Swept by the Gophers. What could be worse.
Last night the Sioux played very well against the Gophers until there was only six minutes left in the game.
At that time the Sioux were ahead of the Gophers two to one on goals by Brock Nelson and Rocco Grimaldi.
At that time Nick Larson scored a goal and then the impressive Freshman Kyle Rau scored the game winner with less than a minute to go.
At first it looked to me that Rau's goal showed have been disallowed because of a handpass but going back on the DVR convinced me that the official made the right call.
That's not to say that the officials had a good game. They were wildly inconsistent both ways. I don't think the players know what's going to be called from one shift to the next.
At this point of the season the Sioux are tied for 10th in the WCHA with a singe victory. I'm sure the coaching staff is going to be working hard on a number of things.
By and large I've been happy with most of the effort by the Sioux. They've stayed in in nearly every game. Unfortunately this team seems to have a let down late in the third period. Last night it cost us the game, where in most of the other games we've lost we've just not been able to challenge the game late.
Last night was the first game that we were really outshot. Aaron Dell stopped 39 of 42 shots. In contrast Kent Paterson for the Gophers only stopped 17 of the 19 shots against him.
The other problem that the coaching staff is going to have to address is getting our scoring up. With the losses from last year we knew it would take some doing to get our scoring up, we lost five our or top six scorers. I've not looked it up, but it's pretty clear that those were Frattin, Malone, Trupp, Gregoire and Hexstal.
Getting Grimaldi in the lineup is going to help a lot. He's a dynamic player and his goal last night was a beaut. Aside from that I think we're going to have to get some players in close, too many of our shots are coming from the outside.
The season is just getting started and I still think we'll be a force in March and April, but we've got some growing to do.
Finally I want to commend the Gophers for getting their mojo back.
