dagies

It's already been fairly well established that the problem with Gryba was timing, not whether we could get him. Sometimes there's only so much room, despite the complaints of certain AA fans that the Sioux "overrecruit".

I hope this point got made in the locker room this week.

Oh oh!

I have a little different view, Goon. I guess it depends on the severity of Parise's injury, but I think he should only play if he's been able to practice at a very high level and Lammy this week in practice. If he's back to normal, and they've been about equal, I still have no problem with a rotation. If he hasn't been able to practice much, I don't think we lose that much playing PL in both games. PL has been very solid of late, except for last Friday's game (admittedly one he needed to be good in). Parise struggled in 2 games against MN a month ago. I don't know that his game is that much ahead of PL's right now..

I do wonder how the Olympic ice will affect this game. Will this allow MN's talented and speedy forwards to work the young Sioux D? Will the Sioux forwards find the room to work the struggling, and shorthanded Gopher D? Or, will we see a lot of what sometimes happens on the frozen ocean....guys chasing the missed puck to New Brunswick?

I watched most of the 3rd. The announcers were patting Commie on the back for his play. Sound positionally, and solid. Commie had a big hit on Lidstrom, and they paid a lot of attention to it because apparently nobody gets a very good shot on him. I was surprised to see that with a 1 goal lead, and Carolina going on the PK with about 1.5 minutes left that Commie came right out on the ice to kill it off, and he'd only been on the bench for a few seconds. They apparently are depending on him. He looked good out there.

I figured they probably weren't reading this board so it was safe to post that stuff. I agree with you. Win each period, starting at 7:07pm on Friday.

I was surprised to find how few games the Sioux have played on Olympic Ice so far this year. On NHL sized ice the Sioux are 11-7 by my count. On Olympic ice they are 3-2-1. Considering only 3 of those 11 NHL wins are at home, I was thinking maybe they were suffering on NHL ice, and might play better on Olympic sized sheets. Maybe there's no story here after all. The Sioux ARE 6-5 on Fridays and 7-3-1 on Saturdays. I didn't count the Lefty McFadden as that was played on Sat/Sun against 2 different teams, though the Sioux won on Sat and lost on Sun. Still not much to say here, other than maybe a slight bias to playing better on Saturdays than Fridays.

tnt, if siouxnami is referring to the same thing I'm thinking of, there was a post within the last week or so, by a gopher fan (one who usually has some inside 411), mentioning something about O'Brien's personality or character being a little "different" and if the report was accurate, if the gophers lost him to another team maybe it wouldn't be that big of a loss. Now to be fair, that comment didn't necessarily paint O'Brien as a bad egg, just a possibility of potential issues. It was heresay enough that I wouldn't probably have repeated it, yet at the same time siouxnami didn't just make it up because O'Brien is going to MN.

Will you guarentee this? I'm at the game on Friday...

I'm trying to remember, but I'm thinking I remember Hakstol saying something about the young guys especially being TOO worked up before the Friday night game against the Gophers, and that might have contributed to a poor start that weekend. So I think they got excited, but didn't handle it as well as the Gophers did.

I read somewhere that Lacka was pretty ticked about being cut from that team. While he was sitting home watching the Russians lose to the US, Lacka's father said "Looks like they cut the wrong guy".

Amen, brother. Amen!

His comments about the need to be "pragmatic" may be telling.

It didn't appear that any bad blood affected Toews and Oshie's ability to play together this weekend...

Kid was playing in the biggest tournament of his life, one he's dreamed of for years. He's playing for his country against teams from other countries, trying to maintain his focus on winning, and you expect him to yap with his opponent who just happens to be a teammate in another life? Plenty of time for that after the tournament is over. I don't see any big deal, and I like his focus.

Goon, I think I'm going to need a steady dose of your optimism this week! I could only make one game this year and fortunately it's Friday, which has been kind to us of late. First time I've made a game at Mariucci in a few years. I'm looking forward to it.

The gophers may have played everyone but the Little Sisters lately but they've beat them all the way a good team should....handily. So I think they are on their game. Sounds like their goaltending is at times spotty still, so hopefully they'll be in a generous mood when our boys are in town. Call me a wussy, but I'm still worried about WJC fatigue. I know the Gophers had 2 players who played a fair amount there, but the Sioux had 4. So I do think that could play a factor. That, and the Gophers appear to be playing more consistently now than the Sioux. Could be a tough series. If the Sioux can get 2 points, I think that's very satisfactory. They could easily be swept.

I agree, if a message needs to be sent, it needs to be sent. In fact, it will be even more clear when it is an important game like Friday's was. If he's not been playing well, and is capable of playing better, than might as well sit him and hope to fix the problem for the long run.

Love how Hak is handling the goalies. He will be critical of the goalie on Friday night, and when the goalie responds he correspondingly gives them the big pat on the back the next night when the goalie comes through as expected. Thanks for the recap, PCM. I switched over from the AA feed to the UND feed in the last minute so I could hear it myself, but there's apparently too much airspace between Alaska and Grand Forks, or something.

Watkins burns an AA defender but DeCaro gets a leg on the puck for the save!

Penalty on the Sioux. We're getting screwed!!

That is beautiful. Frame that one.