SiouxScore

Yeah definitely agree with you as I'm a pretty big Gopher baseball fan. They primarily recruit the midwest and I would say when they have tried to go west for a recruit they really haven't had much success with them. The 2 guys from California on the team now very rarely play and the recruits they have coming in are about 4 from Minnesota, 2 from Illinois, and 1 from Idaho so you definitely can be successful recruiting the Midwest like they do with Minnesota, Illinois, Wisconsin being the states that most of their players come from and couple from other neighboring states like Iowa and South Dakota. It definitely appears some more northern teams are starting to be more competitive at the D1 level with Indiana in the hunt to host a regional and 3 B1G teams probably getting into the tournament. The Gophers should also have 2 pitchers (1 from Illinois and 1 from Minnesota) drafted in the first 4 rounds of the MLB draft this year and it sounds like 2-3 Minnesota high schoolers could be taken pretty early in the draft as well with one of those guys being committed to Florida.

Not exactly sure what you are trying to refer to but I do know that for football that much of section 6 and section 8 play their championship games in either the Alerus Center or the Fargodome and the state really has no problem with it.

Kind of figured Gersich wouldn't be playing high school hockey next year but figured he'd be with a USHL team rather than NTDP and even though I like to see these guys stay with their high school programs because it is better for Minnesota high school hockey in both these situations it is probably in their best interest to play at another level next season and probably even more so for Gersich rather than Poganski.

Wasn't actually at Ohio State yet but just a incoming recruit and he wasn't very happy when they decided to make a coaching change.

Haha no not that type of Gleasons versatility the part as in coaches may be able to put him at forward or defense.

I think that very well could be the case, didn't some people talk about how Stecher would look at forward even before we got Ausmus. Stecher seems to be a very good skater with a lot of offensive skill and looks to maybe have the same type of versatility that Gleason provided.

Looking like Crisfield may no longer be a recruit. Heisenberg no longer has him listed as a recruit for us and his twitter profile no longer shows committed to the University of North Dakota.

Most places I've seen have him about 6'1" between 190 and 205 I would guess Panzerella will be one of the D out most games and then I'm not sure if they will try to have someone delay a year but I would be very suprised if that were Ausmus or Thompson so really the only possibility I see of someone waiting a year to come in is if Stecher is delayed a season.

I would guess if one doesn't come in next year it would be Stecher but could see all 4 coming in as well.

Rumor is he wants to go to Minnesota and Ohio State is trying to make sure that doesn't happen but I'm not sure if Stepan has publicly said anything yet. If he really wants to go to Minnesota he could decide to play another year of juniors and then he would be free to sign anywhere next season.

Schloss said he would announce tomorrow but apparently it leaked out early according to: USHR‏@USHRhockey6m US U-18 LD Gage Ausmus, a former Denver recruit, has committed to North Dakota. Ausmus played for East Grand Forks HS before going to NTDP. Retweeted by Chris Dilks Not suprised and figured it was between UND and UMD the whole time, think going to the NTDP may have helped him get away from GF for a while and now he felt fine to go back.

Ausmus news Schlossman‏@SchlossmanGF1m EGF's Gage Ausmus ('95, D, NTDP) will make his college commitment on Friday.

Because we needed a 3rd goalie?

Very good stats but I can't say I know too much about how competitive of league that is that he played in. Hrynkiw career stats http://www.leaguestat.com/sjhl/sjhl/en/stats/player.php?id=126

Some saying it could be to the USHL instead but I wouldn't be suprised either way. Chris Peters‏@chrismpeters26m University of North Dakota commit Chris Wilkie is leaving the NTDP, source confirms. WHL rights held by Victoria, but USHL may be an option.

I think MacLean really made a mistake by calling that late timeout and after he did that I have no problem with who the Canadiens sent out on the ice. I think he may have just woke up the Canadiens and we will see that next game, I really like all the emotion from everybody in this series and think it will probably boil over a few more times before the end.

I'm with you about trying to be forced to watch FSN but more so because of Greenlay rather than Gorg or Lapanta. Luckily for me I get CBC and have been able to watch the Hawks/Wild games on there so far but would still rather be able to watch NBC especially when Doc is calling the game and it looks like I will be able to do that today.

I'm a Sioux, Hawks, and Wild fan and I'm also a fan of basically any Gopher sport besides hockey and I was born and raised and still live in Minnesota and love the "state of hockey" stuff. I do agree with you that the Lemaire system was horrible to watch and it probably didn't help that they didn't really have any exciting players at that time besides Gaborik.

The Wild will gain some cap space this offseason with Bouchard and Backstrom's contract off the books and if Backstrom wants to be back he will likely have to take a pay cut. It is also pretty likely that Heatley will be gone and that will free up a good amount of space as will, Clutterbuck could also be gone too as it has been rumored they may move the RFA for a draft pick or something. I also would expect a couple of their defensemen to not be back as well. A few of these guys will be replaced by guys in their rookie contracts like Granlund and Dumba which will be cheaper for them and give them a little more cap space to work with. Zucker and Coyle won't be Crosby, Malkin, Ovechkin, Kane, Toews, etc. level stars in the NHL but they will be very good players in this league and very capable 1st and 2nd line players on a good team.

I think the tough thing for the Wild in this series is you have 2 very talented rookies on your top 2 lines and they deserve to be but they are out there trying to play against guys like Toews, Kane, Sharp, and Hossa who will take advantage of every little mistake they make. I think both Coyle and Zucker will be top 2 line players but at this stage they still have some growing to do. The Hawks 3rd and 4th lines as well as 3rd set of D have been the big advantage in this series. I wouldn't be suprised to see the Wild with a whole new 3rd line next year with Bouchard being a UFA, Clutterbuck being a RFA, and Brodziak just really not playing very well all season. The Wild should have some more improvement on D next year with the young guy Dumba likely making the team and he looks to have a very solid future ahead of him.

That is what I picked before the series started. I would guess they lose a close one in game 3 and win game 4 to send it back to Chicago and then the Hawks finish it in 5 there. The problem for the Wild was really their horrible play down the stretch of the regular season which caused them to have to face the Hawks. When I saw they would be stuck with the Hawks I was just hoping they would be competitive but if they would have been the 6 or 7 seed and faced Anaheim or Vancouver I would have felt much better about their chances of winning the 1st round series.

This will be a big loss for St.Cloud, I thought he was their best player for most of the season.

Maybe Norman will decide to go to Minnesota but I believe his dad did play at UND so I would think we would have a decent shot at him but who knows.

No, somebody said they heard he would be but somebody has also said they heard he would be coming to UND but all are just rumors and speculation to this point. I do think he will end up at 1 of the 2 though and would guess we will get an official announcement in the next week or 2 now that the U-18 tournament is over.

I think if we get Ausmus we will see a D core of Simpson, Mattson, Panzerella, Schmaltz, LaDue, Ausmus, Thompson, and then maybe Stecher or maybe we would just go with 7 for next year.