Thursday, December 10, 2009

Time to Cook

Minnesota State freshman goaltender Phil Cook will get his first start in goal Friday night when the Mavericks play at Bemidji State. Cook was the backup to Austin Lee last Friday at Minnesota and was listed as the second goalie on Saturday in Mankato when all three goalies dressed.

Lee was outstanding a week ago in a 3-1 win over the Gophers but struggled the next night in a 6-2 loss before getting pulled in favor of Cook.

The 6-foot-3, 190-pound Cook has made two appearances, both in mop-up duty of blowout losses, but he has gotten high praise from both coaches and teammates for the way he has played in practice throughout the season.

Coach Troy Jutting said that Cook deserves a shot because of the way he's practiced but also because the Mavericks have not been getting consistent enough goaltending from Lee and Kevin Murdock so far this season.

7 comments:

Sam said...

I don't know how I feel about this move. Perhaps they could have found a better time to get Cook into a game. Throwing him in the fire against a strong Bemidji State on their home ice doesn't sound like the ideal situation. I think they should give Murdock a chance to start a full weekend. I think when it's all said and done, he'll be the clear-cut #1 in net.

TEAMWORKER said...

Why would you not make some changes to find combination's that can work on a "constant" basis.

At this level, playing back to back games if you give it 110% is not easy for any player. Especially goalies and I don't understand why we continue to go to the well with that. We win the first game in Alaska and UM and then get blown-out the second night. I'm not saying it's the goalie as other parts of the team let-up. Look at the second game in our house with UM. Our D is -8 and one of them is -4.

And we go into this weekend not changing that???

The only consistency it appears is not making wholesale adjustments as needed...

GO MAVS!!!

Unknown said...

Amen. Nothing wrong with shaking things up a bit. It's not like we're really messing with success at this point... it's still early enough to mess with things to find out what it takes to get a sweep here and there (against teams other than Tech).

Sam said...

I agree changes need to be made. But I think they need to come in the form of getting Evan Mosey and Michael Dorr on the ice. I just can't buy into Cook. Hopefully he proves me wrong, but I'm remaining steadfast in my belief that Murdock is the best of the three and will show it if given consistent playing time.

TEAMWORKER said...

Sam. Nice to see Cook proved you wrong.
Now let's hope for Dorr and Mosey to get a chance. I look back at the early season stats, Mosey did ok. One sick assist on the Mav's website.

Sam said...

Haha, absolutely. I was happy to see him do so as well. Let's hope he can do it again.

Unknown said...

I've followed Phil Cook's career for years. He will stand the tallest among the 3 goaltenders.