beastandco

Having alums from all over is such an advantage. That’s why UND has received commitments from Cooper Williams, Eli McKamey, Keaton Verhoeff, and Cole Reschny in the last calendar year. UND has gotten the guys that they can from the area and mixed in high end guys from Western Canada. Absolutely nothing wrong with that.

If solely focusing on Minnesota kids is the direction they are going to take, they have to recruit better. Potter, Hensler, and West were all from Minnesota and picked in the first round last year. Minnesota landed none of them. First round picks are not everything, but when they are right in your backyard, they should land more than they have in recent years.

Win or lose, I wonder what some of these uncommitted WHL guys will be thinking when they see Verhoeff, Reschny, etc. play in front of a packed Ralph crowd this weekend while they are on their team bus in the middle of Saskatchewan.

After listening to GPL last week, it sounds like there is a lot of concern and frustration with Minnesota’s ability to pay players and are less than optimistic when looking into the future. Minnesota’s issue with paying hockey players is that they are not allocated really any money for revenue sharing and their “Dinktown Athletes” NIL fund is not giving them much support either. The Golden Helmet collective was created to try and bypass these issues. Now, the issue with the Golden Helmet Collective is that the player has to provide equal value to the company for their NIL services or the newly created NIL Go will not clear the deal. Minnesota will be fine but much like North Dakota, they will not be able to be the highest bidder.

UND has to stay out of the box this weekend. If they stay out of the box, this team will wear their opponent down. I felt like a couple of the penalties called on UND were soft on Friday. Nonetheless, we cannot play like we did in the 2nd period last night. Minnesota will likely be less disciplined than St. Thomas. I would expect to see our powerplay a little more than we did last night.

Rankings definitely do not matter this time of year but I would not be surprised if UND climbs a few spots. Especially with most of the top teams splitting this weekend. Bucci has them at 3 which is a bit high. I would be surprised if they are not in the 5-7 range.

My three biggest takeaways tonight were: 1. Rickwood is so solid. What a sneaky big get for this team. 2. Wiebe has looked really good. He just keeps getting better. 3. The game was much more enjoyable when I had the commentators muted.

5-2 UND Zellers, Strinden, Menghini x2, and Wiebe

The recruits that contacted Bob about coming to Minnesota were likely no better than what they already had. I’m sure Bob had caught wind of how much it costed to get the blue chip CHLers and opted to save the money. The fact that they brought in McLaughlin, Pritchard, and the division 3 transfer over any CHL player is odd. Pritchard and McLaughlin are fine recruits but I would think he would want to start to build relationships with players and programs in Canada because the CHL is not going anywhere. I just think having a McKenna, Verhoeff, or Martone is so big for future recruiting.

That’s definitely a possibility, UND has not played yet and the gophers have time to get better. I just think Minnesota could have used a couple CHL contributors. UND didn’t really have a choice whether or not to dip into the CHL with their departures up front. Minnesota had the choice but decided to stick to their guys.

I think they are stuck between a rock and a hard place with recruiting. They definitely have pressure to keep recruiting local but they do not have the money to land all of the top guys. With the CHL opening up, they cannot afford to lose a Fitzhenry or Schneider to other schools but they may not have the resources steer them away from other programs. Other teams are getting better by dipping into the CHL and they are being left behind. It has been obvious through their first three games.

LJ Mooney reminds me of Jayden Perron. Lots of turnovers trying to do too much.

After being listed as week-to-week a last week, Cooper Williams was back in the lineup on Tuesday night. He picked up an assist and has been playing center this season, which I think is interesting.

The McKamey injury is an interesting situation. He had a solid year with exceptional status in the BCHL last year. He is committed to UND to come in for his draft year. Obviously he is a special talent but he clearly will not have a long run way to get ready for next season and make the jump to UND. I still think he ends up coming next year for his draft year unless it is his choice to push back his arrival. Hopefully he plays well when he comes back and it makes the decision easy.

It would be cool if St. Thomas was able to land him. I bet that he ends up at Michigan. If he was staying home and going to Minnesota, he would have committed a long time ago. Just my opinion.

I would guess that Vehoeff is a two year guy based off of him turning 17 a couple of months ago and how beneficial that extra year has been for defensemen in the past. Especially when Artem Levshunov signed right away and played the whole year in the AHL. If he has a great year and leaves after this season, I will gladly take that. That would mean he is everything as advertised and some.

I wasn’t able to watch a lot of the game last night. Who was on the power play units? Did Verhoeff get any power play time? It seems like the Swanson-Reschny-Kernan line has some good chemistry.

That is definitely a creative way to generate money to the hockey NIL fund. It’ll be interesting to see how much is contributed from those two nights.

I cannot wait for Saturday nights exhibition game. It’ll be interesting to see what the line chart looks like. I am honestly more curious about what they do with the bottom six forwards than any part of the lineup. Also, out of Livanavage, Verhoeff, and Wiebe, who gets to play on the power play units?

I would say Smith being over a full year older than Verhoeff and having similar production is the main reason why Verhoeff is rated so high compared to Smith. Also, as you said, being a right shot boosts his stock a little more. I also think he outperformed Smith on the same u18 team this year as an underager.

Anyone know where to find their full press conference?

Minnesota and North Dakota should be flipped. After struggling against real teams last year, Minnesota lost a ton and their additions are underwhelming. If North Dakota’s underclassmen forwards can generate offense early in the season, they should climb up quickly.

I read that a few teams wanted him for this year and the Oil Kings were thrilled that UND wanted him to wait a year. He will be one of the top defensemen in the WHL this year.