Last weekend was a rollercoaster of emotions. We hit our season low on Saturday night giving up a 3-0 lead in an eventual loss to Marian University, 5-4. In all honesty, we did not play well this entire game, even when we were up 3-0 after the first period. We have been having a hard time figuring out the effort and intensity it takes to win hockey games at the Division III level. We have shown spurts of great intensity and effort, but we have not been able to put together a 60-minute hockey game. One of the highlights in this game was that we outshot Marian 35-29, making that the fourth time all year that we outshot our opponent and only the third time all year we held our opponent to under 30 shots in a game. With all this said, we needed to show some “bounce-back-ability” on Sunday afternoon against Lawrence to move us into the Gustavus week with some confidence.
Sunday, we sat the guys down and showed them some tough video to watch. We showed our lack of intensity and compete level the night before and discussed that we can’t wait any longer to start earning victories and playing with some passion. After this meeting I felt confident that we would come out with a much better effort.
We finished the first period tied 0-0, but there was a definite intensity and work ethic out there that I was very happy with. I was much happier with how we were playing versus the night before when we had a 3-0 lead after the first period. I knew that if we kept playing that way we would wear them down and get a victory. The game finished 6-1 with SJU scoring two second-period goals and four third-period goals. Some highlights on this night was our power-play going 4-for-5 on the night and freshman defensemen Cole Souto having a four-point night with a goal and three assists. The most important thing that we got out of this game on Sunday was that we saw what we were capable of when we played a structured, hardworking and intense 60 minutes of hockey. This is going to help us moving forward into this short week before playing Gustavus on Thursday night at the National Hockey Center.
Looking forward, Gustavus is a team that always works hard and a team that can always reach out and grab a victory from you. We need to be mentally prepared for two tight, hard-fought games. I have to mention that we did manage to beat Gustavus earlier this year 5-2, but in that game, they outshot us 43-27 and we needed great goaltending to get that win. We need to play a much more complete hockey game if we expect to beat them this time around.
The games this week will take place on Thursday, December 1, at 7pm at the National Hockey Center and Saturday, December 3, at 7:05pm at Gustavus.
Thanks for continuing to follow the Johnnie Hockey program and for all of your support for these guys that work very hard both on the ice and in the classroom!
Go Johnnies!
