The first semi-final had to be the most lopsided one goal game I've ever 
seen.  Parise was awful, and the UND team played absolutely no defense 
in front of him.  The Sioux looked fine so long as they had the puck in 
the BC end, but awful in the defensive transition game.  Of course, BC 
didn't look that great either; their biggest problem was turning the 
puck over right in front of their own net.  Regardless, BC was clearly 
the better team (or, perhaps, the less bad team) on this night.

One thing that the Sioux did well, and it would become a theme for the 
weekend, as Wisconsin did the same thing, was dominate the play along 
the boards.  The WCHA teams won the vast majority of the scrums along 
the wall.

Player of the Game: Chris Collins

I half agree with Charlie about the second game.  I thought it was 
better played by both team than the first was.  That said, it wasn't 
really closer than the 5-2 score would indicate.  Maine did close it to 
3-2 at one point, but they just weren't getting enough quality scoring 
chances to give the impression that Wisconsin was in any real danger.  
The Black Bears rang up a lot of shots, but most of them were of poor 
quality.  They also got a lot of help from referee Hansen.  He twice 
gave them two minutes for what were clearly checks from behind.  There 
were also a couple of bizarre calls against the Badgers. 

It was a very physical game, with both teams dealing out hard hits.  The 
difference was that Wisconsin just kept playing, while it was obvious 
that the Maine players were hearing footsteps and getting tentative by 
the second period.

Player of the Game: Either Ross Carlson or Joe Pavelski.  Carlson had 
the beautiful short-handed goal, and was all over the ice harassing 
Black Bears all night.  Pavelski's forechecking, particularly on the 
penalty kill, was ferocious.  There were several times Maine, with the 
man advantage, simply couldn't get the puck away from him and lost 
thirty seconds of time trying.

The final was a lot like the second semi-final.  BC scored early, but it 
was on one of their very few good chances in the first period.  Between 
periods, my comment was that while BC had the lead, I would much rather 
have the Badgers' problems.  Wisconsin's main breakdown, and it 
continued all night, was an inability to put their shots on net; left, 
right, high, they went all over the place.  The Eagles' problem was with 
getting the puck out of their own end.  It wasn't that their passes were 
bad; it was that someone would get the puck past the face offs dots, and 
a Badger would body up on him, and take the puck away.  Honestly, I've 
never seen a good team have so much trouble just holding on to the 
puck.  These kept turning into good Wisconsin scoring chances where they 
proceeded to dent the backboards with a missed shot.

Once Wisconsin managed to tie it up, I was sure that they were going to 
win it.  The ice was just too tilted, and Elliott was on his game.  BC 
managed four shots in the third period, and their only quality scoring 
chance came with less than a second to go in the game, when they rang 
one off the pipe.  Again, Wisconsin's penalty was unrelenting, 
generating more chances than the BC power play did.  Looking at all of 
the games combined, the Badgers' penalty kill is great, and there is 
something seriously wrong with BC's power play.  It stood at -1 for the 
weekend, which is an number that gives an accurate picture of just how 
bad it looked.  In short, this was not as close as the 2-1 score 
indicates, except in the sense that you can always get a crazy bounce to 
tie it up.

Player of the Game:  I'm going to punt this one.  No one Badger really 
stood out, and no Eagle played that well.  It was a complete team effort 
by Wisconsin.

My All-Tournament Team:

F - Chris Collins
F - Joe Pavelski
F - Ross Carlson (though Robbie Earl makes that one a tough call)
D - Tom Gilbert
D - Kyle Klubertanz
G - Jason Elliott

-- 
J. Michael Neal
http://idonotlikeyoueither.blogspot.com/