First off, I didn’t get to watch Friday night’s game; I was deer hunting north of Devils Lake, ND. I did listen to the game and it sounded like UND junior goalie Clarke Saunders was on his game and was very good. Stick tap to Clarke Saunders.
In fact, from what I saw from Saturday’s game, Clarke Saunders wasn’t the problem this weekend, if anything Saturday’s game could have been uglier if it wasn’t for Saunders great play in goal.
I once had an assistant football coach at Upper Iowa tell us, “We win as a team and we lose as a team.”
Obviously, hockey is a team game and there’s a lot of constructive criticism to go around for Saturday’s night’s game. Defensemen missed assignments; forwards didn’t always get back to help in all cases. Forwards and defensemen missed defensive assignments and the Huskies forwards got behind the UND defense a few times.
Also, the five minute major to Jordan Schmaltz hurt and threw UND out of rhythm, because they had to play with five defenseman the rest of the way. I also don’t have a problem with that call per see. You can’t make that hit along the boards, especially if all you see is numbers from the players back.
There is no reason to panic just yet – we have seen this act before.
Seriously, UND wasn’t going to go 42-0-0 and Saint Cloud State is a good hockey team and should win a few games in the NCAA tourney this season.
I believe that we need to give credit where credit is due; the Huskies are going to win a lot of hockey games this season – they’re a veteran team and they have a lot of skill through the forward lines – other teams will have trouble with the Huskies speed through the neutral zone as well.
When it’s all said and done this weekend’s series was an even 5-5 tie. Both teams scored five goals and pretty much played to a draw. Like coach Hakstol said, the National Hockey Center is a momentum building and UND wasn’t able to stop the momentum on Saturday night.
Saturday, I was taking the hide off of my deer and cut my hand and ended up in the Cando, ND emergency room getting three stiches so I only heard the first period. Redwing77 kept me abreast of the situation and s/t to him as well. Also, thanks to Dan for doing the game summaries both Friday and Saturday night.
After my emergency room visit, I was able to hear the postgame comments with Tim Hennessy and head coach Dave Hakstol and I can tell you that the head coach was fired up and it was a passionate conversation.
When I returned home from my hunting trip last night, I watched the Saturday game that I had DVRed from NESN.
Just of the record, I don’t think that the NESN feed was all that good either. I am not trying to slam anyone I am just saying it’s not as good as it could be. That being said, I am glad we were able to be lucky enough to see a UND away game on the television.
I can tell you that UND had two power play opportunities all weekend long (1/2) to SCSU’s seven power play opportunities (1/7).
The diving call against Danny Kristo was absolutely brutal; if I get time, I will put it up on YouTube tonight. I can see why the head coach is upset with the call. The part I find funny is even the announcers in the television booth thought the call was a joke as well.
This morning, I have been reading some of the comments on the Live Blog from Saturday’s game and I must admit some of the comments were funny and predictable. I also understand how they feel as well, I am kind of tired of watching them split series they should have won during the first half of the season and make a run in the second half. None-the-less, UND is traditionally a second half team and has had a very tough schedule to date.
They split two weekend series against two very good teams that will be around when the final 16 teams are announced.
I have seen some things from this season’s squad that leads me to believe that they will be able to skate with the speed teams in the NCAA tourney. This team is built for speed and is very talented through the forward lines and defense and is also very fast. I think this team has only scratched the surface for what they will accomplish this season.
There are also talented players that are sitting in the stands on game night that might be playing on the third and fourth lines of other teams.
My word of advice is to step off of the ledge, UND is going to be fine this season. Let’s not start the fire coach Hakstol just yet. To quote a favorite talk show host of mine, “let not your hearts be troubled.”
In my opinion, this is one of the faster UND teams that I have seen in a very long time. If Michael Parks can get healthy soon, I believe the Mark MacMilian, Carter Rowney and Michael Parks could score a lot of goals. I thought last season they played like a pack of hungry dogs.
During the exhibition game, before Parks was hurt that line was clicking like they had during last season’s run.
Lastly, I posted a few posts on the goal that wasn’t, but should have been. In my mind I can tell you that was a goal, however, I don’t know if that would have mattered. It might have. Like some have said you get to 2-0 in the NHC which is a momentum building you might be able to quite the building and get to three. Who knows?
Today is a new day… The sun came up, figuratively anyways.
