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Got it, so UND shouldn’t have bothered with LaDue and the Poolmans, and Western shouldn’t have taken a bunch of the players they took that didn’t produce as much when they were younger, including their current leading scorer Grant Slukynsky.

Would disagree on Gruba, as many on here were super disappointed when we didn’t have room for Gruba because of the numbers he put up in the USHL, where he was a first team all star.

Yes, some guys don’t transition well. Guys like Jimmy Egan, Sam Spehar, Blake Vanek and Mason Kraft aren’t exactly ripping up the WHL. Doesn’t mean they can’t make nice contributions in college, but each step up the ladder gets that much harder.

Schlossman points out that Minnesota has the top power play in the country, and the worst penalty kill. How does clueless Bob take guys from that penalty kill unit to represent us on the penalty kill in the World Juniors?

Let’s give Duluth some credit, they are no slouch. They have the top line in the country as far as I’m concerned, and as Jackson said they play very well defensively.

I’m not sure if they call a 5 on the hit on Strathmann if the puck wasn’t already gone for a while when the hit was made. That, combined with the hit knocking him towards the boards head first probably pushed it to a five. I don’t know how you complain vociferously about that, as it met the definition, even if you felt it could go either way, which they obviously did. It cracks me up that when Dane complained about Rickwood being taken down that would have given us a 5-3 power play like Duluth had, Medak said he whined and it wasn’t a penalty, then changed his view that it was a trip when Dane challenged it for a major. Think he was worried about a replay showing what a complete homer he is.

Pretty crazy that Minnesota leads the country in power play percentage. Can’t imagine where they would be without the man advantage.

Don’t need any help as long as we sweep Miami and St. Cloud.

Played better the first 40 tonight than we did last night, except for the early penalty trouble we had both nights.

That game had me very worried. Didn’t think if we spent that much time in the box that it would come out well. If we take care of business at home against St. Cloud and Miami we can win the Penrose at home and not leave it to the last series at Western. Both series are going to be tough though since both are now fighting Duluth for home ice.

How did that work with D2? Need to communicate with the other schools remaining and make sure things aren’t going to fracture further, or else we’ll be left behind again. Need to get a real picture of NDSU’s costs with expanded travel, adding to Title 9 scholarships and the level of NIL needed to compete at a different level, then make realistic decisions.

I was never a big fan of giving points for a team getting to overtime in the NHL. Many teams play cautious near the end of the game to secure the point. There are teams in the NHL that have 20 plus of 55 games that go to overtime. That’s 40 % of your games being decided by 3x3 or shootout, and we know what a crapshoot that is. Your top 6 players and goaltender are basically deciding that 40%. A team built like UND with great depth, with young, but not yet elite talent is not able to utilize what makes them great. Enough of rant, it is what it is.

They were definitely #2 behind Minnesota.

I would hope that with all the chatter, Eric has been involved and pushing the administration to be ahead of the game with donors to explore options. Is it possible to form a football only FBS conference with MVFC and Big Sky teams? Don’t know all the ins and outs of rules and what not.

…and leave both times after your title runs were over and other teams surpassed you or were well on their way with new coaches and facilities.

This looks about right. Think of who you definitely don’t want to win a national title and the order, and this is it. Michigan would probably be next, because I would like UND to catch Denver and them in titles.

I’m hoping they see that leaving any game to a next goal wins scenario can end in huge disappointment in the NCAA. In other words, it is nice to have that late game confidence to come back if necessary, but play well enough early in the game so you are not putting your season on the line in the NCAA tournament with as little as a bad bounce of the puck. Hopefully Dane is making that very thing clear to them.

It was disappointing we couldn’t get the tie in the NPI, but if we can take care of business the rest of the season, both losses to Duluth this year took long winning streaks against Duluth both home and away off the bulletin board for Duluth for future meetings while still gaining points. That’s the optimistic side, but Duluth is still in fight for home ice with Miami, so we better be ready for another tough one tonight.

True, but they only had it for the last 20 seconds or so, and Duluth had a whole power play.

When you have seconds to secure a tie in the NPI, you find a way to do that. I saw that coming from a mile away when they gave them the blue line. UND loses every game they score two goals late against Duluth, from the 5 overtime game, to earlier this season, to tonight. Don’t have a good feeling about tomorrow.

14 seconds left, and you give them the line instead of making them dump it. What happened to the “don’t give them time and space”? Complete opposite of Western’s game with Duluth, where Duluth had the power play in overtime but couldn’t convert and Western scored in the final seconds.

Apparently it isn’t being watched!

That puts a different spin on it, and it would seem he was looking for an incident. Have to see how the actual facts come out, but waiting outside for confrontation puts a different light on things for me.

This is a good teaching opportunity for coaches across the country. We’ve seen the rhetoric on message boards about certain players, and especially elite players. The consequences for them is very high, so hopefully coaches will let their players know that they will be verbal targets. We saw back in the day what happened at bars and parties between members of teams from different sports, so stuff like this shouldn’t be so shocking. I’m kind of caught between on this, as I don’t want to condone McKenna’s actions, but I also don’t think people have a license to harass and try and push athletes over the edge, possibly for a payout. How would I feel if it was a UND player in this circumstance? Most likely I would be mad at the player for going over the line during a possible championship run, but I also would understand that they are young and that there are idiots out there trying to push them over the edge.

Would like to see him and Croal together again and another option on the penalty kill. Don’t need extra wear and tear on Swanson with his dual play on the power play. More chance of Swanson to get outmuscled as well. If we can get Zakreski up to speed, could definitely use another dog on bone penalty killer, and player in general.