dagies

I wonder if some of this might be because the coaches are trying to keep the young D focused on learning the defensive aspect of the game at the D1 level before turning loose their offensive skills. I think of Paul Martin at MN who really did relatively little offensively his first year and if I remember it was because he was focusing on learning the defensive game. Seems like often times kids that have played high school D have more to learn defensively than offensively at this level, so they have to focus on learning defense first. Just my impression, but I could see that as an explanation.

Were you one of them?

Might be good that UMD got off the schnide (?) before coming to town. I really wasn't looking forward to playing them on a whatever long losing streak. Of course, maybe this will give them confidence, and make them that much harder to play. I don't know. I just always think streaks are made to be broken. If Stafford has altitude sickness regularly, and Zajac killed a lot of penalties that might explain why they weren't able to get it done at the end of the game.

It's a bummer to lose anytime, but I can't complain about a split, and it sounds like the team continues to play better hockey.

It's all my fault. I just turned on the radio 30 seconds before CC scores. Goodbye. I'll check in later.

Hak Felt the guys were ready to play from the beginning. Duncan was going from the get go. Says Smaby hits on Slattengren might have set the tone for the game tonite. Set the tone like a captain should do. Has a natural ability to hit in open ice. TH asks about Sterlings miss on the breakaway. Had not sure if Jordy got a piece of it or not. Hak thought the Sioux had the better energy and commitment tonite than CC. TH says CC doesn't have as good a D corp as the past. Hak agrees they are different, they are not as big as in the past. Don't have the big trees like Stuart and Petiot. Not very physical. Thought Toews put a strong power forward move on for his goal, but a bigger D might have prevented that goal. You wouldn't believe how quick Toews hands are on that goal unless you see it on replay. Hak said Duncan played very well tonite. Had a good night last Saturday night and he's played well with Stafford and Toews in the past. Paid off tonite.

Huge win for the Sioux. Validates the effort from last weekend though they didn't get the results at that time. Sounds like they played a pretty good game, and got the goaltending they needed from Jordy. Way to go, guys. Let's hope they are that much more acclimated by tomorrow night and have enough in the tank to take another one home. We've got one, so we have a chance for 2.

DUNCAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 4-1

Tripping on Stafford.

Got the game on the radio now, but am getting the horror film version of the audio.

Thanks, everyone, for the commentary. Just got in. Rather than turn on the game I decided to live through the running updates. It's a fun way to catch up, rather than just turn on the game to find out what the score is. Of course, it's a lot more fun to find out the Sioux are up 3-1. Way to go, boys!

Personally, I think he's getting the job done. But there's only so much he can be responsible for.

Good point. I think in today's paper Hakstol says about the same thing. We have to worry about coming out with the grit to get the job done, and that starts in the locker room. I agree, Sioux-Habit, goaltending is going to be important this weekend and we need whoever is in net to stop the ones they can stop. Fortunately to this point I think our goalies should be giving the team the necessary confidence to be aggressive offensively. Goon, I don't know how CC is going to react. They've had to weeks to sit on the fact they've been swept 4 straight games and a lack of confidence MIGHT come into play. They may come out like shook up hornets, or they may come out slow from being off for 2 weeks. It's hard to predict. Sometimes it seems like teams aren't real sharp after a layoff. In watching CC and Denver last year, Denver seemed to have good success cycling the puck against the smaller CC team. If the Sioux stay strong on the puck, there's a lot of room for skilled forwards to work themselves free (lots of room for a mistake to be taken advantage of by CC as well). I don't know how things are going to go this weekend, but I can see how this could go either way.

Of all the fans of another team to get upset about, its amazing to me you found Sagard. From my observations over time, he's about the last person that's going to "get in your face" on another team's board unless it's been asked for.

It would seem the NCAA should also be setting its sights on the Runnin' Rebels of UNLV. Would seem those folks who fought to continue slaving the black man might be important in this new age of the NCAA's values.

Don't forget how spoiled we are with some of the excellent recruits to come through our program recently. Most of the time, even very good recruits haven't historically produced the way Vanek, Parise, Kessel, Oshie, (insert name of your favorite here). While I am hoping to see a little more from Kozek and Watkins they are unfortunately compared to some players who have ruined the historical curve. At least that's my impression.

Someone posted on this board some time ago comments that Travis made about his brother. He's not got the same sort of offensive gifts that Travis has, but Travis said Darcy plays a different game, more physical and gritty (I think Travis said "dirty") than Travis. I wouldn't expect to see a signficant offensive contribution from Darcy next year based on what I've read on the internet, but hopefully strong character and physical play with a touch of offensive ability on the side which is valuable to have on a team as well. I'm no expert (come as a surprise to anyone?), but my minds eye sees something similar to what MN is getting from Chucko this year. I think that would be satisfactory for a freshman.

Unreal! Congratulations.

Thanks for the run down. I'll just worry about wins from here on out. I agree, I think Hak has to run with Parise right now. I am a Lammy fan, so this is no knock against Lammy, but Woog said that he asked Hak if the team plays differently in front of Parise than in front of Lammy and the response was a clear "yes". Lammy has done a very good job of late, IMO, but if the team seems to play better in front of Parise for any reason, then we need to ride that wave as far as it will go. Again, I think Lammy is just as capable, but if there's some affect on how the team is responding, that's the way to go.

I like the new line combo's. I wish I could watch these games and see how they work out. Thanks, PCM! BTW, last week I was just kidding about my dog peeing on the floor...

The Sioux fans all wearing halos joke is rather old as well. Admit it, you have Sioux envy.

He kesselled the crowd! He pulled a kessel. He went kessel on 'em. He gave him the ol' kessel. Give 'em some kessel! I'm working on my kessel. Sorry, I didn't kessel that.....

What a great problem to have. If you can find enough other pieces to complement this you should have 2 capable units, which will REALLY increase your overall PP success %. Obviously that's not happening for the Sioux right now, but it's a better position than we've been in for a few years.

Though the situation with every school has it's own peculiarities, I have wondered if there wouldn't be some advantage to them all pooling together to fight this. But maybe it's impractical for these 2 reasons: 1. Because of each school's unique situation, there's no good way to make a more general attack to the policy. 2. The time and expense needed to try and get 16-17 schools together, to cooperate on an offensive (no pun intended) approach might be prohibitive.

I thought you were going to say "Dean Blais".