CPZ Not Attending MTU; Duluth Series This Weekend

Two sources have now confirmed that Casey-Pierro Zabotel will not be attending Michigan Tech. He was unable to achieve a high enough score on his entrance exam retake to meet the NCAA's standards. It's a shame, but tSBFinW wishes him good luck with the rest of his career. He has signed with the Vancouver Giants of the WHL, so no doubt the major junior league trolls at WCHB will flood the announcement with comments about the NCAA's obvious inferiority by tomorrow morning. ;)

Swept by SCSU - yuck. Losing twice to the One & Done Huskies in our own barn does not make this blogger happy. News of tTeslak's back spasms also makes this blogger very, very concerned for the upcoming series against the Minnesota-Duluth Bulldogs. If Robbie Nolan wants to get back on track, he needs a strong showing out in Daloot on both nights, assuming tTeslak can't play again. Our offense must also create and bury a lot more chances than they did against St. Cloud. We cannot expect to sweep on the road if we can only score three goals per weekend.

This blogger will be traveling home for most of Friday, and won't have access to a computer again until Monday, so he likely won't be hearing any game results until then. Therefore, in lieu of listening to or being at the games, he'll just have to make sure to sieve/taunt a picture of Stalock before he leaves. :)

A Night of Futility

Awful defensive breakdowns, turnovers at the worst possible moments, shaky goaltending, and an offense that couldn't finish many of the limited opportunities they created. That describes the play of the Michigan Tech Huskies last night, as they were upset by St. Cloud State at the MacInnes.

If MTU intends to garner a top 5 spot in the conference this season, home weekends with less than three points are not the way to go about it. SCSU outskated us last night, and we should have been playing a crushing physical game against a smaller, younger team. It simply did not happen.

Perhaps the worst news this weekend is that Michael Lee Teslak could be suffering from back spasms, as he did not start on Friday (as expected). Robbie Nolan is really going to have to step up his play in the net if Teslak is out for any length of time. What happened to his play from last season? He's given up some of the sloppiest goals I've ever seen in his last two starts.

I hope we see a completely different Tech team on the ice this evening, and hopefully they can salvage a split out of last night's mess.

Weekend Recap

So it's a little late; deal with it. :P

MTU and UW split a pair of games down in Madison, at the Kohl Center. I was unable to go, though I did listen to Saturday's game (and I even got to watch the third period). I'm glad we came away with a road split, because Tech sounded/looked tired on Saturday. This win Friday/lose Saturday situation had better not become routine.

Looking Ahead

This weekend, we're back in Houghton for some hot, Husky-on-Husky action at the MacInnes, as St. Cloud State comes to town for a two-game series.

I've said this on USCHO and I'll say it again - we need to sweep St. Cloud this weekend. We need it to prove that we can be consistent and sweep a series, and also to gain some momentum going into a stretch of five straight road games. Next weekend we'll face what appears to be a surprisingly decent UMD squad at the DECC, and then we'll be down at the Mariucci at the end of the month (following a weekend off), looking to extend our recent winning record there against the Goofs, who by then will have six more games under their belt and should be ready to play. After that, it's another weekend off before the annual slugfest with eNeMa U, beginning Friday at the Berry in Marquette.

This is it - we're at home for the final time until mid-December, and the team will enjoy the benefit of a friendly crowd. St. Cloud has gotten off to a slow start (though they appear to be slowly gelling), so we need to take advantage of that.

We need a sweep - let's get it.