MANKATO, Minn. — UMD head coach Scott Sandelin knew what his team was up against this weekend, and he knew it was a heck of a challenge for his team, much of which is on the young side.
The Bulldogs entered this season with the fifth youngest roster of the 55 teams whose information has been listed by College Hockey News. Minnesota State is tied for the 13th oldest, by the way.
But that can’t ever be an excuse. Everyone knows how the sport works, what the rules are. If you’re looking for someone to argue that college hockey players shouldn’t be as old as some of them are, you’re barking up the wrong tree.
That being said, the smarts and maturity of this Minnesota State team are off the charts, and both were on display in a 6-0 trouncing of UMD Friday night.
Frankly, there isn’t a ton to be said about the game. It got away from UMD quickly, as Minnesota State cashed in on its first power play, then won a board scrum to set up a second goal, and the Mavericks got a back-breaking third goal with five seconds left in the first period when a point shot was blocked right to an open guy on the backdoor.
UMD went over 20 minutes without a shot on goal, spanning the midpoint of the first to the midpoint of the second period. Over the span of time, Minnesota State scored three times, two coming on a power play that went 4-for-7 (I still think it was six, but am going to trust the scorekeepers’ judgment).
By the time the Bulldogs ended the drought, the game was well in hand. The Mavericks picked up a goal late in the second — another PPG — and one in the third (though it should have been two more, we’ll get to that).
Not much went UMD’s way, and to the extent that one makes one’s own luck (a saying I abhor because luck is happenstance and happenstance can’t be manufactured), the Bulldogs weren’t making any. They just couldn’t get anything going.
8 THOUGHTS
1. Sandelin talked before the game about wanting to see an improved effort defensively.
“We have to check harder,” he said. “We have to be, when we don’t have the puck, we’re working hard away from the puck to get above people. This is a group that’s going to challenge that. They’re strong along the wall. They’re hard at the net. They get a lot of pucks there from the point. For us to win games, we’ve got to make sure we’re thinking the right way when we don’t have the puck.”
The scoreline would tell you this was a big fat “No,” and you couldn’t pay me money to watch the game back. And any silver linings defensively — MSU only scored twice at even strength, and even strength shots were 17-11 MSU for the night — are likely mitigated by score effects. MSU only attempted four shots the entire third period, which jives with the fact it was a 6-0 game for the last 17:13 of regulation time. Just about the only sustained offensive zone time UMD had in the game came here.
I would have to think the bulk of the coaches’ work before Saturday’s rematch will involve the defensive zone, both at level manpower and short-handed.
2. So, yeah, about that MSU power play. We all knew that 0-for-6 from last weekend wasn’t going to be repeated. But associate coach Adam Krause, who does a ton of work with the penalty kill, couldn’t have possibly expected what happened Friday.
The Mavericks picked apart UMD’s kill for three of their four man-advantage goals. David Silye got himself wide open in the slot for the first, Cade Borchardt was open on the backdoor for a five-on-three goal, and Sam Morton was open in the right circle for the last one.
The second power play goal was an unfortunate bounce, but it came after UMD failed on a clearing attempt, an area that’s always emphasized because failed clears, it feels like, often end in disaster. A clear is a change for the killing team, and missing that chance increases the odds that a tired group is eventually going to break down.
It’ll be a long night and day trying to make some adjustments, but you can expect UMD to come out with a more composed kill on Saturday. It would also help if the Bulldogs didn’t march to the box as often as they did on Friday.
3. Things snowballed for UMD, but the Bulldogs had a good start. UMD’s first shift was spent in the MSU zone after winning the opening faceoff. Then Wyatt Kaiser drew a hooking minor 37 seconds in. The Bulldogs had a chance right away to start the power play, but the Mavericks got the puck cleared and actually generated some time-killing possession along the boards behind UMD goalie Zach Stejskal.
As Sandelin told Matt Wellens after the game, scoring there could have been critical. Instead, UMD had two early power plays and generated just one shot on goal (two attempted). Minnesota State took the lead on its first power play chance, and things snowballed (or, more aptly, avalanched, even if that’s not a word) from there.
4. I’m not going back to look at my in-game Twitter mentions, but what I did see was a lot of negativity, as you can imagine. There were a couple of people (maybe more than that) asking if this was the worst UMD game since whenever.
I’ve been at this wonderful racket for a long time now, to the point where UMD now has players committed who weren’t yet born when I started calling Bulldog games. Scary thought.
Anyway, as much as this was not a lot of fun, and it wasn’t, there have been many, many that were worse. Here’s one, made worse by the fact it was Minnesota. Future NHLers Matt Niskanen and Mason Raymond put up a combined MINUS NINE on that night.
Same season, same opponent as this weekend. Ouch. And UMD outshot them that night. Who can forget the Ryan McKelvie vs Jeff McFarland scrap with 1:36 to play, either?
And who can forget the Amsoil opener? I’d like to.
So, yeah, this was a terrible, no good, very bad night. Probably not the worst I’ve seen, or the worst I’ll ever see. That’s just recency bias talking.
5. It probably should have been 7-0. Minnesota State (I believe it was Ondrej Pavel) scored in the final minutes on a shot that caught the back bar and flew out of the net.
One problem. The official on the goal line didn’t see it hit the back bar, instead signaling for no-goal. Game ops blew the goal horn and played the goal song, and play was stopped.
And then: confusion.
Now, there are new rules this season, and one of the major changes involved what can and can’t be reviewed without a coaches’ challenge. Upstairs, some of us immediately thought such a play had to be challenged, but I checked in the rule book, and “whether or not the puck crosses the goal line” is something that can be reviewed at the officials’ discretion OR by a coaches’ challenge.
Did the officials momentarily forget the new rules?
No.
FWIW Mike Hastings said on TV that the team/official replay system wasn’t working late in the game. Wishes they had seen it live, but he offered at least some support to referees. https://t.co/fYrduFwSjf
— Zach Schneider (@zschneider218) October 15, 2022
Turns out the video replay system to the referees’ area downstairs wasn’t working, and the rules don’t allow them to just, you know, watch the jumbotron, which had the overhead and you could see it was in the net.
Luckily, I guess, this wasn’t a malfunction that affected the outcome of a game.
6. I was chatting during the MSU-Minnesota women’s game with longtime Minnesota State radio voice Mike Sullivan of local station KTOE, one of the all-timers in this business. Sully talked about the UMD-MSU rivalry and how no two games on a weekend are ever really the same.
Never before have I hoped he was right more than I do right now. And we all know Saturday will be different.
How different? Great question.
UMD will make some adjustments and tighten up some details on the penalty kill. I expect a higher battle level out of the Bulldogs on Saturday, and perhaps that leads to more sustained offensive zone time. That last part has been an issue, even going back to the Arizona State games. UMD’s offense has consisted of a lot of one-and-dones, something Sandelin talked about last week. He wants to see more sustained offensive zone time, and he didn’t get anything close to that on Friday, outside of that first shift and maybe a couple in the third when the outcome was out of hand.
7. The NCHC took a couple of non-conference hits on Friday. There was UMD getting beat here, and defending national champion Denver fell 4-2 at UMass. The Pioneers led in shots 47-15, including 22-1 in the third period, but fell behind 4-0 and couldn’t get back. Also, St. Lawrence beat Colorado College 5-1 in upstate New York.
The news was better elsewhere. North Dakota trailed 3-0 and 4-1 at home against Quinnipiac, but the Fighting Hawks surged back and earned a 5-5 draw in a game where UND led in shots 43-22. Omaha got a go-ahead goal from Tyler Weiss in the third period and beat Lake Superior State 3-1. St. Cloud State took control of a scoreless game with a three-spot in the second period, winning 5-1 at Wisconsin. And Western Michigan scored four in the first of an 8-2 laugher at Bowling Green that completes a home-and-home sweep.
8. Couple shout-outs before this ends. Lindenwood is playing just four of 32 games at home in its first Division I season, but the first of those was a 7-6 win over Air Force Friday where the Lions scored the last five goals after trailing 6-2 in the second period. And Arizona State opened the much-ballyhooed Mullett Arena with a 2-0 win over Colgate. TJ Semptimphelter made 32 saves for his second shutout in as many Fridays. Fittingly, ASU captain Josh Doan — a Scottsdale native who is the son of longtime Arizona Coyote Shane Doan — scored the first goal in the arena’s history.
5:30 pregame Saturday. It’ll be better.
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