hockeytherapy13

Agreed but Fersch has proven we can't predict what they are going to do. Just an absolute wildcard haha. I mean there probably wasn't a soul last year pre-season that would have put them at #1 for Penrose, winning league champ, or a natty. Just a clinic in coaching, it was unreal.

I’ll provide my own receipt. I am 100% guilty of thinking he’d be chilling in the AHL. *dons dunce cap*

I thought about that but I have this weird thing about loading up all right-handed forwards onto one line since we don't have many of them. No matter how the lines shake out, teams are going to have a rough time matching up against our 3rd line. We may not have the most potent top 6 right away, but Heaven help those teams that have to try to match us with depth at forward and D when we have a lead.

Keep in mind that the Herald comes out with that massive pre-season special every year that will have about a dozen different articles in it. I'm guessing schloss is working on all of that. Simma donna

Let’s get this started. I want to see what other people think lines could look like early on. Here’s my uneducated guess based off of stats, what we’ve heard about these guys, age, college experience, etc. Swanson-Rickwood-Zellers James-Reschny-Strinden Menghini-Littler-Kernan Zakreski-Josephson-Croal Andrew-Klee-Young Livanavage-Zmolek Wiebe-Verhoeff Strathmann-Emery Laurila(Extra skater)-Jubenvill Engel Homer Spunar Sandy *Guessing Young, Klee, and Zakreski will battle it out for the 12th forward spot but I have a feeling Zakreski will rise due to higher potential for offense and apparently he’s well-conditioned based off his Iron Man results. Even though Klee is a draft pick, he might be fighting to get in this season as he gets acclimated to the college game as a huge guy. *Zmolek may get eased in due to not having played in a year but he’ll ramp up quick. Maybe Emery plays top pair with Livanavage to start the year. Extra skater will probably always be D so we can get weekly reps for Verhoeff and Laurila as well as keeping Strathmann and Jubenvil rolling.

Question for the insiders like @stoneySIOUX. Who are you hearing is looking really good in practice? Which freshmen are surprising the group and/or which guys seem like they are looking as if they will take a big step compared to last year?

Can you 2 just argue in your DMs, please? Thanks in advance

I partially agree; but it’s not like Omaha is grabbing an entire team and bringing them in. They are taking the best players from those teams and many of them will be older and physically ready for the league. When we play Manitoba, those teams maybe have 1-2 solid players that could play higher leagues but they are harder to notice because they are surrounded by 18 other mediocre guys.

They were a very young team last year and their best player (Max Plante) was injured a good chunk of the year. My money is on him for NCHC forward of the year and player of the year. This 8-0 run against Duluth has been so much fun but I think they’ll snag at least 1 or 2 from us this year.

Still find it insane that he didn’t get a single point during the NCAA tourney. That’s some killer coaching and grit they showed.

Anyone have any inside info regarding what other schools were pursuing him?

Mentioning online how he can recognize a nice pair of tits the same way he can recognize a nice D zone breakout is not exactly the persona we’d want him bringing to the stage. It’s ok to like him and what he’s done for us while also realizing he’s been absolutely obnoxious at times. Both things are true.

I mean if he brought his Twitter persona to Midco, it would embarrass all of us. If he just brings his hockey brain and speaks like an adult, then he’ll be great. I think @Username Taken was referring to what spews from his Twitter feed, although, that’s gotten better than and toned down from what it was a year ago.

https://puckpreps.com/brooks-demars-caps-off-busy-summer-with-north-dakota-commitment/

He's not defensively reliable enough to be a 4th line type guy because we all know how tough he is. Guessing he's still slapped into a scoring role somehow, but I'd be lying if I said I wish him the best opportunities available haha.

Listened to that one. It was pretty good but they made it pretty clear that McKenna is still the highly likely choice. But also that it’s not insane to think that he could be dethroned by Verhoeff. Also sounded like if his skating was better the chances would be higher

Pretty sure you win the internet today. Bravo

When a guy that high end and skilled plans to play with a chip on his shoulder, look out. Man it's to be awesome watching him progress this season. Guessing by early December he'll already be terrorizing teams with his size and speed.

Costantini ended up performing very well and played a solid role for Western in winning a natty. Seemed like one of those opportunities where he needed a different role to thrive because when guys like Senden (don’t get me wrong, he bled green and was a great team-first guy) and Hain play over you regularly, it’s hard to develop to your full potential.

This is exactly what was missing the last couple of seasons under Berry. Playing older guys that couldn’t score over younger ones with a high ceiling ended up hurting us.

Guessing my 6 year old will have them down faster than me.

Yeah shut that place down and give us Max Plante. (My money is on him for NCHC player of the year)

I think they are going to be better than last year. They essentially are grabbing the best players from those teams and will have all older guys that know how to play hard and structured. They are also all going to have some form of chip on their shoulder to prove that they can play US NCAA D1. I don't care for Omaha because I think their fans are whiny. I think Stu is a smart coach and seems to get good production out of what he has. But in my opinion he's a bit of a poor sport and seems to like a little gamesmanship but idk if that's in my head or not.

Hunter shepherd came from the NAHL. He was decent. Don’t get me wrong, that league is going to be rarely tapped for us moving forward. But if we’re are grabbing a low-down-the-pole depth guy who will almost never play, I think it’s ok to take one like this. If we would have taken a better player from a better league, that guy gets buried in the lineup, hates that he never plays, and then transfers. This guy knows he’s likely not to play and will mostly be for practice and in case of 3 injuries.

That belongs to Littler until someone dethrones him. Either way, something tells me that Klee is going to have a hard time cracking the lineup as the season progresses. Practices are going to be intense because the bottom 3 F and the bottom 2 D are all going to want to fight and claw their way in. This team might not have a super high flying forward group yet, but they are going to be awful to play against. there will tube a lot of tight game games but I think that our goalie and D Corp will push us through.