tnt

What bothers me is Berry doesn’t seem to be able to motivate the team at key times. The fact that you have the same postgame interview all the time with no improvement in those areas suggest this lack of motivation and/or accountability. That is the job of the coach, to motivate and hold accountable. Not seeing it.

Remember, it wasn’t until Berry took a lot of heat that he finally benched Rhett Gardner. That said, if he were to bench Jamernik it should have been after the Arizona State game. Jamernik at least brings it most games. Why McLaughlin keeps getting trotted out there is baffling. I trust Mac Swanson more in that situation than McLaughlin. I don’t know if it is the team taking on the coaches personality or what, but the team has no killer instinct. Of course it wouldn’t be nice to pile on, because goodness knows a two goal lead is golden for Berry’s teams.

The fact that the team is so excited after giving it away is an indictment on where the program is. I remember after they gave away a third period lead to Arizona State and won in overtime one of the players said it was nice they could do that for our fans. So to give up leads and then pull out a few points against an upstart program is what we are happy with. My how the mighty have fallen!

Bad turnovers, bad penalties, poor player personnel. When these become standard, coaches have a huge part to play on that. When you can predict that ahead of time, Berry needs to be held accountable.

Who is comfortable with a 2 goal lead going into the third? St. Cloud hasn’t put up many shots, but we know how that changes when UND starts to want to play lockdown, instead of just playing. Yes, don’t take unwarranted risk, but keep skating and forechecking.

How can Parrish play college hockey and not know that?

To be sure, this weekend could be a tipping point that we haven’t had to deal with at UND, because if they get swept, Berry could very well lose the team and the repercussions in that scenario could be horrible. Keeping a team together under those circumstances would be admirable, but wouldn’t absolve anyone from the responsibility of getting in that situation to begin with.

I think the second night against Western really took it's toll on optimism, but this is too far gone the other way. If you are willing to bet, I sure would put $1000 down on UND winning more than 1 game the rest of the way.

Just the fact that people are this pessimistic denotes a huge problem. Personally I am thinking 7-5 the rest of the way, but admittedly that hinges on a minimum of a split this weekend.

Does Schlossman usually show the USCHO hockey poll? I would think with it being this late in the year, the pairwise should be the focus. Of course #16 looks a lot better than #26, which is where we are at in the pairwise.

Good PK involves hard work, discipline, and getting the big save when you need it. Could explain why we are near the bottom of college hockey.

I will assume we don't have a home regional next year if we make the tournament, since that seems to be the pattern. When people talk about having to play Michigan last year, one has to say, why was that the case. Because you lost 4 out of 5 to Omaha, and all 4 to Colorado College. Just those two things should call for serious contemplation, but when you are talking close to a decade without tournament success, the next year thing starts to get a little old. Already starting to find acceptable teams to pull for to win the championship this year, as it is getting late fast.

This is what I feel is the biggest issue. I don't think this program aspires to have 2 good years in the conference with no post season success, then 2 not so great years. I do think that is a reflection of roster management, and in my judgement it hasn't been that good, especially considering that you have the portal to draw from should any of your classes be uneven because someone leaves for the NHL. Let's face it, every team can look back at a few games here or there that could have lifted them to a tournament appearance or higher finish in the league. I get that sometimes you lose with great performances, but what we have seen lately are inconsistent performances with inconsistent effort, which is a head scratcher when you are in the predicament UND has been in since November.

This series could very well be a make or break scenario. If they get beat after being off a week and look horrible doing it, they could lose the team, and who knows what the fallout from that would be. I don't want to be hearing "we had to shake off the rust, and we came out a bit slow". After the interaction between Larsen and Berry here, you know there should be a lot of motivation, it's just what coach do you think can capitalize on that motivation.

...and then you would hear from fans that say, how do you sit your 2nd leading goal scorer when you have issues scoring goals.