Wildcats Are Made To Order

This weekend's series in Marquette is the perfect fan test for the Seawolves at the perfect time. They've only won a single game since the beginning of December 2014. And they're still tied for 4th place. What I mean by fan test is that you and I have a chance to substantially better judge our guys by the results. 

Here's the thing; their schedule was pretty nice for them in the first half. They beat Wisconsin twice in Marquette and then swept Lake State early in Sault St. Marie. Next up they got UAH (another brand new coach) in Marquette and they got 3 points. Then they had a split with Ferris (again at Marquette) before coming up here and splitting with us and UA_. All of those were pretty good results for them but none of them make the Wildcats a good team by any means and we've seen that since Thanksgiving (they did take 3 points from MTU 3 weeks ago).

And here's the next thing; the Seawolves sure don't much in the way of results to hang their hats on. We beat Fairbanks. At least NMU beat Ferris once out of two games; we lost to them 4 times. 

So I really think that on paper there isn't much difference in these teams despite the records. The special teams stats are close enough to make it a push. Goals for and goals against are as well though you have to give a little in Northern's favor on the goals against. And both team's #1 goaltenders are lights out good.

The Wildcats will be ready to play. There's been some turmoil with Walt Kyle and that's shaken up the Athletic Department down there. But Kyle's back in place after a short suspension. That team will be motivated to prove themselves I think.

At this point in the season the Seawolves have had about a zillion chances to learn. Failure does that. But last weekends really solid play was a perfect template for what I think could very well be two wins in Marquette. Just do what was done last weekend and that will happen. Fairbanks is a much better offensive team than NMU.  

Beat them twice and we can all reasonably hope for some sort of run down the stretch to improve our ugly 10 place standing (I know we have games in hand). A split will maintain some hope in our hearts for a positive stretch run but keep us skeptical at the same time. Lose twice and ... let's just not even go there.