Season 4, Episode 10 of the Chasing MacNaughton Podcast from Tech Hockey Guide; Low Expectations. This week, Tim Braun, Dustin Lindstrom, Rob Gilreath and Matt Cavender were joined by Shane Frederick. In this episode, they discussed Minnesota State’s season, Tech’s series against St. Thomas, Tech’s upcoming series against Minnesota State, and CCHA refereeing and leadership.
Minnesota State’s season so far
Tim started off the conversation by asking Shane for his impressions of Minnesota State (MSU) so far this year. Shane thought that the team was still trying to figure things out and pointed out that their loss to Northern Michigan last weekend was only the sixth home loss for MSU since the 2018/2019 season. Shane talked about MSU having a strong top three defensive core, but the remaining three spots still being worked on.
Turning to MSU’s series against Northern Michigan, Shane talked about Northern dictating the play on Friday which threw MSU out of their comfort zone. He also discussed Northern being aggressive on the penalty kill. Dustin hoped that MSU’s series against Northern didn’t serve as a wake up call for MSU coming into their series against Tech. The guys discussed the atmosphere at the John MacInnes Student Ice Arena and how it will be different this weekend due to a large number of students being away for the Thanksgiving holiday.
Later in the episode, the guys discussed MSU being a bubble team to make the national tournament. MSU is currently 15th in the Pairwise and the guys discussed why they are so low in the standings. The guys also discussed Pairwise being a relatively good indicator, even in November, of which teams will make the tournament at the end of the year.
St. Thomas team and series review
The St. Thomas series discussion was broken out over a couple different segments spread out throughout the episode.
Shane said that he hasn’t really been paying attention to Tommie hockey so far, despite being an alum of the school. He talked about the team playing their opponents close and their head coach Rico Blasi building the team and culture to where he wants it to be. The guys discussed St. Thomas’ five years of post season ineligibility and whether there will be enough demand to fill their new arena once it is built. The guys also talked about when St. Thomas might be required to carry the full allotment of scholarships on the hockey team.
Tim and Dustin had the opportunity to attend the games at St. Thomas. Tim shared a story about talking with CCHA Head of Officiating Kevin Langseth regarding face off violations and how they’re enforced. The guys all expressed their boredom at times watching the games due the number of penalties being called. Dustin shared his thoughts on seeing Tech play live for the first time this year. He thought they were pretty up and down and had long stretches of play where nothing clicked for the team. Tim agreed and thought that the team was more disjointed during the St. Thomas series than previous series. The guys discussed Tech’s horrendous power play on the weekend. Dustin also talked about the positives of the weekend including Tech being able to make mistakes like they did and still come away with wins and points.
Minnesota State series preview
Shane reiterated his points from earlier that MSU will have their veteran defense core playing but also mentioned the iffy goaltending MSU has had so far. He was curious to see how MSU will play on the road and said that their power play needs to click like it did last weekend. The guys talked more about The Mac being empty this weekend due to the holiday which lead to a discussion on the presence of Tech fans at St. Thomas’ arena. Shane predicted a split, Matt said he would be thrilled with split but thought that MSU would come away with the majority of the points, Rob predicted a split, Dustin predicted a MSU sweep and Tim decided to channel his inner Shannon Sharpe and picked a Tech sweep.
Cut for time
This week’s cut time for Patrons is approximately 31 minutes long. Shane talked about St. Thomas’ basketball and football teams and the conference the football team plays in. The guys talked about College Hockey News (CHN) rebranding the KRACH to the CHN Power Rankings. The guys gave Matt flack for trying to “name” the hockey conferences. The guys talked about some of the sports cards they have. There was extended discussion on Tim speaking with Don Lucia during the St. Thomas series and the changes made to major penalties and ejections. Rob talked about the new sticker he bought. The guys talked about being surprised at Tech’s conference and national position at the end of November as well as some of the players they’ve enjoyed watching so far. There was a conversation about Ryland Mosley and the point totals he’s put up this season. There was extended discussion on the St. Thomas series. Tim talked about the Misfits and some of their cheers. The guys discussed Michigan using their third string goalie to serve bench minor penalties. There was a brief discussion on the World Cup.
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 and Zach Aufdemberge’s Analytics With Augie. Also, keep an eye out for new recruiting articles that Tim Braun writes occasionally. 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.
