tnt

It could be that in the back of an officials mind that they would rather not determine the game on a call that is close to 50/50. Maybe earlier in games those calls may go the other way. If they truly looked at it as that type situation, letting the teams fight it out more may be preferable to rock, paper, scissors.

Yes, but since the contact hadn’t been made, perhaps you can revise it and say he knew Kawaguchi was going to slash him, so he was bracing himself with his knee coming down.

I thought you said he slashed the player causing his leg to come down. Your story seems to be changing.

I slow motioned it and his knee was coming down before Kawaguchi made contact.

Do we even get to that point if the officials didn’t even up the penalties with the high stick to Kiersted late in the game? Kiersted’s stick wouldn’t have been high if the Western player hadn’t interfered with his path to the puck.

Saturday’s call was truly a judgement call on whether the Western player could have avoided contact with the goalie despite Kawaguchi’s contact with him. I could have seen it going either way. Friday’s call seemed it should have been more clear cut since it was the goalie diving out creating the contact.

Hennessey was talking about an injury last night when he was out.

Massimo Rizzo was first star in the first game of the playoffs last night with 2 goals, 2 assists.

If we lose four defensemen off this year’s team there will be a big learning curve next year, even with the talent level. Look at Minnesota with Lacombe and Johnson, talented players, but still have some growing pains. Forwards coming in will most likely be Rizzo, Budy, Ness, and Gaber, and then have to figure out who else is ready between Portz, Bowen, and Halliday.

Don’t think we want to bring our pairwise down by bringing in a losing program. If anything, bring in MSU Mankato and hope they fill their place in the new CCHA.

I will save the overrated tag on teams outside our league. Denver’s losses have largely been against us and Duluth, so that doesn’t scream overrated to me.

You never know what goes on behind the scenes. Someone could say, “you should open up your recruitment again” wink wink. Even if opening up his recruitment was a farce, he still would have been complicit in it.

Oh, I'm talking about his decommitment from ASU. The insinuation was that we got him to decommit from ASU, and at the time it was made to seem he reopened his commitment and was going to explore a few options including UND and St. Cloud, among others.

I thought Randklev just decommitted on his own and reopened his recruitment. I recall him being down between UND and St. Cloud. It may have been a foregone conclusion, but they didn't make it seem like it was.

The stats do show eighth in save percentage, but that can go both ways depending on whether Central plays an offensive brand of hockey that leaves him out to dry on occasion or if they are structurally sound defensively. I can imagine it would be hard to focus all the time if the puck is in the other end most of the game.

Gotta tell you, you really are helping St. Cloud live up to the title of this thread. Don’t understand why you would want to come on here after you win, other than you need approval.

The sad thing is that they probably wouldn't be doing it if they didn't think it was effective.

I’m guessing it will be just hockey for you next weekend against Denver. I’m guessing you won’t be getting the benefit of the calls with Denver home ice on the line.

That is the problem with the whole review process. There have been numerous times when a review has been warranted and there was no review. How does Grant Mismash feel when they give Caulfield a five minute major for interference, and they wouldn’t review a hit by Schuldt where he clipped Mismash last year that put him out for over a month. Absolutely ridiculous how they arbitrarily pick and choose what they review.

I would include Jim Rich in that mix as well. The way he immediately jumped to the conclusion UND didn’t want to shake hands really shows his complete bias.

Yeah, St. Cloud may need to beat UND again to make the tournament. After what happened at the end, I am sure UND would like nothing more than to end their season.

Agree. Those people that thought this series was going to be a piece of cake are unrealistic. To me this is the perfect opportunity for the coaches to show the players what will happen in the tournament in playoff type hockey. Take a five minute major and lose one of your top players it will cost you. Run into a hot goaltender it will cost you. Don’t move the puck as fast and well and go 0fer on the power play it will cost you. Use this information and don’t repeat some of the issues and you can win a championship, don’t correct them before the tournament, and your season could end prematurely. Not a horrible performance with the missing guys, but I would imagine they will not be happy with some things.

There is a point when you are committed to a hit, it isn’t as easy to reverse tracks as you seem to think, thus putting your safety in peril.

Don’t think there was embellishment but turning your back to someone late when someone is bearing down on you shouldn’t be rewarded. At some point players have to be responsible to keep themselves safe, and that type of thing could get you some life long regret if someone is going faster and a little further from the boards. Foolish to compromise your own safety like that.

Watching Duluth last night, we saw more of the same. When all of this embellishment is visible on national television, it baffles me how Don Adams isn’t instructing his officials to watch out for the inevitable peeking up through your arms to see if the officials bought it. That type of thing would make me angry as an official, and once the reputation is there, officials should be on the lookout for those things. Right now teams are getting rewarded for disrespecting the game. They should actually be reprimanded for putting actual safety at risk. You would think if you cry wolf too many times, there would be some consequence. If it continues to go down this road, other teams will have to follow suit to maintain a competitive balance. 5 minute majors can really level the playing field for a team that has less talent, not only for the power play time, but for tiring out key guys on the penalty kill, and not being able to roll your depth lines. Imagine what it does for a more talented team like Duluth. You either have to follow suit or be left in the dust because officials can’t recognize this is going on, and it seems to be getting worse, not better. As Barney Fife would say, “Nip it in the bud”!