UMD 2012-13 SEASON!!! The Quest for 6 begins!!!

[binnyrus]

Re: UMD 2012-13 SEASON!!! The Quest for 6 begins!!!

Seem as if moving Wong to C has made a positive impact for the dogs . . . she always seemed a natural bringing the puck up and distributing it. I for one, regardless of how things turn out against the ever hated rodents, am impressed that this team has turned things around. Late in the first half I'd never have predicted this winning streak.

GO DOGS!!!

[skatefast]

Re: UMD 2012-13 SEASON!!! The Quest for 6 begins!!!

Loving John Gilbert.

http://www.wcha.com/women/pres1213/2...medium=twitter

[Blackbeard]

Re: UMD 2012-13 SEASON!!! The Quest for 6 begins!!!

Loving John Gilbert.

http://www.wcha.com/women/pres1213/2...medium=twitter

Great article. Thanks for posting it.

[Blackbeard]

Re: UMD 2012-13 SEASON!!! The Quest for 6 begins!!!

UM 1 - UMD 0 after one.

UM scored shorthanded when Kortum appeared out of nowhere on UMD's side of center ice and somewhat undressed Black by getting Black to move to her left and then slamming on the brakes...going 5 hole.

Black could improve by understanding that her stick can do a better job of helping to cover that 5 hole but maybe more importantly that it is also an offensive weapon. A quick swipe or poke might have caused Kortum to lose control of the puck and the outcome might have been different.

Kenyon took a feeble short handed shot on a 2 on 1 with 6 minutes left in the period and probably should have passed it.

UMD with good pressure on PP at end of period...could easily have been tied up.

[Blackbeard]

Re: UMD 2012-13 SEASON!!! The Quest for 6 begins!!!

UM 2 - UMD 0 after two.

Kessel from Brandt on a beautiful short drop pass within 10 feet of the net right after their PP expired.

Good PK's by UMD...they're not looking like a #10 team.

A couple more missed opportunities...could easily have been a tied game at this point.

[Blackbeard]

Re: UMD 2012-13 SEASON!!! The Quest for 6 begins!!!

UM 5 - UMD 0 Final. SOG UM 22 - UMD 24

Some beautiful passing plays on PP by UMD but couldn't finish...couldn't get good wood on the finish. Apparently only the second time this season that UM has been outshot...previously by UND. Unfortunately it didn't do the 'Dogs any good tonight. Have to convert on those power plays...and they had chances.

Some weak goals allowed by Black. Would be nice if the replays were shown more than once.

UM head maning the puck a lot...due to camera angle you could not see these plays developing...just someone in the clear deep for UM often.

Attendance 2536.

Overall the strategy is working flawlessly!...UM secures the WCHA championship tonight and will be deflated tomorrow with nothing to prove and then...BAM!

(Forgot to mention the #9 trainwreck near the end of the game...Davis and Wilson...south bound train on a north bound track...OUCH!...haven't seen a collision of that force for some time...looked like Wilson was going to take the brunt of it but it turned out the other way. I certainly hope that they are both alright and able to play tomorrow.)

[onlyafan]

Re: UMD 2012-13 SEASON!!! The Quest for 6 begins!!!

Like how you think. Agree some soft goals and even though UMD outshot them they didn't have many quality shots. Hate to admit it but Gophers are very good and fun to watch

[Yaforsure]

Re: UMD 2012-13 SEASON!!! The Quest for 6 begins!!!

UM 5 - UMD 0 Final. SOG UM 22 - UMD 24

Some beautiful passing plays on PP by UMD but couldn't finish...couldn't get good wood on the finish. Apparently only the second time this season that UM has been outshot...previously by UND. Unfortunately it didn't do the 'Dogs any good tonight. Have to convert on those power plays...and they had chances.

Some weak goals allowed by Black. Would be nice if the replays were shown more than once.

UM head maning the puck a lot...due to camera angle you could not see these plays developing...just someone in the clear deep for UM often.

Attendance 2536.

Overall the strategy is working flawlessly!...UM secures the WCHA championship tonight and will be deflated tomorrow with nothing to prove and then...BAM!

(Forgot to mention the #9 trainwreck near the end of the game...Davis and Wilson...south bound train on a north bound track...OUCH!...haven't seen a collision of that force for some time...looked like Wilson was going to take the brunt of it but it turned out the other way. I certainly hope that they are both alright and able to play tomorrow.)

Gophers are definitely tough. Dogs were too soft in DZ and need to be better consistently to compete. 1st and 3rd goals aren't really your typical sniper goal but unfortunately they do count. Darn breakdowns! I guess the game would be boring if there was none!

Knocking off the Gophers on the Big Ten network is better anyway!

Year of the HABS!!

[CrazyDave]

Re: UMD 2012-13 SEASON!!! The Quest for 6 begins!!!

Overall the strategy is working flawlessly!...UM secures the WCHA championship tonight and will be deflated tomorrow with nothing to prove and then...BAM!

Good luck with that. Ms. Räty is still shooting for another career record -- shutouts. She actually just set another Gopher team record with her 11th this season, topping the previous single-season record of 10 she herself set last season. But she needs two more to tie and three to break the NCAA career record of 39.

All-in-all, I actually agree with the analysis of the game in this thread. UMD had several decent opportunities and just couldn't put the biscuit in the basket.

[Eeyore]

Re: UMD 2012-13 SEASON!!! The Quest for 6 begins!!!

Duluth had some good chances but not as many as went the other way. Then, down two goals in the third they opened things up at which point the roof caved in on them. In all I thought the shot totals, while probably accurate, are misleading for the overall flow of play. I thought the Gophers had significantly the better of the action. My overall sense of the game was that it was somewhere between the shot totals and the final score, but closer to the latter.

[mplsphotoguy]

Re: UMD 2012-13 SEASON!!! The Quest for 6 begins!!!

Photos from tonight's game against Minnesota: http://d3photography.com/photos/4139/

We'll be at tomorrow's game as well.

[Blackbeard]

Re: UMD 2012-13 SEASON!!! The Quest for 6 begins!!!

In all I thought the shot totals, while probably accurate, are misleading for the overall flow of play. I thought the Gophers had significantly the better of the action. My overall sense of the game was that it was somewhere between the shot totals and the final score, but closer to the latter.

I'd agree that was certainly the case in the third period but I thought that the first half of the game was fairly even. It is easy to see that the average individual talent level on UM surpasses that of UMD by a wide margin but I also thought that UMD was playing like a substantially better than tenth ranked team with respect to how close the play was, at least in the first half of the game or maybe even the first two periods.

Seemed to me that with a couple of weak goals (that's directed at UMD, not UM) once the 4th goal went in, in the third period, UMD looked understandably demoralized. If they would have capitalized when they had chances and had Black not allowed the two weak goals this would have gone from being a very entertaining game (at least in the first two periods) to an extremely exciting game...with the possibility of UM's winning streak being in jeopardy just adding another, but very heightened, dimension of interest.

[Eeyore]

Re: UMD 2012-13 SEASON!!! The Quest for 6 begins!!!

As a Gopher fan, at no point tonight did I feel the streak was in any real jeopardy. Part of it is that there were a lot of plays where a slightly different bounce could have led to an easy Gopher goal. There were at least four instances in the first two periods where a Gopher player was almost able to corral a pass that would have led to a 2-on-1 into the UMD zone. And the fact that one team had to worry about giving up soft goals and the other didn't is an important part of evaluating the game.

[Blackbeard]

Re: UMD 2012-13 SEASON!!! The Quest for 6 begins!!!

at no point tonight did I feel the streak was in any real jeopardy.

I certainly agree. I'd even remove the word "real" from the sentence. My point was simply that if UMD had capitalized on a few early opportunities and if those two soft goals, which were a bit unusual, hadn't occured then the score at the end of the second period would have been tied or possibly even 3-2 for UMD. If that had been the case (either score) then, in that situation, the possibility of UM's winning streak being in jeopardy starts automatically entering the viewers' minds and consequently adds another dimension of interest to an already entertaining game making it an exciting game.

[ARM]

Re: UMD 2012-13 SEASON!!! The Quest for 6 begins!!!

I'm not sure which two goals you are viewing as soft from a Black perspective. You may wish that she'd played the 2-on-0 differently, but the bottom line is that it is hard to hang it on the goalie when her team breaks down like that on the PP. Even if the second attacker doesn't get involved, the goaltender is still forced to account for her in the back of her mind. She had no chance on the final goal, McMillen's one-timer. The Davis goal is probably the one that her team would most want her to stop, but the chance results from a turnover behind the net and is suddenly a grade-A chance out of nowhere. The two Kessel goals were both bang-bang plays off passes from Brandt, and those have been going in all year off of a wide assortment of goaltenders. Black also denied some glorious scoring chances, so I'd say it is a bit unfair to single out a rookie and point at her as the reason that the scoreboard wasn't closer.

UMD did play very well over the first two periods. A better bounce or two, and I think that they could be right there. Given the history of this rivalry, I expect nothing less again today.