tnt

I really don’t think we have to reinvent the wheel. I think the team overachieved last year with all of the new guys, and I think they thought everything would be handed to them. We all expressed concern that we don’t pull a St. Cloud with everyone coming back, so that is the coaches job to instill that in his players. If they get back to needing to prove something and do the off-season work to make that happen, there can be a quick turnaround. This is not something that should be happening frequently. I recall they had a nice system in place under Hakstol where they would always have options of people to bring in, depending on development and experience, but that seems to be a bit broken with Covid and the portal. They need to get back to that system and figure out a good mix, especially at goaltending. Let’s get this fixed.

I would argue that the reason we aren't successful is because we seem to be a little softer than we used to be. When we keep talking "no swagger" on the years we are down, there is a problem in the guys we are recruiting. We would always have some skill guys and a complement of players that just had an edge and would go through a brick wall for the team. Everyone would always say that we would be the hardest working team and were just plain hard to play against. When I look at our roster, there aren't that many players I look at and think their distinguishing characteristic is being tough to play against. Some of the defensive lapses are due to being mentally lazy, and some from being physically lazy, and those aren't thing usually associated with UND hockey. Need to find a way to right the ship and truly be a team of "culture"!

One has to wonder why you are here then. Complain about it, but stay. We do live in a free country, do we not?

Who is it this year, Isaac Howard? I’ll take the non Blue Chip Jackson Blake.

https://www.collegehockeynews.com/stats/team/Minnesota-Duluth/36/overall,20172018 Duluth won a National Championship with 5 freshmen defensemen, why not us? Of course, guys like Mikey Anderson and Scott Perunovich help, but hopefully we get a few that can step up right away. After this year, maybe we need a few guys that haven't been a part of the bad habits that somehow transpired this year.

I agree, introspection is needed. You need only look at Omaha who everyone thought would be a cellar dweller with all the guys they lost, and not having the same recruiting edge, and the fact that they most likely will finish ahead of us requires a deep look in the mirror. Our prime time games where the rest of the country is watching have not been great lately, and down the road if potential recruits aren't seeing North Dakota in the NCAA playoffs, that is going to hurt recruiting even more.

Not sure what you’re getting at. Are you saying we are exhausted from the grind? If anyone should be tired from the grind, it should be Denver who shared the Penrose and has had longer seasons than us, with longer post seasons. If anything, I think this team had Fat Cat syndrome at the beginning of the year, thinking that post season and home ice would be a given. They had St. Cloud as a lesson from last year, and they still didn’t come back with a passion, and it looks to me with the regression of many, especially on the back end, that they didn’t put in the extra work over the summer to bring their game to the next level. Watching the pregame video they created for this year, showing the disappointment from the season ending loss to Notre Dame, sure didn’t seem to manifest itself how they came into this season. I assume they still have season ending talks about expectations coming into the year for each individual, so not sure why so much regression.

This is definitely not the year to be questioning our pp.

So is Isaac Howard regressing under Sandelin? He was a first round draft pick, and Blake, a fourth rounder has outperformed him by a bit. Howard may end up better, because everyone transitions at a different rate, even some so called Blue Chippers.

When we do, people complain about them -- Hain, Caulfield!

For real, they would bring in two portal goalies? How does Duluth get Gajan, and we are sitting here possibly needing to be bringing in two portals? Doing that would be admitting total whiff on recruiting. Would think Karl would be having a lot of input on goaltending recruiting and developing them, so how did we get to this place?

A lot of those guys will be gone next year, so Slipec will get an opportunity to prove himself.

Panzer got one tonight. I’m guessing Slipec doesn’t see a lot of ice time. If you look at how many forwards Chicago has in the leagues top scorers, there can’t be a lot more ice time to go around.

If we beat Denver and they outshot us nearly two to one, everyone would be saying the only thing that kept us in it was goaltending.

I would call it the half Michigan, as I assume the puck was on edge already removing the part of getting it off the ice. Still pretty neat.

Yes , from Omaha. I think McLaughlin and Emerson will both be ones that we will be ecstatic with by the time their college careers are over.

We’ve benefitted from decomitted recruits as well. Let’s get a list of them as well. Jason Gregoire, Gage Ausmus, Gaber, Colton St. Clair, Brock Boeser to name a few.

So now we have another precedent. If you get a Major for facemasking in the last 19 seconds, there will be no further action. Tyler should just take note of that, and test that precedent. Of course there would be some other explanation.

We did flip Hedquist from CC, or at least he reopened his recruitment. Hedquist was similar to Keegan Karki and Matej Tomek, they were thought to be huge gets. We have no idea how Hedquist will end up playing, but I don't think his stock is as high as it was when he was younger. I think with goalies, it is nice to see how they do at the Junior level before offering. There are plenty of late bloomers that have a high ceiling. Slukynsky might end up being a stud, but there is no guarantee.

Nathan Airey, a goalie from the BCHL committed to Minnesota. Appears to have better numbers than Hedquist. Hopefully Hedquist can make the transition to college fast. Watching Basse for St. Cloud last weekend, it is nice to have a bigger goalie that the puck hits when the goalies eyes are taken away. Not as many Karl Goehring types around anymore.

…and some of the mistakes are things you just don’t do, and I’m sure are preached not to do. Maybe choosing to play pond hockey instead of following what they go over in video sessions put him in the doghouse. No question that Sidorski deserves to be playing, as he does the right thing most of the time.

Wondering if Tyler Hennen from Kittson Central has college potential. They play a soft schedule, but averaging 5 points and a hat trick a game, must have some potential considering the other teams are probably keying on him. Would imagine he will need to prove he can do it against better competition.

Apparently someone told them to shoot the puck.

I hope Miami doesn’t have weekly shootouts like we do, they would just be there until the goalie becomes exhausted. But they do have weakly shootouts!

But good old Gino Parrish thinks it is the best goaltending in the history of the game. How about you see what is happening and go off the board like Christian Wolanin!