redwing77

Watching the OT. Don't you love "Everything's legal" OT?

I suggest we set him up with something from here.

I am not sure I understand what's going on with the official. Thul keeps calling interference. According to McLeod and Shepherd, there are no interference problems with the league. Was it Sam Bunger that knocked in UND's 3rd goal? If so, couldn't have happened to a better player.

Do I give credit to Minnesota for anything? I give them credit for not simply rolling over once the North Stars left town. I give their fans credit for rooting for their team even though they have the Twins mentality (We made the playoffs so it is a good year). I give them credit for ending Roy's career on a down note (hey, Red Wings fan here. Can't go for the Avs in any way!). 90% of my dislike for the Wild IS their front office. It's not necessarily LeMaire. He's actually gotten better. But it drives me crazy to have a front office continuously and endlessly looking to the future of the franchise and COMPLETELY forget about the present. Sure, you want to build a solid team for years to come, but when is the future going to be today? Sorry if it is repetitive junk to you all, but I guess I'm just a burned out ex-Minnesota fan. They have nothing to offer me any longer and their attitudes every offseason is laughable.

You know what? I'm going to be nice to Minnesota NHL fans and say this: Put a great team on the ice, with goalscorers galore and a high flying, hard hitting game like Detroit or even Chicago employs and well... it will get loud because they'll be going up and down the ice. Boy, Chicago is on the cusp. Just a few defensive adjustments, depth adjustments, and experience for Kane and Toews and they'll be a force! In any case, yeah... Sign some more guys like Gaborik, operate on a more balanced system (it isn't all that bad to look to potential for a team. It isn't always good to have a veteran laden "older" team either. But it is always good to have as much "now" talent as you do potential. The Mild operate off of potential and rely heavily on Demitra and Gaborik for the "now" talent. That's too skewed towards potential to be truly successful). I wonder what a guy like Modano, who wanted to sign with Minnesota after the lockout, would have done with the Wild.

It's amazing how bad a goaltender can look if he has no Team D to back him up. The 9 goal weekend was as much the Team D's fault as it was Zatkoff's. Trust me, take a team that has good Team D and a good offense and plug in Zatkoff. Sure, a great Team D and great offense would make it better, but seriously, Zatkoff has very little in front of him. The fact that Miami is highly ranked at all is split between two factors: Zatkoff and a very weak CCHA outside of MSU and UM... MAYBE Notre Dame.

I got a kick out of the GWG in the shoot out being scored by a Minnesotan. Good win for the Devs.

Yup. Zatkoff is the only scary good person on Miami. If they do make any noise in the NCAAs, it will be because of the same reasons the NY Giants made it to the Super Bowl (and won). Every team they faced overlooked them and took Eli Manning for granted. Yes, he sucks, but he's not Rex Grossman. You can't always rely on Eli to throw to your DBs. Same thing with Miami. Sure, they are vastly overrated, but if we take them anything less than seriously, they'll beat us. As for the true intent of this thread, let me break down what I'd try to do: 1. I'd try to take away the middle. That means clogging up the middle of my defensive zone against them and make them take whatever shots from the perimeter. In the neutral zone, I'd employ a neutral zone trap. Yes, that isn't fool proof, but if "my" team allows UND to employ a quick transition in the neutral zone, I'm in trouble. 2. I'd make garbage goals hard to come by. If you make UND "get cute" with the puck, they'll turn it over nearly EVERY...SINGLE...TIME. Since they are prone to this at times, this is probably the easiest thing to accomplish. 3. Clog the passing lanes. Again, not allowing fast transitions will help our team. 4. Stay out of the box. DUH! Sure, UND's PP is lackluster, but for how long? Constant PK shifts tires out the lines as well. 5. Dive. Yeah, this is a dirty thing to suggest, but seriously: IF there are WCHA officials, dive. 9 times out of 10 the worst thing that happens is they take one of UND's guys and my guy for unsportsmanlike. I've NEVER EVER seen a WCHA official call ANYONE for diving without calling a coincidental minor on the other team. 6. Pepper JPL and play the rebound game. JPL is a tough cookie to crack when he's on his game, so the best way to beat him is to force him to give up a rebound and get into position to take advantage of it. He does let in the occasional 5 hole goal (aka WEEEAAAKKKK), but we can't count on it. 7. Test the officials without being flagrant about it. Yeah, this is a lot like #5, but whatever we can get away with, get away with it. Hey, I'd even try to send my goon out to try to pick a fight with Finley or Kaip. Not Radke. Radke fighting won't benefit my team. Getting rid of Kaip eliminates a key leadership cog in UND and getting rid of Finley gets rid of a key defensive cog. Not that I'd endorse fighting. Hey, if I get those two to drop the gloves and throw a punch without my guy doing the same, great! I can deal with my players being called gutless hacks. 8. Since I'm coaching a team facing UND, I'd have my files on UND players, their on-ice habits, and the temperment of the WCHA officials. Depending upon the assigned WCHA official, I'd modify a list of "complaints" to levy to the official before the game even starts to ensure that they might "watch out for it." I would do no such thing during the game to prevent me from getting a "whiner" attitude with the officials. Ok, 5-8 are all a JOKE people. Seriously, I don't know what I'd do. I AM NOT A COACH! I'm a critic

I think luapsided is the one who went out on a limb.

bucky's logic is great, imo. It gives teams like SCSU some hope. Since where you lost in the playoffs doesn't matter, SCSU fans can hold their heads high and say "HEY! We may not have won any NCAA games yet, but we finished just as well as UMN and UND did those years, except the years that one of them won it all, of course!" You see, making vs. not making the frozen four... It's kinda different.

Add an assist to the dude sitting in section 102 Row B Seat 12.

JPL from Oshie and Duncan MTU never sees it coming.

My buddies and I noticed that two. He did that on both ends of side of the rink the Sioux warm up on too. He also high fives everyone when exiting the ice after warm ups. He even reached his stick up so that a kid who couldn't get close enough for a high five could at least get some acknowledgment by Andrew. What a likable person. Martens has been solid, though.

Goon- I'll have you know that Sioux-cia knew who I was right when I walked up! As for golfing, HAH! I'll bet you a beer that you'll golf better than I will! Other things of note: 1. Martens has improved a TON, but sorry, I have to give the Most Improved Player Award to Kozek this year. After last season, people were clamoring about how this kid could be regarded highly after two very underwhelming seasons at UND. This year he came to the rink and simply lit it up. On an individual game note, say what you will about Oshie, but Kozek threw the team on his back against DU in the greatest comeback game I've seen in quite some time. 2. LaPoint is laying out GARRET ROE. He did take the body quite a bit this weekend. I was impressed. I was also impressed with the pass he made to Watkins for Goal #2. I actually thought it was a shot on goal. Morley (whose eyesight is much better than mine) corrected me. Thanks to him. Sioux-cia: Whatever happened to Hockeymom?

You go girl!

Oddly enough, Chorney and Bina may end up on the short end of the stick. I know Chorney is 3rd on the team in defensive scoring and did a fine job, he was much less dominant than last season. Worse yet, Bina led the WCHA in defensive scoring for a very long time until Hillen had his hat trick a week or three ago. Now he's fallen to 2nd in the WCHA (if not the NCAA) in scoring. What is going to make him fall short is that most of his points came in the first half of the year. He's been pretty quiet lately. I can't much argue with the picks being made, but I would swap Finley and Genoway. Finley did have an impressive +/- and did contribute offensively, but Genoway's impact on the Sioux gameplan is simply staggering. He's turned into a defenseman everyone would want on their first pairing because of his offensive abilities, defensive abilities, and hockey smarts. The only question is: Does Genoway's injury hurt his chances at first team? He'll surely make the list somewhere, but I wonder if things would have been different in this matter had he been able to finish out the season uninjured.

Went to the game last night and here's my thoughts (a little late): 1. Passing - Yeah, might need to work on that a bit. 2. Turnovers - Probably was because our passing stunk all night last night. 3. The Watkins goal was a thing of beauty. 4. We had two ties this weekend, but if I were SCSU, I'd take that as a sweep. If I were UND, I would take it as being swept. SCSU is good and all, but we missed so many chances it isn't even funny. 5. Our D as a whole had an up and down game. Overall, they played well defensively. 6. It was nice meeting Sioux-cia, Siouxmama, and Morley. It was not nice missing Goon, Sioux7, and LFSPro. Not much to be happy about this weekend. We played well enough to survive but this type of stuff won't help us in the playoffs. And Siouxfan/bufan- BU has won 9 of 10. UND has won 14, lost none, and tied the rest out of the last 16 (or 17) games. BU hasn't faced a team like UND yet this year. Though it is true that BU could possibly beat us, any team could beat any team in the NCAAs. I just don't see it happening...unless we continue to play like we did against SCSU.

Prepare for a rush of disagreements over LaPoint. Really, I think the guy who scored the goal last night for the Sioux was last night's top performer for the Sioux: Rylan Kaip. The guy was ALL OVER the place and his forechecking was ungodly good. VV seemed to have balance issues. One thing we're going to notice tonight at least early is that Anderson's reluctance to call penalties will be tested tonight for sure. There will be a lot of embellishing and clutch and grab. Anderson set the bar last night and now that the teams think they know that it is open season (it is until Anderson states otherwise) they will stretch the boundaries of legality. It could get ugly. Probably won't, but it could.

Hard to say where we'd be without JPL, but our backup came in and shut down the opposition (despite it being just Bemidji). Before JPL took over, we had JPar and Brandt. Though I wasn't the biggest fan of Brandt (he'd typically let at least one of the first 5 shots he faced into the back of the net) he did well for us. The oddity is this year for the Sioux is that typically we're a rotation team. We have one goaltender in one night, the backup in the next. Therefore, over the past 10 years or so, I can say that our depth at the position, with the exception of one year (2001-2002) was very good. But here lies the difference between typical Sioux teams and typical Gopher teams. Gophers gear their entire team towards offense. If the team has a bunch of high fliers and stick handlers (like in 2001-2003 with their back to back teams), they are fun to watch (even if it isn't satisfying to us Sioux fans). They take offense as the best form of defense and leave the leader in defensive stance to be goaltending and forechecking. UND does things a bit differently. We are a team of balance. We try to be a finesse team like the Gophers at times (often driving me nuts because it tends to turn into UND players trying to get too cute in the offensive zone), but our main cup of team is physical and stifling defense and a quick transition team. Team D is the name of the game for our team and our defensemen are expected to play defense first (with leeway to certain players who are capable of doing both without losing much skill in either zone such as Chay Genoway). We hit and hit hard. We don't back down from anyone. The Gophers have, since I've watched them, not been a physical team and tend to shy away from it (DeMarchi being perhaps the exception to the rule, though Vanelli and Peltier have tried to step into that role). It's a gradient thing much like a lever that looks like a seesaw. The Gophers are on the side of Offense over Defense. UW is a team that is defense over offense (hence, one of the most boring teams in the WCHA to watch). UND is right in the middle. Other teams fall somewhere around in the spectrum depending upon the team they have that year. UAA, UMD, DU, and MTU tend to fall a bit to UW's side of the spectrum. CC and SCSU falls a bit towards UMN's side. MSUM seems to mimic UND's game the most, though they are often too physical and doesn't have quite the quality of players UND has. Other years, it is different. Of course, as usual, this is my opinion. Feel free to disagree if you wish. It won't bother me at all.

AZSioux laid it all out statistically, but let me put it this way: You've won more than you lost in the last 16 games, sure, but how much of it is because of offensive performances? Truthfully, when you put up 4 goals on UMD I was stunned. UMD played VERY solidly last weekend against a flying Sioux team. With a Gopher team that has had suspect defense, inconsistent if not nearly nonexistant offense, and shaky goaltending (before Kangas took over full time), I thought UMD would make the Gophers sweat. They didn't make the Gophers sweat in the slightest. I do not consider the Gophers to be in the same field as the Sioux this year. They usually are, but not this year. So let me ask you this: IF it weren't for Kangas, what would your record be? UND has witnessed JPL bail them out a number of times at various points of games throughout the season, but even so, they haven't relied upon him solely to keep UND in the game nearly as much as the Gophers have relied upon Kangas. Early in the season, we did and we lost a BUNCH of games because of it (I'd like to say that 5 or 6 of our 8 losses were because we were too reliant on JPL to bail the offense out of it). If anything, WHeeler is getting a lot of the press for the GOphers, but really, Kangas is your player of the year because I DOUBT you'd be 5-4-7 without his stellar play. I wouldn't doubt it would be something like 3-10-3 without him. The Gophers can be a dangerous team, but I don't think they are as solid defensively as UMD is. I would expect a different result tonight. Either a tie or a UMD win.

IIRC correctly, Zach lost a tooth either his first NHL season or his second.... or was that earlier this year for Toews?

I would like to clarify one thing: I don't think the Sioux played poorly...except for one 5 minute stretch: OT. Our D was pretty good in the defensive zone for most of the night. A few glitches (one VERY BAD giveaway by Bina... I think Chorney had a burp in there too), but pretty good overall. Really too bad that JPL overcommitted on Lasch for the Swanson goal. And Miller, next time you have the goaltender down and out, shoot the puck somewhere other than where the goaltender's mitt was. Seriously, Weslosky just laid there with his glove out and you hit the center of the mitt like Jace and Brad were just playing catch. Other chances were just sad (Hartman's save on Duncan was the save of the night, imo. I didn't even know he got a stick on it until the replay. I feel bad because I was yelling at my TV saying that Duncan can't afford to miss a gift like that only to find out that it was just a stick in the way that prevented the goal). SILVER LINING: The Silver lining of this game is this: After trailing after two periods this season, the Sioux have only won 1 time. They've lost most of the times. We didn't lose.

UMD played very well against CC and UND. Apparently they've folded like a folding chair against the Gophers.

Yup. Here's a few things I noticed: 1. UND played very well in the first period. Overall, they played well enough to tie. 2. SCSU played like crap in the first period. Overall, though, they played well enough to WIN, but didn't thanks to some timely defense and JPL. 3. Weslosky needs to get a new jersey. We wore the logo out. Folks, don't get me wrong, I love the fact that we peppered the net with shots, but we have to shoot the puck either high to the corner or down near the ice. Very few rebounds come from the logo area of a good goaltender. 4. Roe can play. That pass to set up Lasch to set up Swanson's PPG was just amazing. 5. Believe it or not, I think Lasch's goal should have stood. 6. Anderson did a poor job of officiating, but it is NOT because of the missed call in OT. Everyone knows that anything but CFBs go non-called in OT. He let a TON of stuff go. The Sioux got away with a lot and so did the Huskies. 7. Malone's penalty was absolutely horrible (on the part of Malone). What purpose did slashing the SCSU player's stick serve? It wasn't to prevent a scoring chance. It was to preserve the zone, IIRC. That's nice to be able to do, but really, better to let it leave the zone and regroup than to sit for 2. Finley's penalty was crap. I'm not even sure why Anderson (SCSU player) went to the box. 8. This is now the second game in a row that we managed to tie the game up by the opposition simply making a horrible mistake near the goal. Trust me, it was nice to see Kaip play (he actually had an incredible game all things considered) like that, but if we have to rely upon that kind of stuff to get us back into games we're not going to go far. Mistakes like that just don't happen often. We better have a better night tomorrow.

I always say that the Red Wings have taken a break from winning when they start losing games. With the Mild, they take a break from average to sub-average hockey to win games. By the way, I'd take Zetterberg and Datsyuk over any of the players on the Wild, Gaborik included.