Brett0909

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.

Tough to be sure about this. Verhoeff had several interviews where he was talking about how driven he was to become the number one overall pick. Making statements like it’s irrelevant is too simple, they all care about where they get picked to various extents and the teams definitely distinguish and have different expectations between a number one and number five overall. I’m not saying I agree with it, but if Gavin had fallen out of the top five, there’d be a lot of kids and advisors thinking twice about exposing weaknesses in the NCAA in their draft year. Net-net, the projected number one is still expected to go first and Keaton was generally expected to go in the top five, and still is. So it would seem to be a generally positive outcome for the NCAA as it didn’t significantly alter their path - while I think it is broadly recognized that both players will be more ready for the next level than they would be if they stayed in the CHL.

I’m trusting in Chyzyk to make a splash with the remaining roster spots. Will definitely be disappointed if they don’t fill the need for some elite/game changers this team needs to be a true contender, and replace some high-end senior & pro departures. This is Chyzyk’s only job all year, and takes away an on-ice coaching and skill development spot (dedicated goalie coach, etc). So far, the roster management feels solid but achievable without him being on-the-road all year - how he finishes here feels like it’s where he earns his keep. Can he beat out other schools with bigger budgets for the best of the best CHLers?

Definitely makes the game of recruit-dominoes interesting when you have the CHL on a completely different timeline - at least, as long as the kids don’t/feel comfortable announcing until their CHL season and career is over. Just waiting on the CHL commissioner to announce they’re extending their season into July as the next attempt to slow down CHL -> NCAA pathway. 🤣

Have to say, I’m here for Tyler Young jumping into breaking this news and scooping Schloss. Good stuff, can’t help but like this dude. Too bad we only had him for one year - while I don’t love the new transfer era, strikes me the staff’s continued to bring in some good character guys through it, at least.

As always, this aged well. Standing by this take still? Good thing Carle had his team ready to go and would never let his team look flat, unlike Jax and the UND players who just didn’t even bother, right? No way Wisco was just a legitimate contender that was good enough to beat Mich St, UND, and put a historical domination on DU for 2 1/2 periods. 🤫 Of course the players and staff are disappointed, but this “they don’t care/didn’t try” take is trash.

Who knows. They completely knocked UND off their game (#2 in the country and steamrolling through the regional..even if we’re frustrated they didn’t have their best game) and forechecked and took away space better than I saw DU or UM in the following game. They beat Mich. St. and had success regular season against the best in their conference. Hastings almost got it done a couple times with the resources/talent at MANKATO. Sure they’ve been inconsistent, but I’m not considering this a gimme, even if it seems like Carle always just finds a way.

Every coach out there is trying to figure out how Carle does it. Yes, he puts his team in positions to win. But anyone paying attention knows that Denver got badly outplayed both overtimes and almost lost in regulation. Yet most of us expected they would somehow find a way to win (Carle gonna Carle) - and they did. Their players weren’t better prepared, more poised, more confident, more talented, more conditioned, or out chancing Michigan. They didn’t get better goaltending, and systems and coaching didn’t win them that game. They should have lost. It’s frustrating, but short of a deal with the devil it’s hard to define what he’s doing that others aren’t. Acknowledging that isn’t being a defeatist, or making excuses for UND. Hopefully Jax figures out some new secret sauce that nobody else can match for a time, but for now it is what it is, and those of us being realistic about this being a highly successful year are not just losers accepting it. UND had a bad period and didn’t have it for the night, but were still just a bounce away from winning that game. Denver had at least three bad periods where they looked totally outclassed, and somehow still managed to win against a better team. Onward and forward, excited for next year!

Definitely took some stones for Chavez to make the change. I was ready for it, but still surprised when he made the call. Seems even more obvious in hindsight than I thought at the time that it was needed - but if Jax struggles this year, Bill’s taking some serious heat. He made a gutsy call - good on him (and us) that it’s paying off.

Yeah, I’m sure he’s gone. But for me, the growing biz/accounting angle of roster management is going to be interesting to see when things settle, with some of these top guys already pulling in big NIL money their first year and expected to be 1-and-done - how will the blue blood teams prioritize big offers to keep them a second year when they can, while still trying to land the next crop of big stars and keeping things somewhat equitable for the rest of the players? Even a Reschny and Verhoeff return for sophomore seasons no doubt warrants a nice chunk of change. I really hope it doesn’t all trickle down to create bad student athlete commitment experiences, while they’re stuck waiting for the dominoes to fall from the big fish. It will be interesting to see how it evolves - while we get to armchair quarterback Bryn/Jax’s roster choices in the future. As well as what’s transparent (NIL announcements for retaining players, etc.) vs. left to speculation. I’m glad that Jax seems to have a team full of players who are fully bought in. Hopefully that culture helps protect against a mercenary team full of players just looking for the biggest payout. Buckle up?

Also have to wonder if Penn St. will cough up another big bag of cash for his sophomore year…I’m sure he won’t stick around for free, and the ROI on a big NIL payout is way down after he’s already had the spotlight on PSU all year.

Exactly - just refer to all the “so and so never should have left / they’ll regret it if they leave!” posts around here instead of celebrating their advancement. It’s a tough pill to swallow or see things objectively when it’s your team. Great news is with Bryn and the CHL, we’re one of the teams that will benefit from constant reloading - so hopefully less sour grapes from the fans every time a player here earns a chance to go pro and makes that decision for themselves. Plus it’s likely freeing up cash to land the next man up.

I’m offended he thinks only 1% of Sioux fans would be classified as crazy. He really is showing his pro-UND bias.

Tend to agree, would take Western out of the remaining teams. But also something to be said that whichever of the four makes it, is the best team…even if we match up better with some. I’m not putting a ton of stock in the last loss to Duluth, though - whether I’m coping or half the team was recovering from the flu or it was just a one off, I don’t hate our odds against them in a rematch after seeing the good guys bounce back in a big way this week. Also, man was it nice seeing KV have a good game with plenty of ice time. Now let’s get Ollie back and win two more!

Maybe we should collectively send some updates to the marketing team, they can fill in the important gaps they missed with the aggravated assault charges, being on the ice for every goal against tonight, and that he picked Penn St for the obscene bag of cash, not to be a hero for the “little guys” who are doing their best to position themselves as underdogs. Hopefully even the east coast circle jerk voters can see beyond the hype machine.

So…after a lengthy period of deep reflection in his retirement, Allain now comes to realize Yale’s AD is the worst leader he’s ever seen, and she ran the program into the ground (through no real fault of his own). With no examples or specifics of any kind to be found, he’s trying to absolutely destroy her reputation in public court - while him and his peers have all been too scared of her for years to surface any of this before now, including during the previous extension? I’m not saying she isn’t a bad AD, but I definitely know everything I need to know about Allain after this…

In fairness to the east coast fans being ragged on, while it’s fun to do — we had to endure 10 pages on this forum whining about the screw-job and lack of fairness from the committee, east coast bias, etc…before the brackets were even announced. All fanbases are biased on what they think is fair, and we’d probably (collectively) be embarrassed if some of those posts were being picked up elsewhere to reflect the “UND victim mentality” around here at times.

Hate to say it but after what we witnessed against UMD last weekend, I’m not feeling at all confident UND isn’t one of the higher risks for a 1 seed loss in the opener. MSU has to be on upset alert watch too, with how they’ve been playing down the stretch. Of course, the way these things go…watch the Wolverines get bounced in the first round after looking every bit the part of the number one overall, while UND sails through.

My honest hope is KV (and others) were playing at limited capacity with the bug going around because he was a borderline liability out there too often - and UMD knew how to expose him and were relentless at doing so. It was really noticeable even before Jake started calling it out, and he isn’t one to key in on a player without cause. That can be true while still acknowledging he’s an incredibly talented player and it was an uncharacteristic performance while he’s earned his top-4 role. I’m nowhere near saying he needs to be benched (he’ll be playing), and clearly the whole team was off but it'll be interesting to see what adjustments Jax makes overall - will he manage underclassman’s minutes / pairings differently now that games will be tighter and less room for high risk/high reward play? Will he trust the guys and give them some reins? He’s put them in positions to succeed all year and prepare them for this, which I love - and I hope he’ll live or die by that, while getting them to play their best. Tough choices, especially with other teams looking to exploit any weaknesses with UMDs whomping for game tape prep. BUT who knows -maybe it was all just a rope-a-dope to rest up and throw off future game prep (no really, go after Liv and KV all game, that’s the winning strategy)…😜

One foot out the door already and not bothering to show up when he doesn’t feel like it…sounds about right. Glad the staff took a stance, sounds like he needs it. I took his transfer as a gut punch for the teams chances at the start of the season. Never would’ve guessed I would be relieved and happy he left when all was said and done. Hope he gets his head on straight, too much talent to waste with this kind of crap.

Love it. The most interesting part to me is Jan comes in as a strong but not elite recruit in the first year in recent history that UND doesn’t have a (NCAA championship winning) goalie coach on the bench…and they finally get back to having a top goalie, the first to win it as a freshman no less. After years of poaching proven goalies from other teams, with mixed results…who often regressed here vs. their prior teams. I wouldn’t have guessed it would play out this way after Karl’s departure but Jax just keeps showing he knows exactly what needed to be done. Congrats to Jan and team. Just a couple more boxes to check!

I’m going to overly-simplify this…but for all those condoning McKenna for his actions, I wonder how you’d feel if this turned out differently. Regardless of the existing consequences he’ll already face. Equally probable scenario: Dude runs his mouth and is overall a POS. McKenna does what he did and is the instigator, attempting to assault him. Dude is a fighter (MMA, BJJ, take your pick - y’know, the ones who often go around picking fights like this) and in this scenario is the one to “cold cock” McKenna. McKenna’s lights out with a broken jaw or worse, potentially career/life altering injury. Dude walks away with no charges due to self defense - or maybe a minor harassment charge. We all still hyping McKenna up as doing the right thing? Trying to teach some ahole a lesson? Serious question. Lots of people out there that we wish would “get taught a lesson”, but assault is assault for a reason, unless the video concludes he was physically threatened, all signs point that he could’ve just kept walking. I’m not going to character assassinate him for it, but it was stupid, could’ve turned out much worse, and I’m good with the consequences he faces.

Maybe someone here can confirm, but have to wonder if there’s a clause on behavior that nullifies his NIL payment. Would think if you are academically ineligible, self-select not to compete (transfer/etc.), or gross misconduct there’d be a waiver of some kind to protect the NIL involved.