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Minnesota Gophers Season Thread: 2014-2015

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Re: Minnesota Gophers Season Thread: 2014-2015

Merrimack isn't a bad team. Their 1st and 3rd goals were really pretty skill plays. Poor defensive play by MN led to the opportunity, but great skill by those 'mack players as well.

I agree with Harley in that I'm not writing this team off. But my patience is wearing thin. I don't feel that great about their performance last night. Yeah, a lot of shots, but it felt like one of those games where SOG did not do a good job of telling the story. Merrimack was winning the lion's share of the individual battles throughout the game, and seemed very comfortable with how the game was being played.

Not much in the way of sustained pressure until the last 10 minutes or so. Some pretty glaring defensive mistakes. Still searching for production from some of the go-to guys. There is a lot that this team needs to rectify, and they are in a position where consistency is going to be critical. The only real quality teams they have left on their schedule are at the North Star Cup. Maybe Mi will make themselves into a top-15 type team, but none of the rest of the Big10 is going to provide much in the PWR.

Greyeagle said:
This stretch of uninspired play is not good. This is not good, at all.
They weren't bad last night but I get this sense of indifference and I don't like it.
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That's how I feel. It reminds me of the team 2 years ago.
 
Re: Minnesota Gophers Season Thread: 2014-2015

Golden Tuuk said:
No clue. BTN is a joke, so this BTN to go must be an even bigger joke.

Post up up if you find a stream.
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Yes, you can get it on Pig10 to go . . . for a monthly fee. And the feed stunk the one time I saw it. We went to both games yesterday & if they wonder around listlessly like they did yesterday you are better off not watching. #NOprideonice.
 
Re: Minnesota Gophers Season Thread: 2014-2015

Golden Tuuk said:
Agree.

Merrimack and Northeastern are also rans at best. How this Gopher team doesn't blow teams like that out I'll never know.
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Because this is not "fantasy hockey", you know, where one guys roster is better than the other guys. They actually play these games. Some teams, while not as talented or loaded with draft picks (Merrimack), win the one-on one battles, dive to block shots, scratch, claw, do-whatever-it-takes, get a little puck luck, have a goalie on his game, and mix in just enough skill to to score a nice goal or 2. It happens (see also, "MIRACLE", it's a pretty good movie).
 
Re: Minnesota Gophers Season Thread: 2014-2015

All is well. They only needed OT to beat the 49th team in Pairwise Ranking tonight.
 
Re: Minnesota Gophers Season Thread: 2014-2015

Thanks for being great hosts this weekend, I sincerely enjoyed following the games. Hope to see you all again soon!

To those somehow disappointed with your win tonight, don't forget that other teams can also play well. I invite you to recall
who RIT beat last time we were here. :)
 
Re: Minnesota Gophers Season Thread: 2014-2015

kwm4385 said:
Thanks for being great hosts this weekend, I sincerely enjoyed following the games. Hope to see you all again soon!

To those somehow disappointed with your win tonight, don't forget that other teams can also play well. I invite you to recall
who RIT beat last time we were here. :)
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We aim to please.

I'm not disappointed, a win is a win, especially with parity in today's NCAA hockey. That and I like to bang fat chicks...
 
Re: Minnesota Gophers Season Thread: 2014-2015

Gophers really needed that win tonight, at least in part to stem the frustration from controlling the play but not being to put enough pucks in the net. They outshot Merrimack and RIT by a combined 91-38, but ended up with a combined score of 5-5, with overtime needed this evening to come up with a win over a very mediocre RIT team. That gave the two opposing goalies a combined save percentage of .948, vs. our .868. Although Wilcox was not at his absolute best, giving up a goal each night that he ordinarily would have had, he was called upon to make several outstanding saves in each game that against lesser goaltenders probably would have gone in. It was good to see the defensive breakdowns kept to a minimum this weekend; when you hold your opponent to less than 20 shots per game (average) your odds of winning are pretty good. What really made this weekend so difficult was a failure to put more pucks in the net at the other end. That's going to happen sometimes, but this weekend there were SO many opportunities that were not converted into goals that coulda/shoulda been. I don't claim to have the answers, other than we need to (a) shoot better and (b) make it more difficult for the opposing goalie to see the puck, especially on the power play where we went a combined 1 for 10 this weekend. I'd be interested in hearing others' thoughts on this...hopefully we can find a way to score more than 2-3 goals a game next weekend in Ann Arbor when they face a much more talented team that's now won 6 of their last 7 games.
 
Re: Minnesota Gophers Season Thread: 2014-2015

The Gophers closed out the 2015 Mariucci Classic with another shot fest pumping 49 shots on goal vs. RIT's 21, but still needed the extra frame for Rau to slam home a rebound for a 3-2 W. The Gophers attempted a colossal 92 shots tonight and 78 last night for 170 total attempts for the weekend and 91 SOG. That's about a good as it gets in getting pucks on net for a weekend of college hockey. But for the second night in a row the Gophers faced a strong effort from an opposing netminder; and tonight it was Rotolo who made some nice saves to give RIT a shot at a win.

One of the positives was the Gophers controlled play and shelled Rotolo repeatedly for long stretches in the offensive zone, but as was the case last night could not bury that elusive third goal in regulation. Ambroz had 7 SOG, and several had 6 SOG tonight (Rau, M. Reilly, Boyd), but a lot of those shots were not well directed, allowing Rotolo to make easy routine saves.

Poor shot selection is one of the main reasons pucks are not going in for the Gophers. I saw a lot of guys shooting pucks in the general direction of the net like a zone dump, while others looked like they were firing randomly without targeting any 1-5 hole.

For you stat nerds like me, a "reasonable" shot accuracy metric is the G/SOG stat. The average for D1 top 20 teams today is about 11%. The Gophers are at 10.6% for the season. But they were well below that avg. tonight in regulation with 4%, and 5% last night for a total weekend avg. of 5%. If they hit the 11% avg. they score at least 5 goals both nights. This team may be getting lots of pucks on net, but with few going in, it begs the question: What are players aiming for? I saw a lot of shots going into Rotolo's belly tonight. If I were Lucia I'd make time in practice this week for everyone shoot a thousand pucks for accuracy. Shot accuracy has to seriously improve for consistent scoring to return for the Gophers.

SanTropez said:
Don't knock her until you tried her... boing.
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It's like putting the Lazyboy all the way back. Not high on my list but gotta agree, you are comfortable man.:D

D2D said:
Although Wilcox was not at his absolute best, giving up a goal each night that he ordinarily would have had...
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Wilcox was totally deked on the tying goal by Thompson. Wilcox anticipated low and Thompson went 3 hole.
 
Re: Minnesota Gophers Season Thread: 2014-2015

Well said Harley. Rau echoed your sentiment.

"We had a lot of shots. I could have saved half of them," Rau said. "We need to crash the net."
 
Re: Minnesota Gophers Season Thread: 2014-2015

mnstate0fhockey said:
Well said Harley. Rau echoed your sentiment.

"We had a lot of shots. I could have saved half of them," Rau said. "We need to crash the net."
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Which is exactly what Rau did for the GWG in OT...streaking down the middle of bloody nose lane.;) This team needs some strong vocal leadership from Rau.
 
Re: Minnesota Gophers Season Thread: 2014-2015

mnstate0fhockey said:
Well said Harley. Rau echoed your sentiment.

"We had a lot of shots. I could have saved half of them," Rau said. "We need to crash the net."
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Was thinking that.

We frequently have control of the puck in the opponents end. We very infrequently put the puck in the net. If we have set up plays (including crashing the net), we need to teach them better.

Forwards are not scoring.
 
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