The Sicatoka

If Boeser was a senior and Jost was a junior I'm sure things would look different right now. However, it's on the coaches (recruiting) to have a plan for when guys turn pro early. I feel like they thought they'd have Boeser for three and Jost for two. When that didn't happen along comes the obvious hole that is the last two seasons.

Folks won't believe me, but here are my concerns going into 2019-2020: 1. 0.894 and 0.903 Those numbers are not good enough. Not much more to say; the data speaks for itself. 2. Lack of centers, offensively dynamic or not. We have Senden and a bunch of guys shuffled to center and back to wing (Weatherby, Hoff, Bowen) and back. With Gardner and Jones we'd win draws (and then do nothing with it). I suspect we'll be losing more draws and doing more chasing. 3. Scoring. My hope is that last season was a perfect storm and we return to the mean. But I really have nothing to base that on than hope.

What's a screen pass?

I get that. Byf was frustrated and unloaded (WPG was blowing a lead at the time); Caggiula took the easy counter. I'm still of the belief that Byfuglien should take his issues to the complaint department (6'4" Murphy) and ask them to curb their dog and not just kick the chihuahua. It's not a good look to see the biggest guy going after the smallest guy.

Byfuglien is 260; Drake is 175. (<-- That's if you believe the official team rosters. )

If he wants to move up the Midco food chain he needs to get back to the main studios.

The bleeding at SCSU: Blake Lizotte

It kind of takes the student out of student-athlete.

Byfuglien didn't really impress me with what he did to Caggiula. Rattling around a guy who's 8 inches shorter and 85 pounds lighter is pretty weak. Want to send a message to the Blackhawks? Go bang on Dahlstrom or Murphy or Anisimov, but not the second smallest guy on the roster.

The phrases "Big Ten" and "morally wrong" just seem to fit together.

Jost would've been well served to stay for a sophomore year. He's bouncing up and down with the Avs.

Mentioning runs ... How many early departures did we suffer after the 2016, 2017, and 2018 seasons? Wasn't that another "probably won't ever see that again" item?

When it comes to regionals, home ice might be a bit unfair; however, I can think of a system that would work. Consortiums. A group of schools/teams gets together and lines up a rink should one of them end up a regional #1 seed. For UMD, SCSU, MSU-Mankato, and UMn they line up the X. For DU, CC, USAFA they line up where the Colorado Eagles play. For NMU, Tech, Wisconsin, they line up something in Milwaukee. A bunch of Michigan schools line up something near Detroit. Out east, the Boston schools (BU, BC, NE'n, Hahvid, etc) line up a rink. As the season progresses, as it becomes clear that no member of the consortium will be a 1 seed they release the holds on the rinks. If there's a conflict (say like this season would've posed if there was a UMD/SCSU/MSU-Man consortium) the consortium would have to sort it out amongst themselves and the venue.

It's supposed to be amateur sport but it seems the behavior is more like free agency.

I'll be looking for: a) the obvious, overt, glaring change in offensive philosophy b) getting the available talent on the field to its best use and potential I won't be looking for immediate gratification. (If it comes I'll take it.) I will be looking for improvements that come from fixing what was broken.

Thank you to the folks who up-voted that post. You must've done the math and recognized what that really says.

I see what you did there ...

Sure he is, .... if I'm 6'0".

Mentioning the freshman (Tommy Schuster), I saw picture of Freund and Schuster on Twitter over the weekend. As I suspected, he's Danny Freund's height (nominally 6'1"). Apparently "Michigan Player of the Year" is not as important as "six foot four" to some schools. But it works just fine for me. Tommy, show 'em how wrong they are. Show 'em all.

No love for the Minnesota State - Moorhead Dragons coach?

Man Law But how can Chuck Norris not be on that committee ...

I knew I should've said "independently viable".

So the Canadian Women's Hockey League folding is a sign that women's hockey is viable?

DaveK left here and went to GPL and the average IQ of both boards went up.