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] * ***********************************