TCHB Team Of The Week – October 17-18
By Fetch
Normally when your biggest rival comes to town the games are close, physical contests that feature peaks and valleys, hits and misses, great plays and terrible mistakes. But last Friday North Dakota shutout Minnesota 4-0 behind a comprehensive effort that really wasn’t as close as the score indicated. Saturday night they held off a Gopher charge for a well earned tie. For those efforts, North Dakota is this week’s team of the week.
Friday night saw the Sioux get goals from Jason Gregoire, Derrick LaPoint, Chay Genoway and Mario Lamoureux. Genoway’s Hobey Baker potential has already been explored a little bit on here, but if he keeps up his hot start I will probably have a full post comparing him to the last two defensemen to win the Hobey (BU’s Matt Gilroy and Denver’s Matt Carle). Brad Eidsness got a shutout, although he did only have to make 22 saves, most of those coming from the outside as the UND defense did a number on the Gopher’s offense. The Sioux defense did such a good job that preseason 1st team All-American Jordan Schroeder didn’t register a shot on Friday night’s game.
Saturday was a much more even contest. The Sioux defense was good again, allowing only 19 Gopher shots, although they didn’t do their job on Mike Hoeffel’s shorthanded goal to start the game. Eidsness was definitely not great in this one as he made only 16 saves, but when you have Chay Genoway on your team it doesn’t really matter. The Senior defenseman had 2 ppg in this contest to salvage a tie for the Sioux. Danny Kristo assisted on both Genoway goals. I mentioned this via Twitter this past weekend, but assuming they all stay in Grand Forks, Kristo, Michael Cichy and Jason Gregoire have a shot at being the best line in college hockey next year. They are just phenomenal players. Gongrats to the Sioux on their fine weekend and (the obviously more important) team of the week honors.
Runners Up: Alabama-Huntsville, Merrimack