Sister kissing in St. Cloud, Sioux 3 - Huskies 3

They say a tie in hockey is like kissing your sister, while I won’t argue that fact because I have no idea, tonight’s tie between the UND Fighting Sioux and SCSU Huskies feels almost as bad as a loss. I feel like the Sioux let one point slip away tonight. It was a missed opportunity and luckily for the UND Fighting Sioux the teams below them in the standings lost as well. UMD, UNO and DU all lost tonight so their tie tonight against the SCSU Huskies isn’t as costly as it could have been.

I guess the vaunted Black Jerseys weren’t enough for the Fighting Sioux to break the “jinx” that is Friday nights in the National Hockey Center in Saint Cloud, Minnesota. They say that all streaks eventually must come to an end, this was a streak that I would have like to see ended tonight, the Sioux are something like 25-1-3 in the black jerseys since 2007.

Michigan Tech ended their streak of futility by winning their first hockey game since October 15th, 2010; Denver University was the unlucky recipient of that streaking ending win. I am glad that MTU has that elusive win out of the way, because I would hate to see UND be that team that loses to the Michigan Tech Huskies the last weekend of the regular season March 4th and 5th in Houghton, Michigan. That's why they play the games, there is no give mes in the WCHA. Sucks to be Denver and it couldn't have happened to a better team. Yeah I would love to see the morning skate in Denver tomorrow, I would be willing to bet that morning practice won't be fun tomorrow.

Back to clichés again, there are no mails in points in the WCHA and while the SCSU Huskies aren’t a very good hockey team this season, you still have to play hockey for 60 minutes to beat them, your team can’t a period of hockey off and still expect to win the hockey game. I thought the Sioux took a few shifts off tonight and were caught not moving their feet during the middle part of the game.

I thought the Sioux had trouble with turnovers as well and failed to get pucks deep at key times in the game, twice this lead to goals for the Huskies. The Fighting Sioux defense also left their goaltender in vulnerable situations at key times in the game, the power play goal that SCSU scored the Ben Hanowski was a perfect example of what not to do while killing a penalty, the Sioux defenders were standing and not clearing out the front net and Aaron Dell was screened on the shot, that can't happen in the post season. That's unacceptable the coaching staff will make adjustments.

The game started out well tonight, the Sioux raced to a 2-0 lead before they kind of fell off of the quick pace they set in the first period and stopped moving their feet. I thought that the Sioux had a really good chance at ending their unimpressive winless streak in the National Hockey Center as well, but it wasn’t to be tonight. My reason for optimism, was two fold, SCSU isn't having a very good season and that SCSU starting goalie Mike Lee had been dismal against the Fighting Sioux, Lee has an 0-4 career record against the Fighting Sioux and an unimpressive 5.32 goals-against average and a lackluster.863 save percentage against the UND Fighting Sioux. Tonight it wasn't meant to be I guess. On the flip side of that equation, the Fighting Sioux have an 8-1-1 record the last ten games at the National Hockey Center on Saturday nights.

Here are some stats for you on how valuable Matt Frattin is to the Fighting Sioux, according to the UND SID, UND's Matt Frattin has four goals and three assists in his last four games. He has scored 35 goals in 45 games dating back to last Feb. 13 at SCSU.

Goon's three stars of the game

1.) Matt Frattin (2g-0a-2pts)
2.) Corban Knight(0g-2a-2pts)
3.) Brett Hextall (1g-0a-1pts)

Box Score