tnt

You would think if they were young, you would want players to actually be playing games in Junior hockey rather than sitting in college.

You could say that has been the case for Duluth for quite a while now. That is kind of how you win National Championships if you can somehow get in the tournament.

... and if not for a botched faceoff, who knows? I think they are a top half team next year. They took down good Duluth and St. Cloud teams last year, and just wait until they get fans in their building again. UND has had problems with Western even when they are loaded, and they will most likely take a little time to come together next year.

Agree, but I can't believe the NCAA doesn't see that is what is created by this. If you are not part of the haves, how long are you going to remain interested when your program consistently gets raided.

Hopefully it is the right combination, as team chemistry is a huge component to success. We saw that with all those seniors that all lived and interacted all day after practice. Resentment can sometimes creep in from guys that lose ice time. As long as we continue down the road of open competition and earning your ice time we should be good. I think guys like Ness and Albrecht can be solid contributors finding a role like Keane, and possibly progressing into another role in the future. No doubt we added some nice talent, now we need to mold it.

I can see St. Cloud and Western, but Duluth lost a lot and didn't score a ton to begin with.

Where were any of them but Cates going to go? I suppose Roth could play somewhere, but another year before going to Europe isn't going to make or break him.

If their recruits don't mind sitting in Juniors another year and it doesn't dramatically throw off the class balance then I would think it would be good to get guys back that are that experienced, especially if you think you can win it all, which I am sure is what St. Cloud is thinking. I think it is just going to be such a balancing act for a while because those same teams might need the next batch of guys to stay another year as well to keep the classes balanced. I suppose the portal will also create problems in those configurations.

I have contended from the start that the extra Covid year would hurt UND badly compared to other teams simply because I did not see any of the guys like Kawaguchi, Kiersted, Mismash or Adams coming back regardless. I held out hope for Adams, simply because he was a mid round pick without the size, but I knew it probably wasn't in the cards. That, and the probability of JBD and Pinto leaving as well really puts us in a difficult situation. We need to really find another impact player in the portal. Like people said, Berry is really going to have to earn his paycheck this year. I think the rest of the league should hold their own in Non-conference, but UND is really going to have to bear down against teams like Penn State and Minnesota because I think those leagues will be competing for extra tourney spots next year.

...and we know that Michigan will probably score a ton, which is what the voters focus on. At least next year there will be non conference games to help with comparisons.

We still have no idea who is coming back for Michigan. If Power and Kent Johnson are taken in the top 3 of the draft, they could be gone. Would think Minnesota should be able to score more, but remember Minnesota didn't exactly light it up against defensive minded teams like Notre Dame and Minnesota State. Thankfully for them they play in the wide open Big Ten, but I sure want to see how guys like Lucius react when they are pounded consistently in the scoring zone by guys like Sanderson and Kleven. Certainly they will be high in the rankings, but when adversity hits will tell the tale as to where they end up.

Hopefully this year gives us more momentum in recruiting local kids that could help minimize the number of situations like this that arise, but yeah, the mentality will still be a factor, even with local talent.

He isn’t used to playing in front of fans at home, so he went somewhere that felt comfortable to him.

Hasn’t that been the case for the last 30 years? We’re told all the time how good their recruiting classes are.

It isn't Burgum, it is my understanding that it is an NCAA policy.

But in hockey they have no problem with empty regionals so no team has an advantage at a home site. The NCAA isn't very consistent.

Don’t forget the two former assistant coaches that participated, one as a coach and one as a player, in Rick Wilson and Mark Osieki.

Agree, and it looks like both would have 2 years which would be huge. And both of their #’s 16 and 21 are available to them at UND. We did win a National Championship with a Calder in the past. (I was going to say “Natty”, but I feel dirty using that terminology unless it is to mock.)

No doubt they believed he could develop into a decent college goalie, but I also think the knowledge was there that it wasn’t a huge risk because he has always dreamed of playing for UND and even if he was needed as the third goalie, he would fill that role with character. Being a local guy that has always wanted to play for UND, I would think UND could have waited to watch him play more junior hockey to see how he performs on a stage where he wasn’t playing with a dominant team in front of him.

Not loving playing a presumably top tier team in Cornell when we will most likely be without Sanderson and Kleven for the World Juniors. Hopefully no other defensemen are injured, creating a circumstance like last year in the Pod when we were depleted on defense.

Having not seen Calder, I don't know if he would jump Cruikshank or not. We saw how CC did with and without Cruikshank in the toughest league and we all saw him in the POD, so I would want the person very familiar with our league. We saw what Steven Jandric said about how tough he thought the league was after his transfer from Fairbanks, and his significant drop in numbers. If Cruikshank is off the table, it would be nice to get a guy like Calder. Maybe a 1a and 1b situation, where both could offer UND a lot. Beyond the points, I think the coaches would have already done their homework on character and intangibles.

Would probably make it easier to sell a ticket as well, and less need to have tickets placed at will call.

It has got to be difficult to weed out all the high scorers in high school whose skills might not transfer to the next levels. I certainly thought guys like Slukynsky and Randklev would have put up better numbers in junior hockey than they did. We can just throw out names left and right that put up good numbers at different levels and wonder if UND should be recruiting them. Then we get to cherry pick the ones that succeed and question why they weren’t recruited, while forgetting the dozens or more that fall off the map. They only have a limited number of scholarships to fill certain roles, so they have done a pretty good job keeping the misses to a minimum.

https://www.ushl.com/view#/player/8017/73/jake-schmaltz I thought Jake was the cousin of Nick and Jordan. I assume this is wrong?

I'm surprised more of the smaller name schools don't follow the Maverick's playbook. Yes, you still have to find the right players, but you can compete pretty well with men while some players still are boys comparatively speaking. It is a good reason why it is better to keep players an extra year in Juniors when possible, so they are that much more physically able to compete against teams like Minnesota State.