Nanooks Nab the Shootout. Taranto Goes Off as UA wins 4-3

During the post game conference, Gens said it best. A question came out from a kid in the crowd, "Were you nervous in the shootout?", Aaron came back and said "We have Greenham in net, we don't get nervous..." How true is that for tonight? Sure, Scott did have 3 goals allowed, but NMU had to really work for all of them. But he came up huge in the shoot out.

The real story is Andy Taranto. Had a great game not only on the score sheet, but through all aspects of the game. He stepped up in the offensive zone and caused some havoc. Unfortunately, shoot out goals will not count as a goal tally, so Taranto doesn't quite nab the hat trick, but had a great look at getting goal number 3 in the 3rd period. But, he will get credit for the game winning shoot out on a nice high backhanded shot.

I thought we struggled a bit offensively, but NMU's mistakes amounted, and they actually had a few more than they were called for, but the Nanooks capitalized on 3 of 6 power play opportunities. Definitely a great thing, because we didn't much going in the offensive zone at even strength.

We had some defensive break downs that Greenham came up big to stop. Great awareness on Scott's part to keep an eye on the puck through all of the traffic. I thought Odegard played really well tonight defensively. He did a good job keeping NMU skaters out of the slot and steering the puck wide.

A great win for the Nanooks tonight. Obviously, would have like to win in regulation or OT to get all 3 points, but coming out with 2 is much better than 1, or even none. Tomorrow night, the Nanooks will take the ice in their alternate gold jerseys, which they have never lost wearing. Let's hope that rings true.

Looks like the Wildcat faithful, who travelled over 3,000 miles for disappointment, have already posted video to YouTube of Greenham's denial of Northern's shoot out attempts.



Here's another edit, with some more video highlights from Friday's game.



See you at the Carlson Center tomorrow night. Puck drops at 7:35PM AST.

Some people sent me some emails tonight, assuming from Michigan asking about audio/video The game tomorrow will be aired on KSUA, internet stream is available at http://ksua.uaf.edu. Live video is available through B2 Network, which is pretty decent, but costs $7.