tnt

I kind of see Spicer as a Jackson Kunz/ Dane Montgomery situation, he will probably be better served to play another year in Juniors, but if we need him, we can bring him in. The reason Mankato always does so well, is because many of their players are men playing against really young men that need some more weight and strength added. Many of their players have several years of junior hockey under their belt. Unless a player is a draft pick that will be a major threat to leave early, another year of juniors will only make it that more likely that they can make an impact when they do come in.

Especially when you were willing to take a huge chance on Mitchell Miller. To me, that makes no sense at all, and the fact that Brent Johnson was injured at the end of last year, and really couldn't get back to a full training regimen until much later makes that decision even more of a head scratcher.

Sometimes I think the staff thinks they can win on the "culture" alone. When it gets down to games like these, you need some difference makers to make that extra play, or just have the talent to bury one when most wouldn't. Duluth doesn't really have the difference makers either, but they are so disciplined that they all stick to their roles and they don't make the mistakes like the first goal we gave up last night. Let's face it, Berry isn't a disciplinarian, we could tell that with the whole Rhett Gardner situation when he didn't sit him until the whole fanbase was wondering what was going on. Thankfully, with a bump in the existing class, and the talent coming in next year, we should be able to make waves again next year with the regional in Fargo. Could be quite a bit of pressure in that regional, because of all the past circumstances. Really need to recruit with the premise that you are going to lose more skilled guys, so recruit more to replace them, because inevitably all of them won't pan out. Just really hope we don't have to listen to Duluth, Denver, Minnesota or Michigan celebrate a Natty, as that would definitely add insult to injury.

Perhaps a Jasper Weatherby, thus a better power play away!

Gaber is our guy going forward, but he needs to use his line mates better and pass when the situation dictates, as ultimately it would open up more space for himself. Sometimes it seems teammates are waiting for a return pass and I sense it is like a black hole that will never be returned. It is nice to have someone who actually wants to shoot the puck, but it might be a little too predictable. Have no doubt that Jackson Blake would love to set him up with his passing skill set.

The disappointing thing for me is that they regressed, rather than progressed. If it wasn’t for a poor CC team we may have ended the season on a five game losing streak. That, and all the big games where UND fans traveled, Nashville, the Frozen Faceoff and the regional, UND laid an egg. I was kind of surprised by the attendance at the Frozen Faceoff after UND was out. It appears Duluth’s fan base is expanding, let’s make sure ours doesn’t become jaded.

That seemed to be the line of thinking back then.

Just the opposite for me. The second year in a row where they felt the pain of losing then were given a second chance to make sure they wouldn’t feel that again. We say how lucky Duluth is to win in overtime time and again, and we can’t even do it with second chances. Losing in overtime doesn’t seem like much consolation when your rival has lost only once in about ten or so NCAA playoff games. Duluth has got a swagger to them, and we don’t right now. Seems to follow their coaches personality. With the upperclassmen losses in our league, next year needs to have a better outcome.

Well going to the Frozen Four wasn’t good enough for you, you railed on Hakstol to no end.

Our third period was the best of the night.

I would say this is all part of the “winning the championship in your first year jinx, but this doesn’t compare to all the other circumstances in the bad things that have happened since then, as they had two chances to win, and they just can’t seem to get out of there own way in special teams and mistakes. One thing Duluth doesn’t do is beat themselves. Even with Brent Johnson scoring the only goal, Berry might have sealed his fate when Sanderson went down by not having another everyday threat on the back end like Morrow. If special teams are so important, we need more special players on them. May need to try and flip a few guys like Matthew Wood, and they should be on the recruiting trail ASAP.

My only problem is that you have to expect your skilled guys to grow, and have opportunity to move on, so recruit accordingly. Don’t want to get in a situation where every 2-3 years we are going to have to listen to the refrain, this is how they have to play to be successful. That was the same situation that happened to Mike Eaves. They did great with what they had to work with this year, and our fans would have understood, even expected a 3rd or 4th place finish, as long as we continued to develop and grow through the playoffs, but this team peaked a while ago now.

They had a second lifeline last year, better take advantage this year.

Mike Mottau won the Hobey Baker award, but has as much personality as a wet rag.

Announcers are saying the same about our game. “This is how we have to play” means we need to get shots and go to the net, not try to be too cute on the power play. We need our skilled guys like Judd and Gaber to step up.

One, why not two?

Seriously, did any of these officials play sports. There was room on that to not call it 5 minutes. You have a Senior leading scorer for Tech who most likely has never played in the NCAA tourney, and you call that when it was borderline?

If I was a Harvard fan I wouldn't be happy with Coronato, as for someone as skilled as him, he sure dropped the ball in the last minutes, causing them to lose zone time and possibly the goal to tie the game.

What fan was yelling at him, Harvard or Mankato?

...and Coronato fans on two passes and a backhand attempt with room in an open net.

Well in those past few months you thought UND would only win 4 games the rest of the way and be sitting watching the tournament, and now you are lessening what a top seed has done for the whole year?

I hope I don't see him suiting up for Ottawa a week after the Frozen Four then.

Minnesota found out last year what a shutdown team can do to the so-called intimidating teams. If I’m not mistaken, Notre Dame swept the intimidating Michigan team when they were trying to win a league championship for the first time in a while. In the NCAA tourney, many times the intimidating teams are the ones that can play shutdown defense, which is why Duluth is a contender again.

I think we may need to accept the possibility that Brad Berry winning the championship his first year may have unleashed a jinx on him. The “offside” against BU, having to play a 5 overtime game against a fresher Duluth team after losing Senden the week before, having 2 of our best teams during Covid years, thus not having fans get to see how good they were, and having to postpone Nashville to this year and having to get a large group of newcomers to come together fast for that game, and then having the one player UND couldn’t afford to lose be out for most of the season, and most likely the rest of the year. Is there anything I am missing? Of course it didn’t help that we didn’t have Morrow to help fill in the hole that left is all on Berry. We need to reverse the course of these mishaps, so let’s start this week!

Yeah, there aren’t nearly as many memories of Sanderson as there are of past players through no fault of his own. Hopefully he has some memorable important games down the stretch, but there haven’t been many big games he has played in to create indelible memories save for maybe against the gophers and Duluth at the regionals, and that’s something you want to forget.