SpudsSioux

Correct. And I would take Reschny and Zellers as Sophomores over any of the CHL incoming forwards as freshmen without thinking twice! Same with the D. I think people underestimate how big of a step KV will take from freshman to sophomore year. And Emery...a junior first rounder on defense is a luxury not many teams get.

Agreed. I still think they have money to add a big defense. I just don’t think they have the NIL to be paying 7 first round picks like some on here wanted (Emery, Reschny, Verhoeff, 2 big D and 2 big forwards). When people were talking about landing one or two of the big 3 D AND Rucks or Belchats…that just didnt seem realistic if we were retaining the 3 we already have plus Zellers.

While I'm hoping BC continues to bring in big fish every year, I think just his ability to bring or not bring in those big fish is kind of discounting the work he does. Any of us here can list the top names, so can every other college coach or fan. Yes, it will help to have him out building relationships but there's also many other factors and only so much NIL to go around. Getting first round guys like Emery and Reschny (and hopefully KV), returning is where a lot of our NIL money will end up I would think. The thing I'm most excited about with Bryn is that he's out evaluating current recruits to see how they are progressing and if they're ready to come in, if they're not progressing and we need to move on, etc. I'm hoping for significantly less "misses" than in years past. The Freshmen class this year validated that. Those weren't all big names but I feel like we hit on every single one. If he believes by watching them that a guy like Davis is more ready to jump in and contribute than Pilgrim or O'Neil...well I'm glad hew as out watching so they know that and could make that decision. I other thing I like about him is his ability to be in on lesser known guys before the masses are. If McKenzie wasn't committed yet, we would all be wanting him. It just wasn't as big of a splash because Bryn found him before he blew up on everyone's radar.

Lindberg or Magnussen? Lindberg will a perfect bottom 6. I’m not really sure on Magnussen and don’t love if he’s coming in to fill a top 6 spot.

The other thing I didn't think about until Schloss's article was Lindberg's penalty killing. I said earlier I felt like this was an upgrade from Littler, Klee and Andrew for a similar role (bottom 6 guy), but I hadn't thought about the fact that neither Littler or Klee kill penalties. Schloss said Lingberg was CC's top penalty killing minute eater at forward. It's so nice when you can use your bottom 6 to kill penalties and next year UND should have plenty of that with Lindberg, Croal, Zakreski (and Ollie if he's not in top 6).

For sure. Schloss is in a tough spot because he likely already knows this stuff too but is held to a higher reporting standard (needing named sources to be able to print). He also is respectful about the players' and coaches' timelines for when they want it announced.

Wish they could have landed Wiebusch but Lindberg is a nice add. An upgrade from any of the three forwards that portalled out, in my opinion. Good size still, but better speed than any of them.

If Lindberg is a fit, this staff is going to know as well as anybody. Played for Smaby in Waterloo for two years.

100%. It's also hard when you're talking top 10 (and even top 5) picks because you don't know for sure if they'll even be playing in college until you see who drafts them. Obviously a lot of NHL orgs have come around to the NCAA route but there are still a few that if they draft Verhoeff or Carels top 5 that you worry about. It really feels like Carels is going to be at North Dakota unless the team that drafts him just wants to sign him right away. It will be interesting to see if he'll commit before that or wait. It makes Bryn's job that much harder (and really makes you respect a guy like Tyler Young that was willing to wait so long)

Bingo

It will be, but you can't do that in one year when you inherit a roster with 0 incoming junior forwards and 2 junior defense that are pro ready. This freshmen class is a really really good mix of high-end 2 year type guys and great 3-4 year guys. Klee was my least favorite of them so I'm not worried about losing one and keeping Verhoeff, Laurila, Reschny, Ollie, Kernan, Zakreski and Spoon. Now any of those portal out...then I'll change my tune.

Hard to fault any of these and we don't know how many are suggested/being pushed out. It's hard because I really liked this group, but also with their current pipeline and their big strong freshmen class, something had to give. They need to get a little more balanced in grades and roles (they are young with a lot of bottom 6 type guys. I would look for things to start getting more stable in the next couple years

I agree. If we miss out on the remaining big 3 (Carels, Dupont Rudolph) or lose Emery I'll be more nervous, but to get one of those guys, we needed to lose 3 so this makes sense. I think Verhoeff and Laurila were further along as Freshmen than Emery and Strathman were a year ago so I'm really optimistic about how big of a jump those two can take. If Emery take another jump like he did from Freshman to Sophomoreyear he could be a defensive defenseman of the year candidate next yaer. While "young" grade wise, they won't be terribly young by age. Laurila and McKenzie will be 20 years old, Lindberg 19.

Love Zakreski but I don't think he's playing over Croal. He's a +17...gotta be top 10 in Plus/Minus in the entire conference.

I know this is a great problem to have, but who sits if this team is healthy?? It's going to be hard to break up that Swanson - Reschny - Kernan line after the way they clicked last weekend. They could keep those same top two (Swanson - Reschny - Kernan and James - Rickwoord - Zellers) together and move Strinden back with Croal and Ollie. That line was awesome together early and would be a mismatch nightmare for other teams. I think Young is probably locked in down the stretch here to so you likely have Littler and Klee fighting for the last center spot and Zakreski and Menghini fighting for last wing spot. That's a tough line-up to crack and an even tougher line-up to play against