PCM

The Thursday Grand Forks Herald has a good article by Virg Foss about Kevin Spiewak. It's well worth the read.

I'll pick up at the point where forecheck got on the show and ran it. Caller: I thought you said Brandt was the No. 1 goalie. Why is Siembida playing? Why isn

So who's going to be the brave soul to call in to ask Blais why he keeps going with Siembida and why he doesn't play either Brandt or Ranfranz more often. I can't do it. I'm too busy taking notes.

And don't forget that each player's locker is individually vented.

That's terrible news. Please keep us posted on how he is.

According to this article in Wednesday's Grand Forks Herald, David Hale won't be making the trip to Denver this weekend. It sounds as if he hasn't fully recovered from his illness yet.

I've watched games in both facilities. The Xcel Energy Center is great, but the new Engelstad Arena is better. Even the Minnesota Wild players and management said so when they played their exhibition game in Grand Forks against the Thrashers last October.

You're right, JBB. There's way too much unseemly extrapolating going on around here.

How tall is Nick? I wouldn't mind seeing a taller goalie for a change. Plus, with a name like Noah, how can you go wrong?

You heard it right here, folks. NDSU has no interest in recruiting DI athletes of Parise's talent and ability. Isn't JBB a hoot? Hockey is a segregated sport? Try telling that to the Kariya brothers, Donald Brashear, Scott Gomez, Richard Park, Anson Carter, Brett Peterson and UND's own Marc Ranfranz, to name but a few. You really need to find a new song to sing, JBB.

This one's good, too.

How many decades will pass before Bison fans get the opportunity to experience something like this?

I can think of one person who doesn't want to.

Given the title of the thread and the discussion about goaltending, I assumed we were talking about Saturday's game. Let's back up one game. On Friday, every player did his job. The forwards scored a bunch of goals, the defense played flawlessly and Siembida stopped all the shots he should have because the forwards and defensemen made sure that he didn't have to make any extremely difficult saves. When the Sioux have won this season, that's been the formula that's worked. On Saturday, the forwards scored just two goals and the defense hung Siembida out to dry several times. Somehow, the blame all falls on Siembida. I won't disagree with anyone who says that goaltending is the weakest part of the team. There's no denying it. And that's exactly why team defense is so important. The Sioux haven't won a game this season because one of their goalies stole one for them. If you think the team can win that way, forget it. It's not going to happen and it's unreasonable to expect it. I agree completely with P-J who wrote earlier in this thread: In other words, if the Sioux are going to make the playoffs and go anywhere, it's probably going to be in spite of their goaltending, not because of it.

I don't think two goals against a team like MTU is "plenty." Spiewak said after Saturday's game that because forwards didn't score more, they bore as much responsibility for the loss as the defensemen did for making mistakes. As for the defensemen getting the job done, after hearing what Blais had to say about that subject on the radio this morning, I think he'd strongly disagree with you.

There are no penalties listed for Genoway in any of the box scores.

Yeah, I wonder about that myself. The only reason I can think of is that Siembida might be the most athletically gifted of all the Sioux goalies. But that's just a guess.

Apparently nobody remembers that Siembida was being recruited by many top schools when Blais snatched him up. Michigan State was considering him as Ryan Miller's replacement. When Siembida helped the Sioux win the GLI and they just missed sweeping the Gophers at home, he was the biggest story in college hockey. Everyone thought Blais was a genius for bringing him in early. I also remember people being excited about Brandt and Ranfranz coming here because they both had some impressive credentials. But none of the current crop of goalies has met expectations and maybe part of that is the lack of a goalie coach. I hope Craig Perry can help solve that problem. And how you can start badmouthing furture recruits before they've even played a game in a Sioux jersey is beyond me. Face it. We've all been spoiled by four years of Karl Goehring.

If you recall, I was with you early in the season in criticizing UND's goaltending. I was especially concerned when the Sioux were holding opponents to fewer than 20 shots on goal per game, but were giving up three or four goals per game. When the defense played that well, the opponents shouldn't score that many goals. But last night wasn't that type of situation. The Sioux were giving up odd-man rushes all night. They were getting beat, making terrible passes and giving away the puck at the worst possible time. There's no way you can blame that all on Siembida. Yes, he wasn't mentally sharp, but the same could be said for most of the team.

Sorry, but I can't agree with that. Although it was Adam, I thought he did a good job overall. The Sioux were 4-11 (2-5 Saturday) on the power play for the weekend while MTU went 0-9. Siembida didn't play well, but the loss wasn't entirely his fault. Four of the five MTU goals were scored from the slot at close range. Leinweber let a guy get around him to set up one goal. Two others were created when Greene and Fuher made horrendous turnovers. The one goal that wasn't from the slot you could argue was all Siembida's fault, but you also have to admit that it was one hell of a shot. Somewhat true. When you have guys like Bochenski, Parise, Lundbohm, Notermann, Spiewak and Massen on your top two lines, you should be able to score more than two goals. The Hale, Connelly and Prpich line certainly had their chances, too, but couldn't bury them. It was a good effort by Ellsworth, but I wouldn't call it a "standing on his head" type performance. I have to agree with Spiewak who said, ""We lost as a team. It was just a bad game for everyone, all around. It was just a whole team breakdown."

Okay, now I can exhale. While Saturday night's loss to MTU was certainly disappointing and very uncharacteristic of this team, I knew there would come a point this season when the Sioux lost to a team they should beat. It happens to the best of teams, and it's happened to some of the best teams Blais has put on the ice. Cases in point: Jan. 2, 1999 - UND 8, Notre Dame 1. Jan. 3, 1999 - UND 3, Notre Dame 4. Dec. 10, 1999 - UND 7, Denver 3. Dec. 11, 1999 - UND 2, Denver 7. The question now is, what do the players and coaches do about it? I'm sure everyone has read or heard Blais' post-game comments in which he talked about the team not being mentally prepared. Everyone should now have the message that they can't take any opponent for granted. The team needs to get back to doing what made it successful. Kevin Spiewak was the only Sioux player to talk to the media after the game and I can tell you that he took the loss very, very hard. And while I felt badly for him, I think it's a good sign that the team leaders are upset about what happened. The team can learn from this experience, build on it and be stronger for it. Let's see what happens in Denver.