Kevin Zeise

I can’t really explain what it was that made me fire up the video stream of last night’s Edmonton Oilers/San Jose Sharks game, but I’m glad I did, even if it meant a limited amount of sleep for those of us out East. If you don’t live in a hockey black hole, by now you know about Edmonton’s Ben Scrivens 59-save performance in a 3-0 win over the Sharks.

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I got to know Scrivens pretty well during his time at Cornell when I was serving as that school’s hockey SID, and the public persona that he displays in interviews is the real thing. Anyone who’s worked in hockey knows players who are very different when the cameras are turned off. That’s not Ben, and that’s why it’s so great to see him getting his moment in the spotlight.

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Thoughts and observations from a day of watching three of the four games in their entirety on Friday (I unfortunately missed the Niagara/North Dakota matchup) and observing much of the conversation of the day on Twitter.

• While many who follow college hockey might have been shocked at the first result of the day (Yale’s 3-2 overtime victory over Minnesota), it shouldn’t have come as that much of a surprise to listeners of the INCH Podcast. Mike Eidelbes has long mentioned that the Gophers were a supremely talented team, but one that didn’t appear to give the requisite effort needed on every shift, every night. The game-winning goal was a prime illustration of just how out-worked Minnesota was by a Yale team that has enjoyed a fair amount of success at this stage in the recent past under Keith Allain. That game served as an immediate wake-up call of just how wide-open this year’s tournament is. Continue reading →