sagard

They did kind of pay that one forward I must say.

US beats the Czechs. 6-3. Zatkoff plays and stops 36 of 39. Hope the boys can figure out how to defend a little better when the games start to matter.

UND fans have there hands full with plenty of other issues. If they want to blow off a little steam and buy some Holy Cross gear, knock yourselves out. I doubt many people were choosing between a HC jersey and a UND jersey, it was probably a HC jersey or their 4th or 5th UND shirt. It not like us Gophers fans are going to let UND fans off the hooks if/when something rediculous happens to UND.

I think experience at the blue line is the most underrated aspect of a college hockey team. This year the Gophers have three upper classmen and the #1 NHL draft pick playing the lions share of the minutes. They still make mistakes, but when they are all on their game they are very smooth in going D-to-D and moving out of the zone with speed. The '04-'05 Sioux blueline took a while to adjust to the rules (or was it the rules adjusting to them?) and then when they started clicking only DU (who was loaded) could play with them. Last year Parise and the offense in my opinion made a lot of the mistakes your seeing this year go away. Next year even if you lose Toews and Oshie I would expect that the Sioux defense will have turned a corner and will have a much better start than this year.

It does look awesome, but outside of the US/Canada game I doubt there will more stress on their system than normal.

What's the score?

I've heard from many that coaching women/girls is a lot more rewarding than the men/boys. Less politics, less stress, they listen better and mouth off less. The only downside is I doubt the money compares, but to a guy like Blais it probably isn't the biggest issue at this point. Personally I'd like to see Blais replace Lucia after another NCAA title or two, but I probably shouldn't put the cart before the horse.

I think it's their best chance since the '04 tourney. Canada is out of North America and Malkin/Ovechkin are gone. It will come down to getting the breaks and winning the pool is critical.

It is the conference tourney champions and the top teams in PWR that round out the field of 16.

1. UM - The remaining question is how goaltending will finish down the stretch. Regionals in either Michigan or Denver will not be a picnic. They are the only top three lock in my opinion. 2. SCSU - They have looked to me to be VERY good. Goaltending should actually improve. 3. UW - I really hope I'm wrong. 4. UND - I just think in the end they will be better and finish better than the CO schools. 5. DU 6. CC 7. AA 8. MTU 9. MSU 10. UMD - Whenever I trash these guys they end up winning around eight in a row. I think UW, UND, DU, CC are going to be playing for the crucial #3 WCHA and #5 WCHA spots and of course two NCAA tourney spots. Once in the NCAA tourney any of the four could advance to the Frozen Four.

The Gophs were 7-8-1 back in '03-'04 and finished with a #1 seed. Anyone who wants to dismiss the Sioux or UW at this point is foolish.

I've actually long given up on the Gophers having a great goaltender. Every year I just hope our goalie will play great when they need him most.

The short answer is that it is because they aren't easy to identify. This is also a question I often ask of the Gopher program. It seems like I can count the number of games that the Gophs have had an advantage vs. UW in nets on one hand over the last 20 years. There are some exceptions, but the great college goalies seem to develop over their first two years of playing time and then become dominant. Nothing prohibits freshmen and sophomores from playing great at the end of the season or having them "come up big" in the playoffs. Manino/Weber are recent examples of that type of goalie. Parise was brilliant last year and know doubt would have been this year as well, so I really don't know if the Sioux have been really that weak in nets over time compared to some other high profile WCHA programs.

Has Canada ever NOT sent a VERY strong team? The US and others can knock them off, but it will take great efforts to do it. There will be a point this tourney where the Canada goalie is put under pressure. If he cracks like Fluery did they can be beaten.

All we are going to hear this year from up north is complaining about the refs and their goaltending. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qV_WglapwDA

Come on. They had all of Vancouver rooting against them last year, throw them a bone. We will see how intimidating the Canadians are when they don't have large crowd support like they have had the last two years.

Greene plays 15 minutes per game. Commodore's shifts must be pretty damn long because he is seeing 21 minutes per game.

To have any expectation of continueing to play at a 13-1-3 pace is simply rediculous. However the Gophers have built up a good record and should be able to finish with mid to upper twenties in the win column and a #1 NCAA seed. Not that it did a lot for them last year, but I'll take it every year given the option.

I expect January and early February to be a bumpy period for the Gophers. They will have time to pull it back to together again in late February and March. How well they do in the post season will of course be very dependant on how their goaltending plays and their NCAA draw. The Sioux should start playing better during January and February and I truly hope it starts this weekend for them. I'd love to see UW not even participating in the post season.

Have the pools been drawn yet? If the US and Canada are in the same group again, I don't think they will meet in the finals. Beating two straight European teams in Sweden just to get to the finals could be tough for even mighty Canada.

Anyone know if Center Ice does the games in HD?

Do you have to revisit the removal of games from the RPI calculation every week? It seems like some of those game RPI's over 0.6000 are likely to help a teams RPI when their record falls to a more realistic level. Specifically the Gophs and UNH have those types of games being discounted currently.

Anyone here think the Gophers eat their young?

There should always be Gophers threads here. Keep your friends close, your enemies closer. Two horrible injuries this season at Mariucci. The UW kid's concussion and now this is even more serious. It takes the fun out of great games.

Good for Bina! He is very easy to cheer for. Pretty hard to root too hard against the US kids though, they usually play pretty hard.