My take. I'm not a hockey expert, but I play one on message boards!
I went into the year thinking that while UND would not have the go to line that we have had the past few years that we had the talent and depth to be able to roll 4 lines out there that would be better than most teams number 2 lines and that we would need to play with speed and pace to take advantage of this depth and wear other teams out and force their 3rd and 4th lines to play more minutes and this would ultimately lead to UND wearing teams down over the course of the game. Unfortunately with the stricter enforcement of obstruction and interference which would have helped us greatly in the past, has not helped us this season and not because calls are going against us or in our favor, but the excessive calls have killed the pace in so many games and all the stops in play and faceoffs have negated our depth advantage as all the breaks in play allow everyone to get extra rest and depth does not become as much of a factor as it could be. That said, when we have had a favorable pace in games, we are missing empty nets, making poor "payoff" passes and fumbling scoring opportunities and that needs to improve.
These next 4 non-conference games are huge and we need to relax and let shots go and try and force the pace to take advantage of speed and aggression and get on track for the stretch run....if that fails
Plan B
Load up 2 lines with the most talented offensive players(Duncan, VDV, Hextall, Toews, Gregiore, and either Trupp or Kozek) we have instead of trying to balance our lines and tell the other 6 forwards dressed each night that their main job is to not get scored on, it's ugly, but it allowed Minnesota to be competitive last season and has worked with varying degrees of success for Wisconsin over the years and seeeed to work out OK for us in 1997.