Re: 2014-2015 Minnesota Women's Hockey: The Maroon & Gold Strike Back!
Were the Gophers a little off last night? Maybe. I think it is hard on a Tuesday night in a mostly empty building to get fired to the max to play an opponent that you blew out the game before. Throw in a quick opening goal, and they may have thought it was going to be a repeat. Credit SLU for fighting back and doing what good teams do, giving it everything they had. Coach Frost was ultra critical of his team, but I thought he was part of the problem. UM had all of the momentum after the 2nd period, he changes lines, and the first 10 minutes of the 3rd was pretty ragged and out of synch.
As for the fans that want to throw Minnesota under the bus, as a group of fans, we just got dominated by the fan base of the visiting team. The Saints fans were very vocal in the support of their team all night. The Gopher fans that could be bothered to show up mostly sat on their hands. Maybe they were cold. In any case, it was a far, far better effort by the Minnesota players last night than it was by the Minnesota fans.
maybe it's just me, but I could care less if the opposing fans are "better" in any way, or their band is, I'm there to watch hockey. For those of us who did show up we were treated to some things normally not seen. Frost could have easily kept with the same game plan for periods 2 & 3 of Sundays game and the Gophers likely would have won by the same score. But it was a treat for fans to see something we normally don't see. It appeared to be a treat for the team as well. And given there are 12 periods of hockey in eight days with the final 6 going to be high octane ones requiring a high level of discipline, playing 12 periods in a row exactly the same probably isn't a good idea when the last 6 are the ones most likely to give the team problems. And if it keeps Johnson guessing what the Gophers might do, and gives Frost more options of what the Gophers can do, so much the better.
I don't believe we've ever seen Bona paired with Brandt & Cameranesi except on the PP or during the midst of a line change.
The Saints goal was not a result of different line pairings, it came against the 3rd line and I believe it was during a line change unless Hannah was centering 3 lines instead of 2 because Piazza & Pannek were both on the ice, or did I miss someone new centering the 2nd line?
And it did lead to more Gopher scoring. I was getting a bit nervous after 2 that the Saints might score and make it a one goal game, exactly what happened.
But then Lorence skating up the left side motored around the defender and brought it around front from behind the goal and passed through 2 defenders to her new, yet familar line mate from last year, Menefee, who had skated up the right side and passed thru the slot area to find herself alone and buried the pass into the net. Leaving Menefee alone near the net is suicide, kinda like pointing a gun, even a toy one, at a cop.
Then Bona took a pass from Cameranesi and scored, then later scored an open netter.
So I'd say Frost's plan worked (my assumption was that he was looking for more offense). And again, if Mark Johnson is at all puzzled what he might see at Ridder this wekend, and Frost has more options, so much the better.
I sure enjoyed it and glad I made it to both games. SLU actually played good hockey in the neutral zone of both games and gave a different look than the usual against the Gophers so I'm glad I saw it, and it likely was good for the team as well.
Fans not showing up: Let's face it, we are becoming a nation of wimps, proof: most schools cancelled classes today because it was too cold out. I never once had school cancelled because it was to cold out, and there was a number of days I walked in -20F or colder weather.
yeah, it was uphill both both going and coming home.
