tnt

Exactly, I don’t see any games as games we can’t win, if we quit shooting ourselves in the foot right when the game is on the line.

Unfortunately, picking someone to cheer for other than UND has become something UND fans have had to deal with in regionals and Frozen Fours way too often lately.

Exactly, but that would mean going to the hard areas, and that apparently isn’t our thing anymore. Give me a Brandon Bochenski who would shoot from anywhere, anytime.

But we can’t win without power play goals. Reminds me a lot of old gopher hockey teams that didn’t play with grit but won when their power play was effective. Five on five tells you what kind of team you have, and we are too soft to win without our pp scoring a couple times a game, and even then … well, you saw the debacle against Western. I would love to see the team come together to prove us message board warriors wrong, but that would require them playing “a full 60”, and that is just asking too much.

So, if that is the case, that would make three of the last four times UND hosted regionals that they didn’t make. That along with the destination game duds, and Berry isn’t giving the fan base much reason to want to book in advance. If he preaches culture again when he has said we need to start on time for the hundredth time, I hope the media point that out to him. Again, we start playing when we want, even when we are supposed to be in desperation mode. We have multiple ex UND players in town that could coach our culture as good if not better.

Not knowing who it is, who do we want it to be? James Hagens? Logan Hensler?

Most of his points have come the last 5 games, so maybe he is starting to figure something out. Would hate to give up on someone, then have them become a force like Tucker Poolman and Paul LaDue. The other part of the equation is what kind of scholarship money is involved. We have had local guys just start out with minimal scholarship money, then grow that by producing on the ice. If they are willing to wait until they are ready, and aren't preventing us scholarship wise from pursuing players that are ready for the college game, I have no problem letting it play out.

Not sure what type of defenseman Ausmus is supposed to be, but obviously we need guys that are defensive defensemen as well. If he is like Gage, that would be great. Since he is a 2004, and has had injury issues, I don't think a larger sample size would hurt. I remember that Andrew Peski's USHL stats didn't jump off the page, but he ended up being a very good player for UND.

But even the people defending Berry said let's see what he does this year with a squad that was supposed to be very good. Well, so far we are just hoping to make the tournament, much less an early exit again. Yes, the same people that used to cry for a national championship instead of making the Frozen Four every year have now changed their tune a bit, but not having a sniff at the Frozen Four is substandard for this organization for that long, even with some of the extenuating circumstances.

Umm, maybe they should have been "locked in" while they still controlled their own pairwise destiny.

I think part of the problem is that when you have just about everybody coming back, the expectation is there that you would be better than teams like Omaha and Western who lost just about everybody. Never thought of them as reload type of programs, but maybe it's in their culture. And yes, I know that things can turn around in a hurry, at least that is my hope the rest of the way.

Didn't we have more grindaz last year when we won the league. I would argue that some of the super skilled guys have focused only on one side of the rink, which is leading to our problems. Scoring hasn't been an issue, but keeping the puck out of our net has.

Yes, losing leads quite frequently in the third period, and not being able to come back when you are behind after two periods isn't a good combination.

Gotta say, I am not seeing a lot of team first play right now.

So they worked a couple years with him through his injuries in the BCHL, and then he bolted at the last minute with no communication?

...and he is leading UMASS in scoring this year. Not sure if it would make our defense any better with the three of them, but maybe we could score more five on five.

...and if that was the case, how bad was the decision to bring him in over Morrow last year? I know, there were red flags with Morrow, but let's be honest, there are plenty of red flags to go around right now. Let's face it, Johnson is no different than a lot of the rest of the team right now, if they play the right way, they can be pretty good. The problem is, getting them to play that way on a consistent basis.

At one point last weekend, Providence went from 20 to 12 in the pairwise, so it is possible to move up with a winning streak. Unfortunately, they can't slip against teams like Miami, and need to do well against St. Cloud and Denver when they have the opportunity.

I have a feeling if our culture is as strong as he leads one to believe, we wouldn't be in the predicament we are in right now. They had the benefit of impressing on the players from St. Cloud's example last year, that returning players don't mean anything if you don't put in the effort and time to improve. Obviously, this team thinks it can play when they want, and how they want without repercussions. We have seen them play hard at times, along with playing the right way, but it has been very inconsistent. The other part of culture is being accountable to the team, and with the stupid penalties by Kleven and Moore, we see that hasn't been evident. Kleven's game misconduct basically said to the rest of the team that it was game over being behind by two late in the second period, and by his actions he may have not only cost us that game, but with his presence on Saturday that outcome might have been different as well. If culture meant anything he would sit Friday's game this week as well, to send a message that it is "team first", and selfish actions aren't part of our culture.

The mystery to me is why they say all of the right things about how they need to focus on defense first and the offense will come from the transition, like after the first series in Western Michigan, but how they have a short memory and are right back to playing shinny hockey the next week.

Not only defensive zone coverage for Gaber, but in the offensive zone I would like to know how many turnovers he has that gives the opposition odd man rushes the other way. If you look closely, he turns the puck over quite frequently when he tries to stickhandle. He is most effective when someone like Blake get's him the puck and he doesn't hesitate and stick handle too much. Certainly they must have analytics for his turnover ratio. The sad part about this whole year is that the year we finally are stellar on the power play, we are absolutely horrid five on five, both offensively and defensively. Our record certainly would be better with an extra save here or there, but they need to figure out how to play at least even five on five.

First team to beat Boston in regulation on their home ice. Hopefully they can keep it rolling.

I have two tickets each for Friday, 01/13 & Saturday 01/14 vs. Western Michigan. Section 302A, Row G, on the end UND shoots twice. $25 each ticket. Text 701-330-8439. Paypal.

The more I think about it, the more I think that if Ben Strinden has been on the bench as much as he has this season, Cole Spicer most likely wouldn't have been in the lineup very often, and if that would have been the case, most likely would have wanted to transfer out after the season anyway.

No, I get that, and St. Cloud got away with an obvious one late in the game, but seldom do you see one like last year when the gopher player paused thinking it was an obvious call, then when they didn't he went in and scored. To me, that's what makes the 3 on 3 overtime a bigger joke, because any little tug can cause enough separation to change the outcome. In this case, it didn't directly change the outcome, as the puck went the other way, then came back in the zone.