Away we go on a Friday night. Only UMD Friday home game this month, and the first of just seven remaining home games for the Bulldogs. At Denver and Northern Michigan the next two weekends, and at North Dakota and St. Cloud the two after Valentine's Day.
The mission is clear: Just win, baby.
Lines?
Lines.
UMD
Young (Blake) - Toninato - Iafallo
Farley - Cameranesi - Kuhlman
Osterberg - Thomas - Young (Austyn)
Johnson - Decowski - Mackay
Welinski - Pionk
Soucy - Raskob
Molenaar - Kotyk
Kaskisuo - McNeely - Deery
SCSU
Eyssimont - Kossila - Russell
Benik - Morley - Newell
Jackson - Peterson - Murray
Storm - Winiecki - Benson
Schuldt - Prow
Widman - Borgen
Nevalainen - Lizotte
Lindgren - Reijola
Friday, January 15, 2016
Bulldogs Face Big Test With Goal of Building Momentum
St. Cloud State coach Bob Motzko didn't have to look far to find what he thinks is a similar team to this year's UMD Bulldogs.
"I think UMD is very similar to where we were a year ago," Motzko said, referring to an SCSU team that was 6-9-1 at Christmas break and sat at 10-13-1 after a loss to Western Michigan on Jan. 24. From there, the Huskies ripped off a 9-5 run to end the season and make the NCAA Tournament. Included in that was a win in Duluth over UMD Feb. 14 (the Huskies' only win in four games against the Bulldogs last season), followed by a pair of sweeps of eventual Frozen Four qualifier Omaha (one of those came in Omaha in the NCHC quarterfinals).
Once in the tournament last year, Duluth native Judd Peterson scored in overtime as St. Cloud State beat Michigan Tech in the first round before falling to North Dakota in the West Regional final.
"Last year, we were an afterthought," Motzko added. "The second half of the season, things came together.
"I think this is a critical weekend. They (UMD) were picked first, and they're not out of the hunt. Depth-wise, throughout their lineup, they're as strong as any team in the country. We're quietly watching them get back on top where everyone expected them to be."
At 8-7-4, there's no doubt UMD is close. The Bulldogs have shown signs of brilliance throughout the season. A four-game winning streak saw UMD score 24 goals and pick up four blowout wins. But it was followed by back-to-back shutout losses to Cam Johnson and North Dakota, which served to take some air out of the building right before break.
Last week's four-point journey to Ohio (1-1 tie Friday, 5-2 win Saturday) might have represented UMD's best defensive performance this season. While the five-goal effort Saturday may have piqued some folks' interest, I was most intrigued by the play of the blue line. Not only were UMD's defensemen jumping into the play and doing a very good job getting pucks through lanes down low or to the net, but UMD held Miami to 40 shots in two games, including just 15 on Saturday (and six total in the second and third periods).
"I think the guys got rewarded for continuing to play the right way and sticking with it," assistant coach Brett Larson said. "They didn't get individual or selfish. They kept playing a team game, and they were rewarded."
"In the third period (Saturday), they (Miami) had the puck a little more, and we didn't give them a lot," head coach Scott Sandelin said. "The better you are defensively, if you score a goal or two, you have a chance to win a game. Our job is to make sure we limit their chances and where those chances are coming from. We still need to take care of the puck more."
We know UMD has capable goaltending with Kasimir Kaskisuo (.923 save percentage, 1.85 goals against). Throw in this kind of defensive play, and UMD might be able to get on a run.
"We have to stick with it," freshman defenseman Neal Pionk said this week. "We've had a few bumps in the road, but for the most part, I think we're playing pretty well. We just have to bear down around the net and those bounces will come our way."
This weekend, the Bulldogs do indeed have to deal with St. Cloud State. The Huskies are 17-5, yes, but are off a 5-2 loss to Colorado College on Saturday. Peterson, a former Hilltopper, has 19 points in 19 games. Another former Minnesota high school star, Joey Benik, is two points away from 100 for his career. St. Cloud's scoring chart is topped by four seniors -- Kalle Kossila, David Morley, Jimmy Murray, and Ethan Prow, possibly the most underappreciated defenseman in the country.
Motzko on Prow: "We've watched him mature into one of the real high-end defensmen at our level. Great character."
Oh, and while I get Prow is a more offensive-minded defenseman, he has played 18 games and has yet to take a penalty. This isn't a guy playing eight to ten minutes a night and avoiding the penalty box. It's a 30-minute-per-game defenseman doing it. I'm impressed, and you should be, too.
(If you're a St. Cloud State fan reading this, I apologize in advance if this turns out to be a jinx.)
This is a fantastic matchup of two similar teams. Yes, the numbers show St. Cloud is way ahead of UMD in record, league points, PairWise, and offense. But the teams play a similar style, and it's one UMD typically plays pretty well against.
"They're playing really well," Larson said. "Two very skilled, fast teams, that like to play a speed game with a lot of tempo. They can make plays. They get good goaltending. Their power play is hot, so discipline will be a big key. I like the matchup."
"They've got a 29 percent power play," Sandelin added. "They're built around their power play. They've got a ton of skill. They're a puck possession team, we're a puck possession team. It's managing the puck and not giving them easy chances. You have to respect some of their guys and play tight on them."
UMD's discipline -- outside of defenseman Willie Raskob's ten-minute misconduct in Friday's tie at Miami -- has been fine lately. The Bulldogs posted double-digit penalty minutes in five of their first seven games. UMD has kept that number to the single digits in eight of 12 games since, and only once since the opener Oct. 10 has UMD taken more than 20 penalty minutes in a game.
(UMD is mid-pack nationally in penalty minutes taken per game at 11.3.)
Former Grand Rapids star Avery Peterson -- Minnesota Mr. Hockey in 2014 -- is skating with UMD. The Omaha transfer won't be eligible until next January, but he can practice with the team now that the semester break has ended. Peterson is enrolled at UMD for the spring semester.
Asked about Peterson, Sandelin said he fills a need in the program.
"We lost a kid through a decommitment that would be in our program down the road," Sandelin said, citing the recent decommitment of Eden Prairie forward Michael Graham, who will go to Notre Dame instead. Graham would presumably have been a part of UMD's freshman class next season.
"He's (Peterson) a big body who can shoot the puck," Sandelin added. "He's played college hockey. He had success in our league. We're looking for good things. It's a huge need for us. Unfortunately, he has to wait a year to play."
Peterson is seeking a hardship waiver from the NCAA that would allow him to gain an extra year of eligibility, basically getting his sophomore season back. If that is granted, Peterson has two and a half years at UMD. Otherwise, the Wild draft pick will be able to play a year and a half for the Bulldogs.
Sandelin said he didn't know how long it would take to hear back on that application, which is being handled by UMD's compliance office.
"I think UMD is very similar to where we were a year ago," Motzko said, referring to an SCSU team that was 6-9-1 at Christmas break and sat at 10-13-1 after a loss to Western Michigan on Jan. 24. From there, the Huskies ripped off a 9-5 run to end the season and make the NCAA Tournament. Included in that was a win in Duluth over UMD Feb. 14 (the Huskies' only win in four games against the Bulldogs last season), followed by a pair of sweeps of eventual Frozen Four qualifier Omaha (one of those came in Omaha in the NCHC quarterfinals).
Once in the tournament last year, Duluth native Judd Peterson scored in overtime as St. Cloud State beat Michigan Tech in the first round before falling to North Dakota in the West Regional final.
"Last year, we were an afterthought," Motzko added. "The second half of the season, things came together.
"I think this is a critical weekend. They (UMD) were picked first, and they're not out of the hunt. Depth-wise, throughout their lineup, they're as strong as any team in the country. We're quietly watching them get back on top where everyone expected them to be."
At 8-7-4, there's no doubt UMD is close. The Bulldogs have shown signs of brilliance throughout the season. A four-game winning streak saw UMD score 24 goals and pick up four blowout wins. But it was followed by back-to-back shutout losses to Cam Johnson and North Dakota, which served to take some air out of the building right before break.
Last week's four-point journey to Ohio (1-1 tie Friday, 5-2 win Saturday) might have represented UMD's best defensive performance this season. While the five-goal effort Saturday may have piqued some folks' interest, I was most intrigued by the play of the blue line. Not only were UMD's defensemen jumping into the play and doing a very good job getting pucks through lanes down low or to the net, but UMD held Miami to 40 shots in two games, including just 15 on Saturday (and six total in the second and third periods).
"I think the guys got rewarded for continuing to play the right way and sticking with it," assistant coach Brett Larson said. "They didn't get individual or selfish. They kept playing a team game, and they were rewarded."
"In the third period (Saturday), they (Miami) had the puck a little more, and we didn't give them a lot," head coach Scott Sandelin said. "The better you are defensively, if you score a goal or two, you have a chance to win a game. Our job is to make sure we limit their chances and where those chances are coming from. We still need to take care of the puck more."
We know UMD has capable goaltending with Kasimir Kaskisuo (.923 save percentage, 1.85 goals against). Throw in this kind of defensive play, and UMD might be able to get on a run.
"We have to stick with it," freshman defenseman Neal Pionk said this week. "We've had a few bumps in the road, but for the most part, I think we're playing pretty well. We just have to bear down around the net and those bounces will come our way."
This weekend, the Bulldogs do indeed have to deal with St. Cloud State. The Huskies are 17-5, yes, but are off a 5-2 loss to Colorado College on Saturday. Peterson, a former Hilltopper, has 19 points in 19 games. Another former Minnesota high school star, Joey Benik, is two points away from 100 for his career. St. Cloud's scoring chart is topped by four seniors -- Kalle Kossila, David Morley, Jimmy Murray, and Ethan Prow, possibly the most underappreciated defenseman in the country.
Motzko on Prow: "We've watched him mature into one of the real high-end defensmen at our level. Great character."
Oh, and while I get Prow is a more offensive-minded defenseman, he has played 18 games and has yet to take a penalty. This isn't a guy playing eight to ten minutes a night and avoiding the penalty box. It's a 30-minute-per-game defenseman doing it. I'm impressed, and you should be, too.
(If you're a St. Cloud State fan reading this, I apologize in advance if this turns out to be a jinx.)
This is a fantastic matchup of two similar teams. Yes, the numbers show St. Cloud is way ahead of UMD in record, league points, PairWise, and offense. But the teams play a similar style, and it's one UMD typically plays pretty well against.
"They're playing really well," Larson said. "Two very skilled, fast teams, that like to play a speed game with a lot of tempo. They can make plays. They get good goaltending. Their power play is hot, so discipline will be a big key. I like the matchup."
"They've got a 29 percent power play," Sandelin added. "They're built around their power play. They've got a ton of skill. They're a puck possession team, we're a puck possession team. It's managing the puck and not giving them easy chances. You have to respect some of their guys and play tight on them."
UMD's discipline -- outside of defenseman Willie Raskob's ten-minute misconduct in Friday's tie at Miami -- has been fine lately. The Bulldogs posted double-digit penalty minutes in five of their first seven games. UMD has kept that number to the single digits in eight of 12 games since, and only once since the opener Oct. 10 has UMD taken more than 20 penalty minutes in a game.
(UMD is mid-pack nationally in penalty minutes taken per game at 11.3.)
******
Former Grand Rapids star Avery Peterson -- Minnesota Mr. Hockey in 2014 -- is skating with UMD. The Omaha transfer won't be eligible until next January, but he can practice with the team now that the semester break has ended. Peterson is enrolled at UMD for the spring semester.
Asked about Peterson, Sandelin said he fills a need in the program.
"We lost a kid through a decommitment that would be in our program down the road," Sandelin said, citing the recent decommitment of Eden Prairie forward Michael Graham, who will go to Notre Dame instead. Graham would presumably have been a part of UMD's freshman class next season.
"He's (Peterson) a big body who can shoot the puck," Sandelin added. "He's played college hockey. He had success in our league. We're looking for good things. It's a huge need for us. Unfortunately, he has to wait a year to play."
Peterson is seeking a hardship waiver from the NCAA that would allow him to gain an extra year of eligibility, basically getting his sophomore season back. If that is granted, Peterson has two and a half years at UMD. Otherwise, the Wild draft pick will be able to play a year and a half for the Bulldogs.
Sandelin said he didn't know how long it would take to hear back on that application, which is being handled by UMD's compliance office.
Monday, January 11, 2016
Monday Musings: Bulldogs Break Out and Get Four-Point Weekend
I get the occasional tweet from someone arguing that my tweets and blog mentions of shots on goal mean nothing in the context of UMD's performance in games. I've had arguments with people who think UMD just doesn't take good enough shots and doesn't generate good scoring chances. Telling them that the admittedly subjective count of scoring chances in some games has yielded a 3:1 ratio in UMD's favor in games the Bulldogs have lost doesn't help.
They want goals. They want wins. As I mentioned in my Saturday blog, fans are frustrated and want results.
Well, the "shots don't matter" crowd was impressively enabled by the Bulldogs on Saturday. A season-low 22 shots on goal led to five UMD goals and a convincing 5-2 win at Miami to complete a four-point weekend that keeps UMD in third place in the NCHC standings.
The Bulldogs got goals from five different skaters and three different lines. Defenseman Neal Pionk -- who along with Andy Welinski I thought had a great weekend -- scored off a Miami defender to open things up for UMD at 13:52 of the first. Tony Cameranesi's second goal of the weekend made it 2-0 not three minutes later, and UMD got goals 2:04 apart from Dominic Toninato (off a great play by Blake Young for his first UMD point) and Parker Mackay (intercepted a bad outlet pass from Miami goalie Ryan McKay).
(I whined on the blog Thursday about how we never see UMD score on a point shot that hits an adversarial player. Pionk did just that on Saturday. Warmed my heart to see the hockey gods read the blog.)
Young also set up Iafallo's empty-netter with a strip of Miami's Josh Melnick in the high slot. He didn't get an assist, but he made the play.
The 22 total shots on goal was a season low for UMD, as was the 15 shots UMD allowed to Miami. The game was played similar to Friday, with good defensive zone work by both teams, but fewer pucks thrown to the net. The Bulldogs held Miami to just six shots in the final 40 minutes of the game and 40 total in six periods plus overtime.
That might be the big takeaway from the weekend, and not the offensive breakout.
Over time, goals will come and go. But this team can win with its defense. That blue line is as deep as anyone's, starting with Welinski and Pionk. It's only been three games -- including an exhibition -- since the pair was reunited with Welinski playing his off-side.
"I'm comfortable. I like it," Welinski said last week. Head coach Scott Sandelin, who routinely played his off-side in his career and has told me he preferred it, panned he and the staff were "too stupid" to try this earlier.
Willie Raskob and Carson Soucy continue to be solid as the second pair, and Willie Corrin and Dan Molenaar had a good weekend.
(Molenaar blocked three shots Saturday, while Welinski had four blocks Friday and six on the weekend. Welinski and Pionk were a combined plus-five Saturday, and Corrin was plus-two.)
The way these six are capable of playing, it's easy to forget that UMD also has Brenden Kotyk and Nick McCormack. They've both had their moments this season, and McCormack didn't even make the trip to Oxford. That's how deep that blue line is right now. Talk all you want about the forward depth, the Bulldogs will go places playing the kind of defense they did over the weekend.
The Bulldogs didn't get all their bags to Oxford until late Thursday, despite an early afternoon arrival for the team and staff. Similar foibles on the trip home, but all is well as classes starting at UMD Wednesday.
That means Omaha transfer Avery Peterson can start practicing with the team this week. He is eligible January 2017.
(By the way, off topic a second but somewhat travel-related, I'm pretty sure I could have stood up and yelled "fire" in that airplane Sunday and not gotten the reaction I got when I blurted "He missed it" after I saw the KFAN tweet that Blair Walsh missed that damn field goal. So glad there were UMD players accusing me of making it up. Shows what they think of my character. :D)
(Oh, and props to the Packers. I picked them to win but didn't think they would. That was a pretty impressive bounceback after a hideous start.)
UMD hosts No. 5 St. Cloud State Friday and Saturday. The Huskies beat Colorado College 2-1 Friday to tie idle (from league play) North Dakota for the top spot in the NCHC. SCSU was unable to take sole possession of first on Saturday, as Colorado College pulled a 5-2 upset over the Huskies. Expect some pace hockey this weekend, and UMD's discipline will be a huge key against a team hitting at nearly 30 percent on the power play.
They want goals. They want wins. As I mentioned in my Saturday blog, fans are frustrated and want results.
Well, the "shots don't matter" crowd was impressively enabled by the Bulldogs on Saturday. A season-low 22 shots on goal led to five UMD goals and a convincing 5-2 win at Miami to complete a four-point weekend that keeps UMD in third place in the NCHC standings.
The Bulldogs got goals from five different skaters and three different lines. Defenseman Neal Pionk -- who along with Andy Welinski I thought had a great weekend -- scored off a Miami defender to open things up for UMD at 13:52 of the first. Tony Cameranesi's second goal of the weekend made it 2-0 not three minutes later, and UMD got goals 2:04 apart from Dominic Toninato (off a great play by Blake Young for his first UMD point) and Parker Mackay (intercepted a bad outlet pass from Miami goalie Ryan McKay).
(I whined on the blog Thursday about how we never see UMD score on a point shot that hits an adversarial player. Pionk did just that on Saturday. Warmed my heart to see the hockey gods read the blog.)
Young also set up Iafallo's empty-netter with a strip of Miami's Josh Melnick in the high slot. He didn't get an assist, but he made the play.
The 22 total shots on goal was a season low for UMD, as was the 15 shots UMD allowed to Miami. The game was played similar to Friday, with good defensive zone work by both teams, but fewer pucks thrown to the net. The Bulldogs held Miami to just six shots in the final 40 minutes of the game and 40 total in six periods plus overtime.
******
That might be the big takeaway from the weekend, and not the offensive breakout.
Over time, goals will come and go. But this team can win with its defense. That blue line is as deep as anyone's, starting with Welinski and Pionk. It's only been three games -- including an exhibition -- since the pair was reunited with Welinski playing his off-side.
"I'm comfortable. I like it," Welinski said last week. Head coach Scott Sandelin, who routinely played his off-side in his career and has told me he preferred it, panned he and the staff were "too stupid" to try this earlier.
Willie Raskob and Carson Soucy continue to be solid as the second pair, and Willie Corrin and Dan Molenaar had a good weekend.
(Molenaar blocked three shots Saturday, while Welinski had four blocks Friday and six on the weekend. Welinski and Pionk were a combined plus-five Saturday, and Corrin was plus-two.)
The way these six are capable of playing, it's easy to forget that UMD also has Brenden Kotyk and Nick McCormack. They've both had their moments this season, and McCormack didn't even make the trip to Oxford. That's how deep that blue line is right now. Talk all you want about the forward depth, the Bulldogs will go places playing the kind of defense they did over the weekend.
******
The Bulldogs didn't get all their bags to Oxford until late Thursday, despite an early afternoon arrival for the team and staff. Similar foibles on the trip home, but all is well as classes starting at UMD Wednesday.
That means Omaha transfer Avery Peterson can start practicing with the team this week. He is eligible January 2017.
(By the way, off topic a second but somewhat travel-related, I'm pretty sure I could have stood up and yelled "fire" in that airplane Sunday and not gotten the reaction I got when I blurted "He missed it" after I saw the KFAN tweet that Blair Walsh missed that damn field goal. So glad there were UMD players accusing me of making it up. Shows what they think of my character. :D)
(Oh, and props to the Packers. I picked them to win but didn't think they would. That was a pretty impressive bounceback after a hideous start.)
UMD hosts No. 5 St. Cloud State Friday and Saturday. The Huskies beat Colorado College 2-1 Friday to tie idle (from league play) North Dakota for the top spot in the NCHC. SCSU was unable to take sole possession of first on Saturday, as Colorado College pulled a 5-2 upset over the Huskies. Expect some pace hockey this weekend, and UMD's discipline will be a huge key against a team hitting at nearly 30 percent on the power play.
Saturday, January 09, 2016
Game 19: UMD at Miami
OXFORD, Ohio -- It was only one goal, but hopefully Tony Cameranesi's twisted wrister late in the third period Friday will help guys breathe a little bit. I don't know how anyone could be playing with a lot of confidence when the Bulldogs were shut out in back-to-back home games before the break and shut out for 54 minutes or so on Friday (177:06 the actual number from the last goal against Western Michigan Dec. 5 to Cameranesi's).
Now, it's time to get some NCHC points. Three would be really nice. As head coach Scott Sandelin said before Friday's game, it's not time to worry about the teams in front of UMD. He's right. It's time to worry about UMD. Just get points and continue to improve the overall level of play. If those things happen, I'll take my chances with things like puck luck, the league standings, and the PairWise.
Quick programming note: With most of the league at nine or 11 conference games played, I put off my NCHC midseason awards a few days. I'll file that during the week, probably Wednesday.
Lines?
Lines.
UMD
Young (Blake) - Toninato - Iafallo
Farley - Cameranesi - Kuhlman
Osterberg - Thomas - Young (Austyn)
Sampair - Decowski - Mackay
Welinski - Pionk
Soucy - Raskob
Corrin - Molenaar
Kaskisuo - McNeely
Miami
Mooney - Siroky - Schmit
Lemirande - Greenberg - LaValle
Louis - Melnick - Roslovic
Morris - Kuraly - Gacek
Belpedio - Caito
Dornbrock - Sullivan
Joyaux - Richart
McKay - Williams - McCarthy
Now, it's time to get some NCHC points. Three would be really nice. As head coach Scott Sandelin said before Friday's game, it's not time to worry about the teams in front of UMD. He's right. It's time to worry about UMD. Just get points and continue to improve the overall level of play. If those things happen, I'll take my chances with things like puck luck, the league standings, and the PairWise.
Quick programming note: With most of the league at nine or 11 conference games played, I put off my NCHC midseason awards a few days. I'll file that during the week, probably Wednesday.
Lines?
Lines.
UMD
Young (Blake) - Toninato - Iafallo
Farley - Cameranesi - Kuhlman
Osterberg - Thomas - Young (Austyn)
Sampair - Decowski - Mackay
Welinski - Pionk
Soucy - Raskob
Corrin - Molenaar
Kaskisuo - McNeely
Miami
Mooney - Siroky - Schmit
Lemirande - Greenberg - LaValle
Louis - Melnick - Roslovic
Morris - Kuraly - Gacek
Belpedio - Caito
Dornbrock - Sullivan
Joyaux - Richart
McKay - Williams - McCarthy
Saturday Hockey Notes and Thoughts: Frustration Mounts for Bulldogs After Offense Stymied Again
OXFORD, Ohio -- Shut down by Jay Williams, and shut out until deep into the third period, UMD was able to snatch a point from the jaws of defeat. Tony Cameranesi wired a wrist shot that caught the upper part of the net and came right back out, allowing UMD to tie Miami 1-1 here Friday night. The RedHawks got a second NCHC standings point when Louie Belpedio scored in the final minute of three-on-three.
(Tip of the cap to Belpedio. He didn't get back from Finland until late Wednesday, but shook off jet lag and played, in my view, a super game. That isn't easy to do. At the postgame press conference, one of the reporters jokingly asked him what time it was for him. Say what you want about these being young kids and great athletes, and you'd be right, but I still found it very impressive that he was able to play as well as he did with seemingly no restrictions on his minutes.)
That said, it was not an easy game to play. UMD was missing on passes, failing to catch some catchable passes, and there were times that it looked like Bulldog players were maybe trying to do a little too much instead of making the simple play and -- as coaches are prone to say -- taking what the adversary is giving. You have players so bound and determined to get something good going that they potentially put themselves in a bad situation while trying to make it happen all alone.
Cameranesi's goal -- which I have to admit to not knowing it went in, even though it literally happened right in front of me -- was a great individual play, but it was an example of someone taking what was given to him. Cameranesi didn't make any ridiculous decisions in bringing the puck down the right wing and letting a shot rip. He took space that wasn't contested and took a shot from an angle where he didn't have a lot to shoot at. It was a great play.
Unfortunately for UMD, it was the only goal it would score on a night where the goalless drought finally ended at 177 minutes, six seconds.
There were chances. Blake Young was stymied on a good one in the second (I thought he drew iron, but there's no record of a shot off the post for UMD in the game).
(In my defense, it was also the other end of the rink from me. Great building, but if I had to nitpick one thing, it would probably be the fact that the visiting radio person is positioned basically on the goal line the visiting team shoots at twice. Makes it really hard to see the other side of the ice, especially the far right corner up to about the half-wall. Anything happens around there and I'm guessing as to what it is.)
Anyway, there were chances. Kyle Osterberg (no goals now in ten straight) had a partial breakaway and was stopped. Alex Iafallo (one goal in 14 games) had a good wraparound chance that was thwarted. Dan Molenaar had a good shot on a four-on-two rush in the first period that was stopped, and while Williams couldn't find the rebound, he fell on it before UMD could get to it. Dominic Toninato had a couple opportunities he couldn't bury.
It was a microcosm of the first half. An impossible bounce led to Miami's goal, as Chris Joyaux got one through Kasimir Kaskisuo's five-hole after a series of unfortunate events prevented UMD from what appeared to be an easy clear.
Right now, little mistakes -- and missed clears count as that -- are magnified because it seems like every little stupid thing that happens ends up behind Kaskisuo. That's part of the frustration of this stretch, and no, the Christmas break didn't help.
Outside of Joyaux's goal, which I'm not sure I can describe even after seeing the replay a couple times, UMD was stellar defensively against a dangerous team. Miami freshman Jack Roslovic made a pretty sweet individual effort to generate a first-period opportunity, knifing through a couple guys, but Kaskisuo was up to the task. Besides that, the Bulldogs held the RedHawks very much in check.
There weren't a lot of soft clears, and breakouts were fairly steady. Positional defense was pretty solid, and when the pairings got messed up by Willie Raskob taking a two and a ten in the third period and missing the rest of the game, it seemed guys adjusted well to the increased minutes and odd partnerships (one pairing to keep an eye on, in my view, is Carson Soucy and Neal Pionk ... UMD might have something there if it becomes a necessity to not have Pionk paired with captain Andy Welinski).
I know you guys are frustrated with the lack of offensive output, just like the team is. Trust me, if you think you're mad about this, just imagine how the guys trying to play through it are feeling. I just sit upstairs and call the games, and if what I'm feeling sometimes during a game is any sign, you can't fathom the frustrations of the players.
They have to play through that. And while there may have been small signs of frustration at times Friday night (trying to split defenders in the offensive zone instead of passing or dumping the puck, banging of sticks, the "look to the heavens" move after a save, and barking at officials could all be taken as signs), the composed defensive effort of this team would tell anyone paying attention that they aren't letting offensive frustrations affect the performance in other areas of the game. That alone is a good sign. Just not a good enough one. Goals would be a better sign, and there just weren't many happening. Again.
It's the same old story, same old song and dance, my friends. The Bulldogs get glorious chances. There's no question that, while the margin may not have been what it was in games against Omaha or North Dakota, UMD had the better of scoring chances last night. They work their tails off to create opportunities, then nothing good happens. Cameranesi makes a great pass to Osterberg, who comes flying off the bench, and he can't finish. Iafallo fakes his normal cut from the sideboard to the front of the net and instead tries a wraparound, and Miami goalie Jay Williams makes a great save with his left skate. There were two or three times where a UMD forward tipped a long shot and it went wide, because of course it did. Blocked point shots never go in the net for UMD, which has happened to UMD a few times this season.
I keep holding out hope that at some point, the fortunes will turn and this team will start to reap the benefits of all the hard work. It's amazingly cruel to think that wouldn't eventually happen.
Two other games were played for NCHC standings points Friday night. St. Cloud State held off Colorado College 2-1 in St. Cloud. Mikey Eyssimont and Patrick Russell scored for the Huskies in the first period, and that was enough for Charlie Lindgren (26 saves) to get his 14th win of the season. Cody Bradley had the Tigers' goal. SCSU led in shots 36-27, including 15-7 in the first period.
The first visitor to win at Omaha's Baxter Arena is: Denver. The Pioneers rode early goals from Will Butcher and Blake Hillman to a 3-0 win over the Mavericks. Butcher and Hillman scored 19 seconds apart in the first period, then Butcher added another in the second. Tanner Jaillet stopped all 35 shots he faced as UNO outshot DU 35-19.
Non-conference, Notre Dame blitzed Western Michigan 7-1. All of the Fighting Irish scoring came in the first 40, as they led 7-0 after two and outshot the Broncos 38-9 while doing it. The love was pretty spread out for both teams. Notre Dame had seven different goal scorers, and 15 of Western Michigan's 18 skaters were a minus on the night (no one worse than a minus-three). That series concludes Saturday in Kalamazoo.
First place North Dakota is idle from league play, instead playing an exhibition Saturday against the U.S. Under 18 Team at Ralph Engelstad Arena.
Reminder, I'll be on KFAN's Beyond The Pond with Brandon Mileski and friends Saturday at 10:45am. You can hear it on FM 100.3 in the Cities, 92.1 The Fan out of Duluth, other FAN Radio Network stations around the state, online at 921thefan.com, or on the iHeartRadio app.
(Tip of the cap to Belpedio. He didn't get back from Finland until late Wednesday, but shook off jet lag and played, in my view, a super game. That isn't easy to do. At the postgame press conference, one of the reporters jokingly asked him what time it was for him. Say what you want about these being young kids and great athletes, and you'd be right, but I still found it very impressive that he was able to play as well as he did with seemingly no restrictions on his minutes.)
That said, it was not an easy game to play. UMD was missing on passes, failing to catch some catchable passes, and there were times that it looked like Bulldog players were maybe trying to do a little too much instead of making the simple play and -- as coaches are prone to say -- taking what the adversary is giving. You have players so bound and determined to get something good going that they potentially put themselves in a bad situation while trying to make it happen all alone.
Cameranesi's goal -- which I have to admit to not knowing it went in, even though it literally happened right in front of me -- was a great individual play, but it was an example of someone taking what was given to him. Cameranesi didn't make any ridiculous decisions in bringing the puck down the right wing and letting a shot rip. He took space that wasn't contested and took a shot from an angle where he didn't have a lot to shoot at. It was a great play.
Unfortunately for UMD, it was the only goal it would score on a night where the goalless drought finally ended at 177 minutes, six seconds.
There were chances. Blake Young was stymied on a good one in the second (I thought he drew iron, but there's no record of a shot off the post for UMD in the game).
(In my defense, it was also the other end of the rink from me. Great building, but if I had to nitpick one thing, it would probably be the fact that the visiting radio person is positioned basically on the goal line the visiting team shoots at twice. Makes it really hard to see the other side of the ice, especially the far right corner up to about the half-wall. Anything happens around there and I'm guessing as to what it is.)
Anyway, there were chances. Kyle Osterberg (no goals now in ten straight) had a partial breakaway and was stopped. Alex Iafallo (one goal in 14 games) had a good wraparound chance that was thwarted. Dan Molenaar had a good shot on a four-on-two rush in the first period that was stopped, and while Williams couldn't find the rebound, he fell on it before UMD could get to it. Dominic Toninato had a couple opportunities he couldn't bury.
It was a microcosm of the first half. An impossible bounce led to Miami's goal, as Chris Joyaux got one through Kasimir Kaskisuo's five-hole after a series of unfortunate events prevented UMD from what appeared to be an easy clear.
Right now, little mistakes -- and missed clears count as that -- are magnified because it seems like every little stupid thing that happens ends up behind Kaskisuo. That's part of the frustration of this stretch, and no, the Christmas break didn't help.
Outside of Joyaux's goal, which I'm not sure I can describe even after seeing the replay a couple times, UMD was stellar defensively against a dangerous team. Miami freshman Jack Roslovic made a pretty sweet individual effort to generate a first-period opportunity, knifing through a couple guys, but Kaskisuo was up to the task. Besides that, the Bulldogs held the RedHawks very much in check.
There weren't a lot of soft clears, and breakouts were fairly steady. Positional defense was pretty solid, and when the pairings got messed up by Willie Raskob taking a two and a ten in the third period and missing the rest of the game, it seemed guys adjusted well to the increased minutes and odd partnerships (one pairing to keep an eye on, in my view, is Carson Soucy and Neal Pionk ... UMD might have something there if it becomes a necessity to not have Pionk paired with captain Andy Welinski).
******
I know you guys are frustrated with the lack of offensive output, just like the team is. Trust me, if you think you're mad about this, just imagine how the guys trying to play through it are feeling. I just sit upstairs and call the games, and if what I'm feeling sometimes during a game is any sign, you can't fathom the frustrations of the players.
They have to play through that. And while there may have been small signs of frustration at times Friday night (trying to split defenders in the offensive zone instead of passing or dumping the puck, banging of sticks, the "look to the heavens" move after a save, and barking at officials could all be taken as signs), the composed defensive effort of this team would tell anyone paying attention that they aren't letting offensive frustrations affect the performance in other areas of the game. That alone is a good sign. Just not a good enough one. Goals would be a better sign, and there just weren't many happening. Again.
It's the same old story, same old song and dance, my friends. The Bulldogs get glorious chances. There's no question that, while the margin may not have been what it was in games against Omaha or North Dakota, UMD had the better of scoring chances last night. They work their tails off to create opportunities, then nothing good happens. Cameranesi makes a great pass to Osterberg, who comes flying off the bench, and he can't finish. Iafallo fakes his normal cut from the sideboard to the front of the net and instead tries a wraparound, and Miami goalie Jay Williams makes a great save with his left skate. There were two or three times where a UMD forward tipped a long shot and it went wide, because of course it did. Blocked point shots never go in the net for UMD, which has happened to UMD a few times this season.
I keep holding out hope that at some point, the fortunes will turn and this team will start to reap the benefits of all the hard work. It's amazingly cruel to think that wouldn't eventually happen.
******
Two other games were played for NCHC standings points Friday night. St. Cloud State held off Colorado College 2-1 in St. Cloud. Mikey Eyssimont and Patrick Russell scored for the Huskies in the first period, and that was enough for Charlie Lindgren (26 saves) to get his 14th win of the season. Cody Bradley had the Tigers' goal. SCSU led in shots 36-27, including 15-7 in the first period.
The first visitor to win at Omaha's Baxter Arena is: Denver. The Pioneers rode early goals from Will Butcher and Blake Hillman to a 3-0 win over the Mavericks. Butcher and Hillman scored 19 seconds apart in the first period, then Butcher added another in the second. Tanner Jaillet stopped all 35 shots he faced as UNO outshot DU 35-19.
Non-conference, Notre Dame blitzed Western Michigan 7-1. All of the Fighting Irish scoring came in the first 40, as they led 7-0 after two and outshot the Broncos 38-9 while doing it. The love was pretty spread out for both teams. Notre Dame had seven different goal scorers, and 15 of Western Michigan's 18 skaters were a minus on the night (no one worse than a minus-three). That series concludes Saturday in Kalamazoo.
First place North Dakota is idle from league play, instead playing an exhibition Saturday against the U.S. Under 18 Team at Ralph Engelstad Arena.
Reminder, I'll be on KFAN's Beyond The Pond with Brandon Mileski and friends Saturday at 10:45am. You can hear it on FM 100.3 in the Cities, 92.1 The Fan out of Duluth, other FAN Radio Network stations around the state, online at 921thefan.com, or on the iHeartRadio app.
Friday, January 08, 2016
Game 18: UMD at Miami
OXFORD, Ohio -- The second half of the season is underway for UMD, as the Bulldogs battle Miami this weekend at Steve Cady Arena.
With students on break for the holidays, Miami drew barely 3,300 combined for a Saturday/Sunday series against RPI last week. Hopefully, even with students gone this series can draw a little better. Watching those games back this week, it looked very empty in here.
Miami gets sophomore defenseman Louie Belpedio back for this game. He won bronze with Team USA at the World Juniors in Finland, playing big minutes on the blue line. This week, coach Enrico Blasi said Belpedio would be a gametime decision, as they needed to see how he felt once he got back Wednesday night.
UMD has juggled lines a bit, going with a combination that worked well in Saturday's exhibition win over the US Under 18 Team. Blake Young is in the lineup for the first time since the Nov. 14 tie/three-on-three win against Denver.
Lines?
Lines.
UMD
Young (Blake) - Toninato - Iafallo
Farley - Cameranesi - Kuhlman
Johnson - Thomas - Young (Austyn)
Osterberg - Decowski - Mackay
Welinski - Pionk
Soucy - Raskob
Corrin - Molenaar
Kaskisuo - McNeely
Miami
Lemirande - Siroky - Schmit
LaValle - Greenberg - Sherwood
Louis - Melnick - Roslovic
Morris - Kuraly - Gacek
Dornbrock - Belpedio
Joyaux - Richart
Hutton - Caito
Williams - McKay - McCarthy
With students on break for the holidays, Miami drew barely 3,300 combined for a Saturday/Sunday series against RPI last week. Hopefully, even with students gone this series can draw a little better. Watching those games back this week, it looked very empty in here.
Miami gets sophomore defenseman Louie Belpedio back for this game. He won bronze with Team USA at the World Juniors in Finland, playing big minutes on the blue line. This week, coach Enrico Blasi said Belpedio would be a gametime decision, as they needed to see how he felt once he got back Wednesday night.
UMD has juggled lines a bit, going with a combination that worked well in Saturday's exhibition win over the US Under 18 Team. Blake Young is in the lineup for the first time since the Nov. 14 tie/three-on-three win against Denver.
Lines?
Lines.
UMD
Young (Blake) - Toninato - Iafallo
Farley - Cameranesi - Kuhlman
Johnson - Thomas - Young (Austyn)
Osterberg - Decowski - Mackay
Welinski - Pionk
Soucy - Raskob
Corrin - Molenaar
Kaskisuo - McNeely
Miami
Lemirande - Siroky - Schmit
LaValle - Greenberg - Sherwood
Louis - Melnick - Roslovic
Morris - Kuraly - Gacek
Dornbrock - Belpedio
Joyaux - Richart
Hutton - Caito
Williams - McKay - McCarthy
Thursday, January 07, 2016
Bulldogs Must Find Consistency in Multiple Areas as Second Half Starts in Ohio
OXFORD, Ohio -- Scott Sandelin isn't trying to put down the competition. He's also not unhappy his team scored 24 goals over a four-game winning streak around its Thanksgiving bye.
"We had that four-game stretch where we scored 24 goals," he said this week, "and that's almost half of what we've scored all year."
(Actually, it is half. UMD has 48 goals in 17 games, so take away that four-game run and UMD has 24 goals in 13 games. At the risk of being overly blunt, that's not very good. In fact, it's 2007-2008 territory.)
(For those newer to UMD hockey fandom, the 2007-2008 team scored 74 goals in 36 games, failing to take full advantage of a great season from sophomore goalie Alex Stalock. Don't fret, Stalock was even better the following year, and UMD stepped up the offense with help from a freshman class that included a couple guys named Connolly.)
Yes, scoring was a bit of a problem in the first half of the season. Over 17 games, UMD put up 482 even-strength shots on goal, but only 31 even-strength goals for a hideous shooting percentage of 6.4.
(Counting power play and short-handed goals and shots, UMD's overall shooting percentage is 7.5. It's low, but not as low as the five-on-five numbers are.)
So Sandelin isn't coming down at all on Colorado College and Western Michigan, the opponents during UMD's four-game winning streak.
(CC has since gone 4-4, including a sweep of NCHC rival Miami, the team that UMD faces here this weekend. Western Michigan, meanwhile, has lost three straight since UMD took the Broncos behind the woodshed Dec. 4-5 in Duluth (13-2 aggregate).)
Instead, the longtime Bulldog head coach is lamenting his own team's inability to take advantage of a pleothora of scoring chances on a game-by-game basis in the first half.
"You can look at goal-scoring, no question," he said. "The number of shots we've had and the opportunities we've had, and I hope they continue, it tells you we're doing a lot of good things. But we have to get hungrier around the net.
"Hopefully, we can get the power play clicking more consistently."
******
The power play, overall, is a respectable 15-for-78 (19.2 percent). It's not in the low- to mid-20s like UMD's NCAA teams of recent years, but it isn't bad by any stretch. But Sandelin hits the nail on the head talking about consistency. Ideally, he'd like to see his team get a power play goal in every game. And while UMD is averaging nearly that per game, it's had some long dry spells. The Bulldogs have had two stretches of three games where they didn't score a single time on the man advantage, going 16 and 11 opportunities goalless, respectively, between Oct. 17-24 and Nov. 7-14.
Obviously, UMD didn't score on the power play either night against North Dakota, missing on nine chances in the weekend series. That drought continues into this weekend's series against a RedHawks team that's allowed a grand total of four power play goals in 64 chances so far (to put that in perspective, it's the same number of short-handed goals Miami has conceded so far).
There are times UMD has struggled against aggressive penalty kills, and the Bulldogs will face another of those this weekend. But UMD also tasted some success on the power play in the first half, going four-for-12 in a three-game run that started Halloween weekend against UMass-Lowell and nine-for-21 in that four-game winning streak. It's that consistency Sandelin and the coaches crave.
That said, for the coach of a 7-7-3 team that was picked to win its league and put in the top five of (admittedly meaningless) preseason polls, Sandelin is far from panicking. He doesn't believe his team's performance so far reflects a .500 squad, and only time will tell if he is proven right on that hypothesis.
"We can pick apart where we want improvement, but I liked a lot of things our guys did," Sandelin said. "Overall, we just need some more production out of key guys."
"Our record reflects that we are a .500 team, but I don't feel we are," senior captain Andy Welinski said.
Sandelin compared his wishes for this team to what he saw out of Lowell, a team where the four forward lines are indistinguishable. It's a hallmark of past UMD teams, including last year's. When that team was "going," you didn't necessarily know which line was on the ice because they all play the same way. That's a trait that's only been shown a few times by the 2015-16 team. If it can redevelop that in the second half, good things will come as a result.
Sandelin: "Probably the only game I was disappointed with was the Friday Denver game (Nov. 13), where we didn't play very well after the first ten minutes. Even the North Dakota series, I thought we were the better team Friday night."
******
It isn't just an offensive issue. Scoring took all the headlines -- largely because of the UNO and UND sweeps -- but the Bulldogs have a few other areas of their game they'd like to clean up as the second half begins Friday.
For starters, North Dakota's 3-0 win over UMD on Dec. 11 came on the back of three transition goals by the, ahem, Fighting Hawks. Yes, UND is an elite transition team, and if you watch back that game, you'll see that about the only true scoring chances UND got in 60 minutes came on transition plays. It's a sign that UMD possessed the puck well and generally made good decisions. But the bad decisions cost the Bulldogs on that night.
And those aren't the only transition (or, as Sandelin terms it, "rush coverage") problems UMD has encountered in the first half of the season. The Omaha sweep saw UNO score six non-empty net goals, and five of them came off either rushes or transition plays off turnovers.
It seems like nit-picking, because UMD is doing a lot of things well defensively, but this is a huge part of the game nowadays. It's not going to get any easier for teams to score when facing a five-man defensive unit. These teams are so well-coached and well-prepared that you have to find ways to break them down to score goals. It's become obvious that the best way to do that is to catch them before everyone is back. The days of everyone grinding down opponents for goals are still alive and well, but the teams that can make big plays in transition will have a leg up unless they're very shoddy in their own zone.
"We gave up some goals through the year because of that (transition)," Sandelin said. "We need to take care of the puck better. Our rush coverage has to improve."
******
Admittedly the margin for error in the second half isn't high. UMD trails second place St. Cloud State by ten points and top dog North Dakota by 13. Omaha, with two games in hand, is only one point behind UMD in fourth place, while fifth-place Western Michigan has crawled within two points of the Bulldogs. At this point, UMD may be more in the race for home ice than it is in the race for the league title.
Things do change. I don't expect UND to be a .935 save percentage team the rest of the season, and while SCSU's team save percentage of .927 is also probably going to drop a bit, so is a power play humming along at nearly 31 percent right now. It's just the odds. Similarly, UMD's shooting percentage has gone up since that Denver series, but it's still on the low end of what you might consider "normal," and it stands to reason we'll see an increase, even if only a marginal one.
Unquestionably, things have to change for UMD. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out where Sandelin is looking for increased production from. Big-minute forwards Dominic Toninato (6-1-7) and Alex Iafallo (2-6-8) have combined for 15 points. Center Jared Thomas has six points and hasn't scored a goal since Oct. 17 (14 game drought). Junior Kyle Osterberg (2-5-7) has no goals and one point since Nov. 6 (nine games). The eight-member blue line has seven goals this season, but outside of Willie Raskob and Carson Soucy each tallying in the Nov. 20 win at Colorado College, no defenseman has scored since Nov. 7. It's not necessarily their job to score goals in bunches, but going seven out of eight games without anyone scoring is not a good thing.
Sandelin will be the first one to tell you he thinks Toninato has played well, especially as of late. "His last month was a lot better, and when you continue to do those things, you get rewarded. I liked how he was playing even before that (hat trick against the U18 team)." So by no means am I trying to argue that anyone listed above isn't playing well. Thomas is vastly improved in the faceoff circle after a rough start to the season (after going 5-19 on draws in the first three games, he's improved to being basically a 50/50 proposition overall, with a number of 60-plus percent nights). Osterberg is a valuable 200-foot player. Iafallo still has game-breaking speed and is a very smart and responsible player.
Oh, and that blue line is a big reason for UMD outshooting opponents 28.4-19 per game at even strength this season. The Bulldogs' overall shot differential is plus-12.1 per game, easily the best in the NCHC (North Dakota is plus-8.9 and St. Cloud State plus-6.5). Only Penn State -- at plus-15.67 -- is better in Division I.
"We are in a position where we need to go on a run to make a push in the league," Welinski said. "I think we only have three games out of conference in the second half. Every weekend is going to be important for us to get points. We're going to be playing good teams, and we need to figure out how to get points every single weekend."
******
The first of those weekends is here against Miami University starting at 6:30 (Central time) Friday. The RedHawks have experienced struggles of their own this season.
After winning the NCHC playoff title and earning a No. 1 NCAA regional seed, Miami is 6-10-2 after a split against RPI last weekend at home. In Sunday's game, the RedHawks scored three in the third and outshot the Engineers 15-5 to erase a 2-1 deficit and win 4-2.
"I thought our third period was about as good as we played in a long time," Miami coach Enrico Blasi said this week. "The energy, the executing of the game plan was there for pretty much the entire third period. Real good step forward."
We already talked about UMD's search for improved rush coverage. Part of that is managing the puck and making sure the adversary doesn't have opportunities to rush up the rink with extra bodies. Blasi addressed that this week, too, only in the context of his team making smart decisions against a UMD team that possesses the puck as well as anyone in the country.
"You have to play well away from the puck," he said. "You gotta cut your losses at times, and live to play another day. Understand the situation you're in, and know where the danger's coming from. All in all, I think our guys understand that. Teams like UMD and other teams we'll face force you to make tough plays."
Miami could get a boost on its blue line, as sophomore defenseman Louie Belpedio has returned to Oxford after helping the United States earn a bronze medal at the World Junior Championships in Finland. Belpedio didn't arrive here until late Wednesday (at least that was the plan as of Tuesday per Blasi), and Blasi termed him a game-time decision for Friday night.
"We'll just have to see how it goes. There's a chance he'll play, there's a chance he won't."
It's all hands on deck for UMD. Senior forward Austin Farley, the team's leading scorer with ten goals and 19 points, missed the exhibition game with an undisclosed minor injury but will play this weekend. I don't know the final defensive pairings for Friday yet, but junior Dan Molenaar will be available after also missing Saturday's game.
This isn't the same Miami team that won the NCHC postseason tournament a year ago. Stars like Austin Czarnik, Riley Barber, and Blake Coleman have all moved on, and the RedHawks are led in scoring by freshman Jack Roslovic, who has nine goals and 18 points. In all, three of Miami's top five scorers (Roslovic, Josh Melnick, and Kiefer Sherwood) are freshmen. Senior goalie Ryan McKay has played in 16 of 18 games and has a .911 save percentage. However, fellow senior Jay Williams got the start in Sunday's win over RPI and made 17 saves for the victory.
I'll have my normal review of Friday's game available either late night or early Saturday morning. In addition, I'll publish my annual (admittedly meaningless) NCHC mid-season honors this weekend for your review and hate mail.
"We had that four-game stretch where we scored 24 goals," he said this week, "and that's almost half of what we've scored all year."
(Actually, it is half. UMD has 48 goals in 17 games, so take away that four-game run and UMD has 24 goals in 13 games. At the risk of being overly blunt, that's not very good. In fact, it's 2007-2008 territory.)
(For those newer to UMD hockey fandom, the 2007-2008 team scored 74 goals in 36 games, failing to take full advantage of a great season from sophomore goalie Alex Stalock. Don't fret, Stalock was even better the following year, and UMD stepped up the offense with help from a freshman class that included a couple guys named Connolly.)
Yes, scoring was a bit of a problem in the first half of the season. Over 17 games, UMD put up 482 even-strength shots on goal, but only 31 even-strength goals for a hideous shooting percentage of 6.4.
(Counting power play and short-handed goals and shots, UMD's overall shooting percentage is 7.5. It's low, but not as low as the five-on-five numbers are.)
So Sandelin isn't coming down at all on Colorado College and Western Michigan, the opponents during UMD's four-game winning streak.
(CC has since gone 4-4, including a sweep of NCHC rival Miami, the team that UMD faces here this weekend. Western Michigan, meanwhile, has lost three straight since UMD took the Broncos behind the woodshed Dec. 4-5 in Duluth (13-2 aggregate).)
Instead, the longtime Bulldog head coach is lamenting his own team's inability to take advantage of a pleothora of scoring chances on a game-by-game basis in the first half.
"You can look at goal-scoring, no question," he said. "The number of shots we've had and the opportunities we've had, and I hope they continue, it tells you we're doing a lot of good things. But we have to get hungrier around the net.
"Hopefully, we can get the power play clicking more consistently."
The power play, overall, is a respectable 15-for-78 (19.2 percent). It's not in the low- to mid-20s like UMD's NCAA teams of recent years, but it isn't bad by any stretch. But Sandelin hits the nail on the head talking about consistency. Ideally, he'd like to see his team get a power play goal in every game. And while UMD is averaging nearly that per game, it's had some long dry spells. The Bulldogs have had two stretches of three games where they didn't score a single time on the man advantage, going 16 and 11 opportunities goalless, respectively, between Oct. 17-24 and Nov. 7-14.
Obviously, UMD didn't score on the power play either night against North Dakota, missing on nine chances in the weekend series. That drought continues into this weekend's series against a RedHawks team that's allowed a grand total of four power play goals in 64 chances so far (to put that in perspective, it's the same number of short-handed goals Miami has conceded so far).
There are times UMD has struggled against aggressive penalty kills, and the Bulldogs will face another of those this weekend. But UMD also tasted some success on the power play in the first half, going four-for-12 in a three-game run that started Halloween weekend against UMass-Lowell and nine-for-21 in that four-game winning streak. It's that consistency Sandelin and the coaches crave.
That said, for the coach of a 7-7-3 team that was picked to win its league and put in the top five of (admittedly meaningless) preseason polls, Sandelin is far from panicking. He doesn't believe his team's performance so far reflects a .500 squad, and only time will tell if he is proven right on that hypothesis.
"We can pick apart where we want improvement, but I liked a lot of things our guys did," Sandelin said. "Overall, we just need some more production out of key guys."
"Our record reflects that we are a .500 team, but I don't feel we are," senior captain Andy Welinski said.
Sandelin compared his wishes for this team to what he saw out of Lowell, a team where the four forward lines are indistinguishable. It's a hallmark of past UMD teams, including last year's. When that team was "going," you didn't necessarily know which line was on the ice because they all play the same way. That's a trait that's only been shown a few times by the 2015-16 team. If it can redevelop that in the second half, good things will come as a result.
Sandelin: "Probably the only game I was disappointed with was the Friday Denver game (Nov. 13), where we didn't play very well after the first ten minutes. Even the North Dakota series, I thought we were the better team Friday night."
It isn't just an offensive issue. Scoring took all the headlines -- largely because of the UNO and UND sweeps -- but the Bulldogs have a few other areas of their game they'd like to clean up as the second half begins Friday.
For starters, North Dakota's 3-0 win over UMD on Dec. 11 came on the back of three transition goals by the, ahem, Fighting Hawks. Yes, UND is an elite transition team, and if you watch back that game, you'll see that about the only true scoring chances UND got in 60 minutes came on transition plays. It's a sign that UMD possessed the puck well and generally made good decisions. But the bad decisions cost the Bulldogs on that night.
And those aren't the only transition (or, as Sandelin terms it, "rush coverage") problems UMD has encountered in the first half of the season. The Omaha sweep saw UNO score six non-empty net goals, and five of them came off either rushes or transition plays off turnovers.
It seems like nit-picking, because UMD is doing a lot of things well defensively, but this is a huge part of the game nowadays. It's not going to get any easier for teams to score when facing a five-man defensive unit. These teams are so well-coached and well-prepared that you have to find ways to break them down to score goals. It's become obvious that the best way to do that is to catch them before everyone is back. The days of everyone grinding down opponents for goals are still alive and well, but the teams that can make big plays in transition will have a leg up unless they're very shoddy in their own zone.
"We gave up some goals through the year because of that (transition)," Sandelin said. "We need to take care of the puck better. Our rush coverage has to improve."
Admittedly the margin for error in the second half isn't high. UMD trails second place St. Cloud State by ten points and top dog North Dakota by 13. Omaha, with two games in hand, is only one point behind UMD in fourth place, while fifth-place Western Michigan has crawled within two points of the Bulldogs. At this point, UMD may be more in the race for home ice than it is in the race for the league title.
Things do change. I don't expect UND to be a .935 save percentage team the rest of the season, and while SCSU's team save percentage of .927 is also probably going to drop a bit, so is a power play humming along at nearly 31 percent right now. It's just the odds. Similarly, UMD's shooting percentage has gone up since that Denver series, but it's still on the low end of what you might consider "normal," and it stands to reason we'll see an increase, even if only a marginal one.
Unquestionably, things have to change for UMD. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out where Sandelin is looking for increased production from. Big-minute forwards Dominic Toninato (6-1-7) and Alex Iafallo (2-6-8) have combined for 15 points. Center Jared Thomas has six points and hasn't scored a goal since Oct. 17 (14 game drought). Junior Kyle Osterberg (2-5-7) has no goals and one point since Nov. 6 (nine games). The eight-member blue line has seven goals this season, but outside of Willie Raskob and Carson Soucy each tallying in the Nov. 20 win at Colorado College, no defenseman has scored since Nov. 7. It's not necessarily their job to score goals in bunches, but going seven out of eight games without anyone scoring is not a good thing.
Sandelin will be the first one to tell you he thinks Toninato has played well, especially as of late. "His last month was a lot better, and when you continue to do those things, you get rewarded. I liked how he was playing even before that (hat trick against the U18 team)." So by no means am I trying to argue that anyone listed above isn't playing well. Thomas is vastly improved in the faceoff circle after a rough start to the season (after going 5-19 on draws in the first three games, he's improved to being basically a 50/50 proposition overall, with a number of 60-plus percent nights). Osterberg is a valuable 200-foot player. Iafallo still has game-breaking speed and is a very smart and responsible player.
Oh, and that blue line is a big reason for UMD outshooting opponents 28.4-19 per game at even strength this season. The Bulldogs' overall shot differential is plus-12.1 per game, easily the best in the NCHC (North Dakota is plus-8.9 and St. Cloud State plus-6.5). Only Penn State -- at plus-15.67 -- is better in Division I.
"We are in a position where we need to go on a run to make a push in the league," Welinski said. "I think we only have three games out of conference in the second half. Every weekend is going to be important for us to get points. We're going to be playing good teams, and we need to figure out how to get points every single weekend."
The first of those weekends is here against Miami University starting at 6:30 (Central time) Friday. The RedHawks have experienced struggles of their own this season.
After winning the NCHC playoff title and earning a No. 1 NCAA regional seed, Miami is 6-10-2 after a split against RPI last weekend at home. In Sunday's game, the RedHawks scored three in the third and outshot the Engineers 15-5 to erase a 2-1 deficit and win 4-2.
"I thought our third period was about as good as we played in a long time," Miami coach Enrico Blasi said this week. "The energy, the executing of the game plan was there for pretty much the entire third period. Real good step forward."
We already talked about UMD's search for improved rush coverage. Part of that is managing the puck and making sure the adversary doesn't have opportunities to rush up the rink with extra bodies. Blasi addressed that this week, too, only in the context of his team making smart decisions against a UMD team that possesses the puck as well as anyone in the country.
"You have to play well away from the puck," he said. "You gotta cut your losses at times, and live to play another day. Understand the situation you're in, and know where the danger's coming from. All in all, I think our guys understand that. Teams like UMD and other teams we'll face force you to make tough plays."
Miami could get a boost on its blue line, as sophomore defenseman Louie Belpedio has returned to Oxford after helping the United States earn a bronze medal at the World Junior Championships in Finland. Belpedio didn't arrive here until late Wednesday (at least that was the plan as of Tuesday per Blasi), and Blasi termed him a game-time decision for Friday night.
"We'll just have to see how it goes. There's a chance he'll play, there's a chance he won't."
It's all hands on deck for UMD. Senior forward Austin Farley, the team's leading scorer with ten goals and 19 points, missed the exhibition game with an undisclosed minor injury but will play this weekend. I don't know the final defensive pairings for Friday yet, but junior Dan Molenaar will be available after also missing Saturday's game.
This isn't the same Miami team that won the NCHC postseason tournament a year ago. Stars like Austin Czarnik, Riley Barber, and Blake Coleman have all moved on, and the RedHawks are led in scoring by freshman Jack Roslovic, who has nine goals and 18 points. In all, three of Miami's top five scorers (Roslovic, Josh Melnick, and Kiefer Sherwood) are freshmen. Senior goalie Ryan McKay has played in 16 of 18 games and has a .911 save percentage. However, fellow senior Jay Williams got the start in Sunday's win over RPI and made 17 saves for the victory.
******
I'll have my normal review of Friday's game available either late night or early Saturday morning. In addition, I'll publish my annual (admittedly meaningless) NCHC mid-season honors this weekend for your review and hate mail.
Tuesday, January 05, 2016
Avery Peterson Transferring to UMD
Big news midweek, though it won't affect UMD's on-ice product for approximately one year.
Former Grand Rapids high school hockey star Avery Peterson, who left Omaha a few weeks ago, is transferring to UMD. The move has not been announced by the school. Fox 21's Greg Chandler (follow him on Twitter @sportsguygregc for more details) was first on the story.
Peterson scored 11 goals as a freshman for Omaha last season as the Mavericks advanced to the NCAA Frozen Four. He had just one point in 14 games this season before deciding to leave school prior to the end of first semester. While an Omaha World-Herald story on his decision didn't quote Peterson, it speculated he would attempt to transfer closer to home.
Peterson will have a year and a half of eligibility starting next January. He can begin practicing with UMD in a week and change when the spring semester starts. While he has eligibility to play junior hockey for the rest of this season, he isn't expected to do so. Peterson can attempt to gain an extra year of eligibility through an NCAA waiver, and indications are he will at least try to make that happen.
Watch for updates, both here and on Twitter (@bruceciskie).
Former Grand Rapids high school hockey star Avery Peterson, who left Omaha a few weeks ago, is transferring to UMD. The move has not been announced by the school. Fox 21's Greg Chandler (follow him on Twitter @sportsguygregc for more details) was first on the story.
Peterson scored 11 goals as a freshman for Omaha last season as the Mavericks advanced to the NCAA Frozen Four. He had just one point in 14 games this season before deciding to leave school prior to the end of first semester. While an Omaha World-Herald story on his decision didn't quote Peterson, it speculated he would attempt to transfer closer to home.
(Peterson) has a brother at home in Minnesota who is suffering from a rare illness called metachromatic leukodystrophy.Prior to joining UNO, Peterson won Minnesota Mr. Hockey at Grand Rapids in 2014 and became the Thunderhawks' all-time leading scorer. He was a sixth-round pick of the Wild in the 2013 NHL Draft.
Evan Peterson was diagnosed with the genetic, neurological, progressive, terminal disease in early 2013. Blais said Avery Peterson didn’t talk about it much, but it was certainly something he struggled with.
“He kept everything to himself,” (UNO coach Dean) Blais said. “He didn’t want to be a distraction to the team, which you give him credit for. Obviously, we’re having a pretty good year without him having a good year production-wise. But that could be all to do with his worries and concern for his brother ... I think part of the reason he didn’t do well was because mentally it was just draining him because of his brother’s condition.”
Peterson may look into transferring to a school closer to home, Blais said. He would have to sit out until January 2017, although he is still young enough to return to junior hockey this season if he’d want to.
... (Jake) Guentzel, UNO’s junior captain, said it was tough to see a teammate, roommate and friend go.
“He talked to us and said he’s just got to do it. His brother is going through a hard time,” he said. “We respect it and wish him the best. I obviously love him. If this makes him happy, you’ve got to respect it.”
Peterson will have a year and a half of eligibility starting next January. He can begin practicing with UMD in a week and change when the spring semester starts. While he has eligibility to play junior hockey for the rest of this season, he isn't expected to do so. Peterson can attempt to gain an extra year of eligibility through an NCAA waiver, and indications are he will at least try to make that happen.
Watch for updates, both here and on Twitter (@bruceciskie).
Monday Musings: Bulldogs Rally for Exhibition Win, Prepare for Grind Ahead
(Whoops, forgot to post this when it was actually Monday. Sue me.)
I've joked with radio analyst extraordinaire Kraig Karakas that he has a lifetime contract with me. As long as someone wants me calling UMD games, I want him sitting next to me while I do it. Saturday night is a good example as to why.
When Dominic Toninato took advantage of one of the luckiest bounces imaginable to get UMD on the board in its exhibition game against the U.S. Under 18 Team, Karakas immediately recognized something in Toninato's reaction to what seemed at the time to be a mundane goal in a mundane game that didn't count in any tangible way.
"I like (his) reaction to that," Karakas said on the air. "He looked a little bit POed that they're losing 3-0 to this team.
"UMD to this point hasn't had that guy, in my opinion, that when the guys are down, says 'Get on my back.' I think Dominic has the skill set and the will to do that."
That was 18 seconds into the third period. UMD had little going, but as you know by now, UMD was able to get plenty going its way in that third period and overtime, rallying to win 4-3 as Toninato capped a hat trick with a power play goal in overtime.
I doubt we'll ever really know if Toninato did the "Get on my back" speech or some derivative of it. But he took control of a game where UMD had little going and put his stamp on it. Yes, it was an exhibition, but it is something that could have an impact going forward.
At 7-7-3 with goal-scoring struggles aplenty, UMD is a team screaming for someone to take control from within. It doesn't have to be a captain, as we've talked about before. It doesn't have to be a senior. But someone needs to do it. And as Kraig said when Toninato scored that lucky goal to start Saturday's rally, he's the kind of player who has the skill and the will to make it happen.
Obviously, the test of this theory comes when times become difficult in games that count. Toninato's already done a good job establishing himself as an improved 200-foot player. Now we need to see the kind of jam in the offensive zone he provided on Saturday.
We know UMD is probably not going to win the NCHC. But with all due respect to the conference and its leadership, that's not what matters in the end. I think most of you are already aware of how difficult it is to win a national championship, and recent trends aside, there is just no way of predicting who will emerge from the rubble come April 9, even once you get a gander at the tournament pairings. And UMD's players will gladly give up a shot at the conference title for a real chance at the national championship, I'd imagine.
My point? Just get in the tournament. Yeah, a team that's 7-7-3 at the midway point has work to do to make that national playoff. But if UMD can string together a run of strong play in a tough league, the Bulldogs will quickly put themselves in a position to make the NCAAs.
Just get in.
It starts with Miami this weekend. The RedHawks are struggling, sitting seventh in the league and under .500 overall. These are games UMD needs ahead of next week's showdown with St. Cloud State. Don't assume anything. Go get the six points and hopefully it'll help the Bulldogs make some headway.
I've joked with radio analyst extraordinaire Kraig Karakas that he has a lifetime contract with me. As long as someone wants me calling UMD games, I want him sitting next to me while I do it. Saturday night is a good example as to why.
When Dominic Toninato took advantage of one of the luckiest bounces imaginable to get UMD on the board in its exhibition game against the U.S. Under 18 Team, Karakas immediately recognized something in Toninato's reaction to what seemed at the time to be a mundane goal in a mundane game that didn't count in any tangible way.
"I like (his) reaction to that," Karakas said on the air. "He looked a little bit POed that they're losing 3-0 to this team.
"UMD to this point hasn't had that guy, in my opinion, that when the guys are down, says 'Get on my back.' I think Dominic has the skill set and the will to do that."
That was 18 seconds into the third period. UMD had little going, but as you know by now, UMD was able to get plenty going its way in that third period and overtime, rallying to win 4-3 as Toninato capped a hat trick with a power play goal in overtime.
I doubt we'll ever really know if Toninato did the "Get on my back" speech or some derivative of it. But he took control of a game where UMD had little going and put his stamp on it. Yes, it was an exhibition, but it is something that could have an impact going forward.
At 7-7-3 with goal-scoring struggles aplenty, UMD is a team screaming for someone to take control from within. It doesn't have to be a captain, as we've talked about before. It doesn't have to be a senior. But someone needs to do it. And as Kraig said when Toninato scored that lucky goal to start Saturday's rally, he's the kind of player who has the skill and the will to make it happen.
Obviously, the test of this theory comes when times become difficult in games that count. Toninato's already done a good job establishing himself as an improved 200-foot player. Now we need to see the kind of jam in the offensive zone he provided on Saturday.
******
We know UMD is probably not going to win the NCHC. But with all due respect to the conference and its leadership, that's not what matters in the end. I think most of you are already aware of how difficult it is to win a national championship, and recent trends aside, there is just no way of predicting who will emerge from the rubble come April 9, even once you get a gander at the tournament pairings. And UMD's players will gladly give up a shot at the conference title for a real chance at the national championship, I'd imagine.
My point? Just get in the tournament. Yeah, a team that's 7-7-3 at the midway point has work to do to make that national playoff. But if UMD can string together a run of strong play in a tough league, the Bulldogs will quickly put themselves in a position to make the NCAAs.
Just get in.
It starts with Miami this weekend. The RedHawks are struggling, sitting seventh in the league and under .500 overall. These are games UMD needs ahead of next week's showdown with St. Cloud State. Don't assume anything. Go get the six points and hopefully it'll help the Bulldogs make some headway.
Saturday, January 02, 2016
Exhibition: US Under 18 at UMD
Greetings and Happy New Year. Hope your holiday break was enjoyable and fruitful. Glad to be back at the rink, and we're set to go for an exhibition to get the second half started.
UMD coach Scott Sandelin talked quite a bit this week about his team getting an increased hunger around the opposition net. That and transition defense were the big points of emphasis for him as his group reconvened after its time off.
We'll have more on the midseason break and some thoughts on the team going forward during the week.
Lines?
Lines.
UMD
Osterberg - Toninato - Johnson
Sampair - Cameranesi - Young (Austyn)
Iafallo - Thomas - Kuhlman
Young (Blake) - Decowski - Mackay
Spurrell - Exell (extra forwards)
Welinski - Pionk
Soucy - Raskob
Corrin - Kotyk
McCormack (extra D)
Kaskisuo - McNeely - Deery
USA
Bellows - Keller - Anderson
McPhee - Frederic - Sanchez
Suthers - Pastujov - Walker
Khordorenko - Lockwood (center - right wing on fourth line)
Campoli - Martin
Greenway - Fox
Luce - Hellickson
Perunovich
Woll - Oettinger
UMD coach Scott Sandelin talked quite a bit this week about his team getting an increased hunger around the opposition net. That and transition defense were the big points of emphasis for him as his group reconvened after its time off.
We'll have more on the midseason break and some thoughts on the team going forward during the week.
Lines?
Lines.
UMD
Osterberg - Toninato - Johnson
Sampair - Cameranesi - Young (Austyn)
Iafallo - Thomas - Kuhlman
Young (Blake) - Decowski - Mackay
Spurrell - Exell (extra forwards)
Welinski - Pionk
Soucy - Raskob
Corrin - Kotyk
McCormack (extra D)
Kaskisuo - McNeely - Deery
USA
Bellows - Keller - Anderson
McPhee - Frederic - Sanchez
Suthers - Pastujov - Walker
Khordorenko - Lockwood (center - right wing on fourth line)
Campoli - Martin
Greenway - Fox
Luce - Hellickson
Perunovich
Woll - Oettinger
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