Previewing St. Cloud
This week the Mavericks take on St. Cloud State in a home and home series with the Friday installment in Mankato, and then going up to St. Cloud on Saturday.
Here's the Western College Hockey preview of St. Cloud State.
The Huskies seem to be a program on the rise. Last year, the Huskies improved greatly on the previous year's result, largely due to new coach Bob Motzko. Motzko is known as a good coach and great recruiter, and seems to have St. Cloud back on the track to national prominence.
Another reason the Huskies have done so well is the play of transfer goaltender Bobby Goepfert. Goepfert passed on an opportunity at a potential NHL contract this summer to return to the Huskies this year. Freshmen back-up Jase Weslosky could also see a start this weekend to help get him experience for next season.
The Huskies also have a talented, and experience defensive unit to help Goepfert keep the puck out of the net. The Huskies starting defensive pair so far this season has been the offensively-gifted Justin Fletcher and the defensive-minded Matt Stephenson. Senior Casey Borer, who is probably the team's best defenseman, was paired with freshmen Garrett Raboin last Friday, but after each defenseman went -3 on Friday, Raboin was replaced with David Carlisle. Aaron Brocklehurst played on the third pairing, and played with Chris Anderson one night, and Jon Ammerman the other. The Huskies have a lot of different options with their defensive lineup.
Scoring goals has been a bit of a problem for the Huskies in the past, and was really their downfall against Mankato last season. This year's Husky team has more offensive firepower, but the transformation has been slow going.
The top offensive line for the Huskies features Andrew Gordon, who is one of the highest returning scorers in the WCHA, Andreas Nodl, a talented freshmen that was drafted in the second round of this summer's NHL draft, and Nate Dey, a big, grinding forward. They easily the Huskies most dangerous offensive threat.
After that, the Huskies haven't found consistent lines yet. Some players to watch include Matt Hartman, Dan Kronick, and Ryan Lasch.
The general feeling around the hockey world is that these should be two easy wins for St. Cloud. It's funny considering that St. Cloud only finished one point ahead of Mankato in the WCHA last season, and Mankato won both games against the Huskies last season. It's certainly a new season and SCSU returns much of their lineup from last year, while the Mavs have had to rebuild, but I'm not convinced the gap between the two is as much as what people think.
A big part of the reason for all the optimism from St. Cloud fans is St. Cloud's run to the Final Five championship game last season. The Huskies played well during that stretch, but looking at the teams they defeated in the postseason tournament, Colorado College only won one of their last six games, Minnesota-Duluth only won three games in the second half of the season, and Minnesota lost their last three games of the season. St. Cloud also had the good luck of catching a lot of teams at the right time of the year when they were struggling.
In all, I think St. Cloud is a team that is extremely similar to the Notre Dame team that MSU faced last weekend. Both teams are on the way up thanks to new coaches. Both teams have an excellent veteran goaltender and good, experience defenses. Both teams have one proven scorer, and some talented freshmen to go along with them. Given these similarities, I think this weekend will be very similar to the last one. I think the Mavs struggle on the road, but play a very good, tight game at home. This series has split written all over it.
Keys to the Game
1. Get traffic in front of Bobby Goepfert-Bobby Goepfert is a great goalie and has the ability to shut the Mavericks down. One of the ways to fight that is to get a lot of traffic in front of the net and try to score some rebound goals. Picking up some ugly goals is a great way for a team that isn't as offensively talented to get on the board.
2. Cut down on mistakes- This is probably a fairly obvious, but the Mavericks played themselves out of the game on Thursday, and almost did the same thing on Saturday, by making costly mistakes that led to great chances. Like Notre Dame, St. Cloud probably generate a ton of great chances on their own, so if the Mavs don't make too many mistakes, they can keep the games low-scoring.
3. Get off to a fast start-This weekend, the Mavericks host the first game of the home and home series, so if they start the weekend out with a loss, they face the daunting task of having to go to St. Cloud and try to get a few points out of the weekend. A win on Friday would give this team a lot of confidence going into St. Cloud on Saturday.
Here's the Western College Hockey preview of St. Cloud State.
The Huskies seem to be a program on the rise. Last year, the Huskies improved greatly on the previous year's result, largely due to new coach Bob Motzko. Motzko is known as a good coach and great recruiter, and seems to have St. Cloud back on the track to national prominence.
Another reason the Huskies have done so well is the play of transfer goaltender Bobby Goepfert. Goepfert passed on an opportunity at a potential NHL contract this summer to return to the Huskies this year. Freshmen back-up Jase Weslosky could also see a start this weekend to help get him experience for next season.
The Huskies also have a talented, and experience defensive unit to help Goepfert keep the puck out of the net. The Huskies starting defensive pair so far this season has been the offensively-gifted Justin Fletcher and the defensive-minded Matt Stephenson. Senior Casey Borer, who is probably the team's best defenseman, was paired with freshmen Garrett Raboin last Friday, but after each defenseman went -3 on Friday, Raboin was replaced with David Carlisle. Aaron Brocklehurst played on the third pairing, and played with Chris Anderson one night, and Jon Ammerman the other. The Huskies have a lot of different options with their defensive lineup.
Scoring goals has been a bit of a problem for the Huskies in the past, and was really their downfall against Mankato last season. This year's Husky team has more offensive firepower, but the transformation has been slow going.
The top offensive line for the Huskies features Andrew Gordon, who is one of the highest returning scorers in the WCHA, Andreas Nodl, a talented freshmen that was drafted in the second round of this summer's NHL draft, and Nate Dey, a big, grinding forward. They easily the Huskies most dangerous offensive threat.
After that, the Huskies haven't found consistent lines yet. Some players to watch include Matt Hartman, Dan Kronick, and Ryan Lasch.
The general feeling around the hockey world is that these should be two easy wins for St. Cloud. It's funny considering that St. Cloud only finished one point ahead of Mankato in the WCHA last season, and Mankato won both games against the Huskies last season. It's certainly a new season and SCSU returns much of their lineup from last year, while the Mavs have had to rebuild, but I'm not convinced the gap between the two is as much as what people think.
A big part of the reason for all the optimism from St. Cloud fans is St. Cloud's run to the Final Five championship game last season. The Huskies played well during that stretch, but looking at the teams they defeated in the postseason tournament, Colorado College only won one of their last six games, Minnesota-Duluth only won three games in the second half of the season, and Minnesota lost their last three games of the season. St. Cloud also had the good luck of catching a lot of teams at the right time of the year when they were struggling.
In all, I think St. Cloud is a team that is extremely similar to the Notre Dame team that MSU faced last weekend. Both teams are on the way up thanks to new coaches. Both teams have an excellent veteran goaltender and good, experience defenses. Both teams have one proven scorer, and some talented freshmen to go along with them. Given these similarities, I think this weekend will be very similar to the last one. I think the Mavs struggle on the road, but play a very good, tight game at home. This series has split written all over it.
Keys to the Game
1. Get traffic in front of Bobby Goepfert-Bobby Goepfert is a great goalie and has the ability to shut the Mavericks down. One of the ways to fight that is to get a lot of traffic in front of the net and try to score some rebound goals. Picking up some ugly goals is a great way for a team that isn't as offensively talented to get on the board.
2. Cut down on mistakes- This is probably a fairly obvious, but the Mavericks played themselves out of the game on Thursday, and almost did the same thing on Saturday, by making costly mistakes that led to great chances. Like Notre Dame, St. Cloud probably generate a ton of great chances on their own, so if the Mavs don't make too many mistakes, they can keep the games low-scoring.
3. Get off to a fast start-This weekend, the Mavericks host the first game of the home and home series, so if they start the weekend out with a loss, they face the daunting task of having to go to St. Cloud and try to get a few points out of the weekend. A win on Friday would give this team a lot of confidence going into St. Cloud on Saturday.
posted by Chris at 9:28 PM
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