USA Hockey

Here's part two of the story on Nick Mattson, http://www.startribune.com/local/16167297....?page=1&c=y

Have some patience.

I'm not to familar with North Dakota High School Hockey, but I was informed that the player who hit the game winning shot for Grafton Park River was on the bench/visit today. We had a recruit in on Saturday as well.

From what I have seen, the Gophers bring in four immediate impact players. This being Schroeder and Hanson at foward and Ness and Lofquist at defense. For UND, I have never seen Gregoire play so I'm going to assume he will be an immediate impact just because of what scouts say and his stats. After that, we bring in two more immediate impact fowards in Toews and Cichy. At defense, we bring in two bigger more physical stay at home guys in Blood and MacWilliam. From what I hear, Gleason and Fienhage will be 09's. For next year, I would give UND the edge at foward and Minnesota the edge at defense.

Kennedy area is the poor area of Bloomington (many minorities), Jefferson area is the nicer area. The only player that I can remember that has come out of Kennedy recently is Stoa.

There may be a commitment here shortly.

All of our recruits play on Thursday night. Here are the brackets Section 2AA, http://bp1.blogger.com/_gB9z7bAoSf8/R7iKbO...2AA+Bracket.PNG Section 3AA, http://bp2.blogger.com/_gB9z7bAoSf8/R7iNoe...3AA+Bracket.PNG

Danny Mattson is going to be an immediate impact player when he arrives at UND. For anyone that hasn't seen him play and lives in the cities, he is worth the time to watch.

He didn't ask for the backup. Yes, I'm aware of that they will take another player over the summer.

Here is our goalie recruit for next year, he was drafted in the fifth round and also led Team Canada West to the gold medal at the World Junior A Challenge, http://www.okotoksoilers.com/players.cfm?p...amp;playerid=21

For anyone interested, you can watch Danny Mattson on FSN North tommorow night at 7. His team, Holy Angels, plays at Stillwater. This is the last time that one of our high school recruits will be on the FSN North schedule this year, except for the playoffs that is. Out of the fowards coming in for 2009, he is my favorite to watch and has the most upside.

Those aren't rankings, just a list of players for 2009.

Before he committed to Minnesota, he told the coaches that he would be interested in playing here and a short while after that he committed to Minnesota without ever taking a visit here. From what I understand, the number 1 reason that the went to Minnesota is because of the olympic rink and the open style play. I have also heard more than once that his dad doesn't have good relations with the Sioux program.

I think a sweep would definetly solidify a top two spot in the conference. Even if this team lost Trotter, Bozak, Rakhshani, and Ruegsegger are still very dangerous. I agree with the post earlier about throwing a lot of shots at Manino. Anytime you play a goaltender of that caliber, that is the game plan you should go in with.

Congrats to the NTDP 18U team in winning the Five Nations Tournament. Kristo tied for 3rd on the team in scoring with four points in four games. The NTDP 17U team finished second at the Vlad Dzurilla tournament. Nick Mattson had an assist in the three games.

Hockey day in Minnesota is tommorow. The late game features Blaine vs. Roseau. It will be aired on FSN North at 11 p.m. If anyone plans on watching this, the player I would pay attention to is Nick Bjugstad from Blaine. I saw him play against Maple Grove earlier this season and he's pretty good. Hammy posted on his blog that he was invited to tryout for the NTDP this year.

Danny Kristo and the 18U team are playing in the five nations tournament this weekend. They played there first game yesterday and Kristo had the game winning goal in overtime. Here is the link, http://www.usahockey.com/Template_Usahocke...3&id=218894

Nick Mattson is competing with the USA Hockey U17 team in Slovakia this weekend at the Vlad Dzurilla Tournament. It's only a three game tourney and they won today 3-2. You can follow the rest of the tournament here, http://wwa.usahockey.com//Template_Usahock...04&ID=27438

With the comments about Wheeler, I completly agree. I actually think he is by far the best and most dangerous forward on the Gophers team right now, his problem is that he doesn't have the players around him like he did last year.

For anyone that is interested, you can watch sioux recruit Corey Fienhage play on FSN North tommorow night at 7. His Eastview team plays Burnsville, who has a couple of college recruits - Tyler Barnes who is committed to Wisconsin and Jake Hendrickson who is committed to UMD.

For anyone that hasn't seen him play yet, Joe Gleason and his Edina team will be playing Minnetonka (who has Wisconsin recruit Jake Gardiner) on FSN North tommorow night at 7. It should be a great matchup, it is between #2 and #3 in Class AA.

I've always been a supporter of the junior system over the high school system, but you are right, there are kids that stay in high school and have no problem adjusting to the college game.

Comments like this are the exact reason I don't listen to sports talk radio.

I like these lines also. The key is is to get them to play better on five on five. We struggled with that last weekend, despite being very good on the power play. This is a good test for five on five play because UAA plays similar to Tech.

Now that we have MacWilliam on board, I'm going to assume this leaves us with 6 for sure d-men for 08. Speaking that Chorney and Finley leave early, we would bring back Jones, Genoway, Lapoint, and Marto. We would then bring in Blood and MacWilliam. I think what will happen is instead of bringing in Gleason or Fienhage and making them sit, have them play juniors and get playing time (which is also what I was informed on). We would then recruit another d-man like Todd Alexander or Scott Foyt to be the 7th guy.