Ryan Bowman wrote:
>As for the Gophers.. Our weekend was like Michigan's to a point.  100
>shots on the weekend (give or take a few) and only 7 goals.  What was the
>problem?  Daubenspeck played well and made the saves when he had to,
>DeBus didn't.  The Gophers on Friday night I thought played ok, last
>night they were terrible.  They did have a similar shot total, but failed
>to hold a 4-0 lead.
>
>What can they do to not let this happen again?  Well, shoot at a goalie
>who isn't playing as well and not put shots right at him as much.  Maybe
>not play the defenseman up so far, keep them back.  I basically think
>they were just extremely unlucky this weekend.  Hopefully that was it.
 
I will absolutely disagree with this; the Gophers were not unlucky at all.
In fact, they built their 4-0 lead on the back of some fortuitous bounces
to go along with some strong offensive play.
 
To follow-up yesterday's post, I tried to keep track of the odd-man rushes
Minnesota gave up last night.  They did pretty well in the first (the only
really solid period of hockey they played all weekend), allowing one
breakaway and a 2-1, plus another that didn't click because Wisconsin put
the pass to far in front of the breaking forward.
 
From there it was all downhill.  The second period was a complete disaster.
The Badgers had a breakaway and three 2-1s, plus two more that they
botched in the development.  This isn't counting the number of times
Wisconsin forced a turnover in their offensive zone and fed the puck to
someone standing all alone in front of the net.  The third was much the
same.  If these are the kind of opportunities you're going to give up, it
simply doesn't matter if you outshoot your opponent 47-26; you aren't going
to win very often.
 
Mike Crowley was the only Gopher defenseman that really stood out in a
positive way.  Unfortunately, he was paired with Dan Trebil.  For all of
Trebil's offensive gifts, and he has plenty, I've always considered the
talk of him as an All-American as a joke.  He has always been somewhat
sloppy with the puck and it seems to be getting worse.  The worst moment
last night came after Crowley had done a fine job defending a 2-1,
deflecting the pass across the front straight to Trebil.  Trebs proceeded
to leave a blind drop pass ten feet in front of his own net.  The Badger
trailer promptly buried this gift for Wisconsin's second goal.  In recent
weeks, it's gotten to the point of wondering if Trebil isn't causing more
havoc among us with his defense than he is for our opponents with his
offense.
 
The MSC announcers continue to go on about how hard the Gophers are
working, and on this point (but not about how they are really playing well)
they're right.  In fact, I think they may be working too hard.  They now
have their hands wrapped so tightly around their throats that the decision
making is suffering.  A number of players (notably Kraft and Checco) seem
so worried about not contributing to the offense that they've stopped doing
well the things that they were doing earlier.  In the same category, Dan
Woog is starting to take some bad penalties as he tries to play his
mix-it-up style of game.  Collectively, the whole team needs to take a deep
breath and calm down.  If I were Woog (Doug), I'd seriously consider
getting them off the bus back from Madison and telling them to get lost
until at least Wednesday.  At this point, I'm afraid that more practice
will only get them wound tighter.  Either that, or he should get them
together tomorrow and throw out a bunch of basketballs and just play some
pick-up hoops.
 
I'm a little worried about Anchorage coming in this weekend all fired up
wanting to win one for Brush, because what Minnesota really needs is for
them to come in to Mariucci, roll over and die.  Rack up about twenty goals
distributed throughout the line-up and get rid of a lot of spine-clinging
monkeys.  Give some confidence back to the goaltenders.  In short, I'm
hoping for the Massacre on 4th Street.
 
J. Michael Jackson
 
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