Huge Victory for the Junior College

After coming to Minnesota and playing what was to Coach Jamie Russell the worst game of the Huskies' season, the guys stepped the play up to a level that took the Minnesota Gophers off guard, defeating the newly crowned McNaughton Cup champions 5-4 on their own senior night.

What a night it was too. I don't know where to start with the ridiculously awesome play tonight. Last night was somewhat depressing, with slow, disconnected, and somewhat lackluster play, but tonight sophomore Justin St. Louis helped lead a newly revived Husky squad to a 2-0 lead in the first, scoring both goals on a sleeping Jeff "170 Foot" Frazee, including a beautifully played short-hander making Frazee take the first, and wrong move. The Gophers were able to close within one at in the first, until St. Louis finished off his hat trick in the second, followed by goals by Shelast and Kerr. The Gophers were able to respond with two more by the end of the second, leaving the game at 5-3 for most of the third.

In the nets, Michael-Lee Teslak continued his hot streak this year with a dominating performance. The only goals that made it by the second year netminder were either fired in hard through screens or dumped in after numerous stopped rebounds in front of the net. For the Gophers, Frazee, getting the start over senior Kellen Briggs seemed off for most of his playing time, giving St. Louis a full half of his goals this season in a single night. After Shelast put in the fourth, Don Lucia pulled Frazee, resulting in about 8000 cheering Gopher fans and a chance for Briggs to save the game. Briggs only allowed a single Jimmy Kerr goal on the night.

As the night drew to a close, Lucia made the call to pull Briggs with roughly two and a half minutes remaining. During that harried time, Gopher Evan Kaufmann was able to secure his own hat trick, closing the game to 5-4, but the Huskies held on for the final seconds, ending their season at 16-15-5. With the results on the night, the Huskies have unofficially clinched the 6th spot in the WCHA standings, and should be facing the Colorado College Tigers in Colorado Springs for rights to enter the WCHA tournament.

The night is getting old, and its been quite the time, so I'll humor you all with more analysis and playoff information later. Despite some of the conduct on the weekend, I think its safe to say this weekend was somewhat satisfying.
Though a sweep would have been better, we got to piss off a ton of Gopher fans, take some points on their senior night, and I got to meet Ryan Flynn and shake his hand, though those damn Gophers kept him out of the game tonight for a worthless Tom Pohl just because it was senior night. More to come later.