I was at the game tonight and we really didn't turn it on offensively until the 3rd. At one point, still in the 2nd, it was 20+ sog for WMU and 2 for NMU (and we didn't have many chances either)--then the 'Cats turned it around.
NMU is strong defensively--as tough as Western for sure. We just seemed to have a difficult time controlling the puck in our offensive zone--credit the WMU D of course. The 3rd period was in my end and NMU created some chances, but couldn't bury it--Slubowski was solid.
I'm usually not one to call out the refs, but tonight they seemed like homers. Then they had make-up calls against WMU near the mid-point of the 2nd. The calls on Follmer and Seckel in the 3rd seemed bogus to me.
The Ludwig call early in the game seemed overboard to me. It was a fierce open-ice check to a player with the puck and maybe during the progression of the check his arm or elbow went to the head--I was there live so I haven't seen the hit more than that one time. If anything I would have said a 2 minute for elbowing. It was an aggressive check to stop a breakaway. The guys I was with all thought it wasn't worth a 5 and a game misconduct. Whoever the WMU player was that took the check got right back up, I'm pretty sure. I'd like to hear what anyone else thought.
But penalties didn't really disrupt the game too much. Neither team could manufacture many scoring chances and the defenses for both teams were stifling.
Where is our offense--it didn't really show up until the 3rd?