CAUNDfan

Okay, get ready to snicker at my ignorance! #1) What makes a player a "Letterwinner" and what does this do for a person? #2) Is there a listing somewhere of scholarships awarded? I'd be curious to know how Blais allocated things after last season and given that Bayda left early. Thank you in advance for your help.

I'm with you on that, Speez. Last season was a brutal lesson for the freshmen and the rest of the team, too. I can only hope that they are working that much harder in the offseason because of it. If this team plays to it's potential, it could be better than Minnesota or anyone else. However, the balance of players is still lopsidedly young. We're going to have to have 3 or 4 Soph's with "break-out" seasons in order to do really well. My predictions for "break-out" soph's: McMahon Fournier Massen?? Other players with big y-o-y improvement in scoring (hopefully): Lundbohm Spiewak Notermann R. Hale Pretty much all of these things have to occur for the Sioux to challenge, but hey...why not!

The overall record pondered above includes a 16-9-3 WCHA record, which is not at all unacheivable.

Having looked at the schedule, I got 'em pegged to go about 25-10-3 next season, with a dominating season afterward in 2003-2004. Thoughts?

Great response! Reasons to believe: The only 2 offensive freshmen will be Parise & Genoway Goaltending can only get better! Defense will rattle some skulls - I think 4 of our guys are potential NHL defensemen. Blais knows how to get a team into championship form - last year was simply too overwhelmingly against him with all the freshmen and the other WCHA teams being so darn good. Go Sioux

UND does not have a lot of upperclass players. With the departure of Bayda, the slate is wide-open for a leader on offense. So, who is going to step it up and be the top scoring upperclassman?

Taylor & Smail together were magic. How many times during a season did the fans have the treat of seeing the two of them breaking in all alone on goal, passing back and forth three or four times before burrying the puck? That was the best! I guess I'm saying that UND should have had some representation from the '80 era, but when they are only picking 50 players, this always happens.

Other "fluff" to chew on... Year Players with ... 40+ 20+ Top Goaltender Avg '99-'00 5 9 .927 '00-'01 4 10 .918 '01-'02 2 7 .902

UND's forwards by class (estimated '02 regular players): 2001 2002 Sr 0 2 So/Jr 6 7 Fr 6 3 (Genoway = "Freshman") The Sioux will have much more consistency with 3 fewer players in the bottom group and two actual seniors vs. zero last season. Losing Bayda was a blow, but not a "lethal" one.

Yes, Speez, it was a lousy vacation. Not that I'd expect to carry great karma around with all the negativity I've been spewing on these boards! Anyway, I got sick on day 2 of a week long trip. Yuck. I expect a lot from UND's hockey program. Sometimes, when I see the postings on this board, there seems to be an aweful lot of "don't expect too much." P.S. Didn't mean to take your posting out of context, Dagies. I just used it to spring into a wider comment.

Parise looks like a Panzer type player while Hirsch sounds more like a B. Lundbohm kind of guy. Either will probably do pretty well in college, but I'd put my money on Parise. Having people say you are the best to ever play in a tournament that has seen many future pro's is quite a compliment.

Spiewak & Notermann each had 28 pts last season.

I'm with you on both topics, although the latter has actually led me to lash out on the boards. Fournier has done pretty well for a freshman, considering he's been sick/injured half the time. In fact, none of the freshmen have been horrible, but I'm sure Blais expected SOMEBODY (besides Bochenski) to get 20 pts. None of the others are going to get there.

Obviously the biggest difference is Panzer, Roche, Lundbohm, Dorey & Goehring. That's a no-brainer. With a few more veterans (not cut), the role-playing spots would have been just a little more consistent. Maybe enough so that we could have finished 4th or 5th. I think Blais let his head get a little big after the last few years, thinking that he could bring the team around by Christmas, that's all. Still glad he is our coach, though. As for Fylling, he'll probably have to compete with R. Connelly and D. Faul for playing time. Also, Palmiscno and MacMahon may not see too much time if Parise & Genoway are good enough to play regularly. My guess is the guys who get single digit points this season will be shuffled in and out next season until someone proves he can contribute points. We've got good depth (even better next season), but they have come along a bit slower than I wanted to see. Let's hope they have breakout soph years! And, oh yeah...beat the Pioneers.

In hindsight, the article and quotes from Blais were overstating the emphasis UND is putting on defense. Blais wants the team to pay more attention to play away from the puck, but during the GLI they were aggresive offensively and it worked well. One of the most surprising stats so far is that NOONE has broken into double figures in goals scored. That sucks. What this team really needs is to find a balance with a solid checking and coverage game that also puts emphasis on team speed and lots of shots. Perhaps the top line of Bayda-Skarp-Massen will finally be the answer. Go Sioux