Irish

Our program problems in a nutshell - you would think our "culture" would include steady improvement. If we get the reputation of not being able to develop players we'd better strap in for a bumpy ride.

Recruiting has been off for a few seasons now - and unless we can start selling our program to some Blue Chippers get used to the "hey, we had a winning season" mantra. Our lack of ability to recruit a good goalie is stunning.

I don't see anyone who is not safe - remember, this is the AD who extended the 5-6 Bubba after one of the worst season of coaching calls I have ever seen.

You are correct but this season has been a real head-scratcher to us fans

Good to hear - hopefully he and his staff will take a hard look at the program - especially focused on what they need to do so high end talent once again wants to come here.

Who is this new goalie and what has he done with DeRidder?

Not to worry - he may be in the portal in several years.

I'm sure he is willing to take that risk

Ok - I'll buy that - but we could hear how they are going to correct this mess - are we going to adapt a faster playing style so we can start getting Blue Chippers again and not have them think UND is where offensive skills go to die? Are we going to clean up the defensive play? Are we going to address the lack of player development particularly in this last off-season. Are we going to address the lack of mental toughness that led us to cough up leads right and left, and are we going to actually recruit goalie talent and develop them or is going to just be portal, portal, portal. These issues could be addressed without throwing anyone under the bus (except maybe the staff). Or instead are we going to hear about our "culture" some more - you know the one that gave us this fiasco of a season.

Not sure who my guy would be but I feel changes need to be made going forward - If Berry can't or won't make them then it will be time to move on. Hopefully there will be some serious staff discussions about this year in the off season. My major concern is that we seem to be getting the reputation among high end recruits that our system will inhibit their growth - especially scorers. This feels like it has some truth to it. This could spell disaster long term. We can't just sit and watch our rivals pull in Blue Chippers year after year. Player development is a concern - case in point is this year's team. Remember when high end talent wanted to come here because we would get them NHL ready (Parise for example). The lack of tournament success is a problem. It has been pointed out correctly that Berry and Co. have much more knowledge about hockey than this board - very true. But the flip side of this is that very knowledgeable coaches can become enamored with their systems and not willing to change. I hope that is not the case here. Next year will be very telling. And any great coach in a top program should be able to recruit good young goalies and develop them. We will be relying on a portal goalie next year for the third year in a row.

For all of the complaining that Men's Hockey hoggs all the revenue and hurts football people should take a hard look at how much Women's Hockey cost the University Athletic Department. That was a real budget breaker - it that money was give to Football instead problem solved. I urge everyone to go to Youtube and google Bill Burr on women's sports.

Any indication Berry is aware of this and has an inclination to change - because if not we could be in real trouble.

This worries me - what kind of risk?

If we would have had DeRidder 2.0 all season things would be vastly different.

Bottom line is that we need to upgrade our talent. Goalie, defense, passing, 5 on 5 scoring are all sub-par. We need to become a place again where top talent wants to come to hone their skills into NHL ready players. We seem to have lost that. We seem to fall down on the development part - have you ever seen a team regress so far as this one? Coaches need to do a serious post-mortem on this season.

Agreed - now step two is landing some of those high-enders.

Agree with your assessment - however, taking a step back to look at our program, what does it say for our recruiting when for the third year in a row we will be depending on a portal goalie? To me this is just a stunning turn of events - Third year in a row which doesn't make this a one time problem but a long term problem. I don't know what's going on with recruiting but this should have been addressed long ago. Staff needs to get it together.

Did anyone expect anything else from Bubba and this program? I hope he is very successful but our D backs haven't been a strength.

I don't find the expectation that we should be in the NCAA Tournament every year unreasonable at all. And the landscape is changing but we are not keeping up in recruiting or playing style. This has been the most frustrating year in a long time. And there is absolutely zero reason why we should be in the goalie situation we are in now - and we have to rely on the portal again for next year. We should demand better.

Or at least they used to

Exactly this - no one is held to any standards anymore - I've been a fan since the early70's and have never seen a team regress like this one.

Don't you just love where our program is now? The question now is how long is this going to go on before changes are made - my over/under is 5 more years. Someone somewhere needs to get a clue.

Things I thought I would never hear. A sad time.

Not any more

I'm sure there are many factors but this has been discussed on this site - that other teams like Denver play fast and we don't and this appeals to high end talent. To put it another way - I don't think our recruiting problems are due to "the weather".