Friday, February 13, 2009

Friday-morning reading

It's Friday, the 13th. Tomorrow is Valentine's Day. The Mavericks and the Sioux. Sounds anything but boring ...

Minnesota State battles North Dakota this weekend and his hoping to shake up the WCHA standings. The Mavericks get Jason Wiley back from injury and will start Mike Zacharias in goal. With just seven games remaining in the regular season, the team is hoping that it has found its groove. Sophomore forward Rylan Galiardi says its easy to talk the talk but MSU has to walk the walk in order to win.

As for the Sioux, they are expecting "an honest effort" from both teams this weekend. Both teams will play a hard-nosed, aggressive style that the Gophers ust don't seem to appreciate (apparently WCHA supervisor of officials Greg Shepherd will attend both games this weekend). Also in the Grand Forks Herald, WCHA commissioner Bruce McLeod talks about rough play and suspensions and some guy named Frederick answers a few questions about the Mavs.

Both teams are led in scoring by defensemen -- MSU's Kurt Davis and UND's Chay Genoway, the latter of whom was featured in the Herald on Thursday.

Elsewhere in the WCHA, Denver defenseman Patrick Mullen received a one-game suspension for slashing Minnesota Duluth's Mike Connolly at the end of last Saturday's game. He will miss tonight's rivalry game against Colorado College. Other matchups include Alaska-Anchorage at Minnesota and Michigan Tech at St. Cloud State.

Here are previews by USCHO, INCH (which declares the Mavs-Sioux series this week's "Great Getaway") and This is the WCHA.

PucKato is getting ready to make the trek to Grand Forks, so that's all for now. Check back later today for a new poll, a pregame post and semi-live blogging during tonight's game.

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