Godsmack

Mbereko named NCHC goaltender of the month.

Wow. What a penalty to call in sudden death three on three overtime of the quarterfinals of the World Juniors.

It was the refs’ fault

Lol I was thinking the same thing! The game plan for our opponents the rest of the way is to get it to overtime!

So true. And the assistant coach for Minot State, David Zimmerman was my pee wee coach in Grand Forks way back in the late 80’s! He has a very distinguished career as a player and a coach for the U.S. hearing impaired national team. Born and raised in Minot, he coached in Devils Lake for many years. Cool seeing him all these years later.

This was really cool to see at the end of the game. CC Tiger Nikolai Charchenko and the Minot head coach embraced and took some photos. Charchenko played his junior hockey for the Minot Minotauros. The Minot coach is also the goalie coach for them.

CC’s best player Laba just took an elbow to the head as he was going down. And to me, this is why you don’t schedule games like this. Not sure what the upside is if you’re CC.

Minot’s actually playing pretty well in the second. They scored a nice goal short side.

3-0, CC over Minot State about 13 minutes into the game. Shots are 11-1, CC. Puck has been in Minot’s zone almost the entire game. Why was this game and tomorrows against DU even scheduled?

I’ll be at the game tonight. While I fully expect CC to curb stomp Minot State, there’s an inner part of me that would chuckle if Minot makes a game out of it.

Haviland was the wrong hire in 2013. He ran the program into the ground. It takes time but I think they made the right hire in Kris Mayotte. What Lucia did in ‘94 (worst to first and three consecutive McNaughton Cups followed by back to back frozen four appearances) is an anomoly. Mayotte needed a few seasons under his belt to cycle through most of Haviland’s players. He’s bringing in good recruits who simply need time to grow and mature.

Schloss is very bullish on CC. He says that last year’s, this year’s, and next year’s freshmen classes are among the best in the country. He doesn’t think they’re a contender for the Penrose this year or maybe even not next year but they definitely are on an uphill trajectory. What’s so baffling is that I went to the CC/DU series about six weeks ago and DU did what they typically do against the Tigers-they made quick and easy work of them. UND goes toe to toe with Denver, on the road no less, and then struggled mightily this weekend with trying to figure out how to overcome CC’s trap.

I can say that Mayotte did a fantastic job preparing his players for this weekend and the players executed. Frankly, as a CC fan as well, it isn’t exactly the style of hockey I want to see them continuing to play game in and game out. My goodness, watching them this weekend, it reminded me of the 1990’s era New Jersey Devils. But I give CC credit, they really didn’t give up many grade A chances to UND and they crushed UND in faceoffs. I’m getting chirped a lot on my phone already, tonight. I think one of my CC pals is hoping they hang a banner in Robson for this sweep!

Got a Donnybrook in Kalamazoo

DU started the new goalie tonight. His first collegiate save just now was stopping a two on one on Western. Welcome to college hockey.

There was a play where Blake was dangling and cutting and turning, etc and even Brandt commented “you just gotta shoot that biscuit. One too many moves.”

Will we see any drastic lineup changes tonight? Guys up in the stands in their suits, reshuffling of lines/line combinations, etc?

Can anyone summarize Berry’s post game comments with Hennessy? I didn’t get to hear it.

I am not going to say I predicted this outcome because I clearly didn’t. But I had two fears going into this game,,,,1) UND coming out a little emotionally flat coming off that emotional road series against DU and 2) Kaidan Mbereko playing like an elite goaltender that I think he can be. He didn’t get tested a whole lot tonight unfortunately but he made a game saving stop on the James breakaway in the third.

Yep! I jinxed them! What better way for a team to get a slump buster than against the number one team in the nation, on the road no less. Good lord.

Wow. I’m a little bit stunned. Great game plan by CC, totally clogging up the middle of the ice. UND struggled to get clean zone entries and when they got O zone time, CC didn’t give them any clear shooting lanes. Plus, UND looked a little flat. Arena sounded quiet most of the game. A frustrating game to watch, for sure.

Starting at about the 25 minute, 30 second mark of this podcast, the guys talk about the lines on UND/CC. According to Jim Connelly and Ed Trefzger, the last time CC beat North Dakota was pre-Covid; March 1, 2019 (a 3-1 home victory) and the last time CC beat UND at the Ralph was February of 2018 (4-2 win for CC). Obviously, these stats don’t matter today as we have completely different lineups competing out on the ice but the take away here is, as of late, the last handful of wins for UND against CC were relatively close scores and relatively low scoring. https://www.uscho.com/2023/12/08/interesting-lines-over-under-in-key-nchc-big-ten-tilts-uscho-edge-college-hockey-podcast-season-2-episode-7/?fbclid=IwAR2mEUY9v5YxaiNxxCbUfAJJTnTWJTQEVzO3IvN93ys3YfAsf8yElbHwzoI

CC is in the middle of a very tough six game stretch (2 at home against ASU, 2 on the road at UND, and 2 on the road at Minnesota).

https://paisleyhockey.wordpress.com/2023/12/07/revamped-north-dakota-back-end-propels-fightin-hawks-back-into-title-contention/?fbclid=IwAR0h5vCHXCSo7I_1JbfwH0b8sEJapwkq2Cotw1upmUbvR46F8Y2R_YIXu08

Whioux?????