Gophers bring nation's top offense to Sullivan

The Seawolves need to stay sharp on that front.

That's because No. 8-ranked Minnesota and its prolific power play are up next for UAA.

As UAA opens its home WCHA schedule tonight and Saturday night at Sullivan Arena, the Gophers roll into town with the nation's most lethal power play. Granted, the season is just six games old for both teams, but the Gophers have already reeled off 12 man-advantage strikes in 33 chances for a nation-leading, 36.4-percent efficiency.

That power-play prosperity has helped Minnesota to the national lead in scoring average, as well, with 5.83 goals per game.

Last season, the Seawolves racked an 85.8-percent penalty kill against league opponents. And although their overall penalty-killing efficiency this season is 79.2 percent, they've permitted opponents just one power-play goal in 14 attempts over the last three games. That's after giving up four power-play goals in 10 attempts in the season's first two games -- in UAA's third game, a victory over Nebraska-Omaha at a tournament in Fairbanks, the Seawolves and Mavericks played penalty-free, thus no power plays.

In 4-1 and 3-1 losses at Nebraska-Omaha last week, the Seawolves were perfect on the penalty kill.

"We just seemed to find a way to get in lanes and block a lot of shots, and disrupt their flow,'' said junior assistant captain Chris Crowell, a forward who kills penalties. "And our goalies made a lot of saves.''

Effective penalty killing proved one of the springboards UAA used in the second half last season, when they began a push that eventually found them sweeping home-standing Minnesota in the first round of the WCHA playoffs.

Penalty-killing requires sacrifice -- UAA goaltender Chris Kamal said defenseman Scott Warner "was eating up shots all over the place'' against Nebraska-Omaha -- and is indicative of the way the Seawolves strive to slow down explosive opponents. At their best, the Seawolves play a physical game, wear down opponents and keep the game low-scoring.

"We're not going to win 7-6 games,'' Crowell said. "It's going to be a lot of 2-1 games, blocking shots. For us to have success, we have to play that ugly, greasy type of game.''

UAA's series against Minnesota is followed by an idle weekend for the Seawolves, so they want to get back to the winning ways that allowed them to start the season 3-0-1.

"Obviously, every weekend, we want to come out with points,'' Kamal said. "But especially this weekend, after no points last weekend and a hot start, we want to get back on the winning side of things.''

Find Doyle Woody's blog at adn.com/hockeyblog or call him at 257-4335.