tnt

...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.

We see how it’s done, by physically dominating the line of scrimmage. That is where we need to focus at getting better. Can’t believe we once thought trimming down was the way to go.

Second year in a row, where the gopher guy who committed an uncalled penalty against St. Cloud in overtime, scored the game winner on the same shift.

Seems to me, we beat Western by shutting down their top guns. Would bet that the 4th and 5th year guys had a lot to do with that, but yeah, let’s go back to a wide open game and hope our goalies can pull out some wins for us.

Don’t forget, producing goes both ways. If you score one goal but are responsible for two goals against, that isn’t getting you anywhere. In fact, we have scored enough this year, but giving up all of the odd man rushes has killed us.

What catches my attention is the huge fluctuation from week to week. Western Michigan was behind us a few weeks ago, and now they are at 12. Everything is ahead of us, just need to string a few wins together against the higher ranked teams and they can move up. The fact that we moved up, despite playing #56, bodes well if we can indeed string some wins together against the higher pairwise teams.

I will say, they came out better tonight, just couldn’t convert on their early chances, but seeing how they dominated both nights when they had to, makes you wonder where that urgency is at other times.

Would be nice if St. Cloud can finish off the sweep of Minnesota tomorrow.

Agree, but when your backs are against the wall, you would hope that you don’t have to be shocked into playing. When they speak of culture in the UND program, it isn’t “we play when we have to, or when we want to”, it has been in the past that the work ethic and readiness to play has been there most of the time.

Then I wouldn’t go into a thread that has traditionally given other college scores.

Does he play linebacker?

That's why I cringe when teams hog pile after they win a championship. Seems like high school teams are the least cautious when jumping headlong into a pile.

I didn't say it, Bubba did, but it sounds like you are setting it up for more excuses after it is finished.

Well, after this next phase Bubba says we will have the best facilities in FCS. At that point, no more excuses, but we know that won't be the case.

What if you have the odd situation where 3 or so defensemen want to possibly start their pro career and burn a year on their contract. I certainly hope it doesn’t happen, because there aren’t that many hockey teams like there is in basketball. Nearly every team making a postseason tourney seems odd, because many wouldn’t even have winning records.

We’ve seen with the Cooper Moore suspension last year on a hit similar to, if not as bad as the hit Savoie put on Senden, that the league isn’t going to do us any favors. Moore’s hit probably wasn’t as bad, and it didn’t happen near the end of the game either. We now have seen the standard, let’s see if the league is consistent with their punishments.