St. Cloud comes away with two well-deserved points after controlling much
of the game.  The Huskies jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the beginning of
the first.  The first goal by George Awanda was a nice wrist shot to
Aaron Schweitzer's glove side that should have been stopped.  The other
two goals by Ryan Frisch and Mike Rucinski were courtesy of poor UND
defense.  After another SCSU goal in the second, UND was finally able to
get back into the game with a powerplay goal near the end of the second
and another one at the start of the third.  However, any momentum that
UND had was quickly lost to a couple of penalties midway through the
third period along with a two minute stoppage to repair the ice.
 
Thoughts:
 
- Once again, SCSU did an excellent job breaking up a lot of the Sioux
passes.  The Huskies are very tenacious and have exceptional coverage.
The big difference from Friday and Saturday was I thought SCSU won most
of the small battles.  Time after time, when UND would be trying to get
the puck out of their zone, it would be tipped back into the corner by
one of the Huskies.
 
- As I have been saying all season, poor defensive plays would finally
catch up with UND and cost them a game.  It happened on Saturday!
 
- Lietza gives up a lot of rebounds, and many of them were in ideal spots
for scores.  However, UND did not capitalize on ANY of them.  My advice
to other teams?  Always have a guy on the doorstep, because the odds are
good that they will get a nice shot off.
 
- As hard as this is for me to say, UND now plays better on olympic sized
ice.  With the speed of the team and their reliance on passes leading to
the transition game, a smaller rink hinders them especially against clubs
like St. Cloud.
 
- In the third period, Vicari for SCSU took his stick and hit Lee Goren in
the face.  This brought Mike Commodore of UND to his defense and he
proceeded to push Vicari down, get on top of him, rip off his helmet and
smash his face into the ice close to ten times.  Both players received
major penalties and were thrown out.  Do not be surprised if the league reviews
the tape of this incident.
 
- The big question for UND is goaltending.  Goehring has look outstanding
recently and Schweitzer is showing signs of inconsistency.  Last week,
Blais said that Schwietzer was still the go to goalie.  The goalie
rotation will probably continue, but if Schweizter has another poor
performance, that may change.
 
Happy holidays everyone!
 
charles
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http://www.und.edu/cbell
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