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Surprised a little that Littler beat out Croal for the last 4th-line spot.

Tough for MI to jump right into the fire with a solid team like Mankato without any exhibition games to iron out the kinks. If they lose against Mankato, their PWR will take a hit in their first game.

According to USCHO, these games are not exhibition, meaning they would count towards the PWR. Somebody chime in if I have this wrong.

Having the regional in Fargo is good mostly for the fans - more convenient & less costly. As far as the team is concerned, it's also less costly & more convenient, but it hasn't amounted to jack for success. Flub after flub. If a team is hungry & clicking on all cylinders, they'll win anywhere.

Augustana will be better than Manitoba at exposing any early-season weaknesses this team may have. Plus they will get our guys better primed for Providence the following weekend - from a conditioning standpoint & figuring out best line combos. I would rather have UND play exhibition season openers against quality CCHA teams like Augustana than Manitoba.

Hey alright, thanks for being our voluntary reporter tonight. If you have time, please provide some feedback as to how the scrimmage went, who stood out, general thoughts, etc.

A culture of full-60 .. for a full season, with no more 10-min disappearing acts in the playoffs. Let's start there. : ) Different reasons for failure in different seasons, of course, but still think that the main glitch with this team the last 8+ years is that they were mentally peaking too soon, more so than just having bad luck. Good news is that Berry seems to have finally realized this & is putting more focus on a national championship, not treating the Penrose like it's the Holy Grail. Kudos to him for his insight & willingness to grow, not easy for an old dog his age to change course. Sometimes all it takes is a tiny change in perspective like this to make a big difference & put a team over the top.

May the team's final result on the ice this year match the rhetoric from the coach.

Every new season brings promises of finishing unsettled business from the previous year. Pretty sure that the members on this site have been stuck in the hockey version of Groundhog Day for the past 8 years. I'll be more focused on the team's actions next March & April, not so much on the coach's words in September. There's a reason why Nike's marketing department chose Just do it over Just say it. Prove it to the fans that you mean business this year & will make a serious run at #9; enough of this 1 & out nonsense. Make North Dakota hockey great again. That being said, it does sound like the team has made a big mental adjustment with how they view the Penrose; which makes sense & is encouraging.

I interpreted that as simply meaning that the coaching staff put too much emphasis on winning the Penrose in recent years; which may have caused the team to peak too early. Perhaps he's implying that it's just a change in perspective for the team rather than sitting guys later in the year. But yes, follow-up questions would be nice.

That is exactly what I've been harping on for the last 6 months. Too much focus on the Penrose in years past may have caused the team to experience an energy-dump in early March, peaking too early; kudos to Berry for shifting gears. My main concern for the team this year wasn't necessarily the players, but would the coaching staff tone down their hype of winning the Penrose. The focus should be doing well week-to-week, instead of the players & staff being overly concerned the entire season about finishing first. Play hard, enjoy the moment & let the chips fall where they may. On the ice, my biggest concern is how the team will respond to heavy forechecking, & will they be able to transition out of the d-zone more effectively this year. Will be interesting to see how Mac adjusts to the faster, stronger NCHC. Would like to see a defining year for Kunz, park his large frame in front of the goalie early & often for screens & deflections. Will the coaches relegate James to a checking line again, or is this the season he has a breakout year offensively? Perhaps Croal, Schmaltz & Wilkie on a checking/energy line.

Definitely need to send Ole & Lars to DU for a 'hit', NoDak-style. Carle is recruiting great talent, but it's more than that: he's getting more out of his players in March & April when it matters most. That's an invaluable skill & he's a natural at it. Therein lies the difference between him & Berry. It's conceivable that DU could keep racking up championships & leave UND in the dust trophy-wise if we don't stop self-destructing in the playoffs soon.

And not 1 team from the WCHA. Maybe I crossed over into the Twilight Zone & that's why I'm seeing MSU at #4. MI at #7 also a little surprising considering how many they lost early this summer. What does BU's incoming class look like besides Eiserman? The early trip to Cornell this year will be a doozy.

Probably unrelated, but with MN's top prospects like Berchild & Lutner going elsewhere & their highest scorer from last season transferring, seems like something's a little off with that program. Maybe it's a temporary rough patch that all big programs experience occasionally, or a sign of something deeper. Would be interesting to know if he reached out to UND or any other schools. I mean, MI seems like it would have been a good fit for him; as I thought they were hemorrhaging at top forwards this year & they could have very much made room for him.

Whoa. According to Schlossman, Pitlick will be playing at MSU-Mankato this year. Totally didn't see this happening.

Which begs the question if Berry & his staff have already begun talking to some MJ players. I assume they have so they can try & get their fair share of the bounty when the floodgates open.

Plucked right out of Minny's backyard by the wizard Carle. Gotta admire the coach for putting his program atop the college hockey pyramid. I see this as more of a positive than a negative. Even though it's unfortunate for UND, it's even more of a negative for MN & the Big10. He's the type of player who will only help strengthen the NCHC brand even more. The NCHC needs players like him to stay dominant, even though he's going to our biggest rival. It's not as bad as it seems, imo.

My question is the predominant talent level of the MJ players going south to the NCAA: will they be mostly like the 20 y/o Braxton Whitehead trying to get into ASU so they can extend their amateur eligibility? (older players like him with his kind of stats won't generally be helping any basement-dwellers compete with the big boys) ... or will we also see some higher-end 18 & 19 y/os who can definitely help bring more parity to the NCAA? But what incentive would an 18 or 19 y/o player who's lighting up the OHL have for playing in the NCAA? Won't these higher-end players mostly just transition to the AHL for some experience before they hit the NHL after a couple years of doing very well in the CHL?

Once August 1st hit I thought UND would see a flurry of high-end commits; most D1 schools outside of a couple have been quiet. I thought that most sought-after players would have decided by now, unless they're having a hard time narrowing their choices down to just one.

Uff da, I stand corrected on saying December, but the gist of my post was that Davis was on a completely different level during the playoffs, compared to the reg. season where even though he was very good, he was still beatable & hadn't sold his soul at that point. Per the denverpioneers website, Davis was ... "Recognized as both the NCAA Frozen Four and Northeast Regional Most Outstanding Player after finishing the four-game national tournament with a 0.63 goals-against average, .979 save percentage."

He basically went from being average, at best, the entire season to making Patrick Roy look like an amateur during the playoffs. I can't remember a college goalie who was that lights-out over the course of 4 games. So in-the-zone he was. The moral of the story being, you can have a team chalked full of NHL-caliber players like BC had, but if you have a goalie who sold his soul for 30 pieces of silver, it doesn't really matter. If you put last December's version of Davis in net in April, DU doesn't win it all. Something clicked for him mentally at the right time where he had a razor-sharp focus & everything seemed to slow down for him, just in time for the playoffs. That coupled with his team playing solid hockey & hitting their stride when it mattered most earned them #10.

Whatever the issue is, be it lineups, coaching philosophy, leadership, training, etc., something ain't working when the playoffs roll around. What has been successful in October has been not so successful in March; it's beyond anything flukey or bad luck-ish & has become a predictable pattern. Hopefully the coaching staff took a long, hard look in the mirror this off-season & made some changes with how they manage the team; instead of trying to pound the same square peg into a round hole & hoping it'll somehow fit this time. But old habits in old men die hard, so we'll see. I don't claim to know the core issue(s) causing UND to nosedive every spring, but something needs to change. Even though MI lost against BC 0-4 in the FF last year, they played hard & fast every shift; giving it their all until the final whistle, even though the game was all but over halfway through the 3rd period. I really admired that tenacity. Contrasted to how UND played 2 weeks earlier in the regional, in which they basically got pushed around & lost all intensity for 10-12 minutes in the 3rd period. That kind of disappearing act simply cannot happen in the playoffs. It's incumbent on the coaches to examine why that prolonged lapse happened so it won't be repeated in the future.

It sure seems like the coaching staff focuses an inordinate amount of energy on winning the Penrose. Looking at the players hootin' & hollerin' last year after they clinched the Penrose, only to have a major drop in their performance thereafter. Amost like they peaked too soon & didn't have enough left in the tank. Part of being a successful coach is having enough insight to change course when the old philosophy isn't getting you the desired result: a championship, or at the very least a deep run into the playoffs most years. The team has more than enough talent most years to inflict its share of postseason damage, they just seem to fizzle out mentally late in the season. All this based on an outsider's perspective who has no idea what is emphasized or talked about behind closed doors between the coach & his players. Am basing my opinion on what I hear Berry say to the media, the players' response to winning the Penrose & their subsequent play in the postseason.

How can ASU get a verbal from a WHL player before the class action suit has even been decided? I know it's inevitable, but doesn't an NCAA school have to wait for the official ruling before a Canadian player can commit from the CHL to the NCAA? This will increase the overall talent pool in D1 hockey, but won't it exclude some marginal American players because NCAA rosters will now be inundated with CHL players?

Was being serious, didn't know the format of their competition. Thanks for explaining it.