Re: Minnesota vs Jan Brady State (home and home) Nov 18th-19th
It will be interesting to see if this is a series where the big guns steal the show, or we see goals from less likely sources. Bjustad, Rau, Haula are obviously dangerous. The Huskies young D will be tested by the Gopher's depth well beyond that. Condon is a work horse, Buddish is a big body that can create chaos in front of our net. Schmidt is having a break out year on the score sheet. No doubt, this is the most well rounded Gophers crew the WCHA has seen in 5+ years.
For SCSU, we have seen a fair amount of points coming from the young D group (We are not used to that at all). Festler has averaged over a point per game vs the Gophers in his career. Hanowski has had something click for him this year and is on the brink of becoming a special player at the college level. Thorson who had been pegged as a 4th line grinder suddenly is an offensive threat. Eddy, Dowd, & Reid all have shown they can catch fire in games. We have not seen a lot of scoring from our Freshmen Forwards which needs to change quickly.
UM has a large edge coming in with special teams play. Gophers are converting around 26% with SCSU at 18%. Both teams PP units appear to have gone south over the last couple weeks (especially the Huskies). Gophers have a huge edge on the PK, shutting down 89% vs SCSU's 78%.
If I'm an agitator type player on SCSU's roster, I would be hitting and giving some sweet talk to Ambroz every shift. Guy has shown very little discipline and seems like a loose cannon.
On the flip side, SCSU will try to go 2 games without earning a 5 min major. A good goal to shoot for. With the Gophers PP, I'd highly suggest we achieve that goal.
It will be interesting to see if this is a series where the big guns steal the show, or we see goals from less likely sources. Bjustad, Rau, Haula are obviously dangerous. The Huskies young D will be tested by the Gopher's depth well beyond that. Condon is a work horse, Buddish is a big body that can create chaos in front of our net. Schmidt is having a break out year on the score sheet. No doubt, this is the most well rounded Gophers crew the WCHA has seen in 5+ years.
For SCSU, we have seen a fair amount of points coming from the young D group (We are not used to that at all). Festler has averaged over a point per game vs the Gophers in his career. Hanowski has had something click for him this year and is on the brink of becoming a special player at the college level. Thorson who had been pegged as a 4th line grinder suddenly is an offensive threat. Eddy, Dowd, & Reid all have shown they can catch fire in games. We have not seen a lot of scoring from our Freshmen Forwards which needs to change quickly.
UM has a large edge coming in with special teams play. Gophers are converting around 26% with SCSU at 18%. Both teams PP units appear to have gone south over the last couple weeks (especially the Huskies). Gophers have a huge edge on the PK, shutting down 89% vs SCSU's 78%.
If I'm an agitator type player on SCSU's roster, I would be hitting and giving some sweet talk to Ambroz every shift. Guy has shown very little discipline and seems like a loose cannon.
On the flip side, SCSU will try to go 2 games without earning a 5 min major. A good goal to shoot for. With the Gophers PP, I'd highly suggest we achieve that goal.
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