Minnesota spotted the Badgers a goal before rattling off four unanswered, on their way to a 4-1 win in front of 9,948 at Mariucci Arena.
The Minnesota Gophers (1-0-0 B1G, 10-2-1 Overall) and Wisconsin Badgers (0-1-0 B1G, 4-4-1 Overall) met tonight, in the opening game of the B1G season. Minnesota spotted the Badgers a goal before rattling off four unanswered, on their way to a 4-1 win in front of 9,948 at Mariucci Arena.
Here is what I saw.
* Gopher special teams play needs some work. Even though their numbers weren’t bad, they dodged a lot of bullets. Lot’s of lazy clearing attempts and odd man rushes given up. Fortunately, the Badgers were just as bad, and gave away some good offensive chances to Minnesota while they were on the power play. Not much flow on the power play, which translates to not many scoring chances.
* Not sure if Jake Parenteau is still nursing some ailment, but he seemed to be shying away from physical play, where normally he initiates it. It could just be a change in his style of play, or he might have some aches he’s trying to mend.
* Brady Skjei tends to rely on using his stick a lot, when he should be moving his feet. I saw a couple of times where he could have been called for a penalty, but wasn’t. He did get called f or hooking in the second period, on a play where the puck was harmlessly going into the corner. He’s good with his stick at times, poking the puck away. But it would be nice to see some consistently good play from him. It seems like Mike Reilly’s game has improved much more than Skjei’s after a sketchy Freshman year for the two of them last season.
* I know I tend to complain about the officiating quite a bit, but it was atrocious tonight. Initially they were just in the way of players and the puck, but then they “misplaced” their whistles on a number of plays where something should have been called, and then called a couple of pretty weak penalties. I don’t think either team was real happy with the officiating. It can only get better from here, right?
* I should apparently be grateful that I didn’t have to listen to the ESPN 9 “The Nacho” announcers tonight. I’ve never seen so much complaining via Twitter regarding the broadcast team for a game.
Here are the post game comments:
Wisconsin Head Coach Mike Eaves:
Regarding the officials…. “(long pause) Well, I’ll tell ya. The fact that we have to talk about officials says it all, and that will be my final comment tonight”
Regarding the game…. “We as a staff have no problem with our effort, and some of the things we did. We just have to get the rust off offensively, and get in that flow again. That’s the kind of start we wanted, but we weren’t able to maintain that, and keep getting some goals. It was a tight game, and good plays, and good saves. If I’m a hockey college fan, it was a pretty good game”
Minnesota Head Coach Don Lucia:
Regarding the game…. “It’s something we talked about, getting the first win ever. It’s something we stressed during the course of the week, so really happy for us to come out and get the first win, in the first game. The way it’s going for us, I’m used to looking up and seeing one to nothing against us on the scoreboard. I mean that’s what, three straight games, and seven of the thirteen games we’ve played that we’ve given up the first goal. Luckily, I think we’re so used to it that it doesn’t rattle us. Coming back and getting that first goal was obviously important to tie it up, and then we had the power play goal to make it two to one. Then it stayed that way. Connor (Riley) made a great play. Good to see guys step up, Connor in Taylor’s (Cammaratta) absence today. He got a little dinged, and he’s day to day. But he wasn’t in a position to play, so we put Connor in that spot. I thought (Travis) Boyd’s line was really good tonight. I thought they were the key for us to winning. We play Wisconsin every year, so it was nothing new. Yeah it was a Big Ten game, but it could have been a game last year too. They’re a good team, and it was just good to get that first win, and do the things we needed to do to win. Our penalty killing was much better after we were so dreadful last weekend. We were plus on specialties, we thought that was going to be important. Adam (Wilcox) had a good sound bounce back game, so a lot of pluses for us tonight. We were disappointed in some of the things we did last week. Tonight their focus was much better, and I thought the real key was what a good job we did do on the penalty kill tonight. Good job. Our gaps were good. I thought we broke the puck out well, out of our own zone, and that’s why we had the advantage in shots tonight. They’re a good defensive team, and I wasn’t surprised he played (Wisconsin Goaltender Landon Peterson). They’ve been rotating him a lot. He played well here last year, and he played well again tonight”
Regarding Seth Ambroz behind the net goal …. “You know, that’s a little bit of a hockey IQ shot too. It’s so hard to score goals sometimes, you see that. The goalies not on the post. I’m sure if you ask him, he did it on purpose. But it was a good, smart play”
Regarding the Ambroz-Boyd-Serratore line…. “That whole line, even after the time out, there was two minutes to go, and that’s the line we wanted out there. They all three kill penalties, they’re good defensively, and with how young we are up front, they’re out most veteran group. We won the draw and did a good job positionally. It was kind of fitting for that line to get the open net goal tonight. All three of them had major contributions, not only five on five, scoring a goal, and the empty net goal. All three of them did a great job killing penalties tonight”
Regarding Taylor Cammaratta…. “Whether he’ll play tomorrow, I don’t know. We’ll see how he feels. There’s no urgency that we’ve gotta rush him back. We’ve gotta make sure he’s one hundred percent, if he’s going to play”
Regarding Connor Riley…. “It was a nice goal. You know, it was tough for him, he missed all last year. It was a goal scorers goal. I mean, just that little change of shot lane. That little fake. Most guys don’t do that. He’s scored a lot of points. He’s got a good shot, and for the ice time he’s had, he’s really given us a good shot of offense”
Regarding the power play…. “The three guys who ran our power play are in the NHL right now. We lost some good players. We’ve got a lot of young guys. So to think guys are going to step in and assume those rolls, and play at the level that those guys did…it’s not going to happen. I thought we had some good looks tonight. Wisconsin’s a good penalty killing team. They did a good job of blocking shots. But we understand that if we can be a plus on our specialty teams, that’s going to help. When you’ve got (Erik) Haula, (Nate) Schmidt and (Nick) Bjugstad running the top of that umbrella… three guys that are in the NHL… they could have all been back this year. And I guarantee you our power play would have been better (laughing)”
Regarding Saturday’s game…. “We’ll go back and show a few clips in the morning, but I don’t think we want to change up too much. And hopefully come out and score the first goal for a change”
Regarding Erik Haula …. “He texted us yesterday and let us know that he got the call up. So good for him. All those guys. They’re great program guys. They’re very dedicated to our program, you know. They’re all great Gophers. We’re happy for all our guys when they get to make their NHL debut”
Connor Reilly:
Regarding being in the lineup…. “I just want to take full advantage of it. I wasn’t trying to do anything too special, but just play my game. Obviously, it’s a big opportunity playing with two very fast players in (Nate) Condon and (Justin) Kloos. I just wanted to do my job, chip in offensively, and be strong on the walls in the defensive zone”
Regarding playing from behind early…. “I think we respond very well, just due to our depth. We have a lot of guys that can play strong in our D zone. Even when we get down, we don’t get discouraged. We actually get more fired up, and want to come back and play even harder”
Regarding the game…. “We were so excited coming in. I never played in the WCHA last year, which obviously wasn’t very fun. But, it’s great to get a Big Ten win, and to get the first one ever is pretty exciting for us. We knew it was going to be a hard fought battle. I mean, they’re a veteran team. They compete hard, they’re hard on the pucks, they’re big and strong. So we knew it was going to be an absolute battle. And to come out with a win like that, and to respond the way we did after last weekends loss versus Duluth is pretty exciting for us”
Regarding his goal…. “Honestly, I was coming off the off-wing, and I was initially going to pass the puck to (Justin) Kloos going to the net for a redirect. But he was covered, so I just changed the angle, put the puck a little bit left, and slid it five-hole. I don’t know if it was lucky, but I just wanted to change the angle of the shot, just to open up the goalies legs. That one felt very good. I’ve had an empty netter, a power play goal, and this is my first five on five goal. So it felt pretty good. I mean, that was one of the first plays this year where I actually had full confidence walking in the zone. My confidence early on was really struggling, but I felt more confident than I have all year today, and because of that, it allowed me to make that play”
Seth Ambroz:
Regarding his goal from behind the net…. “You know, it was interesting. We won the draw there, and Hollsy (Justin Holl) threw it down low. I gave it to Tommy (Serratore), and Tommy threw it to the net. It kinda seemed like the goalie lost his footing a little bit. Coaches talk about throwing pucks to the net from bad angles all the time, so I just tried it, and was fortunate to get a nice bounce, and put it in the back of the net. You know, one of these times I want to get a good looking goal (laughing). They’ve got good goaltending on there team. Rumpel will probably be going tomorrow, he’s a good goalie. Peterson stood on his head today and played really well. Sometimes it just takes one of those cheesy goals just to get the boys going. I was happy enough to get the boys going, and fortunate enough to get a nice little empty netter at the end there too. I’ve been fortunate enough to have Wisconsin’s number a little bit, I think. But at the same time, hopefully I can keep it going and play well again tomorrow. I have to credit my linemates. Tommy (Serratore) and Boyder (Travis Boyd), those guys played really well today. I was just fortunate enough to get the goals there. Those two play well day in and day out”
Regarding the game…. “It was the first ever Big Ten game, so that’s pretty cool, especially to come out on top. It’s different with the Big Ten, because now Wisconsin’s our biggest rival. It’s always fun to play them, and tomorrow night should be just a barnburner. It’ll be a lot of fun. Hopefully we can play well again tomorrow, and hopefully get around the circle. They’ll be coming out hard tomorrow. After a loss, good teams like Wisconsin know how to come out the next day. We’ve gotta be ready to go and play our game”
Regarding his line…. “Tommy (Serratore) and Travis (Boyd) are playing really good hockey. It’s really fun to play with them. I feel like we bring a lot of energy. We’re a really physical line. At the same time, we get pucks to the net and they’ve been going in for us, which has been great. We cause turnovers and just do a lot of the little things. Hopefully we can keep it going. It’s been nice, we’ve played the last three games, and played a little bit last year together. So, I think we’ve got a little chemistry built up there. We all know what to do. We just keep the game simple, and it seems to be working out”
Regarding Serratore running him over…. “I had no clue. When Tommy hits, he hits hard. I couldn’t breath for a while there. He absolutely buried me. He had the upper hand on that one. It was a good hit. Hopefully we see it on film tomorrow. But yeah, he hits hard, that’s for sure. That’s not really part of the chemistry, but…. Gosh, I’ll tell you what, that was something else. I was going northbound on a southbound freeway there”
The Gophers will take on the Badgers again tomorrow at Mariucci. Game time is 5:00 PM (Central). Mercifully for those who watch on TV, the game will be broadcast on Fox Sports North, and not ESPN U.