Re: '12-13 Michigan Tech Season Thread: Screw the Election, Let's Play Hockey!
I was also impressed with Eick. I had thought Mel was playing his recruits like Eick, because they were his guys and fit his system, but the freshmen Forwards look great and are earning their playing time.
Notes from Mel Pearson show:
They reviewed last weekend and the goals:
Blake Hietila did skate for warmups Saturday, can dress an extra guy for warumps, wanted to see if D Johnstone (sick) and J Johnstone were good to go after warmups
Great job on Petan goal, not often you see Mich Tech on Sports Center Top 10
PP goal for our 2nd goal, we got a little relaxed on PP, need to be more uptempo
Saw Eick's speed this weekend, several rushes down the ice for him to show his speed
Outshoot UMN 13-8 in 2nd period Friday
Good for Copley to get W, ws in a tough situation at LSSU team played okay in front of him, good game by him
Saturday: They stepped it up a notch, similar to us on Friday, UMN didn't score on some of their better chances, good job by Copley
C. Pietila's Sat goal, good patience and great close in to the goalie
Killed a lot of penalties in 2nd, got us out of good rotation on ice, takes a lot of energy
We were right there on Saturday, needed a bounce, good hard fought game, MN 0-5 on PP on the night
Can't ask our team to play any harder, they laid it all out there.
Attendance: 3400 on Friday 3887 on Saturday, they did a great job of showing up, can't thank them enough, gives us home ice advantage
They talked about a couple of the guys that haven't been playing, but I missed the first two.
On Likteig: He played in 1st game of season, great speed and can kill penalties, overall we have real good depth, our 4th line is pretty good, hard to take someone off that line
ON PP, wasn't a systems issues, just our intensity, didn't get many opportunities, currently we have diff people from each of our top 3 lines, so end up putting someone that's tired out there after PK, may change that up a bit
Is MN going to be the best team we see this year? Liekly be one of the top 3 teams we play, UND and Mich are the other two Mel has in mind.
Will MN fall in the polls? They'll be top 5, teams will lose, BC and Mich already have losses, they'll likely be top 3.
When will we know if Blake makes the World Juniors? There will be a camp, and then they make decisions early Dec. Blake has a good shot, they aren't looking for him to score like we do, but more of a checking shutdown forward on World Juniors.
How do you weigh good play on Friday vs. getting fresh legs when deciding who plays Saturday? Put a lot of stock on Friday night. We need to get a lot of our players used to playing back to back because can't travel with a ton of players. But fresh legs are considered when deciding who plays Saturday.
It seems we got beat on faceoffs, is that a concern? Friday night we got our clocks cleaned. Better on Saturday, we will be working on that.
UMN sat back in more of a defensive trap on Saturday late in 3rd and do you call that a trap? Kind of, a lot of players try to make something happen themselves, instead of working with each other to beat the defense.
Questions are always welcome at
dj@themix93.com
On DU:
They won both games last weekend, they can score goals.
A little surprising, they lost 3 good scorers, but looking at last weekend they can score.
They have all three goaltenders back, most Dmen.
Joey Leleggia, really good, maybe best defensemen, we'll have to watch him
Nick Shore had 3 goals and an assist against Air Force
We need to play better without the puck, need to force the play and force them into mistakes
It's an NHL rink, elevation is only an excuse, have to play the game
Win and tie last year, plus a great game with them at Final Five last year
Expecting 2 hard fought games
Britain and Murray played, Finish goaltneder is suspended so far, they have best goaltending in the league
Need to get D. Johnstone and J. Johnstone going, 0 goals so far, not overly concerned, but may tweak lines to make our team better
How much video does Mel and team watch? Mel watches a lot of video, we pick 3-4 things we want to show the team, short videos, any video longer than 3 mins their minds start to drift
Always want to win 2 games, but very proud of our guys
Real big thank you to the fans, can't emphasize how important that is when we're at home, wants fans to keep coming out
Partial playback of the show is at 5:30ET on 920 AM
