It's not "rookies" so much as it is "seniors and juniors". Murdock was fine. There were 18 bigger problems out there for the Mavericks tonight that need fixing before we can even begin to talk about Murdock.
The Badgers are a good team, and it's one thing to lose because you don't have the talent. But when you lose every single battle along the boards, that's got nothing to do with talent and everything to do with lack of effort and lack of toughness. That's got to be one of the worst efforts I've ever seen from a Minnesota State team. They were just soft all over the ice.
Hopefully there's a lot of lineup changes for tomorrow night. I'd start with putting Mueller in for Mouillerat. Mueller isn't a big scorer, and makes occasional mistakes, but at least the kid plays hard and plays bigger than his size, which were two things nobody else did tonight. Put Gaulrapp in for anyone. He at least plays like he appreciates the opportunity to be out there. And unless he's hurt or something, there's absolutely no excuse for Cooper sitting behind some of the defensemen that are playing.
There's still time to get things figured out, but they've got to make some big changes. What made their team special two years ago is that they had some upperclassmen that really stepped it up and played the best hockey of their careers. The current upperclassmen haven't shown a tenth of that urgency or leadership yet.
