tnt

I see Kunz and Schmaltz are tied for 4th in the USHL in +/-. That’s pretty impressive considering how Green Bay doesn’t score near as much as Chicago and Muskegon.

Thanks for the heads up. Hadn’t heard anything about it until I saw your post.

Got 4 Kiersted sticks, 2 Mismash, 2 JBD, and a Caulfield and Frisch stick, along with some shin pads. Didn't see any Pinto sticks. Lot's of good deals.

The NCHC wins too many more, the officials from other leagues could subconsciously find a few more calls against NCHC teams that are borderline.

Gino used to say that all the time, and he won National Championships, so it wasn't him trying to elevate his league championships because he hadn't won "The Big One".

Wait, Hakstol made the Frozen Four consistently but remember it was all about Nattys.

For those that want St. Cloud, remember, people were saying the same thing before Duluth won their first title. Funny thing about winning and creating a culture that isn’t about losing to teams you shouldn’t lose to. Once you win, the belief is there and the culture grows, nevermind the boost for recruiting. St. Cloud is doing pretty well for itself now, without getting the cream of the crop. Sandelin brought UND type culture to UMD, and now one of his old assistants is looking to bring the same to St. Cloud. It wasn’t until Blais rebuilt our culture that our program took off again. Hoogsteens and Panzer’s weren’t the cream of the recruiting crop, but after they helped rebuild our culture, we started to get more and more elite prospects and that was without our current facilities. I know it is only one game, but we might be complaining about St. Cloud someday like we do about Duluth.

Seems to me they had the benefit of a few of those non calls against us in overtime.

Yeah, I can’t cheer for St. Cloud. Remember their fans and administration when they thought they wouldn’t be in the NCHC? Nevermind their constant railing on our nickname in the past.

Could be he is waiting for their season to end, but who knows, Gilling didn’t wait. It would be great to have Cruikshank. Hopefully a destination game like Nashville and hopefully playing in front of a full house again at home helps tip the scales in our favor.

I know he played some, but that's why I said "a lot".

He sure didn't play a lot of center for us.

Still would like another forward. If not, Cruikshank, maybe Matt Brown.

No way it is just Feeney and Johnson as the goalies. I don't look at Moore as a huge liability. He had quite a few positive moments and had problems here and there defensively, but then again so did Bast.

Would think that Morrow will be coming on defense with how highly ranked he is for the draft. Would think that if he doesn't come in this year, he probably doesn't come. Some have talked about some concerns about him, so who knows.

I wonder if he committed to us, or if UND is trying to get him to change his mind.

Not quite to that level, but Chris Wilkie didn’t have a much better second year, and wasn’t as responsible defensively and had opportunity with the top guns. Not saying that Blaisdell will lead the country in goals, but taking that next step isn’t out of the realm of possibility.

Unless they fear losing some of these guys, I am always in favor of the extra year of juniors like Adams had. To have that many guys go through a learning curve at the same time seems like a big gap to fill especially when you will be fighting against some teams that are experienced to begin with that are supplementing with more experience. We will see if that is the direction they choose to go, but missing the NCAA again when fans would be allowed would be disappointing, not that either way guarantees anything.

If we build the roster, he will stay. Wishful thinking, but we need a few more positives going forward.

Yeah, his assists aren’t just from touching the puck at some point, in many cases they make the play. Knowing exactly when to pass it seems like an innate skill with him.

Doesn’t have quite the motor his dad had, especially back checking. Only a Junior, so time to work on the defensive side.

Wait and see how they produce in Juniors.

Then why is Minnesota still pulling in most of the big names?

Looking at our recruiting pipeline, other than the family ties, I don’t see any Minnesota recruits. Are we just not getting kids we are recruiting, or have we focused more elsewhere? You would think Karl Goehring would be able to pluck a few from the Cities. We used to get a few big guns here and there. We need to challenge Minnesota and UMD for the top talent in the state, because Motzko can’t appeal to everyone. Need to pull more guys like Hain and Frisch, but also pull top talent from the Twin Cities metro.

Duluth has done what they needed to do to win, which is all they can do, but making the tournament by some miniscule decimal point the first year, having to play Air Force rather than St. Cloud, and then having that same St. Cloud team blow a tire against AIC, not to mention getting a bye then playing a 5 overtime game against a team that played the late game the night before sure helped in those runs. We have seen teams that repeat in the past go on long droughts because it is hard to do, but then you will just move on to the next team that is doing well, and ask why can't UND be more like them. Our titles will come, but I sure don't mind winning league championships in the meantime.