SJHovey

FWIW Andy Johnson is reporting the Badgers are in the mix for Auston Matthews. Seems like a good news, bad news situation. Good news the kid is seriously considering the NCAA route when many think he's destined for Canada. Bad news for us in that he's adding another college program to his candidates, which at last count numbered around 5 already.

That definitely has to get done.

Another couple of things that Lambert seemed to have overlooked. Our penalty kill has been occasionally maligned. But if you look at our "net" on the penalty kill, we are down 13 goals on a 138 pp opportunities. This compares very favorably with some of the better penalty kill teams in the country, like Bowling Green and others. Second, I remember a few years ago reading somewhere about a key stat that is often overlooked is the goal differential for each team. If you go through the stats at the end of the year, the handful of teams that lead the country in the difference between goals scored and goals allowed are always the ones contending for the title, which only makes sense. But so may teams in the tournament have less than a one goal per game differential, but the elite teams each year hit that 1.2 to 1.5 range. For example, last year the teams with the best differential were BC, Union, Quinnipiac and Minnesota. This year we compare very favorably. Of the top 16 PWR teams right now, it looks like this: 1. MTU +1.8 2. Mankato 1.61 3. BU 1.4 4. UND 1.3 5. Yale 1.14 6. Michigan 1.1 7-8. Minnesota .91 7-8. Providence .91 9. DU .84 10. Mass-Lowell .79 11. Miami .69 12. UMD .62 13. Quinnipiac .61 14. BC .59 15. Bowling Green .56 16. UNO .37

That's the thing. Someone has to have the top PWR number and be ranked number 1. Right now it's us. But I don't think anyone has been saying UND is a clear favorite or unquestionably the best team in the country. They are one of probably 10 teams right now with a legitimate shot to win the tournament. A couple of things to note about Lambert's comments, though. He basically claims Miami, UMD and DU are all better teams than UND. May or may not be true. But UND is 4-3-1 against those teams. Miami is 5-5, UMD is 5-5 and DU is 5-6-1, so there is that. With respect to the out of conference record, we have played some weak teams. But we have beaten those weak teams as well. 13-0 against teams ranked from 24-59 in the PWR (BSU is 23, which is why I took that as the cutoff). If you look at all the other top teams in the PWR, they have had some clunkers against that same group of teams. BU has lost 3 and tied 5 against PWR teams from 24-59. Mankato, Miami, UMD, all have dropped a game or two against those teams. This UND team is not a run and gun and put up 40 shots a game type of team. It's built from the goal out, and has been a very tough team to beat. Will they win it all? Hard to say. Would have liked to gone into the tournament with all hands on deck, but we'll see.

Maybe Kelley concluded it was a hill that shouldn't be climbed. He is paid, in part, to make those types of decisions. I loved the name as much as anyone. But candidly, I'm glad its gone. I'm tired of the nonsense. Its the world we live in. The Washington Redskins are going to be able to hold on for awhile. The FSU Seminoles are going to be able to hold on for awhile. But the world is not moving towards use of american indian names as mascots/team nicknames. Its moving against them, and you have as much a chance to stop it as you do stopping the tide. It's a frigging nickname. Every program that has switched, voluntarily or otherwise, has survived quite nicely. Trust me, those standing in a public forum petulantly crying about the loss of their dear indian nickname will not be judge kindly by history. The students can voice their displeasure by making and displaying the sign, which they did. And they can rightfully have the sign confiscated, and even be asked to leave the premises.

One thing that was funny. I think when talk first started about Boeser walking away from Wisconsin, Hammy posted something about having to eat his words. He apparently was pretty confident that wouldn't happen, and all of a sudden it appeared likely. A couple of months later he is posting pretty confidently that MN has Boeser all but wrapped up. Looks like he had to go back for seconds with respect to eating those words.

The guys must have been tough on Hammy. I see he's locked it down.

I will throw out a prediction. With our schedule, I think we will probably be no better than a 2 seed. I think with Minnesota's schedule, they will have no problem getting in, and will probably be a 3 seed. I think we will see in Fargo this bracket: Mankato v. AHA champ UND v. Minnesota It'll be too much fun to throw 3 old WCHA rivals into the same bracket for the committee to resist, and the seeds will be close enough to permit it.

It's obviously pretty easy to tell Notre Dame to suck off, given their rejection of the NCHC when the conference was formed. Our conference is enjoying a lot of success. Notre Dame is struggling. Plenty of opportunity for schadenfreude. But under the right circumstances I don't think it would be a terrible thing. We have to remember, for all the hockey success our conference has had this season, it may not always be the case, and the NCHC members are all pretty small schools in the grand scheme of Div I sports. I would only want Notre Dame if they would come in with a 10th team, preferably ASU. Those are two, big name brand programs, and say what you want, they'd help our conference. People, like coaches, associated with a school come and go, but the program itself remains. I'd also want to know about the tv package. Ideally we'd like a better national package than the one we have, but one that still lets us get the games on one of the fox sports channels nationally if not picked up by NBC Sports or CBS Sports.

Regarding the points plan first, my preference is to just go back to two points if you win (either regulation or OT), zero if you lose, one point apiece if OT ends in a tie. At what point do we stop giving out points for certain milestones in a game? The cause of all of this is the shootout, which is a stupid publicity stunt anyway. Without a shootout (you have to reward the winner somehow), we don't get to the problem of awarding points to someone who just goes through OT without winning or losing. I'm more in favor of your officials idea, but I can see some issues. You'd have to make sure the off ice official has some access or control over the replays he'd get to see. Is one official going to have veto power or more authority than the other? Does the presence of the off ice official ultimately cause the deterioration of the on ice officiating. I think you've already seen that in the NFL. Sometimes I think an official calls a play one way, knowing it can always be reviewed later, even though the official may have called it a different way if it was just him, with no replay. If I had the ability to make one change, and one change alone to the NCHC, it would be to make the playoff format a "one and done" format at one location. All 8 teams make the Frozen Faceoff. Start Thursday at 11:00 a.m., 10 a.m. if necessary, and go until the 4 games are done that day. 45 minutes between games. The two semis on Friday with the final on Saturday. 3rd place game optional. Everyone would know that their team gets to go to Minneapolis each year. Book your tickets and rooms in advance. More fanbase to fill the arena. One big party.

Every couple of weeks or so I like to go over and poke around on gpl and see what's going on, check in on the current meltdown, etc... Hammy, who obviously has some connections inside the program, especially when it comes to recruiting, has been extremely confident MN will land Boeser, and in the end he'll probably be right. But in the last day or two he was asked about it, and the fact they haven't heard, and whether the recent problems with the team have had any impact. He responded something to the effect that other schools are definitely using it against Minnesota. He said he's still pretty confident MN will land him, but his confidence seemed to have softened a tad, and he pointed out the current state of affairs over there certainly wasn't helping. On a different note, he basically called out Rau has being a bad captain. The same personality that causes opposing players and fans to dislike him may also cause his own teammates to tire of him? Interesting.

Pretty funny to hear him just shut down the notion of going the Candian juniors route. Going to be pretty tough for us to overcome the Novak connection, though. Sounds like a good kid.

That's not quite what he wrote. http://www.sbncollegehockey.com/nchc/2014/10/2/6886557/north-dakota-2014-2015-season-preview I actually thought his preseason assessment was pretty spot on. He did have us in the 3-4 seed range for the tournament, but candidly I think most people (including me) underestimated the success the NCHC would have out of conference, and that has been a primary reason why we've risen to fight for a #1 seed. I also think he was right regarding our schedule. The team has done what needed to be done by basically running the table on the OOC games since Bemidji. One or two losses in the mix and I suspect we'd have been back on the bubble like last year. I guess I really don't care whether he likes our program or not, but sometimes I feel a few in our fanbase are too critical of what Dilks or others write about us. Personally I like to support anyone who is writing regularly about college hockey because so few do so.

I don't think Chris is a gopher fan.

I don't think Chris really hates us. In fact this year he's actually written some pretty positive articles or comments about the team or individuals on it. He does probably get tired of UND fans tweeting him or emailing him or adding comments to his blog posts ripping on him about UND, but that would get tiring for just about anyone. I saw his comments this morning and wondered whether UND fans would come out and comment. The way I interpreted his comments was like this. First, he was one of just two of their group to pick someone other than UND as number one. Both Chris and Nate Wells went with Mankato, but that's kind of natural. First, they saw Mankato take apart Minnesota this weekend. I think Chris is also very impressed with Mankato's team this year. I know I am. I saw them play in person a few weeks ago, and they are certainly very good. Too often people who vote in polls tend to just see how the teams did relative to the team above or below them, and rank them that way, rather than put some actual thought in the process. I suspect Chris believes that UND has climbed to the top simply by virtue of 4 consecutive wins (tough to do in the second half of a season) rather than truly being the best team in the country. I'm not convinced we're best. I think we can be at times, but I have no problem saying there may be one or two teams better right now.

Here's an interesting statistic. Excluding Cam Johnson, only one player for UND has a minus for his +/- rating thus far this year -- Steph Pattyn. http://collegehockeystats.net/1415/teamstats/ndkm

There is a ton of hockey to be played. UMD and Miami aren't far behind, UND, UMD, UNO and Miami have a lot of games left against each other. DU still has a say in it. I'll take a split on the road and stay in the hunt.

I'm kind of curious who all these 1st rounders were who played on the 4th line. Half our first rounders were defensemen, and I don't ever remember Landon Wilson, Parise, Stafford, Zajac, Oshie, Toews, Nelson or Schmaltz on the 4th line. Maybe it's just me, but I find these discussions funny. People always talk about the glory years of UND hockey. It was unheard of to have first rounders on the team back when I was in Grand Forks and going to school at UND. I could be wrong, but I think James Patrick holds the distinction of being the only 1st round draft pick to win a national championship at UND (1982).

A couple of UND recruits that are having some success in the USHL each scored in the USHL/NHL showcase game Tuesday night. Wolanin scored the 5th goal for the East in the first period as they got off to a 6-0 lead on Chris Wilkie's West team. Wilkie also scored as the West lost 7-4. http://www.ushl.com/news_article/show/466165?referrer_id=1348814

Yet apparently some here want us to be. Win that one championship surrounded by years of mediocrity. But we have that "natty!"

Jeff Jackson won 2 in his first 4 years. It was pretty obvious, even back then, that he'd win those 7 national titles over his 20+ year career. Oh, wait....

Minnesota will be fine. 10 of their 16 remaining conference games are at home, and the six road games are against Wisconsin, OSU and Penn St. They've got a pretty soft schedule for the next month, except for the North Star Cup. If they do anything but lay an egg in the North Star, they should easily be a top 10 PWR by the time it's all said and done. But it is going to be an interesting year. I could easily see where there are only 12 at large teams. Wouldn't surprise me at all to see a team like DU or SCSU win the NCHC tournament, or someone other than Michigan or Minnesota win the Big 10.

The weakest schedule I recall is Zach Parise's freshman season. Played Canisius 3 times, Brown, two against Niagara, one against BSU and one each against Princeton and Yale, when both sucked. Only decent game was Michigan in an early season tournament. In addition to the neutral ice tournament, the team played only 4 road games before January 10th, and two of those were the aforementioned Yale and Princeton games. Probably the weakest schedule in UND history.

Chris Wilkie named to USHL/NHL prospects game. Congrats Chris.

I was thinking the other day, I wonder if the NCHC dodged a bullet with Notre Dame. They have a great "brand", but Ohio State has a great brand and I don't know that they are going to cause the Big 10 to be a super hockey conference. That Notre Dame program seems a mess right now. Jackson probably benefits a bit in that hockey is an afterthought at the school. I'll admit, I'm old enough to remember when Notre Dame was a part of our conference. They sucked. They added nothing to the conference and certainly didn't cause our recruiting to improve just based upon playing Notre Dame in hockey. You can't minimize public exposure and tv contracts, but...