Re: Minnesota Gophers 2019/2020 Season Thread
Today's game was a lot more evenly played than the 7-1 final score. Minnesota was the better team, but they weren't six goals better. Scobee played two high quality periods before being relieved by Pahl.
The Heise/Woken/Zumwinkle line is blowing things up. They scored five yesterday and three more today. They've converted 12 of 47 shots on the season, which, by my calculator, means that their combined shooting percentage is . . . absurd. I'd say that there's no way they can keep that up, but it doesn't even feel like they outperforming their shot quality. Hell, Zumwinkle missed that gimme yesterday. They are just moving the puck around so well that they are ending up with a lot of tap ins. It was nice to see Woken score three times this weekend, because she's doing a lot grunt work. She looks bigger this year, and she's definitely playing like it, though she still has some speed.
Catie Skaja scored twice today, but I'm still not sure that the third line is going to develop to be much more than a checking line. That said, it's already a really nice checking line. They have speed and they have effort. Maybe they'll prove me wrong and start producing more goals, but even if they don't, they'll be valuable.
This may be the best blue line corps they've had since Baylee Gillanders was somehow the sixth best defenseman on the team. I thought Knowles was shaky and overly aggressive yesterday, but much less so today. Emily Brown has developed a very nice all around game, as witnessed by her wrap around goal today. The pairing of Hengler and Ostertag is solid. Wethington looks like she's going to be special.
The team looked kind of ragged and sloppy for good chunks of today's game, but I think the best solution for that is to play some better opponents. It's tough to retain focus when you're scoring ten times as often as the other team.
My only real concern is that the Wente/Potomak/Potomak line looked out of sync all weekend. Both the passing and receiving was off, and both S. Potomak and Wente fanned on fairly easy chances today. A. Potomak tries to make every play as pretty as possible, and her stickhandling skills are so good that, most of the time, it almost works. They really aren't all the far off from producing a bunch of goals, so maybe the right play is to just keep doing what they're doing and maybe the goals will start to come. If so, they'll be highlight reel quality, but I can't help but think that they'd be better off making the game a bit simpler. Another option would be to flip Boreen or Oden for one of the Potomaks in order to add some Woken-like grit to the second line and more playmaking to the third. I wouldn't be surprised if there's some experimenting.
