stoneySIOUX

Friday -- Judd Saturday -- Calder

Montgomery

I've liked Hellesten in spurts as he's super athletic, but have worried about his poise and keeping his position. The door is wide open for him. Step up, young man! Big win coming... 6-1 UND Sanderson, Moore, Costantini, Judd, Gaber, Sendo

Lots of changes. Hellesten in, Hain out, Kleven on third pair, Juddy on Sendo/Jammer line.

I get where you're going with this, but this team can win games without him. Certainly won't be easy, but they've done it.

Really? Buddy, he's arguably the best all-around defenseman this program has ever seen. If you don't see that, you are missing too much of what he does, apparently.

Yep. This team's margin for error is so small and we've gotten spoiled over the years with teams that could make up for bad lapses in play. This year's team just doesn't have the luxury.

Not sure I buy the recruiting aspect as I see a rather loaded pipeline. The mass exodus after last season was filled with 14 guys and that's the reality of keeping a huge chunk of guys for four years. Unfortunately, it happened and here we are. Keeping Rizzo certainly seems like we would have gotten a boost, but wouldn't solve our problems this year and I'm still not upset we lost Morrow. I'm confident the right choice was made on not bringing him in. What moves, other than giving Hellesten a good look, would you like to see in terms of rotating players? I liked our lineup tonight. Mental preparation is hard because outside of five minutes tonight, we came to play. I think there's certainly been times this year we've played flat, and that is Bubbs' job, I agree. Overall, I feel like our guys play mentally hard, but we just lack consistent scoring to make up for those times we play flat. Feels like a year where we have to play perfect to win. Feels like a whole mashup of reasons. Sigh.

Sorry, I was being hyperbolic. I personally don't think our character/culture is bad in any way, shape, or form. I simply think it's that this team MUST play one way to win and that's constant energy and pressure. We lack consistent scoring and goaltending needed to win games in which we have an off night. Just a struggle of a year, so far. With that said, we're still fine in the PWR and 6 points up in conference and we still very much control our way forward and have shown the ability to beat anyone we play. It's just HAS to be done with all out energy for a whole game. Tonight, we let down for five minutes and it fell apart. Super frustrating.

Which ones?

Is a 13-7 record on January 7 following a season with a team loaded with seniors that frankly was the best in the country and had tons of leadership really a culture problem? If we tank and miss the tournament, I don't know if I'd lay it on a lack of leadership. I understand the look of this loss and the implosion of those five minutes tonight, but maybe we pump the brakes a bit on large, grandeur ideas that UND is a broken program.

It's gotta happen. A must win game at 13-7? Ugh, I hate it, but tomorrow is as close as it gets to a must win.

So true. I was very, very happy he came here, but he's just not been good. Just isn't getting it done. Flat out.

How so? I'm all ears.

What's BS about it? We rolled for nearly all of that game. The five minute lapse cost us the game. No excuse for that to happen. Awful loss. But what he said was accurate.

It's a "third line" like we used to have back in 2016, IMO. Roll four and let that Sendo line set the hitting pace.

Big fan of these lines. Set the tone with the Sendo line. Play with pace, hit everything that moves.

Pretty crazy that we're 13-6 and near the top of the PWR. Feels like we're set for a deep run as long as we continue to improve.

Haha yep. I was thinking ... either this is going to turn into a motivated Cornell team, or a sloppy one. We'll see! Can't wait.

I can't/won't expand, but their morning skate lacked today. We'll put it that way lol

HA! Well done.

Heard Cornell had an interesting pregame skate today. Let's just say a staff member was not super happy about how they performed this morning.

Second half kicks off! Pumped to watch tonight. Urgency ... right from the drop. 6-2 win Sandy, Gaber, Juddy x2, Kleven, Portz

I don't see any reason why he wouldn't come back to UND for the stretch run. If he wanted to start his pro career early, he would have left after his freshman year, IMO.

Next year? Not a lot for D-men. Forwards will be fun with Blake, McLaughlin, and Strinden. We'll need an impact D-man from the portal, IMO. The next year we'll have Livanvage and Strathmann. Perron coming in for forward looks like he'll be a special player.