By Bryan Bloodworth
BLOOMINGTON – Bloomington Thunder coach Dennis Williams expects hard-fought battles the next two nights when his team squares off against Dubuque in the finals of the USHL’s Eastern Conference playoffs at U.S. Cellular Coliseum.
The best of five-game series is tied at one apiece with the winner advancing to the Clark Cup finals. Tonight and Saturday games start at 7 o’clock and can be heard on wjbc.com
“We really have to manage the puck,” said Williams. “We really have to limit our turnovers in the most dangerous parts of the ice, which is in the neutral zone and the two blue lines. You turn the puck over to a team like Dubuque they can come back down very quick and score.”
Williams added that the Thunder will need a team effort.
“We’re going to have to keep five guys in the picture, so in every zone we need five guys,” he continued. “If we’re heading up the ice on a rush, we need five in the neutral zone and five altogether in the offensive zone. When we’re tracking pucks back, we need five guys in the defensive zone. We can’t have four.
“We can’t have a lackadaisical back-check. We have to be on all cylinders and we have to be ready for a hard-nose zone game. We’re going to have to get net-front for goals and tips and screens. We’re going to have to do whatever we can. For sure, the effort is always there. We just need to make sure we execute our game plan.”
Bryan Bloodworth can be reached at [email protected]
