Misc. Stuff

I had a few thoughts from the games I saw last weekend. I wrote about Duluth. Here's some stuff about the other teams I watched.

St. Cloud

Everyone seems to be hitting the panic button with the Huskies. I wouldn't go that far just yet. I think one of the biggest problems St. Cloud had on Friday was a total lack of transition game. I think St. Cloud had trouble adjusting to playing on Duluth's tiny ice sheet after playing on their Olympic-sized ice. The lack of space made everything happen just a little bit quicker, and St. Cloud wasn't able to get much of a rush started. Add in that a WCHA opponent is a little faster than Canisius, and it's not hard to see why they struggled.

The good news for St. Cloud is that Jase Weslosky played pretty well. The first goal Friday night certainly wasn't his fault, and the second one wasn't a terrible goal. I didn't see Saturday's game, but 3 goals on 29 shots isn't awful. He made some great saves with a lot of traffic in front of him on Friday. He looks like he'll be one of the least of St. Cloud's concerns this year.

There was some talk of moving forward John Swanson back to defense full-time. He played the point on the powerplay, and didn't look that great back there. I think they'd be better off leaving him at forward.

I caught bits and pieces of the Colorado College/Minnesota series. I saw the second half of Friday's game, and whatever parts of Saturday's game that didn't coincide with the Michigan/Illinois football game(which were frustratingly few).

Obviously the biggest story of the weekend was how well Richard Bachman played. I thought he was fantastic on Friday night. He made two spectacular saves at the start of the third period on Friday with CC up 2-1, and CC was eventually able to extend their lead to 3-1. If Bachman can consistently play at that level, CC could be very, very good.

Jeff Frazee played almost as well for the Gophers. Friday wasn't his best game, but he made some very nice saves on Saturday.

The other thing that stood out to me about the series was how much the officials let both teams play. I don't have a problem with officials calling games loose or tight, so long as they are consistent, and the officiating seemed to be pretty consistent. Both teams were playing a pretty wide-open style and there didn't need to be a lot of penalties called.