11/22/09

Notre Dame 4 Michigan State 1

The Spartans fell 4-1 to the Fighting Irish on Sunday afternoon in a game played at the Coliseum in Ft. Wayne, Indiana. Michigan State out-shot Notre Dame, but just couldn't seem to bury the puck. The Irish did a good job in capitalizing on their scoring opportunities, as well. Maybe MSU needed to have a weekend like this to get them back down to earth after going from an unranked team to #6 in the country. They have played so well throughout this season and did not play too bad in either game this weekend, but were not able to come out with wins. They must refocus this week in practice and prepare for the College Hockey Showcase. They will face a tough Wisconsin Badger team on Friday night. The Spartans have shown a lot so far this year and will continue to improve. They need to get their power play back on track this weekend after starting out so good and then hitting a bit of a lull lately. The Spartan defense was supposed to struggle as a unit, but they have been impressively sound so far. I will be coming out with a scouting report on both Wisconsin and Minnesota later this week.

4 comments:

  1. Totally agree about our defense, Sean. Before the season started, I thought they would be the best group of defenders in the CCHA this season and, so far, I'm notfar off. Petry, for sure, but then Crandell, Shelly, Grassi, Krug, Josepher. They are solid. And let's add this about Tim Buttery: He's also played solid defense. His technique is 300% better than last season. He'll be fine.

    I haven't seen Notre Dame play, but, as a team, they seem to be impressive defensively, but they are also older, too. It also sounded like Phillips had a solid outing, not unlike his play last Thursday.

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  2. Where has our power play disappeared to? 0-for-last 4 games?

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  3. We played well on the power play against UM, but just couldn't put the puck in. Thursday night's Notre Dame game we had excellent puck movement, and their goalie made some great saves. I wouldn't be surprised to see some new looks with Sucharski on the blue line for the power play and I think we get a power play goal in each game against Wisc. and Minn.

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  4. 2 against Wiscy with 3 forwards on the power play unit. Looked good on Friday.

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