Brett0909

Bit off topic, but since I don’t think we have a thread on this site’s performance… is it just me, or has the site been intermittently failing to load for others? Same thing was happening around the playoffs, I’m wondering if the site’s having trouble dealing with increased traffic? There are times I have to just give up on it after multiple attempts and come back hours later because nothing will load.

Guess someone will have to work the details out with Keaton and his mom. According to the Spittinchiclets interview he just did, it was the ChicletsU video.

It’s been good to see a variety of scout, NHL fan, and other takes on the Ruck twins announcing the commitment to UND before the draft as a great way to give the drafting team confidence in their development path given UND’s strong track record of preparing for the NHL. I wondered how much that might have changed over the last 5+ years as UND hasn’t been getting as much love on the national level (and crashing in the post season most years definitely didn’t help for visibility). Shows just how important a player like Jake Sanderson has been - and exciting that the current crop of elite players is going to carry that reputation forward and pay off for years to come. P.s., wondering when all the naysayers are going to come out of the woodwork now that UND is hoarding elite players. After all we heard around here about ”we didn’t want them anyways - BC, BU, Michigan, Michigan State, etc. never won the national title with all these elite players”. We’ll see how it all shakes out of course, but personally I can’t wait to see all of this talent playing for the good guys and then moving on to be big-time players at the next level. Certainly makes watching day one of the draft a lot more fun than I can recall.

I was thinking possibly the opposite, the chance to play together another year at UND before splitting up to different NHL teams could get us more time watching them. But less selfishly, hard to root against them living out their dream of playing together at every level.

I’m fine with the latter, even if I wish they had unlimited resources. I trust Bryn and staff to judge character independently from going-price if it comes to that. But nothing wrong with a player knowing their value either. That said, if Denver really is in the mix, I don’t see the race for DuPont being a pure bidding war. Hopefully rumors that these players are going to the highest bidder doesn’t become the new “we didn’t want him anyway”, because winning and player development alongside relationships and trust with family, advisor and drafting team will still outweigh NIL in most cases.

Just curious, what makes you think Duluth had the next game? They took two overtimes to squeak out a win against a BU team that was recovering from the previous 2OT and often looked overmatched by UND - plus a pretty raucous home advantage in play. That was right after UND beat Denver and lost by one to Duluth in the frozen face off. I know they had a rough regular season against Duluth, but we all know how that goes when it gets to the playoffs. Then Duluth moved on with a one goal game over Harvard and a one goal loss to Denver for everything. If anything, that year seemed wide open to me, for anyone who could advance even if it was a low talent year for UND. Made it sting even worse, the way it all shook out and watching Duluth in Denver and the championship.

This all seems pretty typical to me. Get a rules committee together, spend loads of money, and they come out with new solutions to problems that don’t exist. I’d personally love to see non-impacting offsides and high sticking challenges largely taken out of the game somehow. Takes away far too much excitement from the game when you can’t celebrate a goal, because you have to wait to see if a puck came into the zone a millimeter off sides. Unless the linesman didn’t have a clear look at it, just let the play go. The concept that an inch or two of difference that needs to be brought down to slow motion replay to decide, inherently means there wasn’t enough of an advantage that you should be counting or discounting goals. Especially drives me crazy when the offensive team doesn’t even score on the rush, but 30 seconds later after a long cycle. Several actual (non-major) penalties could be missed in that same amount of time that directly lead to the goal, but that can’t be reviewed.

Would make sense. Wherever it is, I enjoyed the subtle call out from Bryn that out of the four WHL D chippers, they honed in on Carels as the one they wanted most. Got their guy.

Right? The concept is right up there with not being an @$$ for no reason…then doubling down on it when people react. Taylor was always incredibly prepared and professional, no background in hockey AFAIK but she obviously challenged herself to learn and got better and better over time. She ran her segments efficiently, even when her guests were generally all over the place. What, are you expecting Dave Starman to show up every home weekend, doing live intermission updates for peanuts? Taylor IS the bar here, let’s hope they find someone who can grow to do it as well as she did.

Love your positivity, Shayla! Wish more of us on the board (myself included) consistently brought good energy like you do. Thanks for your contributions around here.

Oops, that’s right. Meant Rudolph, but got them twisted with the talk of Reid possibly sneaking into top 5. Guess we’ll just have to settle for Rudolph and DuPont then, after Carels commits.

Just being greedy here, but I think there’s a reason to be optimistic. Who had Keaton as potentially the second highest drafted defenseman on our team from this draft class? Carels or Reid would be great. But really, it’s not like I’m suggesting all three of them or anything crazy. Right, Bryn??

All good comps, but all indications are Carels is at a similar level of development heading into next year as Verhoeff (based on scouts and international performance), and I don’t think anyone here’s expecting two more years from Keaton(?). Honestly, I’m not even as sure as most seem to be that we should confidently expect one more year… Takeaway for me is this fan base is believing (and expecting) big things out of this team and talent again, after a year of Jax. And that’s a great feeling.

My thought exactly…how can you be the best in the ECHL this long and not uplevel? Unless he likes being the best and where he is?

Agreed…This would probably feel different for me if so many “in-the-know” folks weren’t confidently sharing the equivalent of a silent commit all the way back to Brad when Keaton and Cole first committed. Now time’s ticking and suddenly everybody is tempering expectations instead and Jax is filling the roster with solid transfers. I’m sure the team will be fine either way, but hard not to feel some letdown if Chyz doesn’t make at least one splash.