Boy is this Gopher team struggling.  This may be one of the lousiest
stretches of hockey I've seen in the ten years I've been up here.  I'm
not taking anything away from the Huskies, but Minnesota spent the first
period unable to complete even the simplest passes.  I'm worried.
 
Pregame
 
Erik Rasmussen was suspended for two games by the University.  It was
stated during the broadcast that it was for improperly dropping and
adding classes this last week.  I have no ideas what this means.
Granted, I remember registration procedures around here as being a mess,
but this shouldn't happen.  There are only two explanations I can come
up with.  The first is that this is something incredibly nit-picky and
if we knew the whole story, we'd be hooting about silly restrictions.
Unfortunately, I think the more likely explanation is that this is an
indication that Rasmussen isn't very serious about school and we won't
see him back next year.  I know that this is blatant, uninformed
rumor-mongering.  But I can't think of any other way that you end up
suspended for two games over drop/add procedures.
 
First Period
 
Yecch.  That the Gophers were outshot 15-3 doesn't begin to describe the
extent to which St. Cloud outplayed them.  This isn't like the losing
stretch late last season where things just didn't seem to be going right
and the team pressed too hard.  This team is not all on the same page of
the playbook.  It really started back during the Mariucci Classic.  Back
then, I just thought that the problem was missing people at the World
Juniors.  They managed to win those games, but are now looking just as
bad and losing.
 
I'm going to once again criticize the officials.  Don't be fooled by the
box score showing lots of power plays; Mark Thomas didn't call [log in to unmask]
Interference was the norm.  In one case, a player beat his man, but had
his stick ripped from his hands before he could get to the puck.  I'm
saying which team he was on, because it doesn't matter.  The lack of
calls was even handed.  It didn't help the Gophs, but that's because
they didn't take advantage of the situation as well.  The Huskies, Josh
DeWolf in particular, sized up the situation and committed any
infraction they could think of secure in the knowledge that it probably
wouldn't be called.  More power to them; you've got to play the game
that's called.  Still, it's disgusting to watch a ref discard the
rulebook like that.
 
Second Period
 
Minnesota dominated, but St. Cloud scored twice in the last 3 minutes to
end the period up 4-1.  The key came when Minnesota went on a two-man
advantage halfway through the period.  The Huskies put on wonderful
penalty kill, but Minnesota didn't force the issue.  The whole power
play seemed designed to get the puck on the left wing and then pass it
through the slot to a man standing at the other side of the net.  Brian
Leitza made some nice saves, but I was yelling at the TV for the Gophers
to just bang away from the top of the slot with someone in front.  The
whole thing seemed to me to be way too complicated.  With Crowley's
niftiness and Bill Kohn's slapshot back on the point, they ought to be
simplifying a 5-3.
 
Once the Gophs failed to score on that power play, I pretty much had the
game written off.  They threatened a few more times, both before and
after SCSU's third goal, but nothing really changed.
 
Third Period
 
Largely irrelevant.  St. Cloud played out the string without letting
Minnesota get anything going.  Reg Berg scored late and the end got a
bit surly.  Really nothing much else to note.
 
Retrospective
 
St. Cloud is going places.  Expect to see them in the NCAAs this year
for the first time since the automatic berth for an independent was
dropped.  They'll desrve it, too.
 
The Gophers on the other hand, have a lot of work to do.  Hopefully,
Rasmussen will come back next week breathing the kind of fire he was
before the trip to Switzerland.  I think they miss Brian LaFleur a lot;
Crowley certainly hasn't been the same without him.  They need to get it
turned around soon, though.  The rest of this league is too good to go
into a long funk.
 
J. Michael Neal
 
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