Re: Minnesota Gophers 2019/2020 Season Thread
Moved from the scores thread:
There is a lot more I could say but at this point playing the way they did and coming away with 4 pts on the weekend seems fortunate.
Again, I disagree. That felt about right. The Gophers looked really good for two periods yesterday and held on for a win. They didn't look as good on Friday, and got a tie.
UMD came out and played really hard. If either of these teams should be asking themselves questions right now, it isn't the Gophers. The Bulldogs need to explain how the team I watched this weekend got swept by the Bemidji team I watched last weekend, and only came away with one point against Ohio State. Duluth can be really good, but apparently doesn't come close to their potential on a regular basis. Crowell should also ask the Minnesota State Police to put out an APB for a gold medal winning goalie, because there appears to be one missing.
Minnesota's effort level wasn't there for the first two periods on Friday, but that wasn't an issue the rest of the weekend. They lost races to the puck that they shouldn't have, including letting UMD negate several icings they shouldn't have been close to. The other problem on Friday was lazy passing. There were a bunch that the Gophers just put nothing on, handing them to a Bulldog. And the drop passing was horrific, leading to a lot of really bad turnovers. That didn't come up much on Saturday.
There have been a few periods lately, one against Wisconsin and one against Bemidji, where Minnesota couldn't get the puck out of their defensive end, but also didn't let the opponent get the puck off the boards and gave up very few quality scoring chances. That's what the first half of yesterday's third period looked like, and then the Bulldogs started getting those chances. It wasn't a lack of effort. If anything, it was players trying to do too much. It felt like the Gophers panicked a bit and started overpursuing to one side. UMD had a lot of success getting a player completely free on the weak side. That's how they scored their extra attacker goal, and it's what led to Boreen's penalty. UMD had several other chances on similar plays that they couldn't convert. This is not something I've noticed the Gophers having a problem with before, so I suspect that Duluth was doing something to create the openings.
Sydney Scobee was tremendous this weekend. You wanted to take style points away from her yesterday, but considering how much of the third period she spent with 4-5 bodies within a couple feet of her crease, she looked great. She didn't lose sight of the puck in traffic. There were three times on the weekend when Bulldogs moved the puck quickly from side to side and Scobee stone cold stole goals from them. I'm pretty sure she got into their heads, and in the final period tried to make perfect shots into mostly empty nets to keep from being robbed again.
The third line had a great series. The one thing that's been consistently missing this year is scoring from Skaja/Oden/Borren. That's changing over the last couple of weeks, and if they continue to put the puck in the net, this is a very dangerous team. Boreen had several quality chances, including a breakaway that forced Rooney to make a nice pad save.
If you want concerns, I have three.
Wethington is playing like she thinks she can do anything she wants. She has the potential to be that kind of Bozek/Stecklein defenseman, but she's not there yet. She gets into trouble carrying the puck when a pass would serve better.
The #6/#13 defensive pairing is becoming concerning, especially the latter. Hengler was on the ice for three of the UMD goals on the weekend, and the second on Friday was largely on her as she broke out of the zone as the Bulldogs were forcing a turnover, leaving Ostertag trying to corral two players at once. She's out of position a lot. I mostly think it's a matter of taking a deep breath and slowing things down.
Lastly, the Gophers just aren't drawing any penalties. Some of that is the officiating; there's no way that the Gophers committed four times as many infractions as the Bulldogs yesterday, and they missed Sarah Potomak getting elbowed in the head on Friday. But, outside of Bemidji going full on goon towards the end of the second game in that series, they've had a total of ten power plays in the last seven games, half of them in just one game. I'm not sure what's going on. Maybe it is entirely a matter of the refs not calling anything. But it would be nice to fix it and force the other team to make trips to the box.
