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Column: Steel going for their 6th straight this weekend

The New Ulm Steel will be going for their sixth straight win Friday night when they host Willmar at the New Ulm Civic Center in a NA3HL game.

And the Steel can make some movement in the West Division this weekend. They are currently 8-4-2-2, just one point behind Willmar for second place.

Granite City, who the Steel play on the road on Saturday, lead the division, four points ahead of New Ulm.

The Steel’s offense — almost non-existent in earlier games — has come alive recently and spurred the winning streak.

“Earlier in the season, we were not scoring goals,” said Steel coach Andrew Kolb. “We have scored six goals in each of our last three games and then we scored five on Saturday in an overtime win. So anytime you can score five or six goals in a game you are going to give yourself a good chance to win a hockey game.”

Another part of the game that has improved during the winning streak is their power play which had earlier in the year ranked as low as 42nd in the entire league.

“Our power play is seven for 22 in our last five games,” Kolb said. “That is about 32 percent and a really good power play is about 23 or 24 percent. We have won five in a row and a large part is due to our power play.”

Kolb said that at one point earlier in the season the Steel power play was as low as 8.5 percent — 42nd in the league.

“But we did not change anything major,” he said. “We have changed some things up here and there but normally out of the 10 guys, seven or eight of them are pretty permanent on the power play. I just think that they are shooting the puck more and are getting high quality percentage shots — they are working hard so there is no reason why we should not be getting second and third opportunities to get a power play goal.”

“Anytime you can move the puck quick and try and get those defensemen to move and get out of position, that is key. You hear that all of the time — the key is good, quick puck movement and shooting the puck. If you are just going to pass the puck around the perimeter and not throw anything at the net, you wil not be successful. We are shooting the puck more.”

LINE CHANGES DURING LOSING STREAK; Earlier in the season, Kolb said that when the Steel dropped four in a row, he was changing lines here and there.

“There was a good three weeks in a row where our lines were different every week,” he said. “We are now establishing more chemistry. Right now we have two or three lines that have been the same for three weeks now. Anytime you establish that chemistry on the lines it makes things easier — we want to eliminate those constant changes. We are getting more line success.”

WEEKEND SERIES BIG: This is the right time for the Steel to be playing their best hockey with games against Willmar and Granite City this weekend.

“Right now it is just four points between first and third,” Kolb said. “We are on a little roll now — I talked to the players [Tuesday] and I told them we cannot get to high right now. We have not accomplished anything yet.This is a huge weekend — anytime you play in-division games it is big.”

NAGEL ON ROLL: The Steel’s Alex Nagel has been hot in his last two games. He had a natural hat trick last Friday against Breezy Point before adding two more goals against them on Saturday.

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