Friday, 1/24/92:  University of Minnesota-Duluth 4, Northern Michigan 3
 
I thought I should put this out now, before the second game of the
series is played.  That way, at least my reaction to the first one
won't be flavored by whatever happens tonight.  (And I certainly have
no idea what may happen tonight, after recent events!)
 
This was apparently UMinn-D's first win in 15 tries on Wildcat ice.
They deserved it, though.  Like Wisconsin last week, the Bulldogs
played tenacious defense against the Wildcats.  NMU was severely
hampered by the loss of Dallas Drake, whose foot was broken by a shot
during a power play practice Wednesday afternoon.  (The injury was
very well disguised--it was only when the 1st period was nearly over
I suddenly realized Drake had not played.  From what I could tell from
those in the crowd who informed me of his problem, it was probably only
mentioned that afternoon.)  I think Drake is the second leading scorer
in the country, or was at the time of the injury.
 
The Wildcat power play has completely self-destructed in the last
few games.  Rick Comley admitted in the postgame intrview that right
now he'd rather play 5-on-5 than have a power play.  He commented that
"No. 17" (Scott Beattie) is having a really rough time of it right now,
and that is certainly obvious.  Rick noted that he realizes Scott is
frustrated, but that he has to rise above that.  I can say that all last
year and for the first half of this one it was extremely rare to see
Beattie take a penalty, but lately he's been in scuffles in every game.
I'm sure he gets a tremendous amount of grabbing, holding, hooking,
etc. with all the attention he draws, and now he's starting to respond
to it instead of getting the effective retribution of goals and assists.
Last night, thanks to a spearing penalty which got a Bulldog disqual-
ified for the game and put Tony Szabo in the dressing room for several
minutes, the 'Cats had a 5-minute power play.  They made virtually
nothing of it, and when the 'Dogs killed that one it really gave them
renewed momentum.
 
All four UMD goals were on rebounds, so I don't think Corwin Saurdiff
can be faulted very much for them.  NMU defensemen are not clearing
the puck away from the net quickly enough--I presume at least in part
this is a problem because they're not doing a good enough job of
keeping other players from swooping in on Saurdiff as he makes the
initial save.
 
I fear a surly and maybe even ugly crowd tonight, something which I
really dislike.  The fans here (in some cases) were probably pretty
spoiled by the great play of NMU last year, and now when things go
less than perfectly (i.e. a big victory margin, or lately, any kind
of victory), some of them divide their negativism about 40% to the
opposition, 50% to the officials, and 10% to NMU.  Although I can see
the quality of play on the part of the Wildcats right now is definitely
below most of last year's, and below that displayed during December,
I also acknowledge, however, that visiting teams have played some
outstanding hockey in the last few games.  UMD's defense last night
was for the most part outstanding!  NMU had a power play during most
of the last three minutes and the forechecking of UMD was so persistent
and effective that the Wildcats hardly got the puck out of their own
end--in fact, it was behind their goal line much of the time!  Rick
Comley's comment was that UMD outworked his team and won most of the
one-on-one contests.
 
One slightly coulda-been positive ending note:  With one second left
there was a faceoff in the UMD end.  Scott Beattie shot directly off
the drop and got a hard one on goal--but the goalie was there and
saw it.  End of game.
                      ***********************************
                     *      Steve Christopher, NMU       *
                    *  "Go 'Cats!''Going for two in '92!" *
                     *        [log in to unmask]         *
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