tnt

Long term, yes, but it is a crap shoot on a lot of these guys as to when and if they are able to make an impact at the college level. Most people had Kawaguchi, Adams and Mismash as bigger impacts this year for UND than Jones, based on production in their leagues. Sometimes it will surprise you who makes an impact. I believe St. Cloud has had a few pleasant surprises this year.

Have you watched all of these guys extensively, or did you stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night?

Maybe Jacobs and the Herald can use all the proceeds from their patented phrase "Hell or High Water" and pay for the reinstatement of women's hockey.

Actually, if other nations other than the U.S. or Canada don't start getting better, I can see the Olympics dropping women's hockey.

You expected something with reason from Mike Jacobs?

I was thinking the same thing, but the more I think about it, if I were St. Cloud, I would look to put UND down for the count so they don't have to think about playing us in a regional in Sioux Falls.

Do we even think Bast has a chance to come back this year? If not, I say we carry an extra defenseman on the roster, as he hasn’t put together a full season in 3 or 4 years. Can’t count on someone that injury prone.

Wow, obsessed with UND much? Your own President said he didn’t want to be in the league.

If we hold on to home ice, we basically control our pairwise destiny by either beating Western or Omaha, because I’m assuming neither team will beat Duluth enough to pass them.

Yeah, and just as I was typing that, Denver tied it. Go figure.

Yeah, it’s tough to know. I, like Berry, thought we were in great position at Christmas because with all the young guys, I thought we would get so much better. The second half schedule Berry was so pleased about has been a huge disappointment. Maybe our only saving grace is that St.Cloud might not have anything but pairwise seeding to play for next weekend, but that didn’t seem to help us tonight. With Berry’s lack of anger in the postgame, I now wonder if a lot of his “I love this team” and this team fights for each other is just coach speak and he kind of thinks splits are about what to expect. Anyone have any inside info on how this team gets along, as I have heard conflicting rumors. At 14 in the pairwise and playing St. Cloud next week, I still hold out hope that Bast comes back and helps us get consistent power play and penalty kills from here on out.

At least on the post game Berry didn’t use the “we need to be able to put back to back games together because you do in the tourney”. It did irk me that he said Miami had their backs to the wall because they lost five in a row. They had nothing to play for, and you guys are on the bubble all the way around and hadn’t put together a good Friday in forever. Hakstol would have been livid, Berry, not so much.

Sad when you are ahead 3-0 against a team that hadn’t scored in forever and has nothing to play for, and you give up 4 unanswered to lose. The culture is starting to feel like it is changing. Part of my concern with that is that the coach that preaches it, is not holding players accountable for lack of discipline.

The whole thing about the men's Olympic hockey this year is that it doesn't seem worth getting worked up over losing. Our scrubs are better than yours is hardly a winning battle cry.

I was equally confused why he didn't play former gopher Marvin more along with her line. It was just strange that the Brandt, Cameranisi and Kessel line had more shifts in overtime than the Lammys, and they played on separate lines in overtime, which is odd in itself. Had Canada scored on the giveaway by Brandt, how dumb would Stauber have looked, but that might have been the case on numerous occasions including the shootout without a Twin represented in the top 5 shooters. As a gopher, maybe Stauber doesn't understand the concept of grit in games like these, and just thinks talent alone can win out. Can imagine how mad the Twins would be if they lost in the shootout without having a chance to shoot.

Top seven teams in goals per game right now are Minnesota State, St. Cloud, Nebraska Omaha, Penn State, Western Michigan, Princeton and Northeastern. None of those teams scream out high end recruits. Poehling for St. Cloud was, but his numbers are on par with those of Mismash. I think in today’s game having a great power play is a great equalizer if you don’t always get the high end talent, because even many of the so called studs sometimes struggle their rookie year. Remember Charlie Coyle’s rookie year before he left?

The number 2 team in the pairwise is getting it done despite scoring less than us. How well would we be sitting if we played like we did the first half of the year defensively. We would be challenging for the Penrose. Obviously not losing if you score 2 goals was unsustainable, but 3 goals should be a standard that we haven’t lived up to the second half. With where we are at, we need to make sure if we get to 3, we win.

What route is that? Walk ons like Coltyn Sanderson, Connor Gaarder or Steph Pattyn? Those kinds of heart and soul players are the difference between us and Minnesota. Yes, we are short on the high end guys right now, but it’s not like there are a bunch of those available for next year.

Assuming kind of a walk on or minimal scholarship replacement for Gornall. Don’t think this has any bearing on Rizzo since he wouldn’t come for a few years anyway.

Glad I was wrong that if they lost on Friday I could see them getting swept, but man let’s get that Friday win for a change and then keep on rolling.

Hate to say it, but if UND doesn't win tonight, I don't think they win on Saturday either, as you can only go to the well so many times. They can use the character phrase all they want about rebounding, but at some point that character has to be there on the Friday game so they don't put themselves in that position all the time. Hope that tonight is the night they do that.

I could actually see the goaltender thinking she was going to shoot it behind her leg, so had that been the case it might have worked better. As it was, it was a pretty nice blocker save by the goaltender. It definitely wasn't the highest percentage shot, but for her sake it was just lucky it didn't dribble off the end of her stick and not get a shot at all. After all the coverage her breakaway goal in the first game got, I would have thought she would have used that fake and went a different way. She certainly wasn't shy about doing the spin orama move when she had shootouts at UND, so maybe she liked the attention she got while trying those trick moves here.

Yeah, with all of those Olympians and they didn't make the Final Four.

Yeah, we always seem to lay an egg on National TV this year. Really need to reverse that trend this weekend. Remember when we were the king of Prime Time?

...and to think we thought we had too many guys to play at the beginning of the year. The thing I liked best about Gornall, is that you didn't need to worry about effort.