Season 3 Episode 7 of the Chasing MacNaughton Podcast from Tech Hockey Guide; “Fifty!” This week, Tim Braun was under the weather again, so Rob Gilreath, Dustin Lindstrom, and Matt Cavender lead the discussion. This week, they discussed last weekend’s Clarkson series, took a look around the rest of the CCHA, previewed the upcoming series against Lake Superior State, and made their picks for the next round of the Fantasy Challenge.
Clarkson Series Review
The guys started this week discussing the weekend series against Clarkson. Matt was pretty happy with the results overall and thought that Tech was the better team all weekend with the exception of ten minutes in the Saturday game. He also really like how early coach Joe Shawhan pulled the goalie in the second game. Dustin didn’t completely disagree with Matt and also thought that there were positives from the weekend, especially from the Friday game. However, Dustin didn’t like that Michigan Tech didn’t put Clarkson away on Saturday and discussed how it gave him flashbacks to last season and Tech’s inability to convert scoring chances. Rob agreed with both Dustin and Matt about Friday’s game, and noted that Tech has to do better at finding the net when they are dominating play.
Dustin then brought up the changes to the forwards in the lineup for the weekend. None of the guys were surprised that Justin Misiak was back in the lineup, but they were all surprised that Logan Pietila was out. Dustin wondered if he was possibly banged up from practice and commented that Logan is not a guy that you leave at home based on his recent production. Matt thought that it might have been due to Joe and his coaching philosophy.
A look around the CCHA
The guys then focused the discussion on the rest of the CCHA and their games this past weekend. The start of the discussion revolved around Minnesota State goalie Dryden McKay as he broke the NCAA record for shutouts this past weekend. Matt said that he hates Minnesota State because he wants to be them and that they do everything right. Dustin agreed with this and said he feels they are always doing more with less. Rob thought that they are the anchor team in the CCHA and gives the league its legitimacy. St. Thomas gave Arizona State a run for their money on Friday night and the guys thought it was wild how close it was. Ferris split with Canisius and Matt was impressed that they got a win. Dustin thought that Bowling Green had a good weekend splitting against Bemidji State.
This upcoming weekend, Northern Michigan is hosting Boston University and Dustin thought it is cool that Boston is coming up to the UP. Matt hoped that Boston loses (but couldn’t bring himself to say he hoped Northern wins) for the sake of the conference. The Tommies are traveling down to Bowling Green and Matt thought that this will be the first time this season that Bowling Green has to put their foot down. Minnesota State is travelling to Ferris and Matt asked that the Lord have mercy on Ferris’ soul and Rob thought that it’s going to be a little rough for Ferris as well. Overall, Dustin thought that the CCHA is on much more even-footing as a conference this year when compared to other conferences around the country. Rob brought up some stats against out of conference opponents that supported Dustin’s thinking.
LSSU series preview
Dustin was surprised to hear that LSSU had played ten games already and Rob pointed out that they loaded up their October schedule with games against Nebraska Omaha (split), University of Michigan (UM sweep), St. Thomas (LSSU sweep), Union (LSSU sweep) and St. Lawrence (LSSU OT win and LSSU regulation win). Matt discussed being surprised by LSSU to this point and how they haven’t taken as severe step back as he anticipated they would. He also talked about this needing to be a statement weekend for Tech. Dustin thought that points would be hard to come by this weekend and Rob agreed with this and thought this would be a great first in-conference test. Matt’s prediction was a split, Rob predicted a Tech sweep, and after flip flopping in his head Dustin predicted a split.
Fantasy Challenge
Last week was the first time that none of the guys lost ground to the Ghost though none of the players had great weekends. Matt’s pick only had one assist despite his team blowing out their opponent, Rob’s pick also only had one assist but the games were closer, Tim’s pick had two assists, and Dustin’s pick had a goal and an assist. The overall standings are currently Tim with 23 points, the Ghost with 13 points, Rob and Dustin tied with 11 points, and Matt with 1 point. This week the theme was “Tech Takeover”. All five players were Michigan Tech players.
Cut for time
This week’s cut for time segment for patrons is approximately 15 minutes long. The guys discussed linguistics and their recommendations for listening material for those interested in learning about linguistic history. They also reminisced about the time when Dustin was very lucky on the Game of Thrones slot machines. There was a discussion on roller hockey and floor hockey in which both Matt and Dustin shared stories about being out matched on the rink. Matt also discussed his ongoing efforts to go through CCHA ref school to see how he compares to actual referees.
Learn More
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