[sorry its so long.... --david]
Friday, November 8, 1991:
Michigan Tech 0 1 1 0 - 2
Wisconsin 1 1 0 1 - 3
First Period
Scoring:
Wisconsin - Plante 1(Tucker, Balkovec), pp, 14:24
Penalties:
Mark Strobel, W, 4:27
Martini, MTU, 12:48
Parnell, MTU, 15:18
Francisco, W, 17:44
Young, MTU, 18:46
Rafalski, W, 18:46
Second Period
Scoring:
Wisconsin - Richter 2(Shier, Zent), pp, 4:11
Michigan Tech - Storm 7(Young, Parnell), pp, 7:33
Penalties:
Perrauly, MTU, 2:00
LaBel, MTU, 6:54
Peca, MTU, 6:54
Plante, W, 6:54
Shier, W, 6:54
Balkovec, W, 6:54
Sarjeant, MTU, 10:31 (served by Peterson)
Perrault, MTU, 12:46
Hill, MTU, 14:52 (double minor)
Perrault, MTU, 14:52 (double minor)
Zent, W, 14:52 (double minor)
Moore, W, 14:52 (double minor)
Kurtz, W, 20:00 (double minor)
Payne, MTU, 20:00 (double minor)
Third Period
Scoring:
Michigan Tech - Peterson 1(unasissted), 13:51
Penalties:
Parnell, MTU, 2:56
Payne, MTU, 9:38
Plante, W, 14:26
Zent, W, 17:25
Parnell, MTU, 17:31
Overtime
Scoring:
Wisconsin - Zent 3(Richter, Moore), pp, 2:47
Penalties:
Garvey, MTU, 2:08
Michigan Tech Bench, 2:08 (unsportsmanlike conduct, served by McEwen)
Kurtz, W, 2:15
Michigan Tech Coach Brown, 2:47 (game disqualification)
Saves:
Sarjeant (MTU) 12 9 14 0 - 35
Derksen (W) 6 12 8 2 - 28
Power Play:
Michigan Tech 1 for 5
Wisconsin 3 for 9
Attendence: 8,460
========================================================================
An almost sell-out crowd was treated to an entertaining, somewhat
sloppy, and eventually controversial game. Both teams made numerous
small mistakes, but neither was able to capitalize on most of their
chances.
Wisconsin played 4 freshman and 2 upperclassmen at defense. Freshman
Brian Rafalksi looked very good -- he made some mistakes, but usually
recovered, and never gave up on the play. Chris Tok and Mark Strobel
were weaker. Maco Balkovec was the other freshman on the blue line. He
played well.
Except for the end, Referee Chick Yackel did a fairly good job. He
called a close game, but wasn't petty. Unlike Buzzy, he never seemed to
stare, facinated, at an infraction and then ignore it. Both teams took
some stupid penalties. Power plays gave momentum to both teams, and
momemtum begat penalties as frustrated and/or desparate players
interfered, held or tripped someone.
All of Wisconsin's goals were on the powerplay. The first was not a set
play, but exciting. Wisconsin had setup in the Tech zone and pressured
Sarjeant. After Tech sent the puck into the Wisconsin end, Tucker fed
Plante from just inside his own blue line. Plante was at the center of
Tech's blue line, between two Tech players. he got a perfect pass and
raced in on Sarjeant, putting the puck in the net on his far side.
Tech's top defensman, Darcy Martini, was in the box at the time. He
left the game with back spasms after getting out of the box.
On an early second period powerplay, Barry Richter walked along the
blue line with the puck, unchallanged. He let go a long wrist shot that
sailed past a screened goalie.
At 6:54, Wisconsin looked to go ahead 3-0, with a good rush down the
ice. Sarjeant made the initial save, and ended up sitting on the ice
about a foot out from the crease on his right side. Wisconsin's
Balkovec ended up on top of Sarjeant, while one of his teammates put
the puck into the open net. Punching and shoving ensued, and Yackel
waved off the goal. He called 2 players from each side for roughing,
plus Wisconsin's Balkovec for cross checking, presumably for checking
Sarjeant. From the replay, Balkovec didn't cross-check Sarjeant (he was
already down), but he might have interfered with him. He wasn't clearly
pushed into Sarjeant, but he was engaged with a Tech defender at the
time, and might have ended up on top of the goalie by his momentum. If
I was a tech fan and the goal had been allowed, I would have been
irate. As you can imagine, the Wisconsin crowd was not thrilled at the
wave off (of course, most of us couldn't really see what happened).
The momentum swung again, and instead of a Badger goal, Tech scored on
the power play. They did a very good job of working the puck, and fed
Jim Storm for a very pretty back door shot.
At 14:52, another scuffle at the MTU net resulted in 2 double minors
for each team, and 4 minutes of 3-on-3 hockey. The period ended with a
scuffle in front of the Badger bench, which resulted in matching double
minors to Wisconsin's Kurtz and Tech's Payne. While it may seem from
this that it was a rough game, it wasn't. Unlike last week's games,
where it seemed like the big roughing matches could have been avoided
if the ref had called the initial penalty, I didn't see anything that
Yackel missed that led to the problems.
Tech's tieing goal was a fluke. Derksen made the initial save on a shot
from the circle. Instead of covering the puck, he attempted to clear it
to the side boards with a backhanded push of his stick. The puck hit
his defenseman's skate, and went in the net.
Toward the end of the period, Wisconsin took two penalties in a row,
but the second Tech powerplay was cancelled 6 seconds later, when the
tech pointman hauled down a Wisconsin player breaking out of his zone.
Throughout the second and third period, both teams had 2-on-1, 3-on-1,
and 3-on-2 chances, and didn't score. Both goalies were called on to
make good saves, but both teams also had difficulty making the play.
In the overtime, Tech took the play to the Wisconsin end for the first
minute or so. At 2:08, Tech's Garvey hauled down a Badger in front of
the Tech net, and was called for holding. Looking at the replay, it was
a hold, and calling it was consistant with Yackel's calls earlier in
the game. However, it is the kind of call that often is ignored during
overtime. Tech Coach Newel Brown was upset with the call, and ended up
getting a bench minor for unsportsmanlike conduct. He was waving a
towel, and eventually through it down. As far as I can tell, this is
what earned the misconduct (although the ref skated over and talked to
the bench, and it isn't clear if it was before or after he called the
misconduct). A 5-on-3 power play during overtime is almost unheard
of. Seven seconds later, it was back to 5-on-4 as Yackel called
Wisconsin's Kurtz for holding near the boards by the blue line in the
Tech end. Once again, it was consistent with his earlier calls.
Jason Zent, who has been pressuring himself to score more this season,
especially with the injury to Doug Macdonald, got the game winner on a
backdoor feed during the powerplay. While the Badgers celebrated in the
corner, Tech Coach Newel Brown raced across the ice to argue the
penalty calling with Yackel, who gave him a game disqualification.
According to the Wisconsin State Journal, "UW Coach Jeff Sauer said
[that] such a penalty was discussed for the first time during the most
recent league meetings."
Brown said "I feel like out team was not given the best chance to get
beat on an even basis." He also said "I didn't say anything and I get a
penalty for throwing a towel. If that's degrading an official, somebody
tell me about it".
Sauer said "From a coaching perspective, there's a certain time in the
game when you want the players to decide the game.... I can understand
Newell's situation because [Yackel] took the game completely away from
the players"
After meeting with WCHA Commissioner Otto Britenbach today, Brown was
allowed to coach tonights game. I did not hear any explanation of the
decision.
--david
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david parter [log in to unmask]
university of wisconsin -- madison computer sciences department
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