USHL Muskegon Lumberjacks

Last Weekend Proved That the Jacks Do Better When They Focus on Winning and Stay out of the Penalty Box

Published on February 14, 2023 under United States Hockey League (USHL)
Muskegon Lumberjacks News Release


As the Muskegon Lumberjacks head into a pair of weekend games in Madison, their challenge will be to keep their minds on winning, not scrapping, regardless of whatever provocation is presented.

When they do that, they do pretty well.

The proof came last weekend, when the Jacks focused on the task at hand against a good Youngstown team on Friday. They jumped out to a surprisingly strong 4-0 lead, then withstood a late Phantoms comeback to pick up an impressive 5-4 win.

But there was a lot of pushing and shoving between the teams in that game, and unfortunately it spilled over into the next night.

The Jacks and Phantoms started engaging into the rough stuff again just minutes into Saturday's rematch, and it continued all night.

In the end the Lumberjacks ended up with 15 total penalties for 68 minutes, and spent a great deal of time killing off a lot of Youngstown power plays.

Because of that, they were never able to focus on what mattered most and lost 5-1.

Lumberjacks Coach Parker Burgess thinks the Phantoms may have baited his team into all the scraps and resulting penalties, because they knew the Jacks were short on players all weekend.

The strategy certainly worked, and we will never know how the game might have gone if the rough stuff had not taken center stage.

"It was really frustrating," Burgess said. "I'm sure that was part of (Youngstown's) game plan. We talked about not allowing that to affect us and focusing our efforts the right way. We needed all hands on deck and didn't want to get sucked into that, but we actually played into their hands.

"We're dealing with young players who play with passion and want to defend their teammates and stand up for themselves. I thought we went off the rails a little bit and it put us in a tough hole, one we couldn't climb out of."

The Jacks' penalty problems go far beyond last Saturday.

Muskegon is the most penalized team in the USHL with 742 minutes worth of infractions. Omaha, a Western Conference team, has 706 minutes. Cedar Rapids has 614, and every other team in the Eastern Conference is below 600.

The Jacks have been filling up penalty boxes all season, and Burgess says it's a process to work the players out of those bad habits.

"You work with them and coach them," he said. "They are kids and it takes a while. Our job as coaches is to make sure they know where to focus their attention and energy. We talk about it daily."

A good opportunity for wins

If the Clark Cup playoffs started today - and luckily they don't until April - the Lumberjacks would not be participants.

The Jacks remain in seventh place in the eight-team Eastern Conference with a 17-19-2 record, good for 36 points. They are four points behind sixth-place Cedar Rapids, and only the top six teams in each conference make the playoffs.

This weekend the Lumberjacks will be visiting the Madison Capitols, a team with far bigger problems in the standings.The Caps are 9-27-2 and are buried in last place in the Eastern Conference with only 20 points.

On paper the matchup looks like a good opportunity for Muskegon to get some momentum going, particularly since they are already 4-0 against Madison this season/.

But Burgess isn't buying the idea that the Jacks can just show up and take home victories on Friday and Saturday night.

"Regardless of what their record it, they've made some moves and I think they are playing harder as a team," the coach said about Madison. "They've had some big wins lately. They beat (first-place) Chicago a few weekends ago. By no means is there any wiggle room to take them lightly or overlook them. We have to play hard."

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United States Hockey League Stories from February 14, 2023


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