AJS

They proved me wrong, great win. Scheel was excellent and they played tough. They really need to get healthy, I’ll leave it at that.

Yep, game over.

Let’s see if they can hold on, my gut tells me their pp will be the difference. You just can’t go 0-6 including a 5 minute major.

They need one here.

This PP is so bad.

Prediction: UND will not be leading or tied going into the third.

Culture

Please tell me there aren’t legitimate locker room issues again this year?

This is my fear as well, teams being more willing to pull players early (current roster) or encouraging them to go a different route (incoming recruits). I’m probably getting way ahead of myself there, but what’s going on is not good at all.

Stop. Did you just say Yon and Bowen were highly regarded out of juniors? Did you see their numbers coming in? Yikes, get a better memory or do some research. They both had awful numbers in juniors. Hoff has good numbers and was a big recruit. What I would have done is last summer I would have encouraged Yon, Bowen and Johnson to look elsewhere. Berry needed to do it after their Sophomore year. He didn’t and you have this 5 man anchor of a forward junior class around the neck of this program for two more years. Of those 5 btw, Hoff was the only “highly regarded” one in the bunch.

This years freshman class had a great goalie and two stud defenseman, so yes on highly touted part. The problem hasn’t been defensively this year or last. When you break down the forwards group you have Weatherby (good recruit), Hain (high end role player), Senden ( role player), Keane (role player). You just can’t have 1/2 Forward recruits who at best are solid 4th line guys.

Nothing to me is more frustrating then the you need role players argument. There are players that are talented, but are also responsible (see Gardner / Jones). Those should be your role players.

How many role players work for you? The amount they have now that has turned this team into a non playoff contender. Is the Junior class your favorite? 5 for 5 on role player forwards!

After two years of mediocrity (barely making / missing the playoffs), the wheels are off. Not only won’t they make the playoffs again, but this time it won’t be close. UND hockey is embarrassing. Two years in a row of not making the playoffs is just inexcusable at UND. Do I think it’s a talent issue, yes, but that’s the most important part of college sports is recruiting that talent. He may or may not be a bad coach, but he has put this program where it’s at by his recruiting choices (JUNIOR CLASS). Do I want him gone? Yes. Does he deserve to be gone? Yes. Will he be? No. The only positive thing that can come out of this is if he learns you need talent to complete. He needs to ditch whatever philosophy he has and get talent. Judging by next years class it’s starting to sink in.

I would love to know if Berry fully comprehends what’s happening right now. I’m genuinely worried for the state of this program.

This is flat out embarrassing.

Without looking through a list, I'm guessing most are from the East coast and after they de-commit they choose to stay out East. Seems pretty natural.

It was Luke Skokna

We have a pretty good sample size so far, what's everyone's thoughts on the new crop of players? How good can this young nucleus be? Not talking this year, but moving forward. If we look strictly at this years Freshman class. Atelbauers / Moody / Bijek / Coudreau / Rebraca / Hazekamp. This appears to be a very good freshman class, right?

What a shot in the arm for this '19 recruiting class! Recruit rankings are obviously subjective, but Hero had him as the #15 FCS RB recruit in the country. https://herosports.com/fcs/football-2019-recruiting-top-running-backs-ajaj

Players transferring because of playing time seems to happen pretty frequently at the college level and would have no impact on recruiting and probably little impact on the room. I mentioned this before, but you'll notice a common theme with players transferring, it's almost always underclassman. I can't think of any recent examples (Tomek, Wilkie, Murphy, Chartrand, Seinkbell, Bruneteau) of players that transferred after their Junior year. Not saying it can't happen, but that would seem to be a pretty hard sell for someone with only one year of eligibility left and on top of that would almost assuredly would have aged out of the junior ranks. On top of that, what program would want to bring someone in for one year, if they wouldn't be an instant impact type guy? The option of transferring is pretty much off the table for this years Junior class, which is where the clog is for both talent as well as numbers. Berry's only option would be manipulate the scholarships to bring in extra players. Go with 17 Forwards for a year and let the best player play. If he has the right guys, unselfish guys, this could work. I can definitely see how you could lose 3 and bring in 4 (forwards), but only losing 3 and bringing in 5 would be really tough. Just tossing out ideas, but the one option would be if Rieger (Sophomore) transfers and they move Johnson back to defense. That would open up another forward spot and it would be easier to make room for the 5th. Even if the Donovan ship has sailed, I would still like Berry to be aggressive and try to bring another forward (5th for the '19 class).

There's two parts to everyone's season, conference and non-conference. The good news is UND is currently 6-2-1 non-conference with two more against Canisus (must sweep), so the have the opportunity to finish with a respectable non-conference record. More good news is the NCHC which is always good non-conference record I believe is on track for it's best non-conference overall record they have had overall. IF UND can manage a .500 winning percentage in the conference (which would be better than last year), that will be good enough to make the NCAAs. They've dug themselves into a hole in their conference portion, but there's so many conference games left to rectify that.

I found that odd as well, it would surprise me though if there wasn't something to it for Brad to mention it. We've hashed this out a bunch already, so most of this will be a repeat. It's time for Berry to earn that paycheck and make some difficult decisions. It's very clear to everyone for the second year in a row this team struggles to put it lightly to score goals. You look at the lineup tonight and the bottom six are essentially both four line players. This is a two year problem that will turn into a three year problem with the Junior class taking up so many of the Forwards spots. Like others have mentioned, he needs to get very creative with his scholarship money. We know for sure the 3 for 3 trade off that will already happen. Bringing in a fourth with Blaisdell is a must already, so he's already going to have to figure that out. To really turn this roster around, you can't let a guy like Donovan walk. This team needs talent, the good news is they have it in the pipeline, the bad news, scholarship money. The coaching staff needs to figure this out.

This team showed so much heart in the 3rd, they saved their season with that performance in the final frame.

This is going to be the start of my post after this game.