nascar99

Terrible

This is like if Kentucky Men's Basketball played an exhibition against Montverde or Oak Hill and didn't try, such a rough watch so far

Funny how Heinert says Wathier is from Des Moines: he was only born there when his dad was playing minor pro, raised & played all of his minor hockey in Quebec. I think Knowling was born in Chicago but raised in Toronto and played all of his minor hockey there. Classic loophole to play for the States, Emery used it, Bordeleau did too

Would have preferred for UND to come out guns-a-blazing and get the big lead, then coast, instead of just coast for the whole period

The u18 team mostly commits as 16 year olds, so there's no recruiting advantage for this 95% of the time

I get that it is an exhibition against the NTDP, but the visible lack of give a f*** from the team is annoying. Engel at least with some bite/edge to start the game

At the time, the 2002s were really underwhelming back in 2019-20. At least that produced Sanderson, Beniers, Faber, and Kleven to a lesser degree. Not sure how many solid NHLers the 2008s will produce.

Coming off injury and not up to speed yet. Also very possible he was overhyped coming out of minor hockey and is nowhere near as good as people projected

5-3 UND is my guess

Classic problem of the hockey world being too small & close that reporters don't like outing people/teams because those people would get mad & stop giving them info. Insiders in other sports where that sport's world is so big & wide, they don't worry as much about stepping on each other's feet

Would expect 5-6 of them to be in junior next year. They just aren't ready for the NCAA yet

The u18 NTDP has been bad this year for the most part. Interested to see what this exhibition looks like

Yes. Over point per game in the Q as a 17 year old last season. He's going to have a bit of an adjustment period when he makes the jump up a level (whether that be to the NCAA or pro), but the skill is definitely there for him to be a solid contributor. Steiner follows 2 programs on Instagram: North Dakota and Boston College. With UND now following him, there's a very good chance steam is picking up.

Emery is almost certainly back for a 3rd year, Rangers have stated publicly they're in no rush to bring him in (they might be finally learning from their mistakes of rushing guys into the league). Jubenvill seems like the most likely to enter the portal, wouldn't be surprised to see Strathmann in the portal as well, he hasn't taken as big of a step as I had imagined, but no clue on how he views everything.

He's also gotten better week to week, which is super impressive as a 17 year old in the NCAA

Might have to go to the O for more star forwards. Would be a tougher recruiting battle, but certainly worth it for guys like Roobroeck & Belchetz

Vanek is one of the more fascinating uncommitted players. Wonder if he's holding out for a Minnesota offer or if he's waiting for the right offer/opportunity to go to a different top tier program where he won't have the constant pressure of living up to his dad's legacy.

Sanderson is going to be a really solid 3, maybe 4 year character/culture guy, depth scorer at North Dakota. Just have that feeling

Others had interest, but because several programs (ex: Minnesota) have coaching staffs with no knowledge of the player pool in the O, the Dub, or the Q (&/or any willingness to do the hard & quick work to recruit these players) certain players will have been a bit less recruited than expected. The good programs will have connections throughout the Canadian hockey world, and many including North Dakota will have familiarity with the CHL player base when they were recruiting them coming out of minor hockey before they went major junior under the old rules. Certain schools would have been all over Josh Zakreski before he committed, several others would have had no clue who he was in the Dub. Same applies for Kocha Delic, the standout in the O who is putting up very good numbers at Miami.

Didn't have an opportunity in 2020 and in 2021, couldn't get one more in a crazy regional final 5OT game. But those teams were legitimately great.

You're going to see more and more uncommitted guys in the USHL. Teams are getting pickier with their commits now with 1000+ CHLers eligible. And players are less loyal than they've ever been as well

Bad bad bad

There's a non zero chance that Strinden read/heard the criticism from all of us s*** talking about him missing the net all the time & he's gone off since!!