It was an interesting weekend. A split, but both teams played better in the game they lost than in the game that they won. Friday was most certainly a closer game than the 5-2 score would indicate. In fact, if Steve DeBus hadn't come up huge in the first and second periods, the Gophs could easily have been run out of their own building. They put together a great third period to mount the comeback, but if not for DeBus, I would have to say that CC outplayed them for the game as a whole. Tonight, Minnesota completely dominated the second and third, outshooting CC 26-3, but giving up the only goal. They controlled the play, but didn't get as many great chances as they should have. The Tigers are a much smaller team than they were last year and the Maroon and Gold are, if not bigger, certainly much more physical than in recent seasons. They spent most of the weekend punishing CC very effectively, but got too cute in the offensive zone rather than just pounding it in. At this stage of the season, the offense hasn't gelled sufficiently for these tricky passing plays to be very successful. Referee Mike Schmitt called very loose games both nights. This worked to the Gophers advantage, a claim I haven't been able to make for a while. Ryan Kraft was lucky not to get a major for the hit that put Dan Peters in the hospital, and I was disappointed not to see it called that way. Still, it fits very well into the context of what Schmitt let go all weekend. An equally blatant hit from behind ON Kraft went uncalled in the last few minutes of the secnod game. Speaking of Kraft, I thought he had a poor weekend all around. He picked up an assist on Minnesota's only goal tonight, but that was due to a wonderful play by Mike Crowley to recover the deflected pass and convert it into a shot. In addition to the bad penalty on Friday, Kraft did not fare well in close. He tanked the breakaway he had as he stepped out of the box after the cross-check. Worse, there were three instances where he was all alone in front of the net when a teammate fed him a pass and never even managed to launch a shot on any of them. In the second period of the first game, he played croquet wicket as the puck went through the five hole. On Saturday, he twice clanged it off his stick trying to receive the pass. It's only the first weekend and there are all sorts of good explanations for what went wrong. Nevertheless, Kraft is a guy who is going to have to perform this year for Minnesota to be successful. They are short of nifty playmakers this year and need him to step into that role. Mike Crowley played well, but is something I'm a bit worried about. I sat in the fourth row behind the goal on Friday. There were too many times that someone else would pass the puck to Crowley to start a breakout when he was covered by CC and the guy passing it to him wasn't. Someone commented about Michigan during Felsner's senior year that the team had a habit of saying, "Here's the puck, Denny. Go win the game for us." I'm a little worried that Minnesota might do the same thing this year when the going gets tough. Three guys I praised last week had another good weekend. Nate and Cory Miller were once again all over the place. They crash the net looking for loose change and in general throw some weight around to create havoc (Nate has more of it to throw, but other than that I thought they looked very similar). Bill Kohn showed a different side of his game than against BU. I was pointing out that he's got some real skill and isn't just the thug I thought he would be. Now he has showed that he can also be a thug. Along with Rasmussen, he led the team in its efforts to play demolition derby with CC. We'll see how well his style holds up with a ref who's not as lenient as Schmitt was, but he was the kind of presence Minnesota has needed on D. To resurrect a thread that floated around last year, I want to come to the defense a couple of this year's Gopher sophomores. To the person who bemoaned the fact that Matt Cullen got away, along with a couple of other members of the class, I will once again ask, which of the guys the Gophers got would you discard? Wyatt Smith took a lot of abuse last year, I guess because he looked like a freshman at times. Mike Anderson was an afterthought for most people. These two were tremendous this weekend. Between them, they only had one point, but both were constantly in the thick of things. Against a team that doesn't play defense as well as CC, Anderson could have had a hat trick either night. In the tradition of John Brill, I'm beginning to think that Anderson is going to be my favorite player on this team, assuming that the Millers don't edge him out on numbers. Dave Spehar. I think this kid's upside potential is everything that's been claimed, but it's going to take him a while to reach it, assuming he ever does. He doesn't have a lot of straight line speed after others have caught up with his explosive first step. The nifty moves that he used last year aren't going to fool opponents at this level, so he's going to have to take the time to learn new ones. At this point, his shot has been a big disappointment; the chances he has had have not been finished off with any authority. I would attribute this to him concentrating on all the things that he needs to work on. In the long run, I think this is the right approach. He hasn't been the defensive liability that he might have been, though there were a couple of times I saw him lingering up ice. Some of his passing has been very sharp (such as the assist to Godbout for the first goal on Friday). Other passes have been poorly thought out or executed, but this hardly singles him out; the whole team got caught up in the idea of long passes through two defenders. On the whole, I think he (and obviously the coaching staff behind him) are going about things the right way. We're just going to have to be patient and wait for him to develop. In all, a good weekend. I'm disappointed that we didn't manage to pull out a win tonight, but I'll take a split. Denver, my pre-season pick to win the league, got swept. For the time being, I'll continue to believe that North Dakota isn't going to run away and hide like CC has recently. The Gophers appear to be right in the thick of things. J. Michael Neal HOCKEY-L is for discussion of college ice hockey; send information to [log in to unmask], The College Hockey Information List.