St. Cloud Weekend Thoughts

[Jeff Oftos]

St. Cloud Weekend Thoughts

….Big congrats to Kent Patterson on his 6th shutout of the season tonight. Six shutouts and it’s not even Thanksgiving yet? The only question mark surrounding him right now is why did he not get more playing time before his senior season? I’ll try to squeeze that in to Lucia later on in the season if the opportunity presents itself. It’s a legit question.

….Nick Bjugstad had a great game on Saturday night. Lucia called him out though a little bit afterwards. Said that he was responsible defensively for a couple of St. Cloud’s goals on Friday night and he was happy that “Bjugie” responded because “that’s what elite players do”. Bjugstad HAS to be on a short list for the Hobey Baker, right?

…I thought Justin Holl has slowed down a lot since the start of the season. He had trouble handling the puck and didn’t make many crisp passes out of the Gopher zone tonight.

…Seth Ambroz – demoted to the 4th line tonight. I thought he had a decent game though, and Lucia agreed. He needs to score a goal, and maybe that will get his confidence going. But he did a nice job along the wall tonight and blocked some shots which was great to see. He did get hit low on his knee and played the 3rd period clearly in pain.

Not much else to say about the weekend. The Gophers are clearly a better team than St. Cloud so only getting 2 points is a bit frustrating. But you’re going to lose games here and there, and it was nice to see them rally and almost tie it on Friday. And again, team speed is very evident – even to a team like St. Cloud that isn’t exactly slow. Husky coach Bob Motzko referenced it after the game saying “we had trouble with their speed all weekend”.

On to East Lansing and then home for two series in which we should really take a lot of points. Good luck to everyone driving home in the goat rodeo that is the streets of the Twin Cities metro area….