November
30, 2006
You
Can't Spell Mavericks Without E-R
By
Jess Myers
On Tuesday, Minnesota State coach Troy Jutting
got a good feeling as he looked over his troops at the start
of the team’s practice in Mankato, and realized that
for the first time this season, he had all 25 players on
his roster skating. The feeling was fleeting.
“That lasted about 20 minutes,”
said Jutting with sarcastic exasperation on Thursday. Early
in the practice, sophomore forward Mick Berge was lost with
a broken scapula (that’s commonly known as the shoulder
blade for those of you who couldn’t get an override
for Human Anatomy 1102 this semester), raising injury issues
that have been an all-too-common refrain for Maverick fans
this season.
WCHA
Notebook
Minnesota
State sophomore forward Mick Berge, who shares the
team lead in goals with seven, is out until after
the holidays with a broken shoulder blade.
Berge, who is tied for the team lead in goals
with seven thus far, is expected back in the lineup sometime
after the holidays. On defense, the scenario might be rosier,
as three key defensemen (Chad Brownlee, Brian Kilburg and
Nick Canzanello) are close to full strength again after
missing time with assorted ailments in November.
Playing with just five defenseman at times
has taken its toll on the Mavericks, who head into this
weekend’s home-and-home series with Minnesota on a
1-7-1 streak. Coupled with a sort of slump by highly-touted
sophomore goalie Dan Tormey, it’s led Jutting to give
more starts to another sophomore, Mike Zacharias, who is
now 1-1-1 on the season after a 4-4 tie with Nebraska-Omaha
on Nov. 21. The coach says there’s no goalie controversy
in Mankato at this time.
“The only controversy is that they both
have to play better,” Jutting said. “I’m
waiting for somebody to step up and take the job, and it
hasn’t happened yet. The goalies haven’t been
horrible, but they haven’t been good either.”
Tormey, who won 14 games and was named to
the WCHA’s All-Rookie team last year, has seen his
saves percentage fall from .902 last season to .850 in nine
appearances this year. Jutting compares the struggles to
a baseball hitter in the midst of a slump, and credits Tormey
for working extremely hard in practice to reverse the trend.
With his defense in question and his goaltending
in a slump, it was suggested that this weekend’s series
with offensively-talented/defensively-challenged Minnesota
could feature another 9-6 game like the one the Gophers
and Mavericks played at the Xcel Energy Center a few seasons
ago.
“I hope not,” said Jutting, who
then added, “Unless we have the nine.”
SEEN AND HEARD IN THE WCHA
Plover's Polish Prince Produces in
Pros: Less than a year removed from his starring
role on Wisconsin’s NCAA title team, ex-Badger Joe
Pavelski doesn’t seem surprised to have scored three
goals in his first four NHL games. Instead, after scoring
in a 2-1 road win over the Minnesota Wild on Wednesday,
the San Jose Sharks’ rookie seemed amazed that he
didn’t have to buy more tickets for the game.
There were “a good amount” of
Pavelski’s friends and family who made the four-hour
trip from Plover, Wis., to St. Paul for the game, and here’s
how many of them hit Pavelski up for seats: “This
is going to sound kind of bad, but none,” Pavelski
said with a grin. “Everybody was on the ball and they
were calling me telling me they were coming and already
had tickets. That wasn’t too bad for the first game
this close to home.”
Pavelski started the season with the Sharks’
AHL affiliate in Worcester, Mass., and notched 26 points
in 16 games there. Fans of the Worcester Sharks anticipating
Pavelski’s return to the DCU Center may have a long
wait.
“He’s done really well in the
American League and it doesn’t take a good player
long to adjust to the speed of this league,” said
Sharks coach Ron Wilson. “He’s done a really
good job being accountable defensively, he’s been
great on faceoffs and obviously he’s got a nose for
the net.”
Pavelski said that with his old team’s
lack of scoring this season, it’s not uncommon to
get joking emails, text messages and voicemails from former
coaches and teammates asking when he’s due back in
Madison. He still follows the Badgers when he can and is
not convinced that this season is lost for them by any means.
“They got it back a little bit last
weekend,” Pavelski said, after Wisconsin beat Michigan
State 2-0 to snap a six-game losing streak. “It’s
just play in the tough zones, right down in front of the
net. Get a few rebounds right there and as soon as that
happens, you’ll see them getting a few more goals.
It’s a long season. They’ve got to have a good
second half.”
As for the long season Pavelski has ahead
of him in the NHL, he said despite appearances, scoring
in the show isn’t as simple as he’s making it
look.
“I don’t know if goals ever really
come easy, but they’re coming right now, so that’s
good,” he said.
Great Weekend Getaway
St.
Cloud St. at Michigan Tech
(Fri.-Sat.)
Not only is it the “Battle of the Huskies,”
it’s a good chance to see who’s for real
this weekend. The Central Time Zone Huskies haven’t
lost in nearly a month and enter the weekend on a
4-0-3 streak, while the Eastern Time Zone Huskies
are undefeated at home thus far, with a 4-0-1 mark
at MacInnes Student Ice Arena. One would think that
something’s got to give.
While You're There: True story
from a cold winter night in 1992: I’m sitting
in the Ambassador in downtown Houghton with a good
friend. He was somewhat “ample” at the
time but has since gotten into much better shape.
It’s roughly 2 a.m. and we’ve thoroughly
reviewed every play from that night’s Minnesota
win over the Huskies, while consuming several Fishbowls
(gigantic drinks that they serve there – each
one has about five shots in it). We’re both
getting sleepy and seemingly ready to call it a night
when the waitress says, “Last call for food.”
My friend lazily flips open the menu, browses for
a moment, then asks, “How are the tacos?”
Moral of the story: When you’re spending a long,
cold winter in the U.P., the importance of that protective
layer of “natural insulation” around one’s
midsection can’t be underestimated.
Stick
Salute
Minnesota
rookie forward Jim O’Brien apparently
wanted a big stage for his break-out night. The Gophers’
fourth-line center hadn’t recorded a collegiate
point in 13 games, but changed that in a big way during
last Saturday’s showdown with Michigan. Versus
the Wolverines he scored twice and added an assist
to earn WCHA Rookie of the Week honors
Bench
Minor
In a recent
letter to the school's newspaper, Dartmouth
athletic director Josie Harper offered “a
sincere apology to the Native American community,
and the Dartmouth community as a whole, for an event
that will understandably offend and hurt people within
our community.” What did they do that was so
offensive and hurtful? They scheduled a Dec. 29 home
game with North Dakota (and apparently the NoDaks
have a controversial moniker for their hockey club).
Um, Josie, your own school’s teams used to be
called the Indians, and your men’s hockey team
last made a NCAA tourney appearance in 1980. Methinks
there are bigger issues than your opponents’
nicknames
FRIES AT THE BOTTOM OF THE BAG
• Defenseman Matt Carle, who won the
Hobey for Denver last season, got an assist for the San
Jose Sharks in their win at Minnesota this week. It was
his fifth career game at the Xcel Energy Center (three with
the Pioneers, two with the Sharks) and he’s recorded
at least one assist in every game there. Carle scored his
first NHL goal in the building last March. Carle says he
loves telling Sharks teammates the story of former Pioneers
teammate Paul Stastny’s decision to continue living
in a two-bedroom apartment with two college roommates, even
after signing with the Colorado Avalanche over the summer.
“It’s always like, ‘Hey, get off your
wallet, buddy,’” Carle said.
• When Seawolf fans watched North Dakota
leave Anchorage with a pair of losses in 1995, few would
have figured that it would be exactly 11 years before it
would happen again. Alaska Anchorage swept North Dakota
on Nov. 17-18, 1995, and didn’t score a sweep over
the Sioux again until Nov. 17-18, 2006. If the Sioux head
to Anchorage for a series on Nov. 17-18, 2017, I’m
betting on the home team.
• After four years of the Sterling-Sertich
Show in Colorado Springs, more than one hockey fan predicted
that offensive diversity would be the key to success for
Colorado College this season. Despite having their five-game
winning streak snapped last Saturday in Grand Forks, the
Tigers are looking like a diverse lot when they have the
puck. Eleven different players recorded at least one point
in the spilt at North Dakota.
• If the number of Minnesota license
plates I saw on Sanibel Island, Florida, last week is any
indication, the State of Hockey is a place plenty of folks
like to avoid when the weather turns cold. With a 2-5-1
home record so far, Minnesota Duluth should hope that avoiding
the DECC for a few weeks will do the Bulldogs some good.
Starting with this weekend’s series
in Anchorage, the Bulldogs play seven of their next eight
games on the road. Of course, if you’re looking for
a warm-weather winter getaway, going on tour with Scott
Sandelin and company is ill-advised. The Bulldogs visit
sunny Anchorage, Bemidji, Mankato and Columbus on their
December travels.
• Former Gopher defenseman Keith Ballard,
now with the Phoenix Coyotes, is back in coach Wayne Gretzky’s
lineup now after missing the better part of November when
he broke a finger blocking a shot. While the banged-up hand
has temporarily kept Ballard off the many alluring golf
courses in the Valley of the Sun, he says one of the biggest
challenges when making the transition from college to pro
hockey is dealing with all of the downtime.
Ballard told INCH that when you’re used
to classes in the morning, several hours of practice in
the afternoon and studying (or more classes) at night, it
can be a big adjustment, especially on those off-days when
practice only runs 40 minutes. He said as the full 82-game
impact of his rookie NHL season wore on, he learned to savor
that downtime as a chance to rest the nagging injuries that
pile up between September and April.
A variety
of sources were utilized in the compilation of this report
