Nelson, Bulldogs share scoring difficulties
Tommy Nelson has reason to be frustrated. He is a one-man microcosm of UMD’s hockey team this season. Consider the parallels: Young, hustling, clever, hard-working, great attitude despite being unable to score on many good chances.
Go back to the first game of the season at Minnesota, when a lanky centerman named Tom Nelson breaks in for an excellent scoring chance on his very first college hockey shift, only to be foiled by a great save.
Flash forward to last weekend, at shiny new Kohl Center in Madison. The Bulldogs had blown a 3-1 lead and trailed Wisconsin 4-3 on Friday night, with goaltender Brant Nicklin pulled for a sixth attacker in the final minute. Somebody shoots, the goalie blocks it, and the puck pops back out, wide open amid a scramble of skates. Tom Nelson spots it, shoots it in, and raises his stick.
But wait! The referee waves it off.
“The puck was there, I saw it all the time and I tapped it in,” said Nelson. “I heard the whistle after I shot it in, and I thought sure they were just signalling the goal. The ref said he lost sight of the puck and blew his whistle. I didn’t hear it until the puck was in, but there was no use questioning it.
“That’s the second one of those I’ve had this year. They waved one off against Air Force because they said I kicked it in. I was going to the net and the puck hit the top of my skate. I didn’t even know it until I felt it. But they waved it off.”
The ‘Dogs are having trouble winning — 2-10-2 in last place in the WCHA going into this weekend’s series against Denver at the DECC — and they are having trouble scoring despite numerous great chances — 28 goals for in 14 WCHA games, and just five goals while going 0-5 in league play at the DECC. Yet the team’s spirit and attitude remains amazingly upbeat.
Nelson, a freshman from Superior, typifies all of that. He has yet to register his first goal, making it even more frustrating when he scores and the goals don’t count.
“I’m not frustrated,” Nelson said. “I know I’m not playing bad, and the chances are coming. If I wasn’t getting any chances, I’d worry. It does hurt me to not score because if I could score on some of the chances I’m getting we could win some games. It bothers me when I get four good scoring chances in a game and we lost by one.”
He does have seven assists, which he prefers to goals anyway. “Assists are as good as goals, and I’d always rather get assists than goals,” he said. “My parents are always telling me to shoot more, but I’m skating with Curtis Bois and Colin Anderson now, and I’d be happy just getting the puck to them so they could score.”
Nelson’s play has earned him a spot on the power play, which might also tell of the team’s scoring woes. A lot of players with a zero under the goal column on the stat sheet wouldn’t be on the power play. But the coaching staff appreciates how Nelson has played, and the feeling is mutual.
“Granted, we’re in the cellar right now, but the guys are unbelievable at how they stay positive, and the coaches have been great,” Nelson said. “Sertie [coach Mike Sertich] doesn’t get down on you if you screw up, and he keeps telling me the goals will come. Nobody’s putting any pressure on me. I score in practice and Sertie might get the puck for me as a souvenir. I honestly can’t remember the last goal I scored. I think it was in Omaha in the USHL playoffs last spring.”
Nelson’s return to the Twin Ports is fitting and proper. A lifelong resident of Superior’s East End, Tom’s dad, Tim, is Superior’s city finance director and his mom, Nanbeth, is nursing supervisor at St. Luke’s Hospital in Duluth. His older sister Lisa lives in Madison, and Brita lives in Superior, while Greta is at Michigan Tech. His older brother, Tim, is at Wisconsin-River Falls, and his younger brother, Teddy, works construction and lives in Superior.
Tommy played baseball, football, basketball and hockey while growing up, and he went on to star in baseball, football and hockey enough to be named all-conference in all three at Superior. His dad coached him in baseball up through age 14, he played in a national tournament at age 16, and he pitched, played shortstop and outfield in high school for the Spartans. He was a safety, wide receiver, and returned punts and kickoffs in football.
While he loved football and baseball, his hockey exploits helped the Spartans win three consecutive Wisconsin state championships.
When he was a junior at Superior, he tried out for the North Iowa team, coached by P.K. O’Handley, a Superior native. He made the team, but he decided to come back to high school instead of playing in the USHL. He tried out again, and made the North Iowa team again, as a senior, but again he came back to high school in Superior. And he wouldn’t trade the experience.
“I wanted to play football for Tom Mostelle, and he taught me a lot about hard work,” Nelson said. “My senior year, we had a great football team and went 7-2 but we had a kid who was like a third-string nose guard move in with his aunt and play. We beat Eau Claire Memorial by four touchdowns, but somebody on their team brought it up to the WIAA. They made us forfeit three wins, so we ended up 4-5.
“In hockey, we lost 4-3 and 3-1 to Duluth East, when Dave Spehar and Chris Locker were seniors, so we were pretty good, and we won the third straight state title.”
After high school, Nelson went to play for O’Handley at North Iowa. “He made it a lot of fun,” he said. “Everybody on the team liked everybody else. We’d go hunting pheasants together, and I wanted to stay there two years.”
UMD offered Nelson a scholarship while he was playing for North Iowa, and agreed with his desire to stay another year with the Mason City-based team. More than a half-dozen of his teammates are scattered around on other WCHA teams, including goalie Greg Naumenko and Eric Lawson at Alaska-Anchorage, and Nate DeCasmirro and Johnny Cullen at St. Cloud.
In his first year at North Iowa, Nelson led the team in scoring with 59 points, scoring 24 goals and 33 assists. He had nearly identical statistics the next year, going from 24-33–59 to 25-33–58 despite missing 14 games with a chip fracture in his right ankle.
“I came back too soon from that and it bothered me the rest of the season,” Nelson said. “But I had to come back and just deal with the pain the rest of the year.”
Because he turned 21 on Dec. 19, Nelson said he doesn’t feel like a freshman this season. Maybe it also helps him deal with the frustration better, but it doesn’t answer the troubling questions.
“I’ve always known how to score, all my life,” he said. “But we all still have a lot of confidence in our team. We’re playing well, but not winning. The questionable goals always seem to go against us. We just seem to be having bad luck, and I think I anchor that.”
Vikings, Broncos will head for Super Bowl
If the ol’ Up North Theory continues to work, we’ll see the Vikings and Denver in the Super Bowl in a couple of weeks.
The theory, espoused here a few weeks ago, was that the NFL’s never-ending quest for parity has just about succeeded, and that almost all the teams in the NFL are about equal. The few teams that have risen above the rest are: the Vikings, Denver, San Francisco and Green Bay.
The idea went on that those teams are better than the rest, and therefore favored, and have to be having an off-day before one of the remaining teams can beat them. That was written just before the Vikings played Jacksonville, and the Jaguars lofty record didn’t affect the theory. When the Vikings plastered Jacksonville, it made the theory look good.
Now then, let’s look at the playoffs. True, Green Bay lost, but it was to San Francisco in a meeting of two of my elite four. And, if you remember, the outcome was determined by one of the worst calls of this or any season, when a fumble by Jerry Rice, when he was still a few feet from hitting the turf, was ruled a no-fumble. That was in the last-minute drive, and prevented a Packer recovery, and Brett Favre’s sure knee-down conclusion.
It is indeed tragic when a call of that magnitude can decide a game of that magnitude, and a simple video replay would have straightened it all out.
All of that takes nothing away from the Atlanta Falcons, a very good team playing its best right now. But the Falcons beat the 49ers almost as the exception that proves the rule. The 49ers might well have won that game, but Steve Young, of all people, seemed to lose his poise under pressure.
He got rattled enough when a receiver lined up on the wrong side to show his disgust and smack the guy on the backside. That’s precisely the kind of mistake the 49ers are known for NOT making, just as Steve Young is known for not losing his poise. Wasn’t long after that when Young threw a couple of interceptions.
Now, interceptions happen. But even while the announcers were raving that Young had forced a pass into traffic, despite video evidence that he lofted a long pass over the congestion, and right into the arms of a safety, that seemed further evidence that he had lost his poise.
The same announcers ranted and raved that a fumbled lateral, grabbed and refumbled by the 49ers, was the worst call in a season of bad calls when an Atlanta touchdown was overturned and the ball given back to Frisco. (It wasn’t the worst, they could go back a week to the 49er-Packer game for that.) Closer scrutiny of the video showed that it may, indeed, have been grabbed for an instant by the 49er back, but only for an instant, and then it was inconclusive. We needed another view from a different camera to be certain.
Regardless, the twists of that call changed a 21-0 Atlanta lead to a 14-10 game, so Atlanta did well to overcome that adversity and still win, sending the Falcons to the Metrodome this weekend.
Similarly, the New York media machine would have us believe that the Jets are this year’s team of destiny, and that they are just one hop from the Super Bowl. That hop, however, is in Denver, and a good test for my theory. The Jets and the Falcons fit my concept of good teams that have established good records by beating other good teams.
While we’re on the topic, let’s hit it again: The NFL needs instant replays, but we also don’t want every other play stopping for five minutes of review. How about a compromise? Let’s say each side gets two or three appeals a game. Then the refs can make whatever outrageous calls they want, and when one is clearly muffed, the coach can declare one of his appeals, at which time a guy in the booth gets to lend a hand to the officials.
An official on an ego trip might resent being overruled. But any competent official would welcome the chance to get the call correct. Especially a crucial call in a big game.
Meanwhile, it says here that despite all the potential variables, the theory clicks in again. The Falcons can be dangerous, but they simply can’t stop the Vikings, whose only threat might be if Randall Cunningham tries to force the ball to Randy Moss too often, instead of fully utilizing Cris Carter for the key mid-yardage gainers. The Jets, too, are riding a high horse, but they haven’t tried staying in the saddle with the steamed-up Broncos.
The Vikings will whip the Falcons by three touchdowns, and Denver will beat the Jets by at least 10 points.
Sure, it’s not certain. A bad call here, a seized-up superstar there, and things could change. But it will take more than one example of just that sort of foul-up to prevent the Vikings and Denver from heading for their appointed showdown in Miami.
1-2 East, Greenway face busy weeks
High school hockey may not be in the homestretch of the season quite yet, but it’s at least rounding the final turn. And there remains a lot to be solved yet.
Parity is everywhere, and there was no need to look farther than last week’s showdown between the top two boys teams in the Up North regional ratings to find it. Duluth East (No. 1) went up to Coleraine and escaped with a 3-1 victory over No. 2 Greenway of Coleraine.
“It was a great game,” said Greenway coach Pat Guyer. “We’ve had three of the most fantastic games you could ever see against East in the past year, we just haven’t won any of them.”
The others were 1-goal games, and this one would have been, except for an empty-net goal at the finish by East, which stands at 10-2, with an 8-game winning streak on the line, and moves up to No. 2 statewide as well.
The Greyhounds face a busy week in order to retain their lofty rating, starting with a sure-to-be-rugged test at Superior on Tuesday, then a very interesting match against Proctor Thursday, and a showdown at 2 p.m. Saturday in the DECC against highly-regarded Hastings.
Greenway, meanwhile, bounced back from the loss to East to whip Virginia-Mountain Iron-Buhl 8-1 Friday night, and now stands 8-3, holding its spot as No. 2 regionally while slipping only from No. 4 to No. 5 statewide.
Not that the Raiders have established any superiority in the Iron Range Conference, where Eveleth-Gilbert and Hibbing continue to display championship intentions, and capabilities.
Greenway and Hibbing, which linked together for a holiday tournament, are partners again this week. After an interesting Tuesday — Greenway at Cloquet and Hibbing at Denfeld — the two will travel to Rochester this weekend. On Friday, Greenway faces once-beaten Rochester Mayo while Hibbing plays John Marshall, and they switch foes on Saturday.
“It’s good to get out of our element a little,” said Guyer, who finally has his team back together. Defensemen Bo Geisler and Adam Johnson had been out for several weeks, but the Raiders survived, and actually gained strength. “Having to play other defensemen more made our other guys better, and now we’ve shown more improvement.”
Hill-Murray (12-0) remains No. 1 statewide, having moved there a week ago in the Up North ratings, while all other ratings kept Elk River No. 1. The biggest news last week was that Maple Grove upset Elk River, which now moves East to No. 2 and drops the Elks to No. 3. Roseville, continuing its hot streak, climbs over Greenway to No. 4.
Regionally, Marshall continues to win, and Proctor gained status last week by inching past Hermantown 5-4 and ripping Superior 7-2, but the Rails got derailed 7-2 at Chisago Lakes on Saturday. There were extenuating circumstances, with Richie Upton missing for a game disqualification, and a couple of nuisance injuries.
But the victory over Hermantown was a large one, rivalry-wise, and the Rails are certain to be loaded up and ready to challenge East on Thursday night.
If the boys are heading for the homestretch, the girls are already well into it. Park Center, with the irrepressible Krissy Wendell already having scored 58 goals, remains No. 1 at 16-0, and hockey fans can only imagine the tournament possibilities, with the Pirates, challenged by No. 2 Roseville (14-0-1), No. 3 Eagan, (15-1) and No. 4, South St. Paul (15-1).
Julie Sasner, the new women’s coach at the University of Wisconsin, cannot talk about future recruits, but as the coach of the U.S. women’s team that just played in the Three-Nations tournament, she can. Darwitz, Eagan’s precocious ninth-grader, and Wendell, Park Center’s overpowering junior, both played for the U.S.
Stepping in as underclass high schoolers, Darwitz and Wendell opened some eyes by playing prominent roles amid veteran national team members.
“Darwitz played really well, and I used her all over the place,” said Sasner. “She ended up playing between Cammy Granato and Katie King on our first line. She’s very skilled, and it’s rare to find a player that young who can play so well anywhere. She was named the player of the game against Canada. And Krissy Wendell scored two goals in one game, and they were great goals. She is a strong player who is dominant when she’s got the puck.”
Bemidji and Hibbing are two other Up North teams that are making strong moves right now. Neither has the lofty records of some of the Twin Cities teams from weaker conferences, but both have made great strides. Hibbing ranks 10th, despite a sub-.500 record, but goaltender Natalie Lamme is back from missing the first half of the season with an injury, and suddenly the Bluejackets are a threat again.
BOYS STATEWIDE
1. Hill-Murray, 12-0
2. Duluth East, 10-2
3. Elk River, 10-1
4. Roseville, 10-2
5. Greenway of Coleraine, 8-3
6. Roseau, 12-1
7. Eagan, 11-1
8. Hastings, 8-3
9. Hibbing, 7-3
10. Eveleth-Gilbert, 11-2
BOYS REGIONAL
1. Duluth East, 10-2
2. Greenway of Coleraine, 8-3
3. Hibbing, 7-3
4. Eveleth-Gilbert, 11-2
5. Duluth Marshall, 9-4-1
6. Silver Bay, 9-3-1
7. Hermantown, 10-3-1
8. Hayward, 8-1
9. Proctor, 7-6
10. Cloquet, 6-6.
GIRLS STATWIDE
1. Park Center, 16-0
2. Roseville, 14-0-1
3. Eagan, 14-1
4. South St. Paul, 15-1
5. Bloomington Jefferson, 11-4-1
6. Rosemount, 12-2
7. Duluth Dynamite, 12-3
8. Burnsville, 11-3-2
9. Bemidji, 11-5-1
10. Hibbing, 7-9-1
Rare bad night adds to Bulldog woes
MADISON, WIS.
It was a painful moment of serious, emotional soul-searching. And it was considerably more than just a moment. More like 20 minutes. The charter bus was outside warming up, the Wisconsin players had long since showered, dressed and left Kohl Center, but the UMD players sat in silence while Bulldog coach Mike Sertich addressed the team.
The problem was that Saturday night’s 5-2 loss was nothing like Friday night’s 4-3 loss. In the first game, UMD led 3-1 midway through the second period on goals by Bert Gilling, Judd Medak and Colin Anderson, and that became another in a long series of “coulda, shoulda” wins that turned into excruciating losses.
Not so on Saturday, when the Bulldogs came out flat, and were further flattened by three quick Wisconsin goals, trailing 4-1 after one period, and 4-2 after a glimmer of hope in the second period. So it made complete sense that Sertich might hold court and ream out his players for an unacceptable effort.
“I didn’t even raise my voice,” said Sertich, on Sunday. “We just matter-of-factly talked about the importance of being ready to play. It was pretty emotional.
“Brant Nicklin wasn’t sharp all weekend in goal, and he knew it. I asked the players what they thought we could do differently, what I could do differently, and what they could do differently. Then a couple of players got up and said they had made a mistake that led to one goal, then another, then another.”
It is that sort of honest, pull-together attitude that has made this season so painful for Sertich and the players. There are no attitude explosions, personality conflicts, or finger-pointing incidents. They have played well enough to win most games, but they are 2-10-2, and becoming increasingly secure in last place in the WCHA. The ‘Dogs return to the DECC this weekend, facing Denver University Friday and Saturday nights.
“But nobody’s giving up,” said Sertich. “I’m not conceding that we can’t move up, and none of the players are.”
However, games like Saturday night indicate tlhat the Bulldogs can’t afford to be going less than 100 percent.
Wisconsin, which is 9-0-1 in the last 10 meetings against UMD, moved into third place in the WCHA at 7-6-1 with their second series sweep of the season — both at the expense of the last-place Bulldogs (2-10-2). The Badgers have been just as light-scoring as UMD, scoring only 20 goals in going 3-6-1 in 10 other WCHA games, but they have 15 goals in going 4-0 against UMD.
After stunning UMD by scoring the last three goals Friday for a wrenching turnaround, the Badgers scored the first three in the opening 7:36 on Saturday.
“I felt Duluth would play better tonight and come out stronger than last night,” said Wisconsin coach Jeff Sauer. “But the first 10 minutes, we did a lot of things we tried to correct from last night. I don’t know how many times we’ve been ahead in the first period, or gotten the first goal.”
This time, Matt Murray scored at 1:48 by steering in a Dan Bjornlie feed on a 2-on-2, and Yuri Gusak and Steve Reinprecht scored a minute apart. Nicklin had braced to play Jeff Dressner’s shot from the left boards, but when it glanced through the slot to the right circle, Gusak drilled it before Nicklin could recover at 6:36. Reinprecht broke in alone at 7:36, and his backhand hit Nicklin’s glove, popped high, and trickled in behind him.
Ryan Homstol’s pass sprung Derek Derow for a UMD breakaway goal, but Wisconsin’s fourth goal came when Matt Hussey fed Matt Doman at 17:21.
Nicklin was lifted for Tony Gasparini to start the second period, and the Bulldogs cut the deficit to 4-2 when Jeff Scissons scored from behind the net on the right, glancing a shot in off goaltender Graham Melanson on a power play.
Outshot 13-6 in the first period, UMD countered by outshooting the Badgers 11-10 in the second, but still trailed 4-2. “We lost the second period, but we still were ahead 4-2,” said Sauer. “Then we were able to weather the first five minutes of the third period.”
Kevin Granato finished the scorling with a big slapshot from a tough angle, deep on the right boards.
PUCK NOTES: Duluth East grad Andy Wheeler, who scored his first collegiate goal into an open net to clinch one of two 3-1 Badger victories over UMD in Duluth two months ago, hasn’t scored since but was one of four injury victims when Wisconsin beat Nebraska-Omaha 6-2 in an exhibiton game on New Year’s Eve…While he was happy to win the match of light-scoring teams, Sauer said he was concerned when Hill-Murray freshman defenseman Dave Tanabe, who had been out three weeks with an injury, came back and won the team’s showdown contest — and was the only player to score. Sertich said: “That’s nothing, we have shootouts in practice that last for days.”
Badgers sweep Bulldogs, 5-2
MADISON, WIS.
It almost seems as though the best tonic for Wisconsin’s hockey team is to face UMD. The Badgers jumped out to an early lead Saturday night and whipped the Bulldogs 5-2 for a sweep of the weekend series. It also ran Wisconsin’s record to 9-0-1 in the last 10 meetings against UMD.
The Badgers (7-6-1) stayed in contention for third place with their second series sweep of the season — both at the expense of the last-place Bulldogs (2-10-2), who so often have played well enough to win, but Saturday night played poorly enough to assure a loss. A Badger team that has scored only 20 goals in going 3-6-1 in 10 other WCHA games, has 15 goals in going 4-0 against UMD.
UMD was taking a busride home after the game, but not until coach Mike Sertich kept his players in the room, in uniform, for a post-game lecture that lasted until well after the Badgers had showered, changed and departed.
In the best days of tradition in the WCHA, most teams were so evenly matched that almost all series were programed to be split, and the only time a sweep would be recorded was when a team could steal a victory from the game of the series they perhaps should have lost.
Going by that theory, the Bulldogs should have won Friday night, when they led 3-1, only to fall 4-3 to a Badger team that was ripe to be plucked, but scored three opportunistic goals on off-speed butterflies.
There was no ripeness in the Badgers on Saturday night. They stormed out of the dressing room and jumped to a 3-0 lead in the first 7:36. For the weekend, that made it seven consecutive goals by the Badgers.
Ryan Homstol’s pass sprung Derek Derow on a UMD breakaway, and when Derow hit the upper right corner at 7:45 it blunted the Badger momentum, but only temporarily ina 4-1 first period.
“I felt Duluth would play better tonight and come out stronger than last night,” said Wisconsin coach Jeff Sauer. “But the first 10 minutes, we did a lot of things we tried to correct from last night. I don’t know how many times we’ve been ahead in the first period, or gotten the first goal.”
This time, they got the first three. Matt Murray scored at 1:48 by steering in a Dan Bjornlie feed on a 2-on-2, and Yuri Gusak and Steve Reinprecht scored a minute apart. Nicklin had braced to play Jeff Dressner’s shot from the left boards, but when it glanced through the slot to the right circle, Gusak drilled it before Nicklin could recover at 6:36. Reinprecht broke in alone at 7:36, and went to his backhand; Nicklin snapped his glove up, like a left-handed gunfighter, but the puck hit his glove, popped high, and landed in the crease before trickling barely across the line.
After Derow’s goal, Wisconsin’s fourth goal came when UMD defenseman Mark Carlson eluded a forechecker and tried to chip a pass off the end boards. Matt Hussey made a great play to intercept and fed in front for the goal, where Matt Doman knocked it in at 17:21.
UMD goaltender Brant Nicklin was lifted for Tony Gasparini to start the second period, and the Bulldogs cut the deficit to 4-2 when Jeff Scissons scored from behind the net on the right, glancing a shot in off goaltender Graham Melanson on a power play.
Outshot 13-6 in the first period, UMD countered by outshooting the Badgers 11-10 in the second, but still trailed 4-2.
“We lost the second period, but we still were ahead 4-2,” said Sauer. “Then we were able to weather the first five minutes of the third period.”
The teams traded power plays early in the third, and a few seconds after Gasparini had survived the Badger man-advantage, Kevin Granato scored with a big slapshot from a tough angle, deep on the right boards. That settled the issue, if it hadn’t been in the opening minutes.
About the Author
John Gilbert is a lifetime Minnesotan and career journalist, specializing in cars and sports during and since spending 30 years at the Minneapolis Tribune, now the Star Tribune. More recently, he has continued translating the high-tech world of autos and sharing his passionate insights as a freelance writer/photographer/broadcaster. A member of the prestigious North American Car and Truck of the Year jury since 1993. John can be heard Monday-Friday from 9-11am on 610 KDAL(www.kdal610.com) on the "John Gilbert Show," and writes a column in the Duluth Reader.
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