tnt

Didn't St. Cloud just get beat and tied by a struggling Wisconsin team?

I sent an email to the Ralph earlier in the week to see if they would have the games on in the concourse at the High School Hockey tournament. Still haven't got a response. You would think they would want to get more people at that game for a better gate by getting people that want to see how the Sioux are doing too.

Exactly! Sometimes it's not too bad to have a few players with something to prove.

The only thing I really want in officiating is consistency. I told my friends on Saturday that I didn't mind that Hunt put his whistle away, especially in the 3rd period, because he was consistent in letting it go both ways. The thing that bothers me is the type of officiating that went on in Minneapolis a month ago. Call it both ways and I'm good.

I thought it would be interesting to guesstimate what would happen if... Sioux win all 4 games -- They would finish second, barring CC running the table. win 3 and tie -- Still probably finish second. win 3 and lose -- probably finish 3rd Win 2 , lose 1, tie one -- 4th place finish Win 2, lose 2 -- 5th place finish anything worse -- on the road. Of course the finish would depend totally on which teams the Sioux beat or lose to in the final 4 games, but that would be my guess as to where they would finish. I would like to depend on Duluth, Michigan Tech and Mankato helping the Sioux out, but I'm not going to hold my breath on that, even though I was impressed by Duluth's fight last weekend and Mankato's the weekend before. What do you think will happen down the stretch?

I believe right now CC owns the tiebreaker, which is down to most wins.

Definitely need to win the last two games, but if the Sioux and Augie did tie, who would get the top seed? I know the Sioux beat Augie pretty good, is that the first tie-breaker after head to head?

Don't know if it's right or not, but my media guide says St. Cloud plays at Wisconsin.

Don't know about the rest of you, but Wisconsin sitting only 2 points behind the Sioux leaves me with an uncomfortable feeling. I hope St. Cloud can beat Wisconsin and give the Sioux a little breathing room for home ice. We finish with Denver and St. Cloud on the road where splits would be o.k., while Wisconsin finishes with Tech and Duluth. One thing to remember is that if the Sioux tie Wisconsin, the Badgers get home ice because of their series record against the Sioux.

Exactly! Mankato is coming up with their own scenarios where they can host a 1st round playoff series, and it all centers around them shocking us this weekend much like the Sioux did to the gophers the other weekend. If the Sioux come into the series looking forward, they may end up behind Mankato at the end of the weekend, albeit they would still have a couple games in hand. Friday's game is huge in that regard. The Sioux really need to snuff out that hope by coming out flying from the first shift. Here's to hoping nobody on the Sioux is taking anything for granted right now and that they use the Minnesota series as a springboard, rather than an opportunity for a big head.

The Sioux can move up if they beat Denver and St. Cloud. True they don't totally control their destiny except for 5th, but somebody is going to lose when CC plays Denver and St. Cloud, so being that the Sioux are within six points of all three, they are assured someone is going to lose the head to head against those three.

What do you consider a "standard of the program" for a freshman? Is it the numbers put up by Toews and Oshie, or is it the numbers that guys like Bryan Lundbohm and Lee Goren put up, which by the way, wasn't much at all. I think improvement is the way to judge freshmen, especially ones that don't come in with Rookie of the Year hype. I think the improvement has been there, and hopefully more results will follow in the second half.

Once you get a high-end player like Krissy Wendell or Natalie Darwitz, you become an elite team. The other lines basically cancel each other out, but if you have that kind of player they become the difference in winning and losing. After you win, you can get those players consistently, like the Lamoureauxs. I was just hoping that the program would have been moving forward so the Sioux would have at shot at them. As it stands, they have to find a few elite players to get on the map, then I think they can become consistently good.

Since you have Aaron Ness on the list, I think Tyler Landman from Roseau is another 2009 to keep an eye on.

Didn't see Derrick Lapoint's name on the Green Bay roster for last Saturday. Anybody know why?

The way the Sioux have played at home before Christmas under Hakstol, I wouldn't mind if they scheduled all of our games at home to be played after Christmas. Seriously, when was the last time we had a huge series against our rivals later in the season at home? Also, I thought the league was going to get smart and only schedule non-conference games during the World Junior break. I see the gophers are playing a Friday-Sunday with Mankato, which comes in handy for them being short 5 players. They will at least have a full contingent for one game. The Sioux however have to play CC again and will be missing their 3 players for both games. The WCHA people need to follow through on their talk.

Travis Roche played for Trail of the BCHL didn't he?

I was the most impressed with Novotny when Shattuck played the Elite team at the Ralph. But I think watching a person one time and forming an opinion can lead to some bad conclusions. I didn't think Ben Blood stood out much that game, but he obviously has top-end talent. Some players just have standout games and then fall off after that. I may have caught Blood on a mediocre night and Novotny on a great night.

Yeah, I remember Dave Colborne. He was from Calgary and had a great start to his career and then came the eligibility problem. Can't remember exactly what the issue was though.

Don't know how explosive I would consider Penticton when there are 8 teams that have more goals for than they do. Also, there leading scorer has 30 points, while Hextall has 23 as a younger player. Everything can't be measured by goals and assists. Maybe he will come in and maybe he won't, but I don't think it will be determined by reading the score sheet every day. If that was the case, then Oshie wouldn't be valuable to the Sioux right now, and we both know that he is very valuable even when he doesn't hit the score sheet.

If you look at the top 10 point output for a single season, only 3 are of the prototypical NHL size. The rest are either slight of frame or height. I am counting Troy Murray, Steve Johnson and Bob Joyce in the prototypical range even though Murray wasn't exactly big, but had an NHL build.

Evan Trupp scored both of Penticton's goals in a 2-1 win on Sunday.

You made a good choice. Got to see a great performance and perhaps the last playoff game at UND for over 5 years or maybe forever if the NCAA has their way. I am surprised that UND didn't advertise it as such. If they made people realize how nice it is to see playoff football maybe a few more people would have gone. The Bison seemed to have their best attendance ever, and it wasn't even a playoff game. I would imagine the Bison are craving a home playoff game, so the apathy kind of concerns me as to the support UND will receive when their is no hope for playoff football.

Jake Marto with a powerplay goal tonight for Omaha.

What do you base this on?