hockeytherapy13

Jax said that another school offered Verhoeff about 3x what we offered for NIL. But KV still wanted to come to UND which says a lot about the program and maybe even more about the character of KV. Loved the whole interview with Jax but that was a beauty of a nugget.

Let’s play the “build the line chart” game to take our minds off the infuriating fact that Ollie is out. Stating the obvious- it’s a Major loss with him being such a great two-way player, great in the faceoff dot, and was starting to heat up offensively. Already playing multiple roles including PP, PK, and being able to shutdown teams’ top lines. However,We are spoiled to have Kernan as the one who will (probably) pop into the 3rd line center. Do we try to build another formal shutdown line? Guessing the 4th line will have less TOI than usual with longer TV timeouts. I’m conflicted on where James and Zakreski end up so I’ll throw darts at the board and ask you all to clean up what I miss. James-Rickwood-Zellers Swanson-Reschny-Strinden Croal-Kernan-Zakreski Menghini-Littler-Young

When St. Cloud was in prep mode for the NCAA tourney in 2018 wasn't it pretty well known that Bob was going to be taking over the gophers coaching job? Then they laid in egg in the first round which was fun to watch.

Wow I didn’t even think of it this way

I'm nowhere near the ledge and am jacked up to see this team play in a regional. Honestly most teams that could get paired with us are not really going to know how to counter-attack when they get a taste of our depth at Forward and Defense. I want Verhoeff to play but It's perfectly acceptable to want older defenseman to play top-4 minutes when the game is down to the wire and we need an experienced defender. That's not a crazy take and having that preference does not mean I'm a ledgie -but I'm also an optimist in general haha. This team has a leg up on pretty much any team it plays- especially the nonconference suckers that haven't had the pleasure of playing a 4-line team. Add in the Dane Jackson x-factor they've developed where they don't stop coming in waves even if they are down by a few goals and don't appear to get mentally rattled.

KV going -4 in 16 mins on the ice compared to Liv being -3 with 24 mins on the ice are pretty different. This team can generate offense very well but this team giving up 3+ goals an many times as they have in the last few weeks is our bigger area of concern. That's why Verhoeff is not yet built for big minutes during a 1 and done situation in a tight game. I love that Verhoeff has gotten to play big-time minutes all year. That's why I said Jax has been raising him up the right way getting him what he needs because a guy should have the opportunity to fail and learn from it. Verhoeff has good but not great skating, bobbles the puck when pressured along the boards, and still hasn't fully connected with his body enough. He's going to be unbelievable next year but he's not the one we want out there in a tight 1-goal lead against a team's top lines with 2 mins left- with Save that for Liv, emery, Wiebe, and Zmolek. Also anyone comping having a 17-year old defenseman to Toews as a 17-year old forward needs to step back and take a moment to realize the massive differences in how those 2 positions translate to college hockey.

Looks like I pretty much just plagiarized what you said. Appears we are very much on the same page haha.

That’s fair, that’s my bad. But if you pay attention to the CHN and USCHO guys who have watched the committee for years, you’ll know that the committee will swap within bands to boost attendance. Which is simply crazy.

Agreed on the host site and neutral sites just in general. But the NCAA has swapped within seeded bands for attendance before and will not blink twice before doing it again. Their double standard of keeping ore-determined neutral sites but sacrificing bracket integrity for attendance is a special level of audacity but too many coaches still oppose home sites.

Yes. Our defensive depth has pushed him down. I’m worried he’ll transfer which is too bad because he’s a solid defender.

Regarding Verhoeff. Jax has taken the approach that Sandelin has done very well and that Berry often failed to do with young players. He put KV in big roles all year to let him fail and grow. It’s made him a better player. BUT- he cannot have top-4 minutes in the tourney in a do-or-die scenario, He’s got to be on the 3rd pairing. He’s 17 and just not ready the big-time moments against more mature players. Those little mistakes he makes regularly will end up in our net in a tight game. Throw a thousand tomatoes at me for saying this but I would rather see a boring but steady defenseman like Jubenvil make smart simple plays, a good breakout pass, and let the forwards do their thing.

It was Kotyk that took the cheap shot on Poolman that resulted in him being out that game and the NCAAs. It was a hit from behind that didn’t even get called for a 2. But your point stands that Duluth was definitely taking their cheap shots again before the tourney while they can get away with it.

I like your optimism but to believe this is a 100% guarantee is incorrect. Once they have their 1v16 matchup, The committee treats the seeing in groups. For example: they are willing to swap around 14/15 13/14 because they are all 4 seeds Same goes for 9/10 10/11 11/12 since those are all 3 seeds. They will absolutely swap 1-2 spots for sake of attendance as long as they keep the teams in their banded seeds. They’ve done it before and they’ll do it again to get 1/4 full rinks up to 1/3 full haha

Yeah I see Arnott and Truman being top-6 potential with each of them having more than 10 goals. But Bibby and Bentz won’t be on those lines past the 3rd shift

You’ll have to excuse those of us who remember Shawn Hunwick.

Plantes Shaugabay line will be back together before all the fans are in their seats.

With each passing year it baffles me more and more that they don't do this. I used to be more understanding, but we're getting to the point where it makes such little sense to do these empty neutral sites where the 16th team could end up being in their own backyard.

I wish the committee actually respected bracket integrity but they don't. The double standard of not letting a higher seed host a game combined with moving teams around to help with attendance is insane.

Agree that if the Plante line gets shut down Duluth will struggle, but they actually have 5 different guys that have 10 or more goals (obviously the plante line makes up 3 of the 5) and then Ty Hanson the D has 8 goals and is flirting with almost a point per game. We should still beat them if we are playing our A game but the Dogs aren't as much of a 1-trick pony as they were 2 months ago.

Kotai is remarkably better than Latkoczy. Also Latkoczy has never had much success against us to begin with. But Kotai can and could steal a game from us. We've had games against Denver and ASU at home where we got goalie'd despite being the much better team. It could happen against Auggie for sure. If we have to get sent out east to play HC instead of Augustana or even Mankato I'll take it because those goalies scare me.

I love that we are playing Duluth leading into the tournament. At this point in the season, if you can't shut down a high octane line like the Plante line, then you are going to struggle against the Wolverines or Spartans. Great practice to see where we are at with our Dzone coverage and rush defense against great players. Obviously playing the rush hasn't been spectacular for a few weeks but I think we will shore that up.

In no way can Croal come out of the lineup. He is the best defensive wing we have. The guy is a champ on the PK and keeping us up when games are close. Future "C" right there, maybe even next season

93%

I haven't listened to the pod yet this week but I was doing a peeking at the last 3 weekends of Omaha's box scores. In the last 6 games they are 33% on the power play and 88% on the PK. Obviously their overall numbers are underwhelming but they appear to be a team who has progressed throughout the season. So let's play this series 5x5 please.

Michigan is much better defensively than they have been in years. 2.4 GA/G (same as Western) and we are 2.3 GA/G Seems like Naurato has been actually preaching structure haha