Re: Minnesota @ Wisconsin.. the greatest rivalry in college hockey.
The badgers
outshot the Gophers Saturday but saying they
outplayed them could be a little misleading. When the Gophers buried their chances better, and got better goaltending, did they really get
outplayed? Debatable if you ask me. However, I see the badgers point too. There is something to be said for carrying the majority of the play.
So who is the better team? There isn't a lot to go on for sure, but I would give a slight edge to wisconsin. The scoring ability for both teams looks too close to call. The goaltending is pretty close too, but I think Minnesota appears a little bit better here. The difference is the wisconsin defense. They appear to hold a significant edge over Minnesota. While it may not be the "Defense of the ages", the badger defense looks to be one of the best in the conference this year. Very impressive. I don't think there is a component of the Gophers game that is this strong.
McDonaugh, Gardiner, Geoffrion, and Grotting. I thought all looked very good this weekend, I'm including Friday in this weekend. Sorry Brent!
The play of Bennett between the pipes wasn't terribly great if you ask me. He looked good in spurts but I don't see him as very dominant. However, he doesn't appear to be much of a liability either. With the badgers defense, his play should be good enough. If he can get hot at the right time, wisconsin could go far in a one and done format.
Lucia, Budish, Fairchild, and White looked the best for the Gophers. When Budish catches up to WCHA speed, he could be a really big contributor this year. This weekend it almost looked like he has caught up to some degree.
Oh if only Schroeder could shake off his mediocre play. He looked better this weekend, but not to what he showed all last year. I wonder what happened over the summer? I wasn't concerned at first, but we're 8 games in now. He has to improve though, he's got too much talent to be down for too much longer.
As good as Kangas was on Saturday, he was just as bad on Friday. If the Gophers are going to do anything this year, the goaltending has to be more like Saturday and less like Friday. Since it has been mostly good this year, I'm hoping we'll see that more often. Unfortunately, the Gophers will not win many games if they give up 3 or more goals. That's quite a bit of pressure on the shoulders of Kangas and Patterson. How they handle it could determine how far they go. It would help if we saw some players up their game a little bit. All are capable, but will any step up?
Pretty entertaining pair of games. The Friday game was nip and tuck right up until Street buried the back breaker. Average (better than displayed) goaltending by Kangas may have made a difference in Minnesota's favor. On Saturday, the Gophers benefited from 2 first period goals while getting badly outshot. The badgers couldn't come back from that with the Gophers narrowing the shot margin considerably the last 2 periods. Average (worse than displayed) goaltending by Kangas could have made a difference in wisconsin's favor.
