SJHovey

Maybe, maybe not. Hak has shown that he has the ability to get his team to do whatever is necessary to get in the tournament, whether that's winning the conference tournament or whatever. I'll also just throw this out there for people to consider. On this Board, we're obviously all biased. First, in favor of UND hockey generally, and then one way or the other with respect to the coach. Can anyone point to a commentator, a beat writer, a past or present player, a coach, or even a blogger who has even hinted or suggested that Hakstol's continued employment as our coach should be looked at? There are a fair number I've read that say our fanbase is crazy for even talking about it, but of course most of those people think we're crazy anyway. But has anyone seen a neutral party suggest that Hakstol has had his chance, and its time for us to look in another direction?

I don't know about 11 goals, but I agree with this too. I really liked the way Murphy played these last few games. I expect he is going to get consistent ice time this next season. By the way, and I know I'm changing the subject here a bit, but did anyone else go "wut?" when Melrose picked Murphy as his "impact" player or "player to watch" or whatever it was for UND during the pregame? Edit: Ahh, I see siouxstudent saw that as well.

I don't think anyone is saying the program would suddenly go into a 30 year tailspin or something if Hakstol were fired. I assume we could find another coach, and a good one, and I assume that with the advantages our program has, that coach would have some good success. I count myself in the pro-Hakstol crowd, but I will only speak for myself. The reason I don't think we should fire Hakstol is why fire a guy who is leading the program in the direction you want to go? Seems kind of silly. People are fond of comparing Hakstol to York, or Berenson or Lucia or Mack Brown, or Bud Grant, etc... I don't know the answer to this, but has anyone ever been fired for taking a basketball team to 7 Final Fours in 11 years? The NCAA tournament, today, is a bit of a crapshoot. I saw somewhere that with the past 3 champions all winning for the first time, that's the first time that has happened since the first 3 champions in NCAA history. That's pretty amazing, if true, and speaks to the parity in the game. I think the NCAA records book requires a coach to have coached in at least 8 games before qualifying for certain records. I think if you look at that record book after this season you will see that only 3 active coaches have a better tournament winning percentage than Dave Hakstol (York, Sandelin and Jackson). That means that when the season is on the line, playing a team from another conference you haven't seen before, Hakstol is about as good as it gets, and that's with the 1-7 Frozen Four record everyone is fond of pointing out. I was in school for the Gino championships. Those were cakewalks. In the first one, we got selected for the tournament and only had to win two games. In 1982 we got two games against Clarkson at home, then 2 games in the Frozen Four. In 1987, the same. Two games against St. Larry's at home, then 2 games at the Frozen Four. Even Blais only had to win 3 games. I've said it before and I'll say it again. Dave Hakstol's job is safe, and candidly, I'm happy about that.

PC was certainly the aggressor in the Omaha game, and maybe even better in the 3rd period of the BU game, but this was no high flying offensive juggernaut. Tied for 18th in goal scoring. 38th on the power play. You have to go a long way down the national scoring list to find a PC player. Just a handful of guys in double digits in goals scored. In fact, I'd go so far as to say this PC team was built exactly like this year's UND team. The primary difference in the Frozen Four was goaltending. Zane played an average game against BU, while Gillies was superb.

Like Providence's?

I was really impressed with Luke's play near the end of the year, and especially in the post season. The kid can flat out snipe the puck. He's gained a little strength in his two years in school, and I expect that will only continue. I hesitate to put any labels on kids, or say they play like this player, or remind me of that player. But I seriously think Luke has Matt Frattin senior season level talent, and we could start to see it as soon as next year.

No question Quinn must go. If you can't win a natty with the greatest American born player ever, he never will.

Put me down as someone who does not want Hakstol fired. If up to me, give him a contract extension.

Congrats Zane! Well deserved! I'm with those who expect him to be gone, but I did like reading that he wants to speak to his extended family, basically everyone who matters to him, before making a decision. http://www.uscho.com/2015/04/10/mike-richter-award-winner-mcintyre-credits-family-coaches-for-development/

67 years.

Hak isn't going anywhere. Rational minds realize it would crazy to fire a coach who has taken his team to the tournament every year, and to the Frozen Four 7 times. The only way he gets fired is if the team goes in the tank for 3-4 years, missing the tournament, missing the conference tournament, etc... You guys might as well get used to it, or start complaining about the weather.

It is kind of funny. The odds are much better that UND moves its home games to Purpur Arena than they are that they get rid of Hak in the foreseeable future. He keeps sending teams to the Frozen Four, regardless of the outcome, he's going nowhere. The "common denominator" crowd can whine all they want. Them's the facts.

So at what point during these next two weeks do we get the Lambert story which reveals CORSI numbers that not only are 61.9% of all BU goals scored when Jack Eichel is on the ice, but 53.3% of all goals in all hockey games, everywhere, are scored when Jack Eichel is on the ice for BU, and we've actually already lost this game, mathematically?

Lot of tall buildings with ledges in Minneapolis. Feel free to jump, people.

MN can't lose two. I agree there are a lot of scenarios where they get in. But there are some quirky ones where they'll have to sweat, including what Jim Dahl pointed out this morning.

My wife and I stayed there last year, (when I think it was the Graves) and we're doing so again this year. Great rooms. Spectacular location for the Target Center. Skyway right to the arena from the hotel across the street. Never even wore a jacket. A bit pricey.

People complained about the so-called "Minnesota rule" (as an aside, the exact same rule was implemented the couple of years the tournament was held in Wisconsin and Wisconsin got the night game), for years. I was not one of them. First, there is no question the league and tv wanted that rule to allow local fans to come to the game after work, or watch Minnesota play in the evening. But people forget what a huge advantage that was for some other programs, namely UND, DU and a few others. I can't tell you how many times I got to watch UND play an afternoon semi-final against a team that had just played the play-in game the night before. It didn't always work that way. If MN was the #1 seed the play-in winner got to mercifully wait until Friday night. But many a time I got to see a tired UMD or CC or other team show up at the rink just a few hours after a tough fought win in the play in game, and we almost never lost those games.

In his earlier article discounting UND he also floated the notion that UND's success so far is a mirage, fueled in part by Zane's play at times, and in larger part by the fact that we apparently never left REA this year. But here's the thing. First, when we did leave REA we were as good as any team in the country. UND's winning % on the road was, by my eye, 3rd best. Lambert's darlings, DU and Miami, didn't exactly kill it on the road. DU was under .500, and Miami was barely over. I'm sure he'd say, or has said, that we didn't play anyone of consequence on the road. But again, if you look at strictly conference play, I think we were 8-4 on the road. UMD who was supposedly a great road team this year was 7-5. Miami 6-5-1, DU 5-6-1 and UNO 4-5-3. You'd think for a guy who claims he's a "numbers" guy he'd actually look at the numbers. Those who point out he likes to try to aggravate our fan base are correct. What's funny is that in the comments to his article, it's apparent he has aggravated just about every other fan base.

3rd in conference play, 24th nationally. http://www.uscho.com/stats/conference/nchc/2014-2015/ http://www.uscho.com/stats/overall/division-i-men/2014-2015/

I saw that article too. I was surprised, but not outraged, that Zane received as little acknowledgement as he did. I thought it was the perception of most college hockey commentators that Zane was the reason for this season's success. I'll say this. I would really like to get all these college hockey sportswriters, bloggers, etc..., into the same room and ask them exactly how they think UND is doing it this year. Smoke and mirrors? They are #1 in the PWR. Tied for best winning % in the country, and won the regular season title in the conference most feel is strongest top to bottom, at least this year. But apparently our Corsi numbers suck. We don't have anyone even sniffing the top 50 in scoring. Our penalty kill is average, at best. Our power play is ok, but not in the top 10 nationally. And apparently it isn't our goaltender. Maybe it is all just smoke and mirrors.

FWIW, here is CHN's take on each team's probabilities of making the tournament, it appears based upon KRACH. http://www.collegehockeynews.com/ratings/probabilityMatrix.php

Personally I think the regular season champ should receive some reward. It's hard to win a regular season championship, and I was all in favor of giving the regular season champs an auto bid. But I also like having the tournament auto bid that we have now. It gives everyone a chance, which is kind of what the tournament is about. It's what made the basketball tournament what it is. The problem is that if we give both auto bids (the ideal), we're basically down to four at large bids. That's a little dicey. Maybe boost it to 20 teams with 4 play in games? Don't know that there is a good answer.

The numbers you are looking at are just a list of all of the scenarios, and the percentages of time they occur. That's why teams like RMU, UNH, St. Lawrence, etc..., that have to win two games to get in are all 25%. Half the scenarios they win game one, and then half of those they win game 2. They are not weighted for what is likely to happen. I think Jim is actually working on some sort of weighted analysis, probably using KRACH.

I'm not sure that's true. Most of the scenarios with the favorites winning would result in MN making the field, many in instances where they even lose the first game. I do think it would be kind of funny for them to win the B1G regular season title but then miss out on an at large bid. First, doesn't say a lot about the B1G, but second, it would be a Daily Double of sorts for Lucia. He did the same thing back in 1993-94 when his CC team won the WCHA regular season title, only to miss the tournament.

I think you're going to be wrong on this. Here is why. If you look at the handful of teams bunched ahead of and behind MN at this point, they're pretty much all HE and ECAC teams. That means success of one comes at the detriment of the other. If Harvard and Vermont want to climb past MN, they do so at the expense of Yale and BC, immediately ahead of MN. If Colgate is to make a run, it will ultimately come at the expense of Yale and Quinn. For MN to miss, it's going to take a very specific outcome. I think it has to be Mass-Lowell or SCSU that goes past them. Quinn, Yale, BG and BC all have to have enough success to stay ahead of MN, Lowell and SCSU most certainly need to win this weekend, then probably one win in the semi's. Just my two cents, obviously without running Jim Dahl type scenarios.