I have friday night tickets this season, and have not had enough time
to watch the whole game on my vcr... but I heard the whole game on the
radio, have seen about half of the tape, and read what the papers had
to say, and haven't seen any comment here on the mailing list yet, so
here goes. Oh yeah, I also don't have any notes with me, so this is
from memory.
 
First, the score: Duluth 3, Wisconsin 2.
 
Duane Derksen was in goal for Wisconsin. UMD played a freshman goalie
(Butler?). He was VERY GOOD and VERY LUCKY (but isn't that what
everyone wants from their goalie?)
 
The first period was generaly close-checking, with few penalties.  Both
teams were playing rather conservative, and had few good scoring
chances. Wisconsin had one flurry of somewhat sustained pressure on the
UMD net.  UMD didn't really have any sustained pressure on the
Wisconsin net.
 
With less than one minute to go in the period, UMD's Kaiser checked
Doug Macdonald, who was by the circle near this boards in his defensive
zone. The check, seen many times on video, from several angles, was:
	1) from behind
	2) could be called a cross check
	3) had one elbow high
	4) hit Macdonald high
	5) could have been boarding (Macdonald hit the boards
	   hard, from several feet away)
	6) was immediatly called a (delayed) penalty by the ref (Buzz
	   Christiansen)
 
Wisconsin's goalie, Duane Derksen, saw the delayed penalty, and went to
the bench for an extra skater. However, he didn't get there directly.
On the way to the bench, he took a swing of some kind at Kaiser (On the
radio they made it sound like he went out of his way to get Kaiser. On
TV I didn't see it, but saw him tangled with Kaiser about 10 feet
in front of the goal, so it looked to me like he just "took the
opportunity" since Kaiser was near by or in his way). UMD's Andrusak
retaliated by hitting Derksen.  Wisconsin's Brett Kurtz retaliated by
hitting Andrusak. The ref didn't see any of this, but the linesman did,
and between them they got the calls right:
 
	Kaiser, UMD, 5 minutes (I didn't catch what infraction they called it)
	Derksen, UW, 2 minutes
	Andrusak, UMD, 2 minutes
	Kurtz, UW, 2 minutes.
 
Obviously Derksen made a major mistake -- first of all, he shouldn't be
hitting anyone. Second, he knew the ref had already called a UMD
penalty -- he is lucky that Wisconsin ended up with a power play at
all. Friday night he also showed a bit of temper, reacting to two
slashes at his glove hand after he covered the puck (but then, Buzzy
didn't call the initial penalty, only matching double-minors to a bunch
of players from both sides, not including Derksen).
 
Macdonald left the game. More on his status later. Macdonald is
Wisconsin's major scoring and play-making threat. He runs the powerplay
and is the team captain. With Macdonald out, Jason Zent was Wisconsin's
top scoring threat.
 
UMD's Plante got their first goal during the 3-on-3 (early in the
second period). Wisconsin failed to score during the 3 minutes of
5-on-4 powerplay.
 
I don't remember UMD's second goal.
 
With about 6 minutes to go, Wisconsin was trailing 2-0. Buzzy skated by
the bench and picked Zent out from the second row for a misconduct. As
Coach Sauer said, how does he pick number 11 from the second row when
everyone on the bench is talking?
 
A few minutes later, Wisconsin tied the game with two goals, 25 seconds
apart. The crowd came to life, and Butler looked a little shaky.  With
about 3 minutes left, Wisconsin had a power play, but without Macdonald
or Zent, didn't score. Shortly after the penalty expired, UMD's Plante
made a good move on the Wisconsin defense and scored the game winner.
 
===========================================================================
 
Macdonald has a third-degree shoulder separation. He had surgery
Sunday morning, and it is not known how long he will be out. The
initial report was 8-12 weeks, but that could change. With
Macdonald out, Wisconsin will have to make major changes in their
lines, powerplay and penalty killing units.
 
The papers said that Wisconsin informed UMD Monday that a tape of the
check will be sent to the WCHA office for review.
 
===========================================================================
 
It is early in the season (for everyone), and Wisconsin has not played
the expected strong teams in the league yet: Minnesota, Northern
Michigan, North Dakota. However, looking at the standings, and how has
played who, it looks like the WCHA is more balanced this year than it
has been in a while:
	Tech took 3 of 4 points from Northern this weekend,
	Colorado College split at North Dakota
	UMD split with Northern at UMD and with Wisconsin at Wisconsin
 
--david
 
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david parter					[log in to unmask]
university of wisconsin -- madison		computer sciences department