sagard

Last year the Sioux took a ton of penalties in the regional. It didn't end up mattering because they just killed them and kept on pounding BU and BC. I'd love to see the Gophers get 10 PP chances vs. the Sioux.

You guys don't need to worry so much about the Gophers. They will be ready and put out a great effort. Just going back to last season, they came out and played great vs. Maine and Cornell in the regional after two disappointing efforts/losses at the X. The Gophers are a dangerous team, but they are not in the same class as their recent championship teams. They give up lots of shots and Briggs is a guy who isn't usually going to lose the game for them, but he isn't going to steal any wins either. They have little or no physical game, but they didn't show a physical game until the Michigan semifinal in '02 either. The wins had been piling up primarily due to Ryan Potulny, but the Gophers have had a bad habit of giving up lots of goals to non-descript offenses like Tech, AA and now SCSU/UW. The trick for the Gophers will be to score five goals in the regional final and take their chances that the opposition can't match them. They will need a goal or two from either the Guyer line or the fourth line and the power play can't take the night off. If I'm UND fan I'd be very happy that no one else in the regional can match Parise and that they have home ice. I think the Holy Cross game will be a lot better indication of where the Gophers are at than the UW game. CC struggled all game with Wayne St. in '03, got beat the next day. Same with UND and HC in '04. Last year it was BC and Mercyhurst. DU and Michigan have survived struggling with the CHA/AHA foe, but they were coming in off conference tourney championships.

He is running through the cities, smiling because he is going to Milwaukee to watch the Gophers hockey team play.

I didn't recognize you without the Maine hat.

I don't like either of their situations. We have the #1 Krach team lined up to play the #5 Krach team in the quarterfinals. Regular season champ vs. Playoff champ. This is not how brackets should be drawn, but that is another topic. I expect a shootout. If UND is willing to give the Gophers the same amount of shots they gave SCSU, I like the Gophers chances. If UND plays like they did the last 50 minutes vs. UW, the Gophers don't have a shot.

These are the Krach based odds of the teams making it to each round. Krach takes no consideration of home ice for the regional or how well the team is playing at a given moment. If recalculated after the 1st round games UW and UM wouldn't be such dramatic favorites, but the advantage of facing a weak 1st round opponent is large when compared to the rest of the field. Based on the way UND has played for the last month and the home ice regional, I think their chances are decent. But having a potential path of Michigan, Minnesota, BU/Miami, then UW is a tough road. If I were forced to bet a lot of my money, I'd take UW every time. They look to me to have a very easy road to the championship game with basically home crowd advantage and one team in the top six of KRACH in their path to the championship game.

I play in my first and POI loses.

Yes. They appear to have about 13 guys who probably played in that game two years ago.

I've only seen Michigan a few times, but they seem undisciplined and very inconsistant. Part of that has to do with their goaltending no doubt. Michigan will play a very good game, but I don't see them as dangerous of an opponent as BC with Schnieder.

They aren't going to turn pro before the Gophers play in the Frozen Four are they?

Stafford and Smaby?

It was an outstanding game. One of the most fun I've played in for a long time. We skated for an hour and a half and there were maybe two POI penalties and one SS penalty. I thought we'd tie it up at the end and we were pretty darn close, but stuckinfargo was outragous. I'm glad the guys from LCHA showed up, they made it a lot of fun and gave needed depth to the guys/gal in green. Sioux Traveller you should play next year, but be warned I think the siouxsports.com team will ask you to skate hard.

Wodon from collegehockeynews.com: Midwest (Green Bay) 1. Wisconsin vs. 16. Bemidji St. 8. Cornell vs. 9. Michigan West (Grand Forks) 2. Minnesota vs. 15. Holy Cross 7. North Dakota vs. 11. BC Northeast (Worcester) 3. BU vs. 14. Neb.-Omaha 6. Miami vs. 10. CC East (Albany) 4. Michigan State vs. 13. UNH 5. Harvard vs. 12. Maine

Gophs Holy Cross (Bemidji if the NCAA wants to save a little cash) UND BC (very remote chance it's Michigan) Congrats to the WCHA Champions!

UW is the favorite in my opinion. They will cruise to the Frozen Four and have two weeks from there to get there game in order.

I'm more upset about last nights loss than any loss in the last couple of years. Had they beaten SCSU they would have been the #1 overall and had a real shot at avoiding the GF regional. In my opinion the Frozen Four would have been a virtual lock. Now even if they beat UW, I'm convinced they will be sent to GF anyways. Chemistry is overrated. This Gopher team doesn't have the blueline their previous two NCAA title teams had. They give up lots of shots and if Briggs or the offense isn't clicking they will have trouble winning against tourney teams. That said, they are still VERY good offensively and who ever is going to beat them in tourney play will need to be very disciplined and get great goaltending.

The Gophs blew that chance last night. It's going to be the WCHA playoff champion and the WCHA Regular Season champ in a quarter final. How nice for UW and the rest of the NCAA teams.

The Gophs choked last night to be sure, but it's not like the boys in green are immune to gagging occasionally... On topic. Tonights game should be fun. SCSU will no doubt go all out as long as they can, but I think the Sioux played VERY well after the opening 10 minutes yesterday and should win fairly easily. Of course I felt that way about the Gophs/SCSU game as well.

Despite the results the Gophers have not been playing that great for a while now. They have had too many loose games where goaltending and defense have been poor. RP pretty much wasn't going to be denied and they won the Regular Season title. Now they are playing better teams and might not be able to get away with the sloppiness. The Gophers will try hard today, they tried hard last year vs. UND in the 3rd place game. They just don't always get the results. I maintain the results vs. UW (win or lose) today will have very little impact on the UND game next weekend. That game will come down specialty teams effectiveness. If UND can either kill penalties or stay out of the box they will advance past the Gophers.

No. It just would have been a heck of a lot more fun for me tonight. For the Sioux to move way up, I think they needed to win the WCHA and have both MSU and BU to tank. I'm glad someones with me on the Earl stuff. There is no way they would have the ice ready for tonights game if he is allowed to continually perform his Louganis act.

Like last year? If the Gophers make an early exit it will due to getting beat by UND, not because of their effort vs. UW in 3rd place game.

It would be nice but I think BU and MSU needed to lose for that to happen, and it didn't. The Gophers blew all chance of avoiding GF with their collapse last night. The Gophers are a dangerous team, but giving up 4 vs. Tech, 4 vs. AA and 8 vs. SCSU is not a good sign. The bright side for me is that they are still capable of dropping six on just about anyone on a good night.

I had to go with the Earl angle. Crow it up today kids and enjoy your WCHA championship tonight. The Golden Gophers are coming to GF. The last two times the Sioux have won the WCHA, they have gone on to the NCAA title. If they run the gauntlet in this years NCAAs it will be one of the most incredible runs ever in my opinion.

It's certainly becoming more and more clear why Wodon and Machnik cut ties with site formerly known as http://www.uscollegehockeyonline.com.

My couple of things: 1. Triouxper is consistant. That's all you can ask for. 2. Duncan could very well outscore both Oshie and Toews during his Sioux career.