brianvf

I think people expected Toews to be a stud, even as a frosh, but not Oshie simply because he was coming straight from HS. I remember some posters commenting that he should have spent a year in juniors first. I don't think the Andy Murray situation is a big deal at all. I highly doubt that he "pulled" Brady out from UND simply because he thought that Hakstol couldn't coach his kid, while Blais could. Brady had a loophole that expired that year that gave him a shot at playing professional hockey after a frustrating season in which he was injured for a good chunk of the time. I don't read any more into it than that. Maybe Andy was upset with how Brady's injury was handled and advised Jordy to not go to UND...that's alright...UW needs those forward recruits far more than what we do. Hakstol has landed some great recruits that are coming in (Kristo, Cichy, Mattson, Forbort...not to mention players in this year's frosh class), and he will land great ones in the future. Andy's "insider influence" isn't going to change that.

I still remember that game too. Berkhoel played out of his mind. I remember that Hale almost scored like 30 sec into the game on a centering pass, and it made me think about the Holy Cross game the night before where Parise scored less than a minute into the game. But it just wasn't to be...

He'll have enough forwards next season to field two lineups (no joke!). One could say that it will make for good competition to make the lineup, but with over 2 full lines of forwards sitting in the stands each game night, it's just going to force more players to leave the UW system.

Toby Kvalevog?

Regardless of tonight's outcome, I would guess that we will see another USA/Canada matchup later on in the WJC...

Because it rhymes with SAVES, of course. Toews saves! I think David is going to be an excellent 4-yr player for the Sioux. I think he has the potential to be one of our offensive leaders in his jr/sr seasons.

UMN freshman forward Dorr has left the team and will be transferring to another school. Sounds like he had only played in two games this season.

I would love to see the US beat the Canadians tonight, but they would have to play a great game in order for that to happen. Canada has an excellent PP...Tavares seems to just camp himself to the left of the goalie, and they are good at feeding him the puck for the easy goal. If the US can limit the Tavares line as much as possible, and get some production from their top line with Wilson/JVR/Schroeder, they might be able to pull it out. I would love to see that Canadian crowd silenced...

Despite our horrible OOC record, we are still sitting ok in the WCHA standings, probably mainly due to other teams struggles as well. The Sioux are only 4 points out of 2nd place right now, with 2 games less played than every team in front of us except for the Gophers (both at 12 gp).

I agree that Blais' high tempo style was really fun to watch as a fan. Really made for some exciting up and down games when two teams ran similar styles. Unfortunately now not many teams at all seem to utilize it.

All aboard the mediocrity train! It will lead us to the F4, but that's it.

Kristo looking really good. Got his goal, and now a great effort hustling back into the play to catch a rush and steal the puck. He certainly does have some wheels.

Kristo has looked good on the ice against Kazakhstan. Strong on his skates, with some nice moves. Hopefully he can get a goal tonight.

He has also been coaching at UW for longer than Hakstol has been here. And he likes to beat his players.

You're not playing Tech at the Ralph, although at this point they might put up a better fight against the Gophers.

It is pretty big.

Yeah, I realize that it goes down in the books as a tie regardless, but I just had to comment on Connelly's statement about it being for sure not entirely across the line, when the replay clearly showed that it was.

From the article:

I was actually thinking that he was like Genoway when I typed that. If Gleason has the same offensive upside that Genoway brings to the table, he'll be a great player. I saw on the Sioux blog that UND dman recruit Derek Forbort (Duluth East, jr) accepted an invite from the U.S. U17 team to compete in the World Under-17 Hockey Challenge. Cool to see.

I think Kristo and Cichy will both be really good players for us next year.

Don't forget to add Gleason in there too. He's a small, well-skating dman. People will say that he's not physical enough.

Not saying that he won't, but the really skilled players always do much better in the WJC than they do in WCHA play. When they get back to the WCHA, they have to deal with the hooking and holding, where they have lots of room to showcase their skill in international play. Just look at Parise. He dominated the WJC when the USA won gold, then he came back to the Sioux and was being mugged all game again.

Indeed he is. Haven't seen much from him in awhile after a great start. I was really surprised to see Davidson in the lineup replacing Toews against MTU. I think that Toews is one of the forwards that has really shown some great improvement as the season has progressed.

He's not as good as Weslosky though. Hopefully this will help the Sioux in their push for a top 4-5 finish in the league.

I would love to see a ticked off Sioux team come out and dominate the Beavers for two games this weekend, but that's hard to see happening. Has anyone seen BSU yet this year? Do they play a more wide-open style, or a defensive style like MSU/MTU/UAA? The Sioux can't seem to figure out how to play against those teams, but they do well against the teams willing to skate. Perhaps they won't get completely blown out by the Gophers...although the Gophers have proven that they have a bit better finishers than we do.