Friday night's 3 - 3 tie between the Golden Gophers and the Fighting
Sioux was a night of shouldas, couldas, and mightas for the disappointed
Gopher fans. MaRiucci arena was rocking Friday night, with 9,400+ fans in
attendence. Both teams showed up to play some fast action-filled hockey.
It was probably the best game played at Mariucci all season.
 
Shouldas:
Early in the first period Ryan Kraft rang a post so hard the pep band
almost thought they'd gained a bell player. He was about 20 feet out and
let loose a nice wrist shot but the puck clanged squarely into the post.
The crowd literally writhed in disapointment.
 
Also in the first student section favorite Jed Febilkorn broke into the
Sioux zone clear and free. It was a total break away! Jed came in at
Kavelavog from the goalies left holding the puck.... waiting, waiting....
Kavelavog went down and Jed slid the puck past him but the puck continued
sliding  all the way throught the crease and into the corner. AARRGGHH! A
couple of minutes later Andy Brink broke away from his defender and came
in clean on the goalie from the goalie's right. Brink let loose a wrist
shot into the goalies pads, however, so it wasn't that difficult a save.
 
Friday night's game was like this the whole time -- break aways, 3 or 2s,
2 on 1s ect... it was really exciting! The Gophers seemed to be playing a
new style of play where they use a lot of bounce passes off the boards
and do a lot of quick touch passes to the other skaters. Unfortunately, a
high percentage of the time those quick little passes would be picked off
by the North Dakota players who did a good job clogging up the middle of
the ice making it difficult for the Gophs to effectively move the puck up
the ice.
 
Early in the second period, Brian Bonnin had a clean break away. The
crowd was anticipating the goal a Bonnin came in on Kavelavog. The goalie
stone walled Bonnin however to the disappointment of the fans. The most
exciting part of the second period was the last 30 seconds. The Gophs
were on a power play and were putting steady pressure on the ND goal.
With 3 seconds remaining Bonnin fed the puck to Mike Crowley positioned
on the right side of the slot. Crowley faked the ND defender to the ice,
walked in on Kavelavog and chipped the puck over the goalie's left
shoulder. Bonnin's assist and goal earlier in the period should move him
close to the top of the WCHA scoring leaders.
 
I should note here that the Gophers did not play like they've been
playing for most of the month of February. Their defense was not half as
sharp as it had been the past 6 games. Two of the goals Minnesota allowed
were the result of big time boo boos. ND's second goal was set up when
Nick Checco coughed up the puck or failed to clear the puck from the
corner to the left of the Minn goal. A ND player centered the puck where
it met a tangled ball of skaters. Callinan made the initial save, but the
puck popped out, bounced around and ended up going in the goal after
bouncing off the shoulder of one of the Gopher players. Aye yay yay!!!!
It was a nice way for Landon Wilson to score his 4th goal of the year.
 
The other goal the Gophs gave up off their poor defense is the one we've
all read about already. Dan Trebil failed to complete a clearing pass,
ND's Hoogstein stole the puck and broke in on Callinan. I salute
Hoogstein for this excellent play. Trebil was clearly the dog here. He
blew it.
 
So with the score tied at 3 - 3 the Gophs needed a goal to salvage a
victory from a game they should have won easily. In the last 3 minutes
the Gophs had some major chances but failed to cash in. Early after the
tying goal the Gophs came down and put pressure on Kavelavog. A scramble
in front of the goal put the puck in the crease. Kavelavog lost track of
the puck for a tantalizing second when the puck was sitting neatly in the
crease, a mear 4 inches from the goal line. None of the Gopher skaters
were able to get a stick down to poke the puck home.
 
Another sweet scoring chance came as the final seconds of regulation
ticked off. Brink and Checco broke into the ND zone 2 on 2. Brink got off
a centering pass to Checco that met Checco right at the crease. This was
Checco's chance to make up for his earlier gaff, but the combination of
the close playing ND defender, the slightly bouncing pass and the
goalie's stick apparently prevented Checco from putting the sweet pass
from Brink into the twine.
 
Mind you all of this is happening around totally crappy officiating,
where the the Gophs were short handed the last 2 minutes of the 3rd and
also had to kill a penalty in the OT period. Don't even ask a MN fan
about some of the calls and penalties the refs missed.
 
The one sweet chance the Gophs had in the OT was early, probably on one
of the first rushes. The Gophs had 3 or 4 guys in front of the goal
batting the puck around. Kavelavog was down and all Bonnin needed to do
was lift the puck up over the goalie, but somehow it didn't happen.
 
The rest of the OT was spent killing off the penalty and scrambling to
prevent the Sioux from scoring. They spent most of the OT in the MN zone.
 
Hopefully tonight the Gophs will have more LUCK and put in some of those
many chances!!!
 
I salute the ND fans who came down to the game. They cheered their team
but were not obnoxious about it like some traveling fans are.
 
It was not cool when the fans started throwing stuff on the ice when the
gophs got the penalty with less then 3 mins left in the 3rd. It only
happened because Friday night was poster night and these rolled up
posters were very aerodynamic. Tonight is mini hockey stick night for the
first 1000 fans. I hope there aren't any really bad calls tonight or else
the refs could be assailed by flying mini hockey sticks!
 
Thank you Wisconsin!
Reed