I don't wish to get into a ****ing contest with any other Gophers fans over whose personal scapegoat was more to blame for tonight's loss. There are a lot of factors at which one can point.
None of these players are perfect; that's not the nature of the game. One can blame the goalie, but with how our expected starter's career was cut short, we're lucky to have Scobee. I saw what happened in 2006-07 when we ran out of healthy goalies, and it wasn't pretty.
Meanwhile, another longtime fan is hanging on every mistake made by a freshman D. Freshmen D in the WCHA make mistakes. Ramsey, McMillen, Gillanders, Jalusuo, Stecklein ... well, maybe not Stecklein.
![Wink ;) ;)](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png)
Quit acting like you've found a golden nugget every time she does something that isn't above reproach. It's a bad look to be constantly harping on the youngest player on the team that plays regularly. I'm going to start stalking your every post and expect the same perfection that you demand of the players. (e.g., It's "Brodt", not "Brody"; learn to type!!!)
Where were the Minnesota fans? Many couldn't be bothered to show up, and I had to listen to too many unanswered, "Let's go Bucks!" chants for my liking. Maybe the fans that were there are too busy texting a complaint about a member of the home team to actually offer any vocal support.
IMO, the worst defensive play of the night was the no look, behind-the-back pass into our own slot that led to OSU goal #2. That's a mental error that can't be made. Coaches always say that when players get tired, the head goes as much as the legs do, and that came at the end of a prolonged shift. Scobee did keep that play alive for awhile, but eventually, OSU had too many kicks at that can.
I'm sure our goalie will replay OSU goal #3 in her mind a few times in the coming week. Stuff happens. Lev played great in 2015, yet gave up that impossible-angle goal to Harvard that would have haunted her had we lost. As a team, you want to make the other team go 200 feet to score, and the Buckeyes basically did on a play that looked like no big deal. Live and learn.
Things that concern me in general moving forward ... First, for a team that looked so in control for the first 23 minutes, we looked much more vulnerable from that point. Was that all OSU getting more jump, or did we get back on our heels and never really regain control? I'm not smart enough to say, but it was likely a combination of both.
It was great to have #3 back, and she brought much-needed energy. Even with that, the third line got victimized twice. We complained about #28 plenty this season, and it definitely wasn't her best, but we sure miss her now. Remember that. Much as we get in ruts of finding flaws in a certain player's game, they are all important to the team's success. I'm not blaming the kids on the third, because it isn't like last year when we had players like Heise and Woken skating there. These are all of the pieces we have, and the team has to learn to win them.
In the NCAAs, this team will go as the first line goes, and they were all minus. We haven't won many trophies over the years when our top line gets outplayed. If they aren't going to score, then at a minimum, they have to be able to regain momentum when things get iffy, and they struggled with that over the last couple of periods. More often that not, it was the 2nd line in general, and AP in particular, that was making positive things happen. The first had a lot of shots, but not that many that looked like they had a chance to go in.
As a six-player unit, I thought that the D corps was great for much of the night. It just seems like they are in a stretch where every time they make an error it snowballs and something bad happens. I think they are the strength of this team, and given what else is out there on the national landscape, we can't afford to be making the errors, because some of those teams won't be giving us offense that we're used to getting.
Next up: more OSU? That seems likely. I still like our chances, but it is concerning that we got the better of the calls tonight, we got the great start, and we still wound up on the wrong end of the score. Usually, the losing team brings more jump into the rematch, but we had the jump tonight and couldn't make it hold up. We likely need every single member of the team to just be a tiny bit better and keep moving forward.
Come what may, Gophers, I'm with you to the end. Win your next three games, and nobody will remember those few times this season when something didn't go right. Well, I guess Eeyore and 'Frenzy will.
Go Gophers!