Highlights from MSU's sweep of Minny

Here is a highlight package from MSU's sweep over Minnesota last weekend. It was nice to see some replays from the weekend since they are not available during games at the Verizon Wireless Center.



A few observations:

• Ben Youds' rocket shot on Friday night was a wrister. I may have written that it was a slap shot after seeing it in real time, but now I'm even more impressed. Very patient play, too, as Youds faked the shot first and got everybody moving.

• Great pass by Corey Leivermann on Adam Mueller's goal. Leivermann got the puck along the wall and made a backhanded pass to the goal line to his linemate, who was coming out of the corner.

• Nice highlight of some good backchecking by Cameron Cooper and Josh Nelson late in  Friday's game to prevent what would have been a 1-on-0 chance against Phil Cook with about 6 minutes left.

• Good to see MSU players crashing the net, like on Rylan Galiardi's power-play goal on Saturday. Chase Grant made the pass and went to the net. Galiardi stayed with the puck all the way. The Mavericks needed to get grittier and they did on that play.

• Kurt Davis' goal, now that was a slap shot!

• Cook had a lot of praise for the way his teammates played defense, and the highlight reel indeed shows several blocked shots. Again, a little grit was something the Mavericks needed to find.

Finally, here's a link to my column today, putting a little perspective on last weekend's sweep.