brianvf

It's hard to look at our incoming freshmen and other committed recruits and say that UND is struggling with winning recruiting battles. Sure, it'd be great to load up on as many first rounders as possible, but that strategy sure hasn't worked well for other schools recently. Hopefully the team has the right "mix" this year of high-end and grit to make a serious push in the NCAA's. Season almost here??

Another talented player (also not surprising) signs after just one season at MSU:

Michigan loses the USHL leading scorer (he was 6pts up on Swanson) and #28 overall pick in the draft this year from their incoming recruiting class:

Congrats to Alex, he deserves it!

https://www.grandforksherald.com/sports/und-hockey/n-y-rangers-rave-about-e-j-emery-plan-to-be-patient-with-his-development-at-und

That’s crazy. I remember everyone talking about both Celebrini and Eiserman being both Top 3 selections. Hopefully Chicago let’s Boisvert develop at UND for 2-3 years.

Matikka leaving DU after his 20-goal freshman season:

Couple draft articles from the Herald: Will Livanavage get picked: https://www.grandforksherald.com/sports/und-hockey/will-the-third-time-be-the-charm-for-jake-livanavage-at-the-nhl-draft Emery's dominant combine: https://www.grandforksherald.com/sports/und-hockey/e-j-emerys-record-setting-nhl-combine-could-push-him-up-draft-boards

Ha! Any chance you might have access to snag a couple more tickets for that series? I'm guessing that it's gonna be a popular ticket with a bunch of UND fans both locally and flying in. No worries if not...would be fun to meet up with you between periods or something either way!

That'd be cool to see. That's the series that I plan on flying up for this year. Planning on trying to get tickets to the ASU series here in Jan (might be difficult) and then the next weekend against WMU at the Ralph.

Will be interesting to see how they work the rotation with Rowe, Hampton, and that UMN transfer.

The nice thing this next season will be that our offensive depth will mean that we're gonna have some talented players on the 3rd/4th lines. Should hopefully create some tough matchups for opposing teams.

This tidbit was mentioned at the bottom of this Herald article. https://www.grandforksherald.com/sports/und-hockey/college-hockey-notes-warroads-slukynsky-brothers-chart-new-course We've kind of assumed this was happening, so certainly not a shock.

Mine is similar: Perron - Berg - Swanson OMac - Boisvert - Kunz James - Wilkie - Strinden Jammer - Schmaltz - Croal Littler/Andrew/Monty Zmolek - Livanavage Wiebe - Emery MacDonald - Strathmann Komak - Jubenvill Sempti Hobie Cheese Perron and Berg can finish. Putting Swanson with them could be really fun to watch. Put a big body Kunz with Omac and Boisvert. Kunz retrieves the puck, OMac dishes it, Boisvert buries it. A lot of skill and speed on that 3rd line. Other teams will have a hard time containing them. Hard workers and some grit on the 4th.

New numbers, start getting all those numbers for the newcomers memorized before the season starts! Goaltenders (3) 1 Kaleb Johnson, r-jr 30 Hobie Hedquist, so 35 T.J. Semptimphelter, sr Defensemen (8) 2 Bennett Zmolek, jr 3 Jayden Jubenvill, fr 4 Jake Livanavage, so 6 E.J. Emery, fr 10 Tanner Komzak, so 13 Caleb MacDonald, so 16 Andrew Strathmann, fr 25 Abram Wiebe, so Forwards (15) 5 Dane Montgomery, r-jr 7 Mac Swanson, fr 8 Jake Schmaltz, sr 9 Sacha Boisvert, fr 14 Cameron Berg, sr 15 Carter Wilkie, sr 18 Jayden Perron, so 19 Cody Croal, fr 20 Cade Littler, fr 21 Ben Strinden, jr 22 Owen McLaughlin, jr 26 Dylan James, jr 27 Louis Jamernik V, sr 28 Dalton Andrew, fr 29 Jackson Kunz, sr

Man, what a crazy situation at NMU. Really bad offseason for them. Gonna be real interesting to see what happens with the Slukynsky brothers. You'd love to see a really talented Warroad goalie end up at UND...but yeah...unless he goes back to the USHL for a season, I'm not sure they'd want to entertain that for this upcoming year.

https://www.grandforksherald.com/sports/und-hockey/schlossman-why-the-nchc-expedited-st-thomas-application Also in that article:

No one better. No one.

I wonder how many more years of jr hockey Heil will play...he was so young this year...does he play one or two more years of jr hockey before coming to UND? Could have the Triple H goalie trio...Hobie/Heil/Hampton

Yes, for sure. Having Hobie and Hampton as a goalie tandem for future years would be great. Have Mac give him a call to persuade him.

Posts, yes. A lot. And I remember how excited the fanbase was for his arrival, but then to have him miss almost his entire freshman season with that injury. Only was able to play in 4 games...with his lone goal coming against the Gophers at Mariucci.

Agreed! Those three you mention should contribute right away. I'm excited about the rest of the incoming group as well...it's just a very very solid incoming class and portal additions. Croal had a very productive last two years in the USHL. Jubenvill lit it up in the USHL playoffs and Strathmann should be ready to go after his extra year of jr hockey. The three portal adds in Wilkie, MacDonald, and TJ were some of the best available options in the portal at their positions. Blake was a big loss, but hopefully his departure allows some of the other forwards to get rolling a bit, since all the offense won't be controlled by Jackson. The offensive group has the capability to be better than last year IMO.

Looking at Scott Wheeler's post of the combine test results, Emery was at or near the top in a lot of the tests. Pretty impressive. Would guess he'll do pretty well in the team preseason IronMan competition.

Would be nice to have another 1st rounder on the team again. Or two. Surprising to see how far Eiserman has fallen. Not that long ago, it seemed he was a lock for top 3-5. I'd still take him on our team in a heartbeat for a year.

Just his size is the only thing that I've seen as being a "drawback" with Mac. Grimaldi had a bunch more hype and exposure before coming to college, as he came up thru all the NTDP teams...I'm sure that helped with his getting drafted despite his size.