Godsmack

I would hope there will be some urgency and a level of desperation on the part of UND, to regain that 7 point lead on St. Cloud. The difference between this year’s CC squad and years prior is the swagger and confidence this team is playing with now. Before, if they got a rare upset win against a power house like DU, UND, St. Cloud, or a Duluth, it almost felt fluky, and typically it was a low scoring game and the netminder had to make like, 40-50 saves (an upset win at Magness about 5 years ago comes to mind when Alex Leclerc stood on his head for CC). Now, having strung together a number of league wins against some quality opponents, Mayotte’s got them believing. The question is, can they overcome the huge mental barrier they still seem to have when playing the Pios? (Denver made relatively easy work of CC last November in their home-and-home series. 6-1 and 5-1 or something like that). Mbereko is the glue that holds this CC team together. The guy is an elite goaltender. Having pieces like Noah Laba and Gleb Veremyev is huge but I feel like this is an entire lineup of a bunch of unsung heroes who are all chipping in. Logan Will was one of several Tigers players who absolutely destroyed UND on faceoffs last time around. Freshmen Bret Link, Zacchariah Wisdom, Evan Werner, and Max Burkholder are no longer playing like freshmen.

That would partly explain last night’s outcome. I listened to David Carle’s post game interview and he touched on that, among other things as to what went wrong.

If I’m not mistaken, the DU announcers said Western beat DU something like, 46-19 in faceoffs.

The Tigers haven’t beaten St. Cloud at home since 2013. Edit: 0-15 during that losing streak at home.

It isn’t Olympic size, it’s standard NHL size.

Yah, my wife and I went there because of all the hype we’d heard about it and we didn’t care for it but to each their own…,again, I love the Red Pepper and it’s debatable how high quality that place is considered by some as well!

Anyone catch the BU/Northeastern game tonight? NU won on a power play goal where there was some question as to the legitimacy of the bench minor penalty called against the Terriers for too many men on the ice in overtime. Anyone know the official rule on line changes? The BU player who jumped on the ice did look like he hopped on well before the player coming off even got within a couple of strides from the bench. Pandolfo sure didn’t like the call nor did Colby Cohen.

Hey, just pointing out the success Mayotte has had in just three seasons.

We still struggle mightily against the Pios. Yah, we upset them 1-0 last March at the Frozen Faceoff but to a man, DU honestly didn’t look like they cared. Not a jab at Mayotte and his Tigers, just making an observation. That apathy seemed to carry over in their regional loss to Cornell as well. We gotta solve Denver and perhaps the last weekend of the regular season maybe we will. DU stomped CC pretty bad in November.

Kudos to Schmaltz for anticipating and pinching down low to stop goalie Matt Davis’ wring attempt on the PP that led to Gaber’s goal. I didn’t hear much about his successful attempt to keep the puck in the zone so wanted to throw that out there. Between his block as well as Blake’s and Lavanivage’s keeps in the zone, those helped lead to those two huge goals.

That 7-6 OT score reminds me of a 1980’s/‘90’s college hockey game! Defense and goaltending optional!

No. Twilight Zone by Golden Earring was playing.

what radio station is the game being broadcast on? Went to 96.1 but it’s music.

@puck swami is a good person and excellent fan of all things DU and college hockey. I owe Swami some kudos on this forum. Swami gave some very kind words about me a few years ago over on the LetsgoDu! board and I haven’t forgotten that. Yah, I’m a UND/CC fan but folks like Swami and many others recognize and appreciate healthy debate and non-antagonistic posts, even from opposing fans. Temperatures can run high between the fans and the players of both teams but when the dust settles, at the end of the day, I sense a healthy level of mutual respect between both programs. Much appreciation for what Coach Carle and his coaches and the players of team USA for their incredible accomplishments over in Sweden this year! Every year, at the world juniors, it is a time when I take off my UND jersey and put on the red, white, and blue gear in full on support of team USA and all of its players, regardless if they’re Gophers, Pios, Terriers, or Eagles!

Under Kris Mayotte, in his first season, the team won 9 games (winning %, .292), including a road victory at a ranked Boston College. In Mayotte’s second year, he won 13 games (winning %, .382). His Tigers went on the road as the seventh seed and knocked off #7 nationally ranked Western Michigan and then they went on to St. Paul and shut out the #3 ranked DU Pioneers in the Frozen Faceoff semifinals. This year, his Tigers have already won 13 games, equaling last year’s total and they have a .614 winning percentage. The Tigers are knocking on the door of both a top four conference finish (currently just 1 point behind Western Michigan) with a chance at hosting in the first round for the first time in over a decade and they currently sit at 16th in the pairwise. I’d say Mayotte has done everything a CC fan and administrator could possibly ask for and more, especially given the deep hole his predecessor had dug the program into prior to his arrival. With a brand new on campus barn and the program winning, you are routinely seeing at or near capacity crowds and a growing student section that frankly had vanished in the mid-2000’s. There is genuine excitement and chatter about the hockey team on campus and in the community. If anything, I see CC on an upward trajectory and if Mayotte continues to lead the team to even greater heights, I could see opportunities at bigger more ‘blue blood’ programs in his future (ala, Don Lucia in the late 1990’s going to Minnesota after turning around a near lifeless CC program that up until his first year on the job hadn’t won a McNaughton cup since 1957). Mayotte’s job at CC is very secure.

Does last night’s lost at home to Augustana hurt ASU much in the PWR?

Is there any way to catch the last thirteen minutes of the Augustana/ASU game? Looks like another good one, tied at 2.

Went to the afternoon matinee CC/Miami game. CC made relatively easy work of the RedHawks, 4-2. Miami didn’t play awful this weekend but they just don’t have much in the way of dynamic, elite offensive skill. Could it be curtains for Coach Bergeron at season’s end? They just don’t seem to have shown improvement in his fifth season in Oxford.

Omaha doesn’t ever strike me as the most stout defensive team so going against an offensive juggernaut like Denver with all their weapons, it doesn’t shock me the Pios would have Latkoczy fishing pucks out of the back of his net all weekend long.

So did St. Cloud drop one spot in the PWR tonight?

I agree. I hate to sound like a pessimist but I kinda thought St. Cloud would come out and win tonight’s game in regulation and that’s not a knock on UND but just more of St. Cloud coming out with desperation which from what friends who saw the game told me, they did. UND I heard handled St. Cloud’s pressure very well. I was happy to see that UND battled back each time the Huskies took the lead. I’m proud of the team for what they accomplished and in a tough hostile arena.

When I got home from the CC game, I plugged my phone into the tv and watched the replay of the UND game. Was it me, or did it appear that after every time UND scored a goal, the volume went way down as if to prevent the tv viewer from hearing how loud the UND fans were. I wasn’t going to bring this up but since people have been talking about some of the various items regarding the announcers and production, I thought I’d throw it out there. Given St. Cloud’s history with their engaging in petty little shenanigans (remember when their news paper blurred out the Indian head on the player’s Sioux jersey for an article years ago? Or the tv broadcast refusing to show the Sioux logo on the screen?-they went with the interlocking ND instead), it wouldn’t surprise me if they did some manipulation with the sound last night.

I have no earthly idea. I know Miami challenged the goal for an offsides and lost that challenge. They were assessed a bench minor for delay of game. Is that because Miami had already burned their timeout a few minutes prior on an icing and having tired skaters?

He had a nice one-timer goal.

I went to the CC/Miami game tonight. After a somewhat lackluster latter first period and moments in the second, CC started to take over and the third period looked like Miami was just trying to hang on. CC gutted out a nice win and earned those 3 points.