DU Series Preview: Sociopathy, Clothes and Hockey

I was going to pass on writing today (even though I'd committed to it) due to a rhinovirus raging through my system.  I haven't had an actual cold for quite some time.  It's funny that when you're well you can't really imagine the misery of being ill and conversely, when you're ill it's difficult to remember what it felt like to be well.  On Monday I felt fine.  Yesterday, I had an early indicator when my right sinus seemed a bit off from nominal.  Note here that the nominal state of my sinuses is relatively not good.  But about 5am this morning I awoke to the full blown nastiness.

Feeling like I do, doesn't make it easy to compose my already somewhat manic ideas with regard to writing about this weekend's series.  So it's either stream of conciousness or nothing I'm afraid.  I'll try to stay away from booger talk.

Doesn't George Gwozdecky come off as really smug on the bench?  He stands there with his arms crossed 90 percent of the time.  I'm pretty sure his body language is an attempt to tell the world that they can't figure him out.  In general, the arm crossing is considered a defensive gesture.  So does that mean he's a passive/aggressive type personality?  Some of his occassional antics would support that.  The whole walking across the ice shenanigans versus UND last year would definitely fit in that category.  No wonder Brett Hextall tried to get into his head by saying whatever he said to George when skating past the bench.  His smirking, smug, defensive posture invites it.  I'm not quite sure that I would be able to refrain from some directed smartassery if I were an opposition player.

(MTU Super Fan MeanEgirl Mocks George)

Another thing that always surprises me is when folks actually compliment George on his attire.  Last week during the Denver Cup he had on a dark grey pinstripe suit with a shirt that had broad vertical blue stripes and a darker blue tie that appeared to have some sort of criss-crossed stripes.  It was "not right".  I hear his wife dresses him.  Sorry, to say that in my less than humble opinion Mrs. G fails more often than she hits the mark.  The pink shirts and pink ties are just a bit flamboyant for a hockey coach.  Don Cherry coached in Denver many many years ago ... perhaps she's trying to fill that void?

George seems to be big on psychology.  There isn't much that comes out of his mouth that comes across as anything but very measured and/or manipulative.  Whether it's about injuries, refereeing or performance he always seems to be trying to send some indirect message to someone.  That aligns pretty nicely with the whole arm-crossing "I'm an enigma" vibe he's trying to cultivate.  I have little doubt that he'd say just about anything that suited his purpose.  In the real world don't we call those sorts of people sociopaths?  If he visits your house I'd recommend a before and after inventory of your silverware.

So what about hockey?  Do I have any brilliant insights?  I generally like when the Seawolves go to play on a smaller rink.  So this weekend, I think the ice size should suit their style well.  Looking back at both of the DU games up here earlier in the season tells me that the Seawolves shouldn't have too many problems overall in terms of skating with the Pios.

All the usual other things apply this weekend.  The team that has more success on the power play is likely the team to come out on top of the scoreboard.  Denver's power play isn't a big mystery.  Like seemingly every team in the WCHA they run the NHL umbrella and look for the big first timer from up top.  Countering it requires good positioning and committment to shot blocking.  Weircioch is their go to guy in that situation.  Remember last year when he broke like three sticks in a row on one of their late power plays?  That dysfunction pretty much secured the win for UAA.

UAA has used a couple of different configurations on the power play going both with the umbrella style at times and a more classic spread.  Neither has been particularly successful but they really need to find the right mix of personnel and style this weekend.  I like seeing three guys down low with two up on the points but often that means fewer chances from up high.  Let's not forget that a bunch of our defenseman are left handed.  So making that work requires consideration.

There is come containment to be accomplished when the teams are 5 on 5.  Rakhshani and Ruegsegger in particular are dynamic enough to turn not much into a scoring chance.  Awareness of those two guys is going to be important.  It's always difficult for a visiting coach to get the matchups he wants on the ice but this weekend Dave Shyiak needs to concentrate on that.  This isn't to say that DU isn't dangerous throughout their lineup.  They mostly are, however ... if you keep Rakhshani and Ruegsegger off the board then your giving yourself more of a chance to come out on top. 

Goaltending is obviously going to be an important factor this weekend.  There is every reason to expect Cheverie to continue to play well since he's really shown excellent consistency.  He's never been a showy goaltender and always gets excellent rebound support.  He doesn't seem to be particularly vulnerable but I would classify him as being supremely talented either.  The Seawolves will need to match that sort of support for either Jonny O or Bryce.  No matter how good a goaltender is they can't often win a tightly played game on their own.  UAA must limit DU's shot numbers.  Keep DU under 25 shots for the game and I'd expect the Seawolves will set themselves up for an upset.

I imagine we'll see Brad Gorham in his first action this weekend.  Whether that will be as a forward or on defense I'm not sure.  If he plays D then Curtis Leinweber could focus on forward.  If he gets his chance at forward then who sits?  Will Ken Selby make the trip?  I sure hope so.  I really want to see him get lots of action here in the last half of his senior year.  Last I heard Josh Lunden and Luka Vidmar won't be ready for this weekend.  Josh is out with a shoulder and Luka has a dinged knee.

I'm guessing that on Friday night the Seawolves will have to get their feet wet in the first period before coming up to speed after the long break.  If that's the case, then it could be a matter of just surviving that first period.  Hopefully, whatever rust there is disappears relatively quickly.  This weekend is the beginning of the end for our seniors.  I hope they treasure it and make the most of it.

How Good Are The Pioneers?

They're ranked #2 in the country in pretty much every poll in the country.  The computer agrees.  I'm all about being quite contrary even though my name isn't Mary Mary.  But in this case, arguing that the Pios aren't deserving of the ranking/poll status would be a bit of folly.  They're 13-5-2 overall right?  They have beaten some pretty decent teams.  Their early season splits with Vermont and Ohio State are probably the ugliest mark's on their record but both of those losses came with Adam Murray in the crease.

Their only other three losses came at the hands of UAA, SCSU and UMD.  They took 3 points from rival Colorado College in a home and home series.  They got three points against Mankato in Denver.  They swept the Gophers at the Mariucci.  They swept North Dakota at the Magness.  They crushed UNO this past weekend and managed a come from behind win versus Boston College in the Denver Cup championship game.  All in all, they've won the games they were supposed to win, especially when their starting goaltender was healthy.

This coming weekend they appear to be fully healthy.  Patrick Weircioch's on-again/off-again reported knee injury appears to be permanently off.  The one player they have on the U.S. Junior team will almost certainly play this coming weekend.

In national statistics, the Pioneers don't bowl me over but then again they are nothing at which to sneeze.  They certainly have some nice numbers but in a relative sense so do any number of other top 10 or 15 teams.  Drilling down to league stats tells a similar story.  They're taking the fewest penalties in the league and their penalty kill is #1 as well.  But in the other team categories they're consistently in the middle of the league.

The best looking individual stat is goaltender Marc Cheverie's numbers.  He leads the WCHA at .931 save percentage.  He's #1 in goals against at 2.04.  And his .821 winning percentage is also the highest in the WCHA.  On the offensive side, Rhett Rakhshani leads the league in goals scored.  He's tied for 2nd in overall points and teammate Tyler Ruegsegger is currently 4th in overall points.  Joe Colborne is tied with the 7th most points in the league.

So ... yeah.  The Pioneers are pretty good.  But they're not dominatingly good by any stretch of the imagination.

In a straight up comparison of statistics between UAA and DU, the Seawolves falter.  The only reasonably decent comparison is Penalty Kill numbers.  DU is at 87% and UAA is at a respectable 83.5%.  I say it's a respectable number in comparison because UAA has taken an average of 4 more penalties per game than DU.  If the games were played on the statistics table then UAA wouldn't have much of a chance this weekend.  Thankfully though, the games are being contested on the ice.

I'll have some analysis tomorrow as to what types of tactics the Seawolves can employ this weekend to give themselves the best chance to win.  The team really needs to come out strong here in the 2nd half in order to build toward something good at the end of the regular season and into the playoffs. 

Sunday Potpourri: New Year, Same Old Me

Time to take a deep breath and get ready.  The 2nd half of the season is finally upon us.  The Seawolves last game was around two-million four-hundred-ninety-eight thousand and four-hundred seconds ago.  Ok ... forty-one thousand six-hundred and forty minutes ago.  Still too big?  Six hundred and ninety four hours ago?  All right then ... almost a month; except if the month was February.  You're getting the drift I'm sure.

That's about a week longer than the longest breaks for most other teams.  It's a couple of weeks more than the breaks for a whole lotta teams.  Since the Seawolves last played, their next opponent has played 4 games.  Yesterday's alumni game was the one chance to shake off any holiday rink rust for the Seawolves.  I was glad for the break I took from writing the blog as frequently as I usually do.  But honestly, I've got a little bit of rust on me too.  So to set a good example, I'll put together a helluva good set of previews this week prior to the series.  Okays?

_________________________

Most years I don't watch a bunch of the World Juniors tourney.  It's usually not that compelling I guess.  But for whatever reason (maybe because I had the time from not writing here), I've caught a number of the games this time around.  They're easily available on various streaming sites so I've plonked my butt down right here and watched.

If you didn't see it, the Canada v. U.S. game a couple of days ago was tremendous.  There was a lot of hype and frankly a lot of Canadians figured they're squad would walk over the U.S.  I didn't really know if that would be the case or not but I was (I suppose) leaning a bit toward believing that.  But it sure didn't turn out that way.  The U.S. team really took it to the Canucks, out-skating them for most of the game.  It was really a "will can beat skill" sort of game until the last 5 or 6 minutes. 

Then Dean Blais kept throwing the same two lines out until they had no legs and the American's were toast.  I saw lots of people on the internet throwing around various reasons for the U.S. loss ... let's be clear here ... it was actually a tie game and the U.S. lost the shootout, but they were ahead 4-2 until late in game. It was one of those games where a loss really feels like a tie; in any case, I saw nobody blaming Dean Blais for overplaying his top lines.  Man, everyone thinks that cat is some sort of genius coach?  He's a genius recruiter (cough cough liar) no doubt.  But I'm not impressed with that coaching effort.  No wonder he couldn't hack it in the NHL.

Not that I care that much.  There's definitely a couple of future prima-donnas on the U.S. team that I don't like anyway.  But still, it was a pretty entertaining hockey game.  The U.S. versus Sweden semi-final is on in a few minutes.  So I'll be giving that a look hoping that the U.S. can manage to get a rematch with those darn Canucks (who btw ... also have a couple of prima-donnas).

_________________________

It's Sunday.  So that means everything here isn't hockey.  There are indeed more important things than hockey.  Here's one of them.  Don't like it?  Then skip to the next section.

I love documentaries.  But there are good ones, bad ones and completely whacked ones available on the internet.  This is one of the good ones.  Straightforward information here provided without hyperbole.  Take the hour and a half and watch it.  You'll learn a couple of things that you won't in a history book or on the TV news.

I lost a long term friendship over the inability of a friend to even try to understand one of the main points of this film.  You may watch this and disagree with my viewpoints and that's fine as long as you've used some tiny measure of open-mindedness while watching it.  Just watch it and decide for yourself.  Or not I guess.

_________________________

Well that's it for today.  Happy New Year to everyone (forgot to say that yesterday).  I'll have the first DU preview on Tuesday at the latest and will follow that up with other stuff.  I expect both games to be on the tube this weekend.  I'll be hosting chat's both nights.

Glencross All-Time NHL Seawolves Goal Scorer

Tonight Curtis Glencross became the all-time leading Seawolves goal scorer in the NHL.  With 3 goals in the last 2 games Curtis surpassed Mike Peluso's 38 career goals and now has 39 in 183 total games.  Big Mike still holds the all-time point total with 90 points in 458 games but with 85 to this point, Curtis isn't far behind.

It's unlikely that he will ever approach Big Mike's penalty minute total of 1951.  Currently, Curtis sits at a measely 138.  Congratulations to Curtis on this relatively minor milestone.  It probably will go unnoticed by both he and Big Mike but I noticed and think it's worth a post.

Anyhow ... here's the highlights from tonights game.  Curtis' first goal to tie the record is a sweet low first-timer on the power play and his 2nd is an empty netter.  And not that Glencross ever would be but ... don't get cocky kid; Big Mike's name is on The Cup (see above).

________________________

In other Alumni news, the current Seawolves beat the old Seawolves tonight at the Wells Fargo Sportscenter 7 - 3.  Kevin Clark had a hat trick for the youngsters and Tyler Currier nabbed 2 goals playing with the old guys.

It was a pretty enjoyable game to watch but I have to say, the players on both teams really looked like they had a great time.  There were many wide toothy grins and lots of friendly cajoling following the game.  The highlight of the game (aside from 2 of Clarkies really really sweet goals) was a clean breakaway for Jeremy Smith from his own blueline.  Dusan Sidor stepped out and challenged him by cutting down the angle and unfortunately for Jeremy he ripped the puck wide.  The attempt though elicited a real nice board pounding from his alumni teammates.

A huge thanks should be given to the alums for their efforts.  There were clearly some wore out legs in the 3rd period but the pace of the game and the effort they gave should go a bit towards getting the rink rust off the Seawolves before heading to DU next weekend.  Congrats all around to the UAA folks that put this nice event together.

And if you're really desparate for a laugh, between the 1st and 2nd periods tonight Kurt Haider forced me to do a quick interview for broadcast next weekend between periods of the DU series.  I asked Kurt to send me a copy of the audio file and I'll post it here following it's airing.  Hey, it's my radio debut!