rochsioux

The rich get richer. Thru the first two rounds: WCHA - 5 schools had a total of 14 players drafted CCHA - 3 schools had 4 players drafted HE and ECAC - each had 1 school with 1 player drafted. UND - 5 Mn, UMD - 3 Denver - 2 Wisc - 1 Mich - 2 MichSt, OhioSt - 1 BC - 1 Cornell - 1 If you only look at incoming freshman: WCHA - 12 CCHA - 3

This season, assuming no one turns pro early the Sioux will have five NHL 1st rounders - Zajac, Stafford, Lee, Oshie, and Finley and a likely 2006 1st rounder in Toews. Have they had this many first round picks on one team recently or ever ?

The SIoux have three 1st rounders. A few months ago only Lee was scheduled to even play with the Sioux this year. Even without Oshie and Finley it looked like a great recruiting class for the 2005-2006 season. Since then Oshie was moved up from 2006 to 2005 (although we lost Murray) and Finley was signed. Looks like one of the best recruiting classes in a very long time. If Toews was draft-eligible this year he probably would be top-15 also. Let's see how this translates to on-ice success. After all that's the only thing that really matters. I'll take a national championship with unheralded players over highly regarded recruits that fall short.

Finley just went at 27.

Will Finley make it a trifecta this year ?

24th overall, totally unexpected. Figured to be mid-2nd at earliest.

WOW!

Current draft list 1 Pittsburgh Sidney Crosby, C, Rimouski (QMJHL) 2 Anaheim Bobby Ryan, RW, Owen Sound (OHL) 3 Carolina Jack Johnson, D, U.S. U-18 4 Minnesota Benoit Pouliot, LW, Sudbury (OHL) 5 Montreal Carey Price, Tri-City (WHL) 6 Columbus Gilbert Brule, C, Vancouver (WHL) 7 Chicago Jack Skille, RW, U.S. U-18 8 San Jose (1) Devin Setoguchi, RW, Saskatoon (WHL) 9 Ottawa Brian Lee, D, Moorhead HS, MN 10 Vancouver Luc Bourdon, D, Val-d'Or (QMJHL) 11 Los Angeles Anze Kopitar, C, Sodertalje Jr. (Swe)

Looks like the deal is done, just neeeds to be ratified. Agreement reached My guess is Matt Greene will be signed by the end of the month. Hopefully he will stay but I highly doubt it.

Along this line, I would like to give props to Matt Greene for staying last year. It was pretty obvious that Edmonton wanted Matt to turn pro a year ago...it might have been in Matt's best interest financially to do so but he chose to come back and I believe was a major factor in the Sioux going to the championship game. If Matt leaves this year I will wish him well and respect his decision. He would still have stayed a year longer than he had to.

Zach Attack

Thanks PCM, not only for this recap but for the ones all season long. They are greatly appreciated.

Staybridge Suites - Airport. - 2, my daughter and myself. Hope to make the Thursday pre-game party at the Crowne Plaza (4-6pm ?).

Article on Zach Not sure when this was written but it doesn't mention anything about missing games.

Very strange incident and nothing to joke about. I hope he gets whatever help he needs. Good Luck to Tyler.

Just want to add my best wishes to Robbie and his family. Hopefully he will make a full, complete recovery. I would like nothing better than to be among the 11,500 fans at REA giving him a standing ovation as he is introduced in the starting lineup, whether it is next year or later.

Herald article

On the Sioux goal that was disallowed both the goal judge and Adam signaled a goal so I assume there needs to be conclusive evidence that it did not go in to change the call. I haven't seen a replay but was it conclusive that it didn't go in or "couldn't tell". If you couldn't tell on the replay then I would hope the rule is that the ref and goal judges ruling stands. On the Denver goal that was disallowed Adam never signaled goal or no goal just went to the replay. Adam sucks, Anderson sucks more, and Shepard is a black hole.

Just got back from the game and want to commend the Sioux on their play. If they can contunue this they will be a hard out in the NCAA tourney, assuming they can keep enough healthy players. The state of officiating in the WCHA is pathetic, how Greg Shepard keeps his job is beyond me. Adam was horrible today and he is not even the worst official. Denver's style of play is not the type of hockey I want to see and the WCHA names Gwozdecky coach-of-the-year ? Who votes on this because they must like this type of hockey. I truely hope someone will give some payback to the biggest punk in the league - Geoff Paukovich. His hit on Bina was pure cheapshot. Years ago this would have resulted in the players stepping in and taking care of this but with the fighting rules now in place it allows this type of chippy, dangerous play to take place since there is no fear of retaliation. If Gwozdecky does not step in and suspend this punk for the rest of year I will have no respect for him as a coach or person. A one game suspension for an illegal and dangerous hit like that is a joke, why even bother. A players career or even life can be permanently altered and they are willing to suspend him for 60 minutes of hockey ? Sounds about right for the clowns that run the WCHA.

In Sid's column today he mentions Drew Fisher as committed to North Dakota. Given that this is not listed on Heisenberg's site and Sid's known hockey expertise, I would say there is a good chance that this is not true.

I29 was not that bad. I drove home after the hockey game on Sunday and averaged 60 mph, would have been faster but there were some people going real slow. If the road conditions from Fargo to GF were a deterent then it only kept the casual fans away, those that go to socialize...unless people were worried it would was going to be a lot worse than it was. Not sure why the crowd was so quiet other than it was a relatively boring game for long streches.

Not following your numbers. If we lost 145 points and brought in 73 that is a difference of 72 which is 1.8 points per game, not goals...big difference.

I would also second these comments. I do not know if Hakstol is or will be a good coach, but he deserves his chance. Judging him based on this one year is not fair. If you judged coaches on their first year only there would be a lot of good coaches that would be have been fired and never coached again, look at Belichick with Cleveland, now he is considered one of the best coaches of all-time. It will take at least two more seasons before we can really fairly evaluate Hakstal as a head coach. I actually think he will learn from this season and improve. I think this season is basically lost. As such, I think that Radke needs to be playing every game from here on out. We will be very thin on defensive experience next year so the more playing time he gets now the better. This senior class has been disappointing, too many of them peaked as sophs so I have hope that next years team will be improved and the year after that we should have a solid chance at winning the NCAA title. Hard to expect next years team to win it all when we will be depending on freshmen for defense and for scoring. I had been holding out hope all year that the team would turn things up a notch this year but after last nights game I had to face the fact that it isn't going to happen. I will still be going to the games and cheering them on but any postive expectation is gone.