Showing posts with label Danielle Butters. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Danielle Butters. Show all posts

Saturday, October 06, 2012

UND Women’s Hockey the day after

From Sioux Sports this morning on the UND Women’s Hockey team losing a two goal lead and the game against the MSUM Mavericks… @pucknut9 on last night’s loss, “looks like the women have been reading too many headlines as they lose 3-2 to MSU.” Mea Culpa.  
Also, another good point from @pucknut9 “hell of a comeback for sure, I mean give credit where credit is due instead of some of these posters blaming the refs.”
Good words of advice from a guy that I have a lot of respect for – winners will look answers and not excuses… In this case the UND women will regroup and make the proper adjustments and you didn't hear any excuses last night for their performance.
I am not going to kid anyone – I have to admit that I thought the officiating was questionable at times myself, someone from my twitter account might have tweeted something along those lines as well last night.
But I digress.
I don’t think the officiating is the reason the UND women lost the game last night… I blame a plethora of things… I saw young players try to force pucks in instances where later in the season they wouldn’t make that pass. There also many opportunities in the blue paint and in the slot that weren’t capitalized on.
When the refs are calling the game tight last night – what’s new?  It’s the player’s responsibility to make adjustments to how the game is called – that didn’t happened last night.
Also, the MSUM defenders were relentless and this was actually the first time that I have ever seen the “trap” played at a women’s game – the Mavericks were miserable team to play against.
Let’s give credit where credit is due the Mavericks got into the shooting zones – pressured the defenseman and their goaltender Danielle Butters was very good and made the big saves and stopping 18 out of 20 shots and she was big late in the game when she had to be… Luck was also on her side and one of the twins had her beat glove side late in the game only to see it puck clank off of the iron.
I can tell you based on the head coaches’ body language and by his comments last night during the postgame conference that Brian Idalski was “less” than pleased about his team’s play during their game.
“I thought we were a little sloppy and I thought we were way too cute and down the stretch we made some poor decision defensively that ending up costing us pretty big,”
I don’t think that any of us are worried though because Brian Idalski is a good hockey coach and he will make adjustments and I expect the team to be much better this afternoon against the Mavericks.
There were some positive points to take out of last night’s game.
Freshman forward Becca Kohler from St. Thomas Ontario is going to be a big time forward and she showed glimpses of greatness.
Freshman goalie Shelby Amsley-Benzie was very good in her debut and I predict that we will see her again between the pipes very soon.
Freshman Leah Jensen didn’t look out of place and seemed to do well in the pressure position playing on the wing with Jocelyne and Monique Lamoureux.