Home at Last

After a couple of disappointing (and disheartening) weekends on the road against Alaska and North Dakota, the Huskies return home to the National Hockey Center to play Colorado College. I have a certain amount of respect for any WCHA teams that I feel I have a connection to and CC is one of them. One of my good friends growing up moved to Colorado Springs, CO when I was in middle school. He is an avid hockey fan and was once a Zamboni driver at World Arena. In college I would always give him a hard time when the Huskies beat the Tigers. I am hoping I can send him a message via Facebook later this weekend telling him how great the Huskies are and how they dominated the Tigers. Unfortunately, things have not looked that great for the Huskies recently, while the Tiger have fared much better (especially with the help of a great player like freshmen left winger Jaden Schwartz).  With this being said, here are a couple of predictions for this weekends match-up:

WCHA Blog:

"This is kind of a must split series for the Huskies (if not sweep!). If they want a shot at a top half finish, they'd better get their act together. They're 4 points out of 5th place with two games in hand on that team (and all but three other teams). They need to find a way to win some games. Unfortunately, I don't think they're going to win two games this weekend. CC is coming off of a huge offensive weekend at Tech, so their confidence should be through the roof. The Huskies just got blasted on the road, so they could be a little timid. I'm going with a split, but could easily see Tech sweep the lowly Huskies.
CC wins Friday 5-4, SCSU wins Saturday 4-3"

Goal Gophers:

Roman: "CC is hot lately with five wins in last seven games. Especially on fire is freshmen left wing Jaden Schwartz but he is leaving this weekend for Canada’s selection camp for World Juniors. Camp starts Sunday in Toronto, so Schwartz will probably leave after Friday’s game. He should be a lock for Team Canada. He has 11 goals and 14 assists for 25 points. Huskies were swept by North Dakota last weekend. Senior Garrett Roe has six goals and eight assists vs. CC. ... Split"

Kevin: "Just what the heck is going on with St. Cloud State, picked to finish second in the WCHA by the coaches? Just one win the last seven games. I say the Huskies will be glad to be back home after two weeks on the road and will sweep Colorado College even thought the Tigers have won three straight. ... St. Cloud State sweep"

In other Husky Hockey News:

• A good article titled, Defenseman is sleepless in St. Cloud, talks about Chris Hepp and the growing agitation over St. Cloud State's under performance. Hepp talks about how the team needs to "stop and turnaround" and begin to win some games. He goes onto say that the defense is "definitely part of the problem" and will need to start playing better. 
• You can check out the Bob Motzko Coaches Show over at the Center Ice Club. I will say that I usually really like listening to the show to hear the coaches perspective on how the team is doing, how the team played last week, and what the team will need to improve for the following weekends game. However, I am admittedly getting frustrated hearing a lot of the same stuff (I really like the guys in the locker room, we need to play the full 60, we know Roe will eventually get going, etc...). The Coach is starting to sound redundant and I just wish that next week the show will have something REAL positive to share.
• Former St. Cloud State (and Sioux Falls Stampede) player Andreas Nodl continues to do well with the Philadelphia Flyers. You can read more about his continuing success in an article titled, "Flyers' Nodl finds his offense". The article does give Nodl some recognition for his great scoring touch while he was at SCSU.
• Here are the lines from Wednesdays practice courtesy of KVSC Twitter. Forwards: Reid-LeBlanc-Dowd, Mosey-Hanowski-Festler, Roe-Marvin-Volpei, MacMillan-Christian-Novak. Defense: Lauridsen-Johnson, Barta-Gravel, Hepp-Jensen, Zabkowicz-Rioux, Burrell
• There is another good article from former Husky Mike Doyle about shoot-outs in the WCHA titled, "The WCHA should continue to shutout shootouts during league play". You should check it out.
• Check out the official press release on the game here.