What a turnaround for the Maine program.
They used to be such a mainstay in the NCAA tourney in the late 90s/early 2000s, but then had only two NCAA tourney appearances since the 07/08 season.
Ben Barr has done wonders in only three seasons.
Maine only had 3 (!!) wins in Gendron's last season...then went to 7 wins, then to 15...then this year 23 wins in Barr's 3 years.
Great to see them back in the tourney and succeeding again.
I think we wanted them all, just different situations.
Rizzo left us high & dry, he was fully expected to come in.
Morrow has the crazy dad.
Halliday flipped to OSU for whatever reason.
And Miller was on the team with full support from Berry before the UND prez pulled the plug on that.
Yeah, crazy to think the number of high skilled players that could have come to UND recently though.
Rizzo, Morrow, Halliday, even Miller.
They all would have been on UND teams last year and this year.
Really going into hypothetical situations here.
But for sure. Hakstol had some of the best NCAA tourney success in college hockey history, not just among UND coaches. He just couldn't win that last game. The number of F4 he went to in his tenure is absurd.