Irish

I still can't quite understand how with the crapshow our defense was last year that the 3 players we lost in the portal went to National Champion Quinnipiac, Minnesota Duluth, and Ohio State. What am I missing?

So - Quinnipiac gets one of our former defensemen and we get one of theirs - opinions on how we came out in this swap?

It feels like we are slowly losing touch with some of the things that made us great. I loved the "speed kills" era.

Point taken - it also requires playing a full 60 minutes and working your system - including being responsible for where you are supposed to be (not just chasing the puck into the corner) - See Quinnipiac. However if you look at our returning roster this next year it tells you a lot about how recruiting has been going the last several seasons - Compare that to our two biggest rivals - Denver and Minny. When we are successful we have had a nice blend of high end talent and role players (and good goaltending). It is sad to see other teams have much more success with top talent. We need to get back in the mix. I'm not sure if our playing style hurts us but their is that theory.

This really emphasizes our need to get back in the mix for high-end young recruits - like our rivals BU, BC, Minny, and Michigan. We need to take this seriously and get off the portal for all of our needs. And right soon too.

Throw in the often predictable but very untimely penalties and you can see that the mental component of our game was a major weakness last year.

This is one of the most frustrating parts of the last season. So many "what the hell are you doing" moments. If we are going to emphasize culture then being hard to play against and being in the game mentally needs to be front and center. I think that's why "culture" is getting dragged so much on this board because a big part of it is being ready to play. We had a defense last year that so many times "just didn't get it". Perhaps a good thing they cleaned house and are starting over on that end. To me if you are going to emphasize culture then our team should have their heads in the game.

Agreed - but when it's a big emphasis and mentioned often and then things go sideways it is easy to point out - perhaps too easy in that there are many factors involved. Bottom line - we need to get back to recruiting great talent and having tournament success soon.

Agreed that the athletes individually play a big role in this - however, these were recruits who were chosen, checked on by talking to their coaches, interviewed, followed, and offered by a coach who emphasizes culture to come to UND. Even so do recruits sometimes don't pan out - homesick, can't work through adversity, poor chemistry, etc - absolutely. Should this happen to almost an entire group? Not in a program of our stature. Something went wrong here. Just look at our goalie recruitment to see what I mean. The good news is that we seem to have rebounded some through good use of the portal (although time will tell). The bad news is that this type of program building is unsustainable if we want to be on top. It's past time for us to win some top recruiting battles and build our roster with a good mix of talent in an orderly fashion. Agreed that Covid made things strange but still ....

You've seen this play before - see Football.

Totally agreed - but here's how things usually work around here - we will have a better season next year but not rise to the top - make the tournament but not go very far. Then after a couple of so-so years with some success but not in the Frozen Four there will be a lot of grumbling on this thread and we will again come to the consensus that "next year will be a critical year for the hockey staff".

Sounds harsh but a fairly accurate picture of where we are as a program (I know nothing about the trademark issue and don't care) - however, here we are after missing the tournament needing all new defensemen, a portal goalie for the third year, and having lost several recruits who didn't pan out or develop. Not even close to where a top team should be. Have we done pretty well in the portal - yes - however most of the top teams are open to maybe 1 or 2 portal transfers if they are top end and fit their program - they have orderly recruiting to fill their needs. So the competition for portal players is different. There is no doubt that we are not getting Blue Chippers like we used to and that our assessment and development of lower round draftees has been very poor. If in the start of the 2017 year you would have told me that we would miss the tournament 3 times by 2023, have one tournament win, and this is where we would start for 23-24 I would have called you a liar. Time to get our house in order. And the usual "support your program by giving more money" just doesn't apply here - we spend more on our hockey program than any other school in the country. And to see our rivals do well is just icing on this big pile.

You are correct - They did a nice job with portal additions - but we have to straighten out our regular recruiting - both with getting some high-end talent and with balancing classes so we have an orderly roster from year to year. No portal goalies for 3 years straight or having to replace our entire defense. Hopefully this will be fixed quickly. I can't believe how fast things went off the rails. Hopefully an anomaly fueled by covid and the rise of the portal. We can't just hit the portal every year while Blue Chippers flock to Minny, Michigan, Denver, and now probably Wisconsin.

Well something needs tweaking - perhaps closer to home.

Great questions - I think this is why this board is harping on this issue - no one knows what happened or how. We just are seeing the results. When I look at our program and its positives I am shocked that we are where we are - fishing for a portal goalie for the third year and having no returning defensemen. All while our rivals are grabbing blue chippers right and left. We need to turn this around soon but we fans don't really know what happened and have no idea what the coaches think or plan to do. If the theory that some of this is related to playing style is true then we'd best buckle up for a bumpy flight.

Exactly - third year in a row for a portal goalie doesn't exactly scream top recruiting. Also player development (or lack of same) - how many players this year had no improvement or actually went backwards in the off season? The clock is ticking for change - high end talent is flocking to Denver, Minny, and Michigan like trained pigs and here we are.

High end extremely disciplined Grindahs who played in a system that was a perfect fit for them and kept mistakes to a minimum.

Do they also understand that recruiting has gone off the rails - and are they taking steps to fix this? This type of roster management is not seen in any other top program - and if it continues we will not be among the top programs. Schloss is good at getting early scoops on signees - I wish he would ask a few hard questions about our recruiting. I don't know what is going on behind the scenes but I can't understand why we can't sell our program to top talent.

It's not like we don't have resources - I believe that the future of our program depends on how stubborn and resistant to change Berry is. Our lack of recruiting success has put us in a hole we need climb out of. No way we should be here but we need to turn this around immediately.

One team recruited a lot of high end talent and the other didn't.

Nailed it - the big question is do the Coaches recognize this and do they have a plan to get us on track? I really thought that after 2016 we would be lights out for recruiting - especially with Karl. Now we can't even keep our goalie stream going and are in the portal for a goalie for the third year. Also we have to replace our entire defense. Development overall has been a problem. How many scorers have we had fizzle out? The thing I worry about is that coaches can be very blind when it comes to their approach and programs. And I don't count on Chaves to correct things. The ship needs to be righted very soon or we could be in serious trouble especially since Denver and Minny are nailing it.

I don't think anyone is arguing that having a great culture for a program is not important. It's just that when we have a miserable season like this one while our enemies prosper it is frustrating and hearing Berry talk "culture" once again. After we give up a lead in the third the "culture" talk after the game is somewhat incongruent. We need to have culture and skill - some high end talent. So far one of those is missing. Focus on getting some blue chippers, upping the style of play, and getting our recruiting straightened out. Then we can have culture and a winning program.

No one wants any individual players to be "publicly lashed". The info I would like is much more big picture. Both Football and Hockey have had trouble when it comes time for the playoffs - and it has been going on for a while. Most of the problems generally involve recruitment, development, and possibly program philosophies. The specifics have been mentioned many times on the boards - what are some specific things we are planning as a program to improve this situation? Are we going to do what we have always done only more-so or will some changes be made? And we absolutely can't afford to get behind in the NIL race. How many years are we going to wait for a playoff win in either program?

This should be a big concern to all of us. It used to be that every small town had a contingent of fans of both schools and there was a wonderful rivalry. Because of short sighted decisions by administration we are late to DI and are light years behind the Bison. We used to counter by saying "but we have a top hockey program" but now not so much. In addition, changes here seem to move glacially and we seem to have settled for slightly above average - add the years that we had Muss for head coach or Rudy for OC and you will see what I mean. Part of the frustration shown by posters on this site is that we get absolutely no useful info into what we are doing to correct things. Coaches indulge in "super coachspeak" - "Shucky darn we need to get better" from Bubba and "culture culture culture" from Berry. Our AD seems to be missing in action and is not setting any goals that we know of for our programs (I know he has laid out our plans for the Athletic Complex, but we get no info as to what we need to do for individual programs). No NIL initiatives that I can see. I get the message that we need to support our programs monetarily, but many of us are maxed out and have season tickets and a Coaches Club membership. I like the "money for Bubba" idea but it looks like it maxed out at $60,000. We need something to rally around or we will end up being second tier.

Sadly "recruited" is the proper tense of the word lately.