This past weekend we had our series against Augsburg. Friday night we played down in Minneapolis and were able to get a 5-2 win. On Saturday night, we returned home to the National Hockey Center and unfortunately lost the game 5-0. Both games were good games, but both told different stories.
On Friday night, we scratched out a big win at Augsburg, in a building that is not easy to win in. The story of this game was great goaltending and opportunistic scoring. We got out-shot 47-23 but still managed to win the game 5-2. Senior goalie Andrew Lindgren was awesome in this game and really stood on his head to help get the win. We also got big goals from freshman forwards Auggie Moore and Jack Johnson, and sophomore forward Brady Dahl. The biggest offensive contributor in this game was senior forward Brady Heppner. Brady finished the night with a goal and three assists for a four-point night. Overall, we had great goaltending and were able to capitalize on our chances throughout the night.
On Saturday night, the story was about not finishing our chances and them doing the opposite. The shots in this game were 32-28 in favor of Augsburg. We ended up giving up 5 goals on the night and were not able to score any even though we created more great chances and shots than we did the night before. The star of this game was the Augsburg goalie. Looking back at the video and seeing all the chances we had that we were not able to finish made this loss even more frustrating. We had a great chance to sweep the top team in the MIAC, and we couldn’t get it done.
This week we have two games against St. Olaf. This is a huge weekend for our team, and we need to find a way to get two wins. We are in a position where we need to get a sweep if we want to make a run at the playoffs. With that said, St. Olaf always plays us very tough. They play a smothering defensive style that is very difficult to score against. They will pack it in and they will block shots all night. We must find a way to manufacture opportunities with traffic in front and look to finish our opportunities when we get them. We also have to be aware of our composure on the bench and not get frustrated. It will be a very challenging weekend, but the guys have worked very hard this week to be up to the challenge.
The games this weekend are this Thursday night at 7pm at the National Hockey Center in St. Cloud and Saturday night at 7pm down in Northfield in St. Olaf’s new hockey rink ON CAMPUS!!!
Thanks for all your support and Go Johnnies!
