Northern

[pdt1081]

The loss on Saturday is where our weaknesses really showed, heck even my wife noticed it...

- Puck doesn't move quick at all. Our only way of really scoring is odd man rushes and screens on 5 on 5's. If we can't find pay dirt that way, we're done

I hear you, but here's the thing that nags at me. On Friday, it did move quickly. Breakouts were crisp. We were continuously hitting the cross rink pass in the neutral zone and Northern struggled to stop it. In the o-zone, we actually had guys camped in front of the net 5x5 which led to Fyten's goal. Pfoh outskated the Northern defender for his goal (I thought he was one of if not the fastest skater that night).

Then Saturday happened. I don't know if Potulny made killer adjustments and Eigner couldn't respond, if Northern was embarrassed after Friday and wanted it more, if having Halasz in net made the difference, if our guys mailed it in, or a combination of all of these. They were stronger to the puck in our zone. We couldn't break out crisply and when we did we beat it up the boards to their waiting d-man. The PP was...not good.

We see flashes of greatness for a bit then a regression to blech. So far blech has outmanned greatness. It will be an emotional weekend in Houghton. I have no idea what to expect from this team as Tech seems to be finding their stride.

There's also the way Northern plays. Friday night BG brought the physical game. Saturday, they did not. If Schneider is injured, every healthy body was dressed for both games. Which then leads to the question: how many guys are "playing through" instead of being 100%?

[BG84]

I took some pictures.

https://boazatthezoo.blogspot.com/p/bg- ... -2023.html