Season 4, Episode 4 of the Chasing MacNaughton Podcast from Tech Hockey Guide; Rebuilding. This week, Tim Braun, Dustin Lindstrom, Rob Gilreath and Matt Cavender were guestless. In this episode they discussed last weekend’s games against Ferris State and the US National Development Team (USNDT), previewed the upcoming series against Alaska Fairbanks, talked about Tech’s recruiting situation and highlighted some of the bright spots for Tech so far.
Weekend Review
The overall feeling from the guys was that it was a tough weekend for Tech against Ferris State and the USNDT. Dustin thought Tech played exactly how he expected and also talked about Tech likely having a lot of these types of weekends this season. Matt was a little less down on the weekend and noted that Tech had a number of stretches where they carried the play. Tim pointed out that the game against Ferris State was the least important game of the regular season for Tech due to its lack of implications to the Pairwise rankings.
The guys also talked about how good the USNDT is, and although they were a little surprised at how badly Tech was beaten, they were not surprised by the loss. Tim talked about Joe’s mentality for the game and how he was trying to push the players into situations on the ice so that they can learn how to adapt to different scenarios. Matt talked about going to the USNDT game and their arena, then the guys talked about the community in and around Plymouth, Mich. not filling the stadium regularly.
Upcoming weekend preview
Matt talked about the fact that Tech usually does better on larger ice sheets, but made sure to point out the “Alaska factor” (aka travel) which can take a lot out of teams going to play there. The guys reviewed Alaska-Fairbanks season so far, which has been a mixed bag of results. Tim thought Alaska might be going through some travel pains too having played in Minnesota this past weekend. Tim got frustrated with the College Hockey News app towards the end of the weekend preview.
Joe Show and recruiting
Rob shared his thoughts on the Joe Show, and he mostly agreed with what he heard from Joe. Echoing what the guys have said before, Rob talked about this year being different than last year and reminded Tech fans to not get their hopes up too high. Tim talked about wanting to see development of players as well as wanting to see them rise to the occasion every once in a while. Tim also talked about having fun just being able to watch the team this year with lowered expectations.
Matt changed the subject a little and the guys talked about recruiting. Matt talked about how he wants to see improved recruiting overall, and emphasized the need to recruit USHL kids. Dustin was glad to hear that Joe and his staff see it the same way based on what Dustin has heard from Joe. Matt and Tim talked about Topi Heiskanen and Max Vayrynen and how good they’ve been. Tim talked about the European recruiting being a bright spot and mentioned a few guys coming in over the next couple years that he hopes will be good players.
At the end of the show, there was a brief game of “Guess the NHL Team” that Tim put together. He provided a lineup of players, who all played college hockey in the US and the schools those players attended then Dustin and Matt had to guess which NHL team Tim was looking at.
Cut for time
This week’s cut time for Patrons is approximately six minutes long. Tim and Dustin did research on former Detroit Lions quarterbacks. Tim clarified last week’s mistake from Harrison on the author of the email Harrison discussed. The guys talked about summer league baseball in Alaska and golfing at midnight in Norway. There was further discussion on the Joe Show and the USNDT calling up older kids to play.
Learn More
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Follow us on twitter at ChasingMacPod. You can submit questions through our email address, ChasingMac@techhockeyguide.com. Don’t forget to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Please rate and review to help us reach more people, and tell your friends. Please check out Jonathan Zamaites’ series previews every Friday and Mike Anleitner’s Old Dog in Texas column every Wednesday (you should definitely read this week’s column). Also, keep an eye out for new recruiting articles on Tuesdays. As always, special thanks to our patron saint Doc McResin for his generous donation to get this thing running, we hope you enjoy. Also, thanks to The Thank You Notes for all the bumpers in today’s episode. If you like what you hear, check them out at thethankyounotes.bandcamp.com.
