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Would imagine that other teams are actively circling the ASU program like vultures, looking to pick up any worthwhile scraps. A player can enter the portal at anytime if his coach is fired or otherwise leaves, but am guessing that a guy like Woo can't transfer to another school for the 26-27 season as the fall rosters are already set.

Previous article stated that Husár planned on coming to UND in 28-29 & would have a chance to play alongside Heil. Going by that wording, it doesn't sound like Špunar will be around for his senior year; so the coaching staff already knows two years in advance that he'll be gone by then. Špunar probably figures that he can only grow so much at the collegiate level & is planning his timeline to the pros accordingly.

Good call, your hunch came to fruition less than 12 hours later.

Smart to start the season with 2 exhibition games instead of 1, will give the team more time to iron out some kinks before they play meaningful competition with NPI on the line. It's difficult to get any flow going just playing Manitoba once & then jumping directly into the fire. Augustana should provide a good mirror as to how ready UND is at the start of the season.

Zhilkin (Oct 2008) is almost exactly 10 months older than Brock England (Aug 2009), yet both will be taken in the 2027 draft. In this scenario, there would be no room for uber-elite England if he decides to go the college route next year & he prefers UND; and highly doubtful the coaching staff would turn him away because there wasn't any space for him. Someone would have to portal-out or a guy like Williams would have to be dropped/pushed back to make room for a guy like England to go to UND.

MSU & MI should be perennial contenders in any given year barring major injuries or locker room issues, but so should UND & about 6-7 other programs. The talent pool is just too large now for only a couple of B10 schools to be the heavy favorites in the postseason. Maybe a few years ago with their inside track to the NTDP, but not anymore. Would be interesting to know why OSU & Notre Dame aren't stockpiling their rosters with uber-talent like MI & MSU do. Yes they get talented players, but nothing compared to them. Perhaps the administration at those schools aren't as heavily invested in men's hockey.

Similar to Zellers in that he has close family with GF connections. Not similar to Zellers in that haven't heard him say he's had a deep desire to play for UND since he was small. Will trust that his father has done his due diligence in indoctrinating him to Sioux hockey.

Ten years ago, you'd probably have quality guys like Littler, Klee & Strathmann staying all 4 years at UND. Now you'll probably have 2-3 players like them entering the portal every year because they can't get the minutes they need to develop their games. Some leaving voluntarily & some probably being pushed out. All because of the flood of talent from the CHL; it's a buffet for coaches at the top schools. UND brings in a very good batch of talent every year, but some are destined to be spit out & fed to the programs lower in the food chain, while taking their top players in return. The cycle of life in D1 hockey.

From Google...Untracked:Sports (Slang): Informal usage describing an athlete or team that finally finds their rhythm or escapes a slump.

Players will be reporting to campus in the next week or so. Does anyone know if they'll stay on campus straight through to the start of the season, or is this just a temporary meet-up so the players can do some team-building activities & they'll leave again after that before school starts? Putting in Simpson as the x-factor for next year's team. The goalies, defense & bottom-six/checking lines should be fine. But to keep pace in the NPI & be a true threat in the FF, will be vital for Simpson to get untracked & be a legitimate scoring threat; providing an extra layer of scoring to offset opposing teams' focus on Zellers, Reschny & Swanson. He could be the difference between ties/barely winning games and 3 or 4-1 wins. Hard to be as productive as Wyttenbach was at QU last year due to the structure of the NCHC, but it would be a pleasant surprise if Simpson could put up similar numbers to A. Bump in his freshman year at WMU (14g, 22a), almost a ppg for Bump that year. With the right linemates & confidence, it's not a reach. Perhaps the coaching staff has the same expectations for him as they didn't bother bringing in another elite forward.

Carels may be underestimating the grind of the NCHC & NCAA hockey as a whole. Both Reschny & Verhoeff noted in recent interviews that playing guys 3-6 years older than them made it a lot more difficult than the WHL; but Carel's learning curve may be shorter than Verhoeff's due to his elite skating & the way he processes the game. Will trust the UND staff to give him honest feedback regarding his development next April. Maybe someone here knows the last time a defenseman played only 1 year at UND & excelled in the NHL. The only UND player that I can think of who did very well after only 1 year was Belfour, but he was a goalie.

Tommy Bleyl was supposed to play in Moncton this year, but is instead going to East Lansing a year early. Perhaps because they were unable to get DuPont, another righty. Interesting to see how Nightingale keeps all these egos happy without there being any resentment for not getting more TOI/pp1/pk1 time. Seems like most NYers in the past went to either BC or BU, but not him.

Cooper Williams is another one who plummeted, even moreso than Preston. So much so that Connor Davis, who was previously not projected, passed him.

You're probably right, but listening to Carels do media interviews post-draft leaves a lot to be desired from a UND fan's perspective. He's basically been insinuating that if there's a good chance of making Calgary's team this year he would be taking that path. A month ago had him pegged him at 90/10 UND this year; listening to him now, 70/30 odds of being at UND.