Kevin G

Wisconsin hires Mankato's Director of Hockey Operations. It would've been easier to just move the Badgers to Mankato.

Mankato being absolutely gutted. Gamache has the potential to be a difference maker.

Meanwhile the A-topic, the actual physical altercation between two actual coaches, fades to the background as soon as UND and Michigan St. are alleged to be aggressive in the portal. Someone told me a long time ago: When you're big, you're an easy target. And when you're an easy target, expect cheap shots. In college hockey, UND is big.

Just a heads up: the USHL draft (Phase I) starts at 4pm. Follow here or here. Hopefully some of these higher-end kids are UND recruits some day!!

Worth noting that UND provided the portal with six players. So it's not like we're not sharing.

There are so many good forwards in the USHL. That being said, his numbers--Emerson's too--are comparable to the forwards who were chosen. My hunch is that Perron and Emerson were discounted in light of three other Chicago forwards--Celebrini, Moldenhauer, and Harvey--all making All-USHL teams.

Perron apparently has "finisher" in his game.

What channel?

There’s Big Bud tractor ad next to an ad for a big screen TV. Because the world’s largest tractor and a TV from 1980 weigh the same.

That would be cool.

Both Swanson and Boisvert are Top 10 overall in rookie scoring in the USHL. Very impressive. And both can/will get bigger and stronger, which will only help.

For defensemen in the USHL: Livanavage was 4th in Pts/gm Strathmann was 9th in Pts/gm For defencemen in the AJHL: Komzak was 6th in Pts/gm For defencemen in the BCHL: Wiebe was 3rd in Pts/gm

You guys don't miss anything! (1) Livanavage was #69 in Pts/Gm. (2) Croal surprised me too. (3) I totally agree: assessing by position is required. I was trying to keep the chart somewhat simple. (4) Top 60 is probably too much. Confession time: I was going to do top 50. Then I saw Croal at #52 and Boisvert at #54. So I changed the parameters to top 60. Each of the junior leagues has between 400 and 500 skaters, so top 60 is still top 15%.

I recently heard some scouting guru talking about skating. He said that skating ability used to be one of the traits they'd assess in prospects, along with things like shooting ability, instincts, etc etc. Now it's more like skating ability is the supreme ability because almost everyone is faster than previous generations of hockey players. If you can't keep up skating-wise, your other strengths are neutralized/minimized. Great-skating teams just swarm you (imo Michigan is the prime example); it's like they have an extra skater on the ice.

The regular seasons for the USHL, BCHL, and AJHL are over. Here's a quick summary of UND committed players and their stats for this past season, organized by birth year. (Only skaters; sorry Hobie.) 2002s League GP Pts Pts/Gm Nate Benoit, D USHL 58 25 0.43 Tanner Komzak, D AJHL 60 52 0.87* 2003s Cody Croal, F USHL 62 49 0.79* Michael Emerson, F USHL 60 64 1.07* Abram Wiebe, D BCHL 54 53 0.98* Jayden Jubenvill, D USHL 62 25 0.40 2004s Trey Ausmus, D, USHL 48 13 0.27 Jake Livanavage, D USHL 48 36 0.75 Jaksen Panzer, F USHL 58 28 0.48 Bowden Singleton, F AJHL 38 26 0.68 2005s David Klee, F USHL 57 13 0.23 Jayden Perron, F USHL 61 72 1.18* Grayden Slipec, F USHL 52 13 0.25 Andrew Strathmann, D USHL 56 38 0.68 2006s Keith McInnis, D USHL 9 2 0.22 Mac Swanson, F USHL 57 55 0.96* Sacha Boisvert, F USHL 57 45 0.79* Carson Pilgrim, F HS-MN 31 92 2.97* bold = expected for 2023-24 season * = top 60 in league for Pts/Gm

CHN has Philips listed as a Forward.

Is Schlossman covering the meetings in person?

Then, while we wait for another defenseman, maybe I can goose the process by saying: It might be early summer before we hear anything about another defenseman.

@brianvf, is this the most current projected roster?

Jack Perbix transferring from Western Michigan to Northern Michigan. He started his college career at Minnesota. If Motzko had stayed at St. Cloud, I believe Perbix would have played there, like the other Perbix boys. Quite an odyssey for Jack.

I’ve got to imagine that the coaches are going to add one more portal D-man, right? Pure speculation here: maybe they’re waiting for more clarity on the Strathmann situation before getting another portal addition.

Well if anyone runs across publicly available TOI stats, please let us know.

Was just going to say that there’s not much to talk about…when there’s not much to talk about.

It makes geographical sense for Bowling Green and Miami (OH) to be in the same conference; they are only 2hrs 40mins apart. Easy bus trip. Whether or not that's in the NCHC, I really don't know.