If you wanted to put a game on 'regular TV' to highlight your sport to an audience that might not otherwise be watching, tonight's (tOSU/UW is) a pretty darn good one to choose.
Agreed. Although it didn't help that: a) tOSU was wearing some version of "stealth" uni that Muzzy seems to love, and b) Baylee Wellhausen thought she was speaking to a strictly Wisconsin audience.
WI and Tosu split, though I think Tosu is the better team overall.
Other than the entertainment value and giving both teams a chance to play a dress rehearsal, I'm not sure how much relevance to place on last night's game.
For tOSU, I was impressed by how fast/crisp their passing was all over the ice. I'm not remembering a team that could fire the puck around the rink in all three zones and put some mustard on it. Maybe I've just watched too little of our sport of late and am easily impressed. Plus, the reliable version of Thiele looked to be back.
What's with the Jekyll/Hyde version of UW this weekend from period to period? Last night, all of their goals came in transition, and that seems to be the part of a team's offense that most commonly disappears in the postseason. It's not like they can't generate offense from sustained time in the zone, but that's the part of their game where, historically, they are sometimes prone to dominate w/o changing the number that matters. Of course, they
should have scored when Eden set Curl up alone on the backdoor, but ... couldn't tell if she partially whiffed on the shot and didn't think she needed to raise it or how she didn't bury that.
I think both teams can play better, and the coaches will likely clamp their defenses down more for future meetings. It should be a two-horse race, but both showed enough wobbles defensively that they won't be an absolute lock against other teams. I'd expect that we'll only see McNaughton once the NCAAs arrive. The numbers suggest the same for Kirk, but Thiele does have that crown on her resume that can't be ignored.
Just for Timothy, the more I watch Curl, the more I start to think that the distance between her and Murphy isn't that great. The biggest difference is size, so Murphy appears little and feisty, while Curl comes across more as big and clumsy as she continues to run people over "by accident." Plus, she doesn't have to defend herself as much, as fewer people are anxious to bully the bully.
I just think this is really cool.
