Minnesota Women's Hockey 2016-2017 (aka Season 20)

[FiveHoleFrenzy]

Re: Minnesota Women's Hockey 2016-2017 (aka Season 20)

There's been a Kelly Pannek sighting...

Where was this team last night? Oh wait...There is that issue of the goalie stopping the puck.

[ne7minder]

Apparently refreshed from their night off the Gophers are back. 2-1 end of1 and it is not that close.

[Eeyore]

There's been a Kelly Pannek sighting.

She's been tremendous lately. No goals, but some gorgeous assists.

[FiveHoleFrenzy]

Re: Minnesota Women's Hockey 2016-2017 (aka Season 20)

She's been tremendous lately. No goals, but some gorgeous assists.

Correct...nice to see her get a couple.

[FiveHoleFrenzy]

Re: Minnesota Women's Hockey 2016-2017 (aka Season 20)

A wins a win I guess.

[ne7minder]

Re: Minnesota Women's Hockey 2016-2017 (aka Season 20)

A wins a win I guess.

They played with an intensity they did not show early in the season or last night. BSU is the sort of team that can make skilled players look bad but once they give up 2 goals they are not going to win, only make life difficult. If they play with that intensity the next few weeks they will be OK.

BTW - did ANYBODY see what happened to thibodeau?

[KTDC]

Re: Minnesota Women's Hockey 2016-2017 (aka Season 20)

Much better tonight. Team came ready to play and gave a solid effort. I thought it was an entertaining game, Bemidji played their hearts out and they had a lot of fans there screaming their lungs out and being sensitive about the officiating

Kind of disappointing we figured out a way to let the Beavers score twice. All those dubbed passes we made early in the third period, one of which led to the second Beaver goal, were pretty strange and disconcerting.

Hats off to the Beavers for playing a great game.

[KTDC]

Re: Minnesota Women's Hockey 2016-2017 (aka Season 20)

Playing with TTTs trusty Pairwise Predictor......that loss yesterday really carries some potential consequences. All the worse when it seems they just didn't come ready to play. A loss is one thing, but when you don't come ready to play.............

[bluffrinkrat]

Re: Minnesota Women's Hockey 2016-2017 (aka Season 20)

They played with an intensity they did not show early in the season or last night. BSU is the sort of team that can make skilled players look bad but once they give up 2 goals they are not going to win, only make life difficult. If they play with that intensity the next few weeks they will be OK.

BTW - did ANYBODY see what happened to thibodeau?

We did not, but someone who was standing behind us said "she was going very fast and appeared to lose an edge when she hit the boards." I would think someone on the other side of the arena by the BSU bench would have had a better view than anyone on our side though.

Hard fought win for the Gophers. Great first period then things got a little messy. At least the refs weren't much of a factor tonight and they did call matching interference penalties against both teams, so that was equal. Both good calls.

[D2D]

Re: Minnesota Women's Hockey 2016-2017 (aka Season 20)

Much better tonight. Team came ready to play and gave a solid effort.

I thought they did in the first, but reverted back to some lackluster play in the 2nd. Then when the Beavers scored 4 minutes into the 3rd, the Gophers responded with some leftover energy to seal the deal. Starting next Saturday at 5:07pm, that on-again, off-again strategy ain't gonna cut it.

[Eeyore]

Re: Minnesota Women's Hockey 2016-2017 (aka Season 20)

They played better than yesterday, but well short of great. The first Bemidji goal looked very soft, though I couldn't quite figure out how it got in, so I may be wrong. The second was a comedy of errors: Reilly doesn't get enough on a pass back to the point; Cline makes a bad decision to pinch to keep it in; and then Robinson gets faked out of most of her internal organs to turn it into a 2-on-0. Baldwin had some very strange shifts.

My probably vain hope is that the main lesson of the weekend is that, even when Bemidji is bad, the Gophers struggle to beat them. Hopefully Wisconsin beats UND and someone takes out Clarkson, so we're done playing teams in green for the season.

[D2D]

Re: Minnesota Women's Hockey 2016-2017 (aka Season 20)

The second was a comedy of errors: Reilly doesn't get enough on a pass back to the point; Cline makes a bad decision to pinch to keep it in; and then Robinson gets faked out of most of her internal organs to turn it into a 2-on-0.

The fact that two of our forwards both got caught right behind the offensive net right at the time of the turnover at the blue line also contributed to the goal. It used to be that you don't send two forwards in deep when you have a two goal lead in the 3rd period, leaving your D without a forward back to help defend.

[Blackbeard]

Re: Minnesota Women's Hockey 2016-2017 (aka Season 20)

I believe that competition rules require that a team have two goaltenders dressed for games. For both of the games so far this weekend, for the first time that I can remember, the Gophers have had only two goaltenders dressed.

The box score for yesterday's game at CollegeHockeyStats lists as a third G, 17-Sierra Smith (DNP). I assume this means that if Peters had been injured and unable to continue that Smith would have donned someone's goalie tools and sat on the bench to fulfill the requirement that a team have two dressed.

I wonder if she is any good.

If I recall correctly about 7 or 8 years ago one of the UMD skaters discovered what it was like to play under all that weight in a game situation when she volunteered to guard the net in the last period (I think) when no one else was available. They only had two goaltenders that season Steck and Harss. Even though that is obviously not ideal Miller thought they could make do for that one season with the two. But Steck was on the short term injury list and I forget what happened to Harss in that game but she couldn't continue so a skater had to volunteer. Very entertaining...wish I could recall who the skater was...might have been Kacey Ambrose. Miller immediately began scouring the halls of UMD for someone who could fill in as the third goalie for the rest of that season and found one shortly thereafter.

[Hockeyhub]

Re: Minnesota Women's Hockey 2016-2017 (aka Season 20)

The U of M Women's Hockey website mentions that both semi-final games will be streamed for free online at WCHA.com and the Championship game will air live on FSN. It goes on to say that "Both Gopher Games will feature free audio on GopherSports.com". Do they play a 3rd place game, or was this a typo suggesting the Gophers will be playing two games this weekend? I mean, I hope they are playing two, but it is a little early to assume this, right?

[TonyTheTiger20]

Re: Minnesota Women's Hockey 2016-2017 (aka Season 20)

The U of M Women's Hockey website mentions that both semi-final games will be streamed for free online at WCHA.com and the Championship game will air live on FSN. It goes on to say that "Both Gopher Games will feature free audio on GopherSports.com". Do they play a 3rd place game, or was this a typo suggesting the Gophers will be playing two games this weekend? I mean, I hope they are playing two, but it is a little early to assume this, right?

Ha -- no third place games in any conference as far as I'm aware.