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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?

I would like to see the Sioux look at Stepan Novotny, as he was the player I was most impressed with at the Elite games in Grand Forks. I'm sure they are taking a look, but there are only so many scholarships and with Toews and Nash out there, who knows.

On the Waterloo website it says John Lee is 6'2" 185 lbs. That's pretty decent size.

What are you asking?

I don't care who you play, if you win two from a CCHA team on the road in convincing fashion it is impressive. If the Sioux destroyed a CCHA team like that on the road everyone would be talking about #8. People seemed to be impressed by the Sioux beating Quinnipiac at home by less convincing scores, so why shouldn't Minnesota move up, especially when the Sioux and others didn't look very impressive at home. Oh, and let's remember Minnesota dropped after losing only one game to Maine which included a close contest with an empty netter. Minnesota fans weren't whining about the polls after that. You make the rest of us look like whiners as well, so do us a favor and broach a topic like this when the Sioux win, not because they deservedly drop.

The Sioux missed out on Grant Potulny because they didn't give him a scholarship, and his brother followed him to Minnesota.

Anyone else watch Shattuck while in town last weekend? Wondering if anyone has heard if Stepan Novotny is being recruited heavily. He is a junior, along with David Toews, and both looked extremely impressive. Wisconsin seems to have got a gem in Brock Montpetit. David Carle looked to be the cream of the crop defensively, but I would think he might be predisposed to Denver since his brother Matt had good success both personally and teamwise at Denver. St. Cloud looks like they got a great player in Aaron Marvin who played for Team Great Plains against Shattuck and had a hattrick. Didn't notice Jordy Christian quite as much though, although I have to admit I was focusing a bit more on the Shattuck players. I would bet that many more than a handful of players on Shattuck will be playing DI hockey in the years to come. Let's hope the Sioux can keep the pipeline going and get the cream of the crop.

Tim Hennessey had Chorney as 3rd Star.

Heard Tim Hennessey say that Ron Hextall's kid from the BCHL will be going to UND. He said he is a nasty player. I am sure some word should be coming out soon if this is true.