The Sicatoka

Too many grindaz ...

I'll ponder aloud again, is 15F the right number today. We've been short bodies on game day a couple times the last few seasons. Now some math with numbers: 8D, 25% hurt (2), 6 left, full game card 15F, 25% hurt (3.75, or 4), 11 left, NOT full game card <-- Does going to 16 or 17 make sense if the logistics (and dollars) work? And when I say "full game card" I'm saying 6D and 12F and not considering the "extra skater" slot.

Mediocre ...

The Flyers could put a 2021-22 Bulldog (Cates), Bronco (Attard), and Pio (Brink) on the ice.

Never thought of it from the PJ Fleck angle until now ... ouch.

Sno-nami Sno-pocalypse Sno-mageddon!

CC's (G) Dominic Basse to SCSU.

CC's Basse to SCSU.

If MSUM had made it 2-0 on one of the breakaways, I think the final score might have been the same, but in the other direction. Why? MSUM could've relaxed in a good way and played their game.

I could see DU coming on with about 5 left in the second. MSUM escaped to second intermission. DU was in the same mode with about 15 left in third, and the rest we know. MSUM looked like they got worn down both physically and mentally. Like I said before, I don't think they'd played a tight game in the third with a team that had that much offensive punch.

I saw BU fans on USCHO bring up Hastings after Albie O'Connell was cut loose. I put that potential as "approaching zero".

Purple Cow Nathan Smith signs with ARI

Gopher McLaughlin signs with ANA Michigan’s Berniers signs with SEA

It’s the level UND plays at so it’s a reasonable comparison no matter your view of overall level of play.

Put another way, in one season UND could make it a three-way tie. One season. Or, go back to back and take the lead — two seasons to the very top. Or another way for perspective: We’d be into the 2030s to have as many FCS titles as NDSU if we won them all from now to a tie.

Ashton Calder, North Dakota, enters the portal.

Minnesota has 5; UND has 8. Using your logic, how is Minnesota able to recruit?

Brink missed that memo: signed with PHI.

Maybe why UND locked down its staff when it did? Knott has to be way up some lists. Sandelin’s assistants have to be eyed also. And Wisconsin has become a dumpster fire, on a barge floating down a burning river.

To DU fans’ eyes, yeah, Mankato is Omaha with snow: Talented, but come undone in the third.

The MSUM teams of the late 1990s would’ve cashed all those breakaways. Not doing that was the start of the undoing. DU plays at altitude; Boston is at sea level; I could see MSUM fatigue as the game went on, that, and maybe some nerves. And I don’t think MSUM, despite the defense and close games of their record, had played a team with offense in a tight one in the third. They didn’t know how to react. They didn’t know how to play an NCHC team in an NCHC-like playoff game. And what MSUM did to UM, DU did to MSUM: Five unanswered.

I expect one big surprise yet to come. No information, just a feeling.

Wait a minute … McKay wins Hobey but not Richter for best goalie?

I can live with it but I’m not sure the final three were the right three … and I’m looking at the gopher …