Mankato West v. Mankato East

[FanFriendly]

Any predictions on who comes out on top this time around?

[ToP PRoSP3cT]

west

[wblhockeyfan8]

Mankato 5 Mankato 2

[OU812]

Game Off due to weather. No new date set yet.

[scarlethockey33]

always good rivalry game

west won the first game between the two before the holiday break 4-3 with 4 goals in the 2nd

west shows up again and wins this one 4-2

heard possible reschedule date as monday

[Black Ice]

always good rivalry game

west won the first game between the two before the holiday break 4-3 with 4 goals in the 2nd

west shows up again and wins this one 4-2

heard possible reschedule date as monday

Rescheduled for Mon. Feb 1st 7pm

[FanFriendly]

Watched Mankato East play Dodge County - overall not a good game but one has to be pretty impressed with the number of East players who have the ability to score. Ries had like 5 goals, Billiar and Willaert each had 4 pts. Not to mention their second line (Borchardt, Hermer, Westerlund) doesn't have much problem scoring either. Also have a couple of defensemen that can put the puck away (Allan, Janne).

If they could get their goaltending squared away they appear to be a team that could do well in sections.....

Good for Mankato Hockey to have players on the state scoring leader board again. (Leivermann, Litchfield).

[Black Ice]

Scoring isn't the issue with East. The goaltending isn't the main problem either. They tend to give up too many odd man rushes and turn the puck over in their own zone too often against a good forecheck.
None of them have worked together that long. Hopefully by the section their defensemen can learn to work in tandem better and limit the other teams scoring chances so they don't have to always get 5 or 6 goals to win a game. They've got a stretch coming up with Owatonna, Lourdes, Faribault and Albert Lea. If they show they can limit some of those teams to under 4 or 5 goals they could be a threat come playoff time.
Regarding the state scoring stats, nobody outside of Mankato puts much stock in any Mankato kids numbers since both schools play 10-12 games a season against teams like Windom, Waseca, LeSueur, etc and avg 8-9 goals per game against them.

[Lucias Last Dance?]

Interesting post blackice....Looking at statistics, East gives up 30 shots a game, and if 5-6 pucks are going past goalies in 30 shots thats pretty bad, I happen to see the East/Waseca game and that was a East goaltending nightmare...looks like the defenseman are trying to step up into plays to stop them earlier and getting beat because they lack confindence in their goalie/s....if one of the 2 goalies on the stat sheets shows up to play the last 7 regular season games they are going to be a team to watch out for cause they can score.

Too add a quick comment about the scoring and people taking stock in it. Look at the state leaders, and look at their schedules. Looking at that according to black ice noone should be putting any stock into the top 15 scorers as their schedules are probably much of the same as a Mankato school plays. Anywhere outside the metro is going to play at least 8 games a season that are going to be pretty weak, and if you have goal scorers they are going to be putting pucks away agasint those weaker squads.

Take it to November when people were talking about the coin toss it could be in Section 1A....I think it is still holding true, be interesting to see who comes out of it. It will be a fun section tournament to watch, I wish they were all played out of one building so we didtn have to drive everywhere to see different games!

[Black Ice]

Interesting post blackice....Looking at statistics, East gives up 30 shots a game, and if 5-6 pucks are going past goalies in 30 shots thats pretty bad, I happen to see the East/Waseca game and that was a East goaltending nightmare...looks like the defenseman are trying to step up into plays to stop them earlier and getting beat because they lack confindence in their goalie/s....if one of the 2 goalies on the stat sheets shows up to play the last 7 regular season games they are going to be a team to watch out for cause they can score.

Too add a quick comment about the scoring and people taking stock in it. Look at the state leaders, and look at their schedules. Looking at that according to black ice noone should be putting any stock into the top 15 scorers as their schedules are probably much of the same as a Mankato school plays. Anywhere outside the metro is going to play at least 8 games a season that are going to be pretty weak, and if you have goal scorers they are going to be putting pucks away agasint those weaker squads.

Take it to November when people were talking about the coin toss it could be in Section 1A....I think it is still holding true, be interesting to see who comes out of it. It will be a fun section tournament to watch, I wish they were all played out of one building so we didtn have to drive everywhere to see different games!

I'm not saying the goalies can't show some improvement, but of the games I've seen East seems to give up too many good scoring chances, especially when faced with an agressive forcheck. I'm also not saying their defensemen aren't good players. They just haven't had alot of defensive experience individually or working in tandem. All of these could improve by sections, I hope they do.

I'm also not saying noone should put any stock in stats put up by Mankato kids, but the fact is generally most people outside the Mankato area don't because of the number of weaker teams they play. It doesn't mean that Mankato doesn't have any talented skaters, but that their stats are looked at as inflated. There might be some truth to that. If you took a top player from Mankato and put him on a team in the Lake conference would his numbers be as high? Most likely not.
By the way, how many Mankato kids have been on a D1 roster in the past
10yrs? answer:1 How many on a varsity D3 roster? answer:3