hockeytherapy13

This isn’t a fair comment nowadays because there is sooo much good talent and so many great coaches. Add in the ability to use video for breaking down shifts and pre scouting the other teams/players and it makes for a more even playing field. We should and do expect great things but ripping Hak for never winning the big one and ripping a loss here and there (although we did play reeeally bad last night) isn’t always fair. Missing the tourney on 3 of the last 5 years was a painful blow but we are back on the upswing. Another example of how many good teams and players there are now: look at the bubble teams in the pairwise at 12-18ish and you can safely say any of those teams could legitimately make the frozen four. There will absolutely be “upsets” this year as there always are in the tourney but this season they should hardly be considered upsets in a one and done situation. sorry for the rant: I understand if I get the TLDR response haha

Heck we got swept at DU in either January or February of 2016 and that turned out fairly decent a couple months later

I think it’s more than just effort and tenacity. Because our guys came out with a ton of tenacity last night. It was about them making the wrong plays and not being able to break through the neutral zone or play with possession in the O-zone at even strength. Once we had that goal “taken away” with the early whistle and the high stick call for CC’s 3rd goal went the wrong way against us, we mentally crumbled. We were outcoached pretty hard and it got in our heads. Like it’s been said already, tonight’s response tells us a lot about our team. I still think CC deserves credit and is good enough to finish the sweep against us but we have enough talent to win if we play a smarter game.

Yeah 8 is being treated as if he is an offensive weapon and he’s not. Stop trying to force something that isn’t going to happen. Put him down to 4th line with ness and Albrecht, get strinden on 3rd with jammer and Perron so that Perron can flourish. or maybe really go for offense and get Perron back up with Gaber and Berg. Then have Kunz with Jammer and Strinden for a heavy line with great defense that can also be a threat then the 4th line is still Albrecht schmaltz and ness.

Hedquist should get the start tonight and some lines better be jumbled. A message needs to be sent that nights like last night (and like Friday in Oxford, for that matter) are unacceptable. The way we have lines set up, johannes or not, is not the answer for this team. Our 4th line was the only line that created 5x5 chances last night. But then again CC had a response for everything we tried

Watch Schmaltz and Pehrson get hat tricks in this period to make it crazy.

Our defense has been good most of the season, especially for being a completely new d corps.the team d is awfuk tonight all around. I’m not blaming the goalie, I’m just saying he’s let in some leakers throughout the year and just has not been the Persson we know he can be. It’s a fair and true statement

Persson isn’t the goalie we were hoping he would be. Some nights he’s incredible but too frequently he lets in easy ones. This is an awful showing by our guys, they all look bad except for the 4th line. But we got swept in the state of Colorado in 2016 so if we need to get some clunkers out of the way let’s do it now

Bad take. Have a seat

That’s the game folks

Of course their broadcast makes zero mention that we were 100% robbed of a goal due to an early whistle by a ref in poor position to blow it dead. That’s going to be a big story in this game because I don’t see us scoring 2 more goals to win it

Goalie also passed it to a guy who wasn’t even open

Nice to see someone can see all the right colors

Yep it’s not just you…. Or IS IT????

I still want to see Strinden on a line where he can get more ice time. Either he or ness on that 3rd line in place of schmaltz would automatically generate more offense and still be defensively sound. That would also get a person with Perron with some strength that could create more space for Perron to release his shot more often. Schmaltz is still a string bean that is too easy to get off the puck. Both ness and strinden would be better there. But I hope Schmaltz gets a hatty this weekend and proves me wrong.

Yep 8pm central since it’s 7pm Mountain.

This feels like one of the most important weekends of the season. Playing a game with a lot on the line (us vying for 1st in the NCHC and holding onto a 1-seed for the ncaa tourney while CC tries to move into an at-large spot and keep its hopes for NCHC home ice). With CC being a team that has playoff-level defense and goaltending all the time is a great test for us going into the playoffs. This is the weekend that will prepare us the most for the NCAAs with how tight it will be and how hard both teams will be going at it. Big time test for the boys that will teach us a lot about this team.

Berry and company have done an excellent job putting the team together this year and bringing us up multiple notches. But it's hard to see someone other than Mayotte winning coach of the year in our conference. He definitely deserves it with where that program was for 7-8 straight years. Major props to him

We could have scored 5 goals in that Saturday game against them if not for Close. He's been annoyingly good in the games I've watched him play. Scares me a bit, to be honest.

Omaha will play hard the rest of the way through. Because even if they aren't playing for home ice, they want to be playing their best hockey heading into the playoffs to have a chance to keep their season alive. Also, they will play hard because we are their biggest rival and ended their season last year, so that'll give them an extra boost.

With our remaining schedule being more difficult than we would have expected, I feel confident we finish Top 3 but I still don't feel like number 1 is a guarantee. CC on the road will be a huge challenge for us since they are so good defensively and possibly the best goaltending in the league along with stellar coaching. Omaha is trending in the right direction right now and playing them on the road might be tougher than we would have originally thought in the earlier part of the year. If we can split with CC and UNO on the road, that will be a big deal. Regarding remaining regular season home games: Western can pump goals in left and right but as least we get to play them at home and try to neutralize their top scorers with last line change. And although UMD is having a down year, they are still coached by Sandelin and have had some decent games in the New year thus far, therefore, we may not get a clean sweep over them like we did at Amsoil (but boy would it feel incredible to go 4-0 against them this year). All things considered, if we can be healthy and get consistent production from our top 6 (who knows who will be with Berg and Gaber on the top pairing next weekend) while continuing our upward trend of having good puck management, it seems like this team could hoist the pasta trophy outright in Omaha. Making Omaha fans watch us hoist there again would also feel good because they clearly have an obsession with UND

Only way we comeback is by getting strinden playing with scorers. He’s flying and if he deserves a better spot tonight. Bad change by the coaching staff on the shuffle

I was hard on Blake’s defensive play but he has really started turning a corner the last 2 weekends. The coaches are doing some great work with him and more importantly, he seems to be listening.

Seriously a johannes-Jammer-Strinden line would be outstanding. You have size, speed, and skill. Jammer is a decent faceoff guy and all 3 of those guys know how to go hard to the net. But they also are reliable away from the puck. What you have above for forward combos is about as picture perfect as this team could be now that Perron is up to speed on how to play in the NCHC. Schmaltz on the 4th line where he can be defensively reliable is a great spot for him too, there’s no need to try to force offense out of him. Plus with that bottom line you have, you know you could always rely on 4 of them (depending on who is the extra skater) to be smart and shut things down.

We were outstanding in OT tonight. Even though we didn’t score we did everything right. Didn’t force a shot, brought the puck out of the zone to regather ourselves while maintaining possession, had good D zone coverage for the little bit that clown had the puck. Possibly our best OT of the season from a strategy standpoint. Loved it