to eids defense a little bit, he did give up six but the defense in front of him was horrible that game. that being said there were a few goals he allowed that game that never should have went in, like the last one.
he let in a lot of soft goals last season that I kept hearing "he'd like that one back" his numbers weren't eye popping like bachman's were so if he does have a sophomore slump let's hope Dell can step in. there was never a game I went into thinking he'd pull one out for us. it always seemed like he gave up at least 2 bad goals. what happened in nh was a whole team effort not just him.
we also didn't win in 2004 with what many consider to be the best team in the last 7-8 years. preseason labels of championship worthy mean nothing-look at cc and bc last year. I expect this team to challenge for a top 3 spot int he wcha,make the final 5 and make the big dance. and once you make the big dance anything can happen. I firmly believe this years team will be better than last years-does it mean they'll win the wcha-no. but I believe once the freshman find their legs in the second half we will be playing longer than we did last year.
hey now. I'm a cubs fan and know that no year will ever be the year. this was supposed to be the year and they are a team full of lunatics who couldn't get a clutch hit if they were hitting off a tee, have an overpaid ace of the staff who should be in a psychiatric ward and a pair of "closers" who can't throw a strike and have walked in more runs that they have saves.
maybe with the 12 team scheduling there won't be any "rivals". from my understanding if they adopted the cluster format used by the ccha everything rotates so there there aren't any "rivals" if I'm wrong please correct me.
it will also mean less visits from the bottom feeders like tech and uaa. the bigger point here is that a program was saved. because if bsu and uah were allowed to cut their programs the number of teams allowed in the ncaa tourney almost for surely would drop from 16 back to say 12. this move is great for college hockey. I've never been to a und/du game in denver nor a game at cc, but I have been to several und/bsu games in bemidji and those were some of the funnest games I've ever been to.
how will the "natural" rival pairings go?
these three I think are givens:
umn-uw
umd-tech
cc-du
the next three could be paired anyway:
msum-scsu
und-bemidji
omaha-uaa
or
und-scsu
bemidji-uaa
msum-omaha