night.  Ken Selby saw his first action in quite some time (YEAH!!!) and picked up an assist on the Portwood goal.  At this point (and for a couple of minutes following) the Seawolves looked like they would really pour it on the Huskies.  Overall, they fired 17 shots in the first period but the Huskies wouldn't say die and it was my honest impression that the Seawolves were floating a bit.  So at 10:16 with the Seawolves on a power play a puck bobble at the MTU blueline resulted in a short-handed breakaway from Brett Olsen who was patient and managed to shove it past Jonny O after a couple of dekes.

The Seawolves had lots of territorial advantage in the rest of the period but not many of those 17 shots were high quality.  A checking from behind penalty gave the Seawolves a 5 minute power play but 3 minutes and twenty-three seconds in Jonny O fired a cleared puck toward the UAA bench while the Seawolves were changing power play units and it hit a player in the middle of a change for a too many men on the ice penalty.

I wasn't thrilled with the 1st period.  I thought there were too many mistakes and not very much inspired play.  I don't want to say the guys were cruising but I can't help myself because it sure looked that way.

The 2nd period the team came out with a bit more fire.  Mitch Bruijsten scored his first collegiate goal at 4:40 and Sean Wiles picked up a shortie at 10:39 on a bit of a flukey goal.  It was hard to see on the web stream but apparently it took a weird bounce off the goaltender.  Shots in the 2nd period were nearly even at 9-8 in favor of the Seawolves.

The third period was replete with poor play from the Seawolves that was created by some inspired hard play from the Huskies.  More than a few times UAA was clearly on their heels and/or running around in their own zone.  The good effort from MTU resulted in a power play goal at 5:17 and just like that it was a hockey game again.  The Huskies fired 15 shots on Jonny O in the period (seemingly about 14 of them coming after they notched their 2nd goal) and he had to be sharp on more than a couple of them to maintain the 2 goal lead.  On one sequence, an MTU player had about 5 chances to knock the puck into the net.  Jonny was scrambling but beaten and I have no idea how they didn't score.  I'd thank the puck gods if I thought they gave a shit about UAA.

The Seawolves managed to settle down and play some better hockey as the period progressed.  But the lead really continued to be tenuous from what I saw.  There was enough positive play going forward starting with about 6 minutes left to give a fan some confidence though.  With about 2 minutes left in the game MTU coach Jamie Russell did what you'd expect.  He pulled his goaltender.  But just about 30 seconds in Jade Portwood won a battle along the boards in the neutral zone and walked in for an easy empty netter. 

So 5-2 right?  A three goal lead.  Game over?  Nope.  Russell sends his goalie back out and as soon as the Huskies put the puck into the UAA zone he pulls his goalie again.  WHAT THE HELL?  I'm not bitching here ... it gave Kevin Clark a goal.  But honestly coach.  Really.  What are you trying to accomplish by pulling your goalie after the first empty netter put you down by 3 goals?  Seriously. 

I'm really looking forward to someone in the press asking that question.  Did you really think you had a chance to score 3 goals in 45 seconds?  Sure ... some strange shit happens in hockey games sometimes but omg.  That just doesn't compute to me.  If my coach had done that I'm pretty sure I'd bitch about it.  I can only think he was trying to answer the critics that he says he is ignoring by somehow going above and beyond in an attempt to win a game?

In any case, that's the job of getting 4 points this weekend halfway done.  Even if in my eyes, it was sort of half-assed done.  The Seawolves better play a better game tomorrow night.  They fell far short of playing a good 60 minutes tonight but still got nicely rewarded.  I guess if I'm Jamie Russell, I'm really focusing with my team on how damned close they actually were to getting something out of this game.  Because honestly, they weren't damn far off getting a tie.

Here's a link the boxscore.  And here's a link to UAA's recap on their website.  And for now ... UAA is tied for 8th place in the league with Mankato at 11 points since the purple cows lost to UMD.