Game Day 1/12/2013

That one really hurt, we more than needed that win. Nonetheless we can still split with a win tonight. We played very well against the #1 team in the nation, and we were one penalty kill away from a win. Long story short, regardless of whether or not Tyler Currier deserved a five minute major, that was a hit that he didn't need to make. He had backup in Chris Crowell, if he had just pressured Zach Budish, who knows we could've went to overtime at the very least. I'd hate to be so hard on Tyler Currier because I like his style of play, the grit and nastiness of his game. But:

Dude you are a senior, you are from Anchorage, and we could've made the push to OT or won. 

Upon watching this again and again, in all honesty that was a bone-headed play by Tyler Currier. Chris Crowell had Zach Budish all tied up, and occupied. Tyler just got way too excited, and in this one conference win season so far, makes it even worse. Just try to get the puck or skate over to the defenseman and clog up a passing lane Tyler. Here's the video:

And a little breakdown.

Somewhere in the middle of the 2nd period to around the start of the third period, Kurt Haider on air called out Chris Crowell and Tyler Currier. I don't remember his exact words but it went something along the lines of "Currier and Crowell should know better, there are currently taking the bait from Minnesota and should stop biting". Boy was that foreshadowing or what, but I digress.

Feel free to vent your frustrations here, but this is the last time I will bring this up this season.

We need a win badly, and how do we do this you ask? By playing exactly the way we did in the first period last night. We had the #1 team in the nation on its heels, we scored first and got the crowd out of it until Minny scored. Again, Minnesota only scored one even strength goal. We are hard to score against five on five, Don Lucia brought this up in the Golden Gopher's Preview Interviews. If we can stay out of the box, come out fires a blazing and play smart hockey the whole game, ladies and gentlemen we have a split series.

I thought Gundy played very solid last night, the game winner you knew was going in though. Doesn't matter if we had Dominik Hasek or Jacques Plante in net, that baby was going in. I say stick with the rotation, Kamal is 3-4-0 against UM and maybe he can help work some puck luck to the boys. As for the Gophers, it will be interesting to see if there stud Adam Wilcox will start tonight, he has already played two games this week (Notre Dame on Tuesday then us). According to College Hockey News, Adam will get the nod again from Head Coach Don Lucia.

Things to watch for
• The whole score by committee was in full action last night as nine different Seawolves registered a point, nobody had more than one last night
• Blake Tatchell had an assist last night and is the current leader in points 3-9-12 in 19 GP

And the drop of the puck is 4:07 AKST tonight and on 650 KENI for us locals listening in on the great Kurt Haider.