UND goalie Cam Johnson (Photo Credit: Russell Hons Photography)<\/p>\n
During the first four weeks of the\u00a02017-18 season, the University of North Dakota hockey team has shown flashes of brilliance. Most of those flashes have occurred on Saturday nights. Through eight games, UND a 5-2-1 record.<\/p>\n
During that time, UND has one series sweep against ECAC cellar dweller St. Lawrence 1-7-0. During the last four games, the Fighting Hawks have split both series against teams with a combined record of 10-6-0 (.625). This past weekend, UND split their conference-opening NCHC series with the Colorado College Tigers (1-2 L, 6-4 W).<\/p>\n
On Friday night, UND was a step slow and looked like were skating in cement and were outplayed for two periods. Late in the second period, Shane Gersich was able to score with 30 seconds left to give UND some life. In the third period, UND was pressing but couldn’t get the game-tying goal.<\/p>\n
On Saturday night, I thought UND took it to the Tigers. I thought the Hawks overwhelmed the Tigers with their uptempo forecheck and had a very good counterattack. The Tigers also had a hard time with zone entry.<\/p>\n
Through eight games, a pattern has developed. UND is 1-2-1 on Friday nights, and 4-0-0 on Saturday nights.\u00a0 On Friday night’s UND has struggled to score goals averaging 1.25 goals per game. On Saturday nights, UND has gotten fat averaging 4.75 goals per game.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur game management when we had the lead a couple times got a little high risk there but our game was better than Friday, which has become a bit of theme for us.\u201d UND head coach Brad Berry told the media after Saturday’s game<\/a>. \u201cIt\u2019s driving us crazy. It\u2019s not like we don\u2019t prepare for Friday nights. We have to make sure we do all the details of our game. We did a lot more of those details tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n One subtle thing that I’ve noticed; in the two Friday night losses, a majority of UND’s shots on goal have come from the perimeter. Exhibit A, Friday’s second-period shot chart. As you can see, UND was outshot and a majority of their shots came from the perimeter.\u00a0 During the same time, the Tigers were putting a lot of rubber on UND goalie Cam Johnson. It could’ve been worse, if not for Johnson. More on Cam later.<\/p>\n Second period shot chart:<\/p>\n \u2b05\ufe0fUND CC\u27a1\ufe0f pic.twitter.com\/0rBLTpvyUa<\/a><\/p>\n — North Dakota MHockey (@UNDmhockey) October 28, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n