burd

When I saw him do that on a faceoff, my first thought was "I'd like to see this kid's ACT score." LJ is a fine player who brings a lot to the team, but some guys just have a problem figuring some things out.

That's a fair point. In goal and on D alone, we have some serious talent. I guess I fell into the trap of looking at the scorers, where we do have NS and Caggiula, among others. But this team wins with gritty play and hustle goals. Most of the time.

You're right about Johnson. He got away with one in the third when he cross checked a guy out of frustration at the faceoff dot. It was just a stupid reaction.

When we had the DOT line, I think we all knew we were witnessing a rare combination of talent that might not come along again. With this team, we are witnessing a special blue collar character and togetherness than we may not see again for a while. And has been mentioned before, even though they win through hard work and toughness, they have managed to do a good job of staying away from stupid in-your-face type penalties. They seem to get the balance, and that has to come from their leaders.

I think you are right--the knee cap injury doesn't make much sense. Easier to damage the tendon above the patella, I suppose.

If you are a recent UND grad, they maybe Kelly's critics have a point about how our school is failing us.

Did they send you for donuts like they do out on the patch?

If he got a fractured kneecap through a shin pad, that's one hell of a slapper. If he was down on his knees, though, it might have caught some exposed area above the hard part of his pad.

To some fans, the only measure of success now is a banner. Hakstol has 11 straight 20-win seasons, and the next closest is York with 5. Yet some fans would ask for his head if he doesn't win the banner. We all want a banner, but that's pretty mindless thinking, and it gets to the players, you can be sure.

This will sound like sacrilege and I can't defend it with any kind of logic, but I wouldn't mind seeing the boys drop a game they wanted between now and game one of the regionals.

Think for a second how odd this conversation would have seemed just a few years ago--UND sharing first place votes with Mankato and Tech. With Michigan and Minnesota playing with the bubble and Maine and Wisconsin nowhere in sight.

It's just way of describing a crack or partial fracture with no bone displacement or misalignment. Common enough term but I'm sure it's not clinical. But he took it above the knee, it's probably not a fracture.

Deep contusion or solid fracture.

This team is really playing good hockey. At every position.

He's always been one to take things into his own hands.

Thank god they're not coached by Blais: HIs teams can't win a game.

There's the thing. We appreciate and admire them for who they are and the way they have conducted themselves, not for what we will get from them. Sports fans tend to use clichés freely but act very selfish when it comes down to it.

Almost looked like a pipe. So fast it's hard to tell. Great acrobatics.

I think we have all criticized Hakstol on this site for one failing or another, but he and his staff deserve a lot of credit for molding this team (and for the judgment they showed in recruiting them in the first place). Gaarder's recruitment and development is an example of what Hak and his staff do as well as anybody, IMO. Now, hopefully they can put together a tournament run . . . .

Minnesota's problem in recent years (not last year) when they've underperformed has been their tendency to quit, and they were doing it earlier this year. When I saw them down 3 with their back-up goalie in, I wondered how they would respond. This team might not be playing the top shelf in the pw, but it looks like it's starting to play up to its potential--and there is a lot of it. We all are afflicted with some degree of gopher hate, but they are becoming a team to be reckoned with.

I really like this group. They're not the most talented team we have had in the last 10 years, but their intangibles make them a hard team to beat.

A win Friday would make me feel a whole lot more optimistic about the weekend. If we do, I hope Hak tells them to loosen up and go after them Saturday. I know that is not the way he has been winning, but if we get to the FF, I think the boys need to see it as a chance to do something special rather than a challenge they must meet with discipline and focus. All that sounds like BS (or cliche'), but I think it is possibly true that a team can be a little too tight in big games, and they sometimes need to be taught how to go out there and just play with energy and believe good things will happen. I think that can be the difference between a very successful season and a successful tournament. Again, that sounds like BS even to me.

Each person gets a pair of green glasses upon graduation?

For Duncan, it was just another day at his office over there inside the dot.

But Kristo had a P Kane-like ability to move around the zone and create chances. Bucks was a shooter would could smell a net a mile off.