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Let's assume Toews leaves but that's all. Which of these forwards do you sit: Oshie, Duncan, Trupp Watkins, VanDeVelde, Forney Kaip, Zajak, Miller Hextall, Malone, Kozek Hamilton, Martens, Radke This assumes that Forney shows why he was a top draft pick and also that both Malone and Hextall come in. I have no idea how good Hamilton so I put him on the bench knowing full well he may be very good and beat out some someone. I think Genoway makes more of an impact at defense than forwward. If Lee and Finley stay and LaPoint is as good as his stats (Number 2 scoring defenseman in the USHL, 6'4" 185lbs) then it will either be Jones or Genoway that sits along with Marto. My number one concern for next year since the announcement of Oshie, Chorney, and Duncan is goaltending. We need Greico to step up and be able to play 10-15 games without a drop off from Phil. Greico is young so hopefully he can learn good practice habits and even though he may not be the Number 1 goalie, he needs to be able to step in at any time and do it well.

We left Wednesday from Fargo on Northwest. We met two young guys in the airport bar before leaving. One had won the trip to St. Louis and he had decided to drag his brother-in-law who was a NDSU fan along. The NDSU fan had not seen a hockey game before. We hit it off and the entire weekend we had a great time with them. Arrived Wednesday evening around 7:00 via plane and stayed at the Sheraton City Center across from the Scottrade Center. $42 for a taxi from the airport to downtown. Oh well. Spent most of Wednesday night at Bernie Federko

I do not want Brian Lee to leave school. However Ottawa or even Brian himself may look at his development progress and think differently. There were times I thought Brian was very good like in the Regional finals against Minnesota and there were times I thought he had not improved as much as I expected. Being a Number 1 draft pick the expectations for Brian were set very high before he arrived. I think people thought he would be a dominant force defensively. On the surface it seemed as if Brian regressed somewhat this year. He seemed steadier than last year but also did not jump into the play as much as I would have expected. He may not feel that he is developing as much as he'd like at North Dakota and by moving to the AHL and playing 70 games that development process may be accelerated. I've always felt that defensemen should stay in college at least three years to develop their strength and skills and then decide after their junior year if they are ready for the pounding of the AHL or the NHL. So I think Brian should stay another year at least. Then decide if he needs new surroundings to improve his skills even more.

Being at the game it seemed like BC must have seen somethign in how we do faceoffs because they seemed to be able to get the Sioux player thrown out of the circle whenever they wanted to. I know the stats say Toews took 28 faceoffs but it seemed like he got thrown out more than he actually took.

I said the same thing. He must have meant Genoway.

I wanted to share this article from the St. Louis Post Dispatch in case you had not seen it: http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/sports/co...A0?OpenDocument

I spent some time talking with Jeff Sauer during the championship game on Saturday. The first thing he said was that it was too bad that these teams can't play with the referees they play with all season. He said that he used to spend way more time than he wanted simply preparing his team for how the non-WCHA ref would call the game. Unfortunately the team that adjusts first seems to win. I then asked what about Finley's penalty to put BC up 5 on 3. His indignant response was that was not a penalty! I don't want to focus only on the officiating. BC addjusted quickly. They were able to see that Shegos was going to call the big hits and was not going to call the clutching and grabbing. Toews was constantly held and sticked with no calls. If he was playing in the NHL he probably draws at least 5 penatties. The reality of this game was that we had some luck in the second period when BC hit pipes and we still came out tied 2-2. When we went down 3-2 the crowd in St. Louis was quiet. Oshie makes a great play to tie the game and get everyone back into it and then we get a penalty by Finley that was bogus that turns into the true game winning score. Immediatley after they scored I told my wife that Shegos was not done and he would call some against BC since he had let them score the game winner five on three. Of course he did to turn a great game into a wild scramble at the end. Finley's penalty should never been called

A new one just for this weekend: Before the Final Five Youngblood was playing in the car for the kids in back (ok these "kids" were in their 40s and 50s). We then proceeded to kick St. Cloud. I was driving. So the afternoon before we played the Gophers in the regionals I made it a must to watch Youngblood. We won. I'll be watching Youngblood before we leave to St. Louis. I figure that means a win against BC. But then what the heck do I do on Saturday without Youngbood to watch? I may need to find a copy somewhere and then someplace to watch it again. You know Rob Lowe really hasn't aged since that movie

Here's a chat with BC forward Pat Gannon: http://bceagles.cstv.com/sports/m-hockey/s.../032807aad.html My favorite part: What do you know about North Dakota? What are their strengths? What's their style of play? I feel like they breed them out there. Pretty much every player is twice the size as I am. They have strength. They have a lot of speed. They have a lot of kids that can put the puck away that we're going to try to keep off the board. We're going to try to be quicker than they are and hopefully get away like we did last year with a win. It should be a game of speed versus size.

Well according to this NY Times article i'ts actually Dave Raskot and then later on Whitehead: My apologies for posting the entire article but the Times requires a login and I didn't think you all would want to spend the time. ST. LOUIS, March 27 (AP)

I found out yesterday that the team is staying at the Sheraton City Center Hotel across from the arena. Guess where we're staying Here are some St Louis notes from posters on USCHO: Bars: Schlafy's has the Taproom downtown as previously posted and the Bottleworks in Maplewood Areas around Scottrade for bars are Bernie Federko's sports bar in the Sheraton right across the street. Union Station is not far and I would imagine that would be the center for whatever rally's schools may have. There is a Hard Rock, Houlihans and Landry's seafood there. Also close by Union Station on the west side is Maggie O'Briens, a nice bar. You can't go wrong with The Landing or Soulard. Washington Ave. has new establishments since it has been undergoing redevelopment the last few years. Restaurants: 1. Make sure you check out Mosaic on Washingotn Ave. It's right next to the Dome...its upscale tapas. 2. For a nice restaurant in the Dome area, try An American Place. This restaurant is in a remarkable room in the Renaissance Hotel, across from the dome. For watching sports on TV, I would go to Bernie Federko's Steak and Sports Bar - they took over the spot called Jacques in the Sheraton City Center. I haven't been to Federko's, but I assume they still have the abundance of television screens that Jacques had. Federko's is at the Civic Center subway stop. 3. You should find plenty of options on Washington Ave. An American Place is fantastic, but quite expensive. I've heard good things about Rooster (crepe place), Dubliner (Irish pub), and Papa Fabarre's (in the downtown Macy's), to name a few 4. I highly recommend Mosaic and Red Moon for your nice, not at all stuffy dinners. Try the Sidebar for your sports bar. I really, really don't like the food at Flannery's and avoid eating there. You also may like Tenth St. Italian on Tenth Street, as well as Sen (thai) which is right off of Washington Ave. The Dubliner is next to Mosaic and usually has live (Irish) bands on the weekends

Hey I actually like Radke. I just wish he'd play smarter.

I thought the same thing last weekend especially after seeing the 5 minute major. Martens would not be that dumb to potentially cost us a game in the 5 minutes he gets to play. Martens has played hard when he's played and seems to have a better chance at putting the puck in the net than Radke. But maybe Hakstol likes the way Radke skates crazily around the ice trying to hit anything that moves. I know I don't.

Thanks.

Did Radke get a game DQ? Can he play agaisnt BC?

Great story PCM.

Does anyone else find it disturbing that recently we have sophomores and even younger kids committing to college like Ness did? These kids are 14-16 years old max with very little thought except "Hey I like hockey and I like that school so yeah I'll go there." Is it even "legal" for a coach to talk to a kid that young and how binding is a verbal commitment especially when they are so young? It just bothers me that kids this young are making HUGE commitments to a college when they most likely have no idea what they want to pursue as a career. I guess it's hockey huh?

I just got an email from a friend from Buffalo who catches all of the Sabres games. I had to share the last part of his message here: P.S. Stafford had a great game last night. He is really opening the eyes of the fans and media around here and becoming a big favorite. I heard an interview from him earlier in the year where he was praising his development at North Dakota. He fought the guy the cheap shotted Chris Drury a while back, and shortly after a big brawl erupted. Vanek was seen hiding under the bench. I thought his last line about Vanek was hilarious.

I thought the major reason we weren't getting shots on goal was not because we were being too pretty but because Minnesota did a great job of blocking shots and not letting them get to the goal. The didn't just block with their bodies but there were so many shots that they deflected into the netting or away from the goal with their sticks. That was the first time in many years I've seen a Minnesota team willing to lay it on the line. Still I felt the huge number of penalties made for no flow in the game which helped Minnesota. It also seemed like the shots on goal were very inflated towards Minensota but I probably had my green glasses on.

I was at the game and when Wheeler caught the puck off the boards I immediately jumped up and screamed "He's offside". It looked to me like he was in the zone by a good two feet by the time the puck got in the zone off the boards. Then of course he scores which made it even worse for me. Did anyone else think it was offside?

Minnesota in 2 St. Cloud in 2 North Dakota in 2 Denver in 3 CC in 3

Even now the Pairwise sucks. We could be better off in the Pairwaise if we lost to Mankato this weekend and kept them as a TUC. If we sweep Mankato they probably drop out as a TUC and our Pairwise rating drops. Now that is plain stupid! We want Krach! We want Krach! We want Krach!

To answer the question starting this thread: Saturday March 3rd at St. Cloud: North Dakota-1 Darcy Zajac (Ryan Martens, Robbie Bina) 3:12 North Dakota-2 T.J. Oshie (Robbie Bina, Jonathan Toews) 4:42 North Dakota-3 Chay Genoway (Brad Miller, Joe Finley) GWG 15:45 Second Period North Dakota-4 Darcy Zajac (Joe Finley) 3:07 North Dakota-5 Taylor Chorney (Brian Lee, Jonathan Toews) PPG 10:17 Third Period North Dakota-6 Brad Miller (Chris Porter, Chris VandeVelde) 10:42 North Dakota-7 Ryan Martens (Kyle Radke, Joe Finley) PPG 18:10 So we have Zajac, Genoway, Miller, and Martens scoring tonight. COOL! I guess the other guys can score.

Not true man. I had 469 points as Rip His Face Off. The next closest was 464. I didn't change my team one week when I was on a cruise and it cost me the playoffs. Man am I an idiot. Thanks AZSioux for running the league it was a lot of fun. Now if you could only win without picking Gopher players it would be great.

Before January 1 I said we needed to do the following to make the NCAAs: Split at CC (we did) Sweep UAA (we took 3 points) Sweep Bemidji (we did) Split at Minensota (we swept) Sweep Mankato Sweep Duluth Split at Denver Split at SCSU What we need to finish in 3rd place in the WCHA from the other teams is this and it very possible in my mind: This week: St. Cloud and CC split , Denver splits at Tech and we sweep: St. Cloud has 28 points, Denver has 28, CC has 27 and we have 24. Next week: Minnesota sweeps CC, St Cloud splits at Wisconsin and we sweep: We are now tied for third place with Denver with 28 points. The next week: We split with Denver, Minnesota sweeps St. Cloud, CC splits at Mankato. Denver, St. Cloud, and us are tied for second ahead of CC by one point. Last weekend: We split with St. Cloud, Denver and CC split. Three way tie for second place. We move ahead of St Cloud because of our 2-1-1 record against them. Then who knows about us and Denver. Hey it could happen. We could finish second. But you have to root for the Gopehrs the rest of the way