MTU gained a tie in a rough and penalty filled game with
Minnesota last night. I normally thought of Minnesota as some
what of a classy team but last night broke that illusion.  They
came in looking like a NHL loser of the mid-eighties: fighting,
taking cheap shots, holding, picking, interfering, etc.  The
result was obvious: each team took twenty of more penalties
and each team had a DQ.
 
The person that I worried most about in this situation, Jason
Prokopetz, played a superb game last night.  He took only one
penalty last night and that one was caused by Minnesota's Jed
Fiebelkorn who gained 4 minutes to Jason's 2.  Prokopetz's
play really has stepped up a notch: in one play, I believe it
was Minnesota's Justin McHugh was taking the puck up ice
towards the MTU zone when Prokopetz skated through McHugh.
As a result, Jason had the puck on a break away and Justin Mchugh
rebounded away on his keester.  I'm sure Coach Bob Mancini, who
claims that he doesn't read this list but seems to know the
ins and outs of what is reported here, was quite proud of this
improvement.
 
The first period began with Minnesota's Justin McHugh roughing
up MTU's Tim Harris in the first couple of minutes of play. Both
were taken on penalties but this was characteristic of the
Minnesota play throughout the game. Minnesota gained the
scoreboard first on a 5 on 3 powerplay when Kraft put a 4 hole
(upper left corner shot) in from about four feet away.  MTU's
Austin Kryser made one of the most beautiful little play as
be flipped the puck on the net from the left circle.  The period
ended with more of the garbage roughing commented on earlier.
 
Before the 2nd period even started, Minnesota's Fiebelkorn and
McHugh decided to take some cheap shots in the warmup skate
laps. The result was a brouhaha and several penalties at the
0:00  mark. Then Minnesota's Dustin crosschecked Dave Dupont
behind the play. Dave didn't take kindly to this added attention
and responded. So did his teammates. At this point the refs
DQed MTU's Jason Wright and Minnesota's Casey Hankinson for
fighting. Both deserved the DQ as Hankinson started punching
and Jason responded by dropping his gloves while Hankinson
grabbed and stayed in close.  Minnesota got another powerplay
goal at 9:09 as MTU's young team made a defensive mistake
by not covering the right corner of the net. McHugh wrapped the
puck into the 1 hole from the side.  Liam Garvey, who many fans,
including myself think should play more often, broke down the
right boards and angled into the circle where he snapped a shot
past Callinan.  Minnesota's Wasley got a nice clean blast from
the top of the circle as the goalie, Kucway, was screened.  MTU's
Randy Stevens finished the game scoring at 17:23 from the left
side. Because of the penalties,  the second period was too long.
While MTU had two scores, Callinan recorded only one save.   On
the other side, Matt Kucway, who had an excellent night, had to
make 14 saves. Most of these came in man down situations.
Minnesota had an edge over MTU during the 2nd period.
 
M
 
The third period and OT were MTU's. MTU had stronger play
but didn't take advantage and put the game into the scorebook
as a win. The ref's, probably sensing that the game was getting
long let a lot of things go. It was just as well. Minnesota tried but
couldn't rattle MTU's  young players. In retrospect, this may well
have been Minnesota's game strategy: rough up the young players
and get them to make stupid game losing mistakes. I don't think
it worked.  It was not a pretty game, a clean game or
a pleasing game.  Because of Minnesota's apparent strategy of
taking cheap shots to cause an MTU reaction, the penalties made
the game long and somewhat boring. The older professor next to
me went to sleep in the third.
 
In a rare afternoon game today, MTU again invites Minnesota into
its center stage.  In order to beat this team, MTU needs to do
what it did yesterday: ignore the trash. In addition, MTU needs
to  concentrate on getting more shots on net.  As a young team,
MTU has shown great poise under the constant assualt from
Minnesota. Now, knowing we can respond well,  we can turn this
to our advantage.
 
 
 
 
 
 
Walt Olson
MTU