{"id":89436,"date":"2018-11-29T06:00:38","date_gmt":"2018-11-29T12:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/?p=89436"},"modified":"2020-08-24T13:54:09","modified_gmt":"2020-08-24T18:54:09","slug":"western-michigan-has-great-energy-in-practice-with-niagara-in-town-this-weekend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/2018\/11\/29\/western-michigan-has-great-energy-in-practice-with-niagara-in-town-this-weekend\/","title":{"rendered":"Western Michigan has ‘great energy in practice’ with Niagara in town this weekend"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Western<\/a>
Western Michigan coach Andy Murray has the Broncos primed for a nonconference home series this weekend against Niagara (photo: Gary Shook).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Considering Western Michigan has won three of its last four games, it\u2019s easy to wonder whether the Broncos\u2019 bye weekend over Thanksgiving came at a bad time.<\/p>\n

That doesn\u2019t have to be the case, though, and it doesn\u2019t appear so here.<\/p>\n

More than a week removed from Western\u2019s first-ever road sweep of then-No. 11 North Dakota, Broncos coach Andy Murray spoke Monday about his team\u2019s practices between returning from Grand Forks and starting to prepare for this weekend\u2019s home series against nonconference foe Niagara.<\/p>\n

WMU\u2019s players got time off over the recent holiday before practicing last weekend and this Monday.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re mandated to give them a day off (Tuesday) under NCAA rules, which we\u2019ll do, and we\u2019ll come back, so we\u2019ll have had eight practices and certainly this week our practices have been structured in terms of playing our opponent this weekend, the things that they do and things we certainly want to utilize on our side of the game,\u201d Murray said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome great energy in practice, some real hard work (and) also worked on some things that we hadn\u2019t had time to work on for a few weeks with our busy game schedule.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re excited about the opportunity to play again and obviously we set a standard for the way that we want to play at North Dakota, and the responsibility of the players now and the coaching staff is to make sure this team plays to standard.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some standard.<\/p>\n

After splitting at home with Omaha on Nov. 9-10, Western won 2-0 at UND on Nov. 16 despite being outshot 32-19. Josh Passolt and Colt Conrad scored two third-period goals 5:59 apart on assists from Hugh McGing, and after making 28 saves over the first two periods, senior goaltender Trevor Gorsuch made four more in the third to cap his second shutout of both the season and his collegiate career.<\/p>\n

WMU was outshot again in the rematch, 32-26, but scored six consecutive goals in a 6-2 win. Passolt had another good night as his two goals bumped his season total to seven, one fewer than he scored in 35 games as a freshman in 2017-18.<\/p>\n

Conrad came up big again and earned the NCAA\u2019s No. 2 star of the week spot as a result. His empty-netter in the weekend opener gave Western the upper hand in its series at Ralph Engelstad Arena before he recorded a career-high five points (one goal, four assists) in the rematch. He was also named the NCHC\u2019s offensive player of the week.<\/p>\n

That sweep bumped WMU to 6-6-0, and while nobody will say the Broncos are their own finished product at this point, they could be on many more radars soon. Strong showings this weekend wouldn\u2019t hurt against a Niagara team (7-6-1) for which Murray wasn\u2019t short on praise.<\/p>\n

\u201cCoach (Jason) Lammers has done a great job with the Niagara program,\u201d Murray said. \u201cHe\u2019s got the type of players in there now that he wanted. They play a very structured game where they don\u2019t get caught below the puck. I\u2019m really impressed with that.<\/p>\n

\u201cVery quick on transition. They\u2019ve got some balanced numbers over their offensive units. They\u2019ve got three lines that put up points and certainly an energy line on their fourth line and it looks like a veteran line they start every game off with that gives them some defensive stability.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re a formidable opponent and they\u2019ve had a great season. They\u2019ve been rolling and happened to lose their last game against Army, but up to that point, they\u2019d been playing really good hockey and we\u2019re expecting a very stiff challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Considering Western Michigan has won three of its last four games, it\u2019s easy to wonder whether the Broncos\u2019 bye weekend over Thanksgiving came at a bad time (photo: Gary Shook).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":89,"featured_media":110892,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[812],"coauthors":[810],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nWestern Michigan has 'great energy in practice' with Niagara in town this weekend - College Hockey | USCHO.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Considering Western Michigan has won three of its last four games, it\u2019s easy to wonder whether the Broncos\u2019 bye weekend over Thanksgiving came at a bad time (photo: Gary Shook).\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89436\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Western Michigan has 'great energy in practice' with Niagara in town this weekend - College Hockey | USCHO.com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Considering Western Michigan has won three of its last four games, it\u2019s easy to wonder whether the Broncos\u2019 bye weekend over Thanksgiving came at a bad time (photo: Gary Shook).\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89436\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"College Hockey | USCHO.com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/OfficialUSCHO\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-11-29T12:00:38+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2020-08-24T18:54:09+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/wmu-andy-murray-f-6.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"639\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"387\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Matthew Semisch\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@USCHO\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@USCHO\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Matthew Semisch\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/2018\/11\/29\/western-michigan-has-great-energy-in-practice-with-niagara-in-town-this-weekend\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/2018\/11\/29\/western-michigan-has-great-energy-in-practice-with-niagara-in-town-this-weekend\/\",\"name\":\"Western Michigan has 'great energy in practice' with Niagara in town this weekend - College Hockey | USCHO.com\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/2018\/11\/29\/western-michigan-has-great-energy-in-practice-with-niagara-in-town-this-weekend\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/2018\/11\/29\/western-michigan-has-great-energy-in-practice-with-niagara-in-town-this-weekend\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/wmu-andy-murray-f-6.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2018-11-29T12:00:38+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2020-08-24T18:54:09+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/#\/schema\/person\/59bfc7fca1ba7bf3b039ebf2724060ae\"},\"description\":\"Considering Western Michigan has won three of its last four games, it\u2019s easy to wonder whether the Broncos\u2019 bye weekend over Thanksgiving came at a bad time (photo: Gary Shook).\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/2018\/11\/29\/western-michigan-has-great-energy-in-practice-with-niagara-in-town-this-weekend\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/2018\/11\/29\/western-michigan-has-great-energy-in-practice-with-niagara-in-town-this-weekend\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/2018\/11\/29\/western-michigan-has-great-energy-in-practice-with-niagara-in-town-this-weekend\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/wmu-andy-murray-f-6.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/wmu-andy-murray-f-6.jpg\",\"width\":639,\"height\":387},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/2018\/11\/29\/western-michigan-has-great-energy-in-practice-with-niagara-in-town-this-weekend\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Western Michigan has ‘great energy in practice’ with Niagara in town this weekend\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/\",\"name\":\"College Hockey | USCHO.com\",\"description\":\"Men's and Women's D-I and D-III College Hockey News, Features, Scores, Statistics, Fan Forum, Blogs\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/#\/schema\/person\/59bfc7fca1ba7bf3b039ebf2724060ae\",\"name\":\"Matthew Semisch\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/800654cc217d997dd53c63231da54899\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/1cf69ccdebc1e5f39c969dbc92873bc6?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/1cf69ccdebc1e5f39c969dbc92873bc6?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Matthew Semisch\"},\"description\":\"NCHC Columnist Matthew Semisch joined USCHO in 2007 as a arena reporter covering Omaha. He later became a WCHA columnist for USCHO before taking a similar role covering the NCHC. He currently works as the sports editor at the Bottineau Courant in Bottineau, N.D.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/author\/msemisch\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Western Michigan has 'great energy in practice' with Niagara in town this weekend - College Hockey | USCHO.com","description":"Considering Western Michigan has won three of its last four games, it\u2019s easy to wonder whether the Broncos\u2019 bye weekend over Thanksgiving came at a bad time (photo: Gary Shook).","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89436","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Western Michigan has 'great energy in practice' with Niagara in town this weekend - College Hockey | USCHO.com","og_description":"Considering Western Michigan has won three of its last four games, it\u2019s easy to wonder whether the Broncos\u2019 bye weekend over Thanksgiving came at a bad time (photo: Gary Shook).","og_url":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89436","og_site_name":"College Hockey | USCHO.com","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/OfficialUSCHO\/","article_published_time":"2018-11-29T12:00:38+00:00","article_modified_time":"2020-08-24T18:54:09+00:00","og_image":[{"width":639,"height":387,"url":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/wmu-andy-murray-f-6.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Matthew Semisch","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@USCHO","twitter_site":"@USCHO","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Matthew Semisch","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/2018\/11\/29\/western-michigan-has-great-energy-in-practice-with-niagara-in-town-this-weekend\/","url":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/2018\/11\/29\/western-michigan-has-great-energy-in-practice-with-niagara-in-town-this-weekend\/","name":"Western Michigan has 'great energy in practice' with Niagara in town this weekend - College Hockey | USCHO.com","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/2018\/11\/29\/western-michigan-has-great-energy-in-practice-with-niagara-in-town-this-weekend\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/2018\/11\/29\/western-michigan-has-great-energy-in-practice-with-niagara-in-town-this-weekend\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/wmu-andy-murray-f-6.jpg","datePublished":"2018-11-29T12:00:38+00:00","dateModified":"2020-08-24T18:54:09+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/#\/schema\/person\/59bfc7fca1ba7bf3b039ebf2724060ae"},"description":"Considering Western Michigan has won three of its last four games, it\u2019s easy to wonder whether the Broncos\u2019 bye weekend over Thanksgiving came at a bad time (photo: Gary Shook).","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/2018\/11\/29\/western-michigan-has-great-energy-in-practice-with-niagara-in-town-this-weekend\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/2018\/11\/29\/western-michigan-has-great-energy-in-practice-with-niagara-in-town-this-weekend\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/2018\/11\/29\/western-michigan-has-great-energy-in-practice-with-niagara-in-town-this-weekend\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/wmu-andy-murray-f-6.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/wmu-andy-murray-f-6.jpg","width":639,"height":387},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/2018\/11\/29\/western-michigan-has-great-energy-in-practice-with-niagara-in-town-this-weekend\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Western Michigan has ‘great energy in practice’ with Niagara in town this weekend"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/#website","url":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/","name":"College Hockey | USCHO.com","description":"Men's and Women's D-I and D-III College Hockey News, Features, Scores, Statistics, Fan Forum, Blogs","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/#\/schema\/person\/59bfc7fca1ba7bf3b039ebf2724060ae","name":"Matthew Semisch","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/800654cc217d997dd53c63231da54899","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/1cf69ccdebc1e5f39c969dbc92873bc6?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/1cf69ccdebc1e5f39c969dbc92873bc6?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Matthew Semisch"},"description":"NCHC Columnist Matthew Semisch joined USCHO in 2007 as a arena reporter covering Omaha. He later became a WCHA columnist for USCHO before taking a similar role covering the NCHC. He currently works as the sports editor at the Bottineau Courant in Bottineau, N.D.","url":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/author\/msemisch\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89436"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/89"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89436"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89436\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":110893,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89436\/revisions\/110893"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/110892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89436"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=89436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}