tnt

Physically and defensively, yes, but not as much of an offensive presence as many defensemen we have had.

The uncertainty in the short term could be a possibility, but going forward, I think if they got rid of Lucia and his arrogance, I would bet that a lot of the recruits they are losing might flow back Minnesota's way. I suppose that depends on who they would get to replace him, but here's to having Lucia hang around like a Red Berenson clone!

I think Hennessey said the plan is to keep Johnson at forward.

Who is Schuldt’s partner for St. Cloud? If it’s Borgen or Ahcan, it would be nip and tuck.

Just goes to show you how inexact the science is on recruiting. All the players that didn't have any buzz in recruiting circles or fan interest are our best players -- Wolanin, Poolman, and Jones. Here's to hoping we have a few more diamonds in the rough in our current recruiting classes.

Or better yet, maybe Cam told Wolanin he should stay his Senior season and become a free agent. O.k., not too realistic, but I can see them doing that to make room for Docker. I would imagine he is moving up rather than down in Central Scouting, so get your years out of him while you can. Sounds very mature for his age in his educational and community dealings.

I take that back. He is eligible for 2018, it just has him down on Heisenberg as a 2019. Sounds like he has a good head on his shoulders. http://www.westernwheel.com/article/Oilers-freshman-commits-to-North-Dakota-20170222

Pretty sure he's a 2019, as I think he's a Junior.

...and Jacob Bernard-Docker is named top defenseman in AJHL.

If that's the case, then we absolutely will have to win twice because Harvard, BC and BU will have more to play for than their counterparts.

Yeah, I plan on dropping my sports package until CBS starts hockey coverage next year. There may be unintended consequences by dropping BTN.

As said before, St. Cloud would like nothing more than to end our season as we have done to them 2 out of the last 3 years. Nevermind the fact that if we won twice, it could put us up to a number 3 seed, which would make it a possibility they put St. Cloud in our regional. I am sure that just like Northeastern and Providence would like to dispose of BC & BU, every team in the Frozen Faceoff would like to see our season ended.

Good point, as it is impossible to know if the coaches missed or if either party just weren't interested. For the sake of this thread, just put down players you think are no brainers that they should be after hard.

Yes, like most people are saying that UND missed out on Bobby Brink, who is a sophomore. Alternatively, it would be interesting to see all of the guys who everyone is so excited about that we got and how they actually develop. People seemed really excited about Ryder Donovan when he committed, and that enthusiasm seems to have waned some already.

Let's get all of these perceived misses by coaches documented before they arrive on campuses so we can look back and see how they all panned out. Let's use 2 years from arrival on campus as an arbitrary starting point.

We shall see with Adams, but everyone is ripping the coaches for not getting guys like Benson and Lizotte, but guys like Hoff and Janatuinen were much more productive in the USHL than Benson. People seem to want to use criteria differently. Before a recruit comes in, he is scrutinized if his numbers don't match up to that of recruits on other teams, then when any arbitrary player from another team puts up better numbers than one of our recruits when they are in college, they are wondering how the coaches messed up by not recruiting them.

I like our track record over the past decade compared to Minnesota's when it comes to putting a competitive team on the ice year in and year out.

There are a ton of kids that put up numbers in Minnesota High School that do squat going forward. Heck, there are a bunch of players in the USHL that put up big numbers and do nothing at the college level. Numbers don't always translate to the next level.

So you are sure that Denver wasn't after Tychonick, Bernard-Docker, Sanderson, Reid, etc.?

Just saw your post now. Spot on!

As is with most programs, it is all about how players develop. St. Cloud made big improvements from one year to another based on players improving. Guys like Bast, Kawaguchi, Adams, and Mismash will need to make a jump next year, but we have already seen some improvement from Kawaguchi. We could potentially have our top 6 scorers back, but that probably won't happen. We have competed well with the best teams in the country, it is the consistency problem that they need to address. Besides the improvement needed, a lot of it will depend on who we lose and who other teams in the league lose. As much as I like Simonson's compete level, I'm not sure we lose on offensive production from him or Trevor Olson. Hopefully someone like Hain will come in and surprise us. Just improving our penalty kill could put us back in contention when we are already competitive against the top teams.

On a nightly basis, yes. The days of the 2 game total goal series are over. Those used to be either really dull if a team won handily the first night, or very interesting if it was close the second. Remember you could potentially be pulling your goalie late in the game when you were ahead in the game the second night.

If there are traffic issues, people won't go downtown. Makes a lot of sense.

But if you go by stats when looking at them in the junior leagues, like everyone seems to do, Hoff had better stats then Benson. Of course if they would have taken Benson and he didn’t pan out everyone would be questioning them like they are for many current recruits that aren’t putting up points. I don’t know many programs that would have offered Benson his Junior year in high school like St. Cloud did. You win some of those, and you lose some.

Wasn’t Peski the one who was nowhere to be found on Poehling’s breakaway goal?