SJHovey

10,000 to 1? Put me down for a $1 on UND.

Somewhere I saw an article in which the kid talked about his decision not to come here but go to Wisconsin, and as I recall a huge part of it was that Granato had some prior coaching involvement with him. In a lot of ways recruiting is a people business and if a kid and a coach connect, that can sway a decision.

Or, you could just enjoy the remainder of the season. Every game with this team is a nail biter, and no matter how far we advance, before long it’ll be the middle of April and six long months until college hockey.

Four, actually. As I said, ‘59, ‘63, ‘82 and ‘87.

I get that fans can become frustrated when they have higher expectations for the program than are being achieved. But Michigan once went something like 26 years and only made the tournament once. Minnesota went 16 years and made the tournament once. We went ten years without making it, then a decade later we started a streak in which we only made it once out of nine years. And that doesn't even address the streaks where the tournament was made but no title was achieved. We are not even 3 years since our last title, and we've missed the tournament exactly one year in a row. To say that it's early to even start searching for the panic button, let alone pushing it, is an understatement.

Do you have to meet all of those criteria, or are you elite if you meet just one? As an FYI, I think there are only five teams with a "few" (I defined that as more than two, since two would be "a couple") guys in the top 50 in scoring, and I wouldn't define any of those programs as elite (Mich. St., PSU, Lake State, Quinnipiac, U Mass). Probably only two even make the tournament this year. By my count, 9 of Canisius' 10 conference opponents in the AHA have put up more than two goals against Canisius this year. Do you think those programs, right now, are all more elite than ours?

The CHN modification tool moves them from 55 (tie for 54th) down to 58 if we beat them twice. Here is a link to that tool. Just hit "customize" and follow the links. https://www.collegehockeynews.com/ratings/ncaapwcr.php

Yeah, my snark comment was attached to your quote but was more of a general observation of comments I've seen around here regarding Brad's work. I don't know, but I think he writes those columns or blog posts or tweets or whatever not because he thinks most people don't basically understand that the more games you win, the more likely it is you're in the tournament. I think he writes it in part because he finds it interesting, and also thinks the rest of us may find it interesting, that there is such an extremely small margin between being in the tournament and being on the outside.

I guess I don't really get all the snark about Brad. First, will he be wrong if he writes that? Probably not, the way things are going. Second, not everyone is as closely tuned into the pairwise as those who post here. We're just a tiny fraction of UND hockey fans, and for a lot of them Brad's articles in the Herald or his blog posts might be their only source of information. I've always assumed he doesn't really pass along those observations for just those who follow the game more closely. He has a lot broader audience than that.

Yeah I don’t know that I’d bet they go 6-2. I just think 6-2, plus two wins in the first round is what they probably need to get in.

22 wins and we’re in, 21 and I’ll take my chances. That’s always been the number for teams from the top conferences. 6-2 over the regular season, win the first round, and we’re at 21.

The only thing I would say about the program that I would like the staff to look at is this. Since the early 1980's until Eades left a few years ago, we always had a Minnesota high school hockey connection on the coaching staff. Blais, Eades, Frank Serratore, Jim Scanlan, Sandelin, Osiecki. We always had someone who was from Minnesota or who played high school hockey in Minnesota or coached high school hockey in Minnesota or something. Recruiting is very relationship driven and I've always thought that a lot of Dean Blais' success was due to the relationships he had with other Minnesota high school coaches, either through his days at the U or through his high school coaching days. Eades and Sandelin also had a lot of that. I don't think we have the connections with the state hockey programs the way we used to, and that perhaps makes recruiting in the state more difficult. It's harder to find those hidden diamonds without some inside information.

I've often thought that what this Board really needs is a thread addressing that precisely. A prediction thread where posters can come in, before a player starts his college career, and declare, "this guy is going to be a great college hockey player." Not just limited to our team, but all around college hockey. What you'd see is this. You'd see some hits, because yeah you can pretty much figure out that a player like Hughes (if he makes it to college) is going to be great. You're going to see some misses. And you're going to realize that many guys who are great college players were never even mentioned in our thread.

We certainly have a much nicer facility than Duluth, and we have a much deeper tradition. But everyone I ever talked to who went to school at UMD loved the school. Duluth is a fun town. It also has the advantage of location in terms of recruiting. The Duluth high schools and surrounding areas have turned out a lot of good recruits. Yeah, I agree we have an advantage, but I'm not certain it's as large or distinct as we might like to think.

We have advantages over many schools in terms of recruiting, but most of those schools we're really not competing with on a recruit by recruit basis. But if you list the top 15 college hockey programs out there, do we really have that much of an advantage? We have facilities and tradition and a quality staff (although on this board we seem to spend a lot of time trying to dispel that advantage). But there are a lot of schools located in geographically more pleasing areas, in larger metropolitan areas, in locations with more media exposure, with quality coaching and training staffs, etc...

I get why people here are frustrated. It's always more fun to win championships than to be a middle of the pack team. But there are a few here who think that identifying and landing great college hockey players, then turning them into a championship team is easy, or something that if the coaches just knew what they were doing or at least tried, they would accomplish. It is not that easy. Your question goes to one of the three great myths that I see offered way too frequently on this board. MYTH #1 - The System People complain that the coaching staff's "system" is stifling all of these great scorers coming out of juniors and turning them into grinders. It's the same "system" and core group of coaches and coaching philosophy that's been around UND since at least 2004-05. It's the identical system and group of coaches who were in place in 2015-16. Folks, I don't think it's the system, whatever that is. MYTH #2 - Failure to Develop College hockey fans of some of the major programs like to brag about how their program "develops" NHL players. That is largely a myth. Parise, Boeser, Toews, Oshie, Stecher, et al, were going to be great college hockey players wherever they played, and were going to play in the NHL. What the college programs can do is round out their games. They can teach better decision making. They can teach players to be more responsible in all zones of the ice. But if you think any staff can take a player out of juniors and "develop" him into a 25 goal scorer in college is just wishful thinking. To me, the question is do the players who enter as freshmen play the game better when they leave as seniors, juniors or whenever? That doesn't mean do they score more goals in a season. I think our coaching staffs over the years have done a good job of this. MYTH #3 - Failure to Recruit This touches upon your question. Where are the great 18 year olds who come in and dominate the college game, and why isn't our staff landing all of them? It is extraordinarily difficult to look at a player, especially when you project out 2, 3 or 4 years, and determine whether their great talent at the current level will translate over to the next level. In fact, if you believe you possess that ability, then you are wasting your time and semi-trailers full of cash posting here. You need to contact an NHL front office. Just think about some things we've seen with our own program. Brock Boeser and Chris Wilkie both came to our program the same year, out of the same junior league. They were coached by the same coaches, using the same "system." They had tied for the goal scoring title in the USHL the year before. So, why is one of them a budding star in the NHL and the other playing in what seems like his 14th college season? Think back to 2010-11. Who here would have predicted that Carter Rowney, having been declared a flop after just 4 goals in his first two seasons here, would likely have a better NHL career than Matt Frattin? College hockey is a different game, even more than it was 15 years ago, and light years from the way it was 30 years ago. The days of a Michigan, North Dakota, BC, Minnesota, Wisconsin or other schools loading up on all the talent is long since gone, and even if they happen to have a spectacular year recruiting (seemingly), it doesn't necessarily translate into team success (see BU).

Haha. This is why old people should not post on their cellphones. Damn tough to see.

Man, I’m not a huge fan of poor mouthing recruits who won’t be here for a year. For what it’s worth, Chris Dilks tweeted that Ness has been really good in the USHL this year. Chris, who is no friend of ours, seems to have a decent eye for hockey talent.

17-15-4 over last 10 seasons, including this one. Two years we just played two games.

In the pre-NCHC days I was with you. I don't think I ever cheered for a WCHA team, although I preferred UMD to beat Michigan in 2011 only because I didn't want Michigan to get further ahead of us. However, the NCHC programs took a fair amount of heat and ridicule for forming the so-called "super conference" once the B1G broke up college hockey as we knew it. With the great success of the NCHC in getting teams into the tournament, and then success within the tournament, I kind of feel like it rubs the noses of the detractors in it a little bit, which I don't mind one bit.

If we don’t win it, I’d like to see an NCHC team win it, just because it riles fans in other conferences. It goes without saying that DU and UMD are at the bottom of my list of NCHC teams I’d cheer for though.

Well, I posted I thought we could get a win and a chance to win the other game. I don’t think my hunch was too bad.

I don't know. A guy has to draw a line somewhere.

Ok, I did it but it went in sideways. Haha. Anyway I hung a baseball cap in the upper left corner of the banner for a size perspective.