Re: Michigan Tech 17-18 Preseason - MacNaughton, Broadmoor... What's this year bringi
I was at the game. It was a good game and intense for the first game of the year. I'd be interested to hear up north's opinion, but for now here's mine.
I thought the game was well refereed. I saw only one or two marginal calls by the linesmen. One on an icing and one on a face-off location. I thought the refs did a good job of calling penalties and I had no issue with what was called.
I thought Tech was the better team, but kind of had brain fade for a few seconds once every 10 minutes and Wisconsin was able to score on that a time or two. reminded me of the st cloud game in the Ncaa's two years ago.
This was a real up and down game and it went by in a real hurry. It was fun to watch, and made the fans very nervous. ( but at least they didn't throw anything at me like they did last time)
I thought Haydon was really good and especially positionally kept them in the game. In the second we had several point blank chances that he stopped. they weren't big acrobatic stops but they were good stops on guys in the slot.I can't believe he didn't turn pro after playing so well last year.
the crowd around me came into this game expecting a blowout and were shocked in the first 5 minutes. Wisconsin was having trouble adjusting to the Tech forecheck. (We had a number of good turnovers in their end but nothing came of it.) It was verwy quiet in there at first. Conversely they were surprised when Wisconsin scored on the first pp of the game. As the run of play had not been in their favor.
After the first score Tech seemed to sag a bit and wisconsin played well. I thought they were a high skill team, a lot like Denver last spring. in fact the game did not remind me of an early season game, it was mid season skill and play.
I liked the play of the young guys, not just the freshmen, although we turned it over too often in our own end and the freshmen were getting an education, but of the sophomores. Barretta played hard and used his size well. Blacklock, Brice, etc all seemed to have made a big step from last year's play. Wisconsin had trouble adjusting to the pace of play as the game wore on and we were controlling play more and more.. I thought staman and smith played well and won a lot of important face-offs. I thought Ford was pretty good, though he left his feet on the third goal and, though he's not really to blame, they scored on that. I thought the defense got better as the game went along and early they were taking too many chances or out of position, or not covering the trailer, but later in the game, we did those things and it was very frustrating to Wisconsin, because those passes had been open in the first period.
I liked Munson. I think the goaltending overall, and including the warmup's was better than last year. I expect it will remain better than last year. I thought L'esperence was a real man, used his size and skill to great advantage and the wisco defensemen were very aware of him all game.
I thought if there was one area we could have done better it was play away from the puck, but overall we played pretty dang well and if we keep doing that we'll win a lot of hockey games.
