stoneySIOUX

I was referring to making changes for next season, sorry. At risk of the pipeline? Current players? Without an identified replacement (Karl G and Brett Larson are fantastic options), I am not sure.

Thanks for an ACTUAL OPTION haha. He's been impressive. St. Cloud should be a trash program because frankly, it's a trash city, IMO, with no real legitimately consistent history of putting players into the NHL, without great facilities, and he's done incredibly well, along with Motz, of building that program. But they have yet to take that step into a truly elite program. Could he at UND? I could see it. Without a tremendous idea of what it takes to be a good NCAA coach, I am fine with the your opinion of him being average. I can't really tell you that I disagree because I don't know what it means to be a good or the best coach. My argument is only based of consistency. Bubbs has his teams, with the exception of this season, at the very least, in contention every year. This one has been a massive disappointment and they wouldn't argue against that, IMO.

Certainly ok with that. A coach has to figure it out. First things first -- identify the real reasons this season went the way it did and adjust. I don't think the past six years as a whole indicates a lack of ability to coach, but that's my opinion. Winning league titles is putting us in the position to win in the most important parts of the season. We've not hit our biggest goal since 2016. What do we have to do to make that step again? They need to figure that out.

Ok, so what about the second part of the post? Who is truly going to make UND better, in your eyes? Is it worth risking everything in our pipeline and the players we are looking for immediate growth just for the sake of change? Does this season mean we're not right back in contention next year if we keep Bubbs? If we make the change, what does that mean for the short term AND long term?

Fair point. I'd argue Costantini has made mistakes a sophomore shouldn't make in his opportunities, as well. If all things are equal (production, mistakes, general on ice performance) I'd defer to the upperclassman and I think most coaches would. Would replacing Hain for Costantini night in and night out make us better? Again, I'm speaking from a "win now" approach which was the expectation coming into the season. As far as I'm concerned, Hain's body of work in his career has me favoring him for this season. Long term, Costantini has a higher ceiling, IMO, but it's win now mode and he hasn't performed in his expected role.

Yep. I saw your reply. My bad, my man. I'll be honest, I have no insight whatsoever on what it takes to be a solid AD, so I'm certainly fine with options if there a better ones out there. I thought he handled the "NODAK" controversy in a really odd manner and frankly, that's all I really know about him. That felt like a passive, top-down led decision of immediately quashing it and doing the best to make it a non story. Question for you .... what would a new AD do for you in terms of bringing UND hockey back immediately from this wild season? I'm honestly trying to figure out what people want because from my perspective, I don't see a massive worry. I like our pipeline a lot and I haven't seen a large trend of poor coaching. It's easy to cherry pick this season because of the dumpster fire it's been, but are we TRULY that far off? Talent wise, I don't think so, and that includes the coaching staff.

If you were referring specifically about Chaves, my apologies, I missed that. I thought you were referring to Bubbs.

If the portal player is more experienced and/or better, I absolutely do not agree recruited players should be playing over portal players. The staff is clearly still believes in this team and is making their decision on who should be playing to win a game, right or wrong in our opinion, each and every night. Our favorite punching bags in terms of development - I'm thinking Costantini, Johnson, and a couple others -- have had their shot. They need to perform in those spots if they want more ice time. It's an easy opinion to understand, in hindsight of how this season has gone, that we could have not welcomed Hain/Sendo, etc. back in lieu of spot for a guy like Spicer for the idea of future development. With that said, this staff was all in on this season and Spicer would have likely been in a suit A LOT this year and the Hain/Sendo decision was clearly made with the "win now" idea.

This is what I'm talking about in the idea of lack of perspective that I talked about in the other thread. We're not all on the same page of what our standard should be. National Championships are the ultimate goal, but it's ignoring the other things. Winning league title shows consistency and the ability to get the team into positions to make runs at winning the big prize. This season has been a major disappointment with the expectations we all had coming into the year. To me, this whole season reeks of the snowball effect. Our team started to struggle early on causing our players to doubt themselves and overplay the game (consistently bad turnovers, blowing leads, missing assignments), leading to more mistakes and losses, and we haven't been able to right the ship. This season hasn't reflected others, IMO. Unlike the others when we missed the playoffs the two times Bubbs was head coach, this season doesn't reflect a lack of talent, but an inability to overcome challenges. If this continues next year, I'd be concerned about it more. I've asked that "who's next" question several times without a response from anyone who's upset about Bubbs and staff. What would that do to guys currently in our pipeline that we're excited about - Perron, Strathmann, Livanavage, Emerson, McInnis, etc.? How about guys like Blake, McLaughlin, Strinden, etc.? Without these questions answered in how they'd make an immediate change, it makes no sense to move on this. Would we hire Jax? What would that change? How about Karl? I think Karl could be a change of style, but is it a massive change? Who should we be considering? I have yet to hear a constructive discussion about any of this.

Definitely not arguing that. Making the tournament, 100%, should be the minimum standard each season. Next goals that have to be consistently attainable is to compete for a league title and to make a real run at a National Championship. I'm not convinced we've reached the time we should be considering a coaching change, especially without an idea of who we would get, what it would do for our pipeline, current players, etc. I don't know what the limit is. My biggest concern, flatly, is parity. Some big time options are getting players we really want. We've been in on nearly all big time recruits over the past two years, but we haven't landed the truly top players, with a couple exceptions. I want to know why these kids are choosing other options and what we can do about it. My thoughts are likely NIL in part, but I have no idea what that entails, honestly, or how to fix it. Another thing I hope (and I think we are) we are focusing on is identification of top tier transfers, especially in the short term. Land guys who we get more than one season out of. Identify our immediate needs, but also plan a broader need. Our gets from the portal have been hit or miss, IMO.

Not what I said at all. The comment was that we can't do worse than Bubbs and that is unequivocally untrue.

Looking back on the games from earlier this season at the Herb, I am just trying to remember what the heck happened. I remember thinking that Clown wasn't that much better than us after the weekend. Combing through the stats and trying to remember, but I remember a slew of breakdowns and against an opportunistic and VERY quick-twitch and explosive team, that can't happen. Lead after 1 on Friday. Imploded in the 2nd. Saturday, goodness, I can't believe I forgot this, but we were up 3-0 two minutes into the second and then gave up six straight including a ENG. Absolutely gross. Shots basically even all weekend. Seems like a solid summation of the whole season, unfortunately. Clown not tearing it up over the past four after getting swept by Duluth in Duluth at the end of Jan and winning two shootouts against Miami in St. Cloud. Build momentum. Get points. Split is good, but honestly, we need a sweep to try and battle into that 5 spot. Looks like lather, rinse, repeat for the whole season -- eliminate turnovers, get good goaltending (.900 sv percentage at minimum), continue to capitalize on the PP, and do better 5-on-5.

The overwhelming lack of general perspective from our fanbase on the college hockey landscape blows me away. Especially from some people on here who I'd consider at least relatively knowledgeable. @fightingsioux4life, this is honestly not directed at you as I think you are knowledgeable, but that comment lacks perspective. It's crazy to think we couldn't do worse than Bubbs. It's absolutely crazy. I honestly don't think you even believe that.

Why the hell not, right?

All fair, but he's absolutely been a contributor and likely our best defensemen. We'd be even worse without him.

Kleven hasn't been our problem this season.

I never expected him to be a massive offensive threat based on his time with UMass. That's from stuff I saw and from what I was told about him coming in. I was expecting him to be responsible and to cover consistently for guys like Moore to wheel around in the zone and make plays. He brought that in the first half. His turnovers in the second half have been rough. Loved his game in the first half. Was solid. Got progressively worse, unfortunately. All of that said, I'd welcome a player like him next season. Same with a guy like Sidorski.

Long-term? Yes, I think it's not a bad thing. For the 23-24 season, it'll come with some bumps.

LOL not gonna have a choice. I'm assuming you're referring to Johnson. I think he should be playing more, but goodness, the kid had all the chances he could get to start the year. He was always gonna be a project from a defensive standpoint, but I don't for a second believe UND's staff hasn't been coaching him up. He's just not very good in the d-zone. This stuff happens.

It's like @gfhockey gets a bat signal when our conversations switch to UMD. Cheers, brother. I've always appreciated your "consistency"

I'm very excited about Strathmann and Livanavage (By the way, I found out that his name is sounded out like Live-Ah-Nah-Vij - gonna have to take some time to learn that one lol), but the rest playing as freshmen will require our fanbase to calm the eff down and let them develop lol.

I mean, we're losing 3 guys with a lot of college hockey experience and could lose a few more. So, there's gonna be some turnover. Frisch coming back is a huge deal. If that happens, we should be ok. If he doesn't, we're going to need to hit on one portal guy and maybe even 2. When I say hit, at minimum, we need a guy like Sidorski and despite his inconsistent play of late, Ty Farmer has had a good year overall, IMO. Two strong defensive-minded d-men are needed.

Beat me to it

Very good lineup. With that said, I'd say I'd like someone else on the top line with Blake and McLaughlin simply from a size aspect. Perron is gonna take a minute to adjust. I'd maybe flip Perron and James. Maybe consider Juddy or Strinden on that top line.

On the offensive side, I love it. Need guys like McLaughlin, Schmaltz, Strinden, Portz, and hopefully Gaber to continually be focusing on their defensive development. Gonna be A LOT of turnover on the d-corps. Have to have it.