Brett0909

Honestly if I’m a voter who hasn’t watched the teams much, I probably vote Perunovich. Plenty of people had good things to say about him and likely a deserving candidate. While we know Kawaguchi was incredibly deserving, he admittedly had a relatively quiet monster year that wasn’t as flashy for casual observers. His 15 goals weren’t at the normal bar for a forward to win. His GPA wasn’t sterling and his community service listed by UND was pretty generic. The stats didn’t represent how good he really was. Perunovich was a 3x championship participant and his offensive numbers and flashiness were on display every night. And no one voting cares he was soft in his own end. Add to that the ballots I’ve seen from UND hating media folks had Kawaguchi at five or later which is a killer when it comes to aggregate vote count, just shows how much of a joke it is to have essentially glorified and petty fans voting the best player vs qualified and objective experts. The salty side of me is glad that while completely political, at least we aren’t seeing smear campaigns like Frattin experienced. Imagine a montage of Perunovich’s DQ’s, shoulda been suspension, and repeated march to the penalty box for the voters to consider (you know, what UND fans saw all year). Throw in UMD’s diving greatest hits and maybe the playing field is leveled against the persistent dislike by many of all things UND. That said, saltiness and hyperbole aside, congrats to Perunovich on a great (deserving) year that will likely transition into an impact in the NHL, congrats on a NCHC winner, and good luck to Jordan next year!

Now that things for the 2020/21 season are at least starting to come into focus, and I was bored, I started looking at the team's known scoring losses and what would be necessary to make those up to be on-par with this year's team. Probably no surprise to this group, but for those who don't follow as close, there are some pretty strong stats from the departing players, with obviously large impacts from Michaud and Smith. Overall, the departing group averaged more Pts/G than the remaining group, had a higher shooting %, and accounted for 28% of points, 32% of goals, and 31% of PPGs. All in all, that leaves the team in pretty good shape compared to a lot of years, especially with a talented group incoming and a number of talented players who should be ready to take a step. In good news, the team returns 81% of it's GWG. All of this assumes JBD and Pinto's return, which would significantly hurt if not, of course. I didn't bother to do any conjecture of what these numbers would look like without Guch, Kierstad, and some of the other potential departures though, which would have likely meant rebuilding vs reloading. Enjoy and happy Sunday! GP G A P Pts/G Shots Shot % PM GWG PPG SHG +/- Jordan Kawaguchi, F, Jr 33 15 30 45 1.36 71 21.1 8 5 2 0 21 Matt Kiersted, D, Jr 33 6 23 29 0.88 54 11.1 50 1 2 0 22 Shane Pinto, F, Fr 33 16 12 28 0.85 91 17.6 46 3 5 0 19 Collin Adams, F, Jr 35 12 16 28 0.8 92 13 18 6 1 0 25 Jacob Bernard-Docker, D, So 32 7 18 25 0.78 55 12.7 12 0 4 0 21 Grant Mismash, F, Jr 35 8 12 20 0.57 83 9.6 18 1 0 0 17 Jasper Weatherby, F, So 35 10 8 18 0.51 88 11.4 20 1 4 0 9 Judd Caulfield, F, Fr 29 4 8 12 0.41 28 14.3 7 1 1 0 13 Harrison Blaisdell, F, Fr 32 2 10 12 0.38 31 6.5 16 0 0 0 10 Mark Senden, F, So 35 5 6 11 0.31 53 9.4 10 1 0 0 4 Gavin Hain, F, So 28 2 8 10 0.36 36 5.6 13 1 0 0 3 Jackson Keane, F, So 19 1 4 5 0.26 11 9.1 0 0 0 0 -3 Gabe Bast, D, Jr 22 2 3 5 0.23 28 7.1 18 0 1 0 1 Ethan Frisch, D, Fr 31 1 4 5 0.16 22 4.5 17 0 0 0 9 Adam Scheel, G, So 26 0 2 2 0.08 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Josh Rieger, D, Jr 9 1 0 1 0.11 9 11.1 6 1 0 0 0 Peter Thome, G, Jr 11 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 ***Not Returning*** Westin Michaud, F, Sr 35 16 12 28 0.8 101 15.8 14 3 4 1 19 Cole Smith, F, Sr 34 11 7 18 0.53 68 16.2 37 1 3 1 6 Colton Poolman, D, Sr 31 4 13 17 0.55 37 10.8 4 0 1 1 15 Jonny Tychonick, D, So 24 4 7 11 0.46 12 33.3 14 1 0 0 20 Dixon Bowen, F, Sr 33 6 4 10 0.3 35 17.1 10 0 1 0 7 Andrew Peski, D, Sr 35 1 9 10 0.29 25 4 12 0 0 0 17 Zach Yon, F, Sr 16 0 4 4 0.25 14 0 0 0 0 0 2 Casey Johnson, F/D, Sr 16 1 0 1 0.06 12 8.3 2 0 0 0 0 2019/2020 Team Totals 28.1 135 220 355 10.14 1056 12.8 352 26 29 3 257 2020/2021 Returning Totals 28.1 92 164 256 8.05 752 9.7 259 21 20 0 171 % Returning 68% 75% 72% 79% 71% 75% 74% 81% 69% 0% 67%

Big series to open the season. Two of the top teams from the season that never ended...odds that some fans from whichever team wins the series will be re-crowning themselves the de facto champs?

Schlossman just started following Maddox Fleming on the Twitter machine and Maddox is following Berry and Osiecki. If Twitter conjecturing is an indication, he may be a potential recruiting battle between the good guys and UW (so far), and one to watch.

So...two own-goals. Does that mean Mavericks shutout against streak is still alive?

Well said. Yes, media is doing what they do and sensationalizing. Yes, people going into mass hysteria is an overreaction (I should know, living in Seattle where the city is now sold out of TP...proving there ARE very real risks to public welfare, even if not directly virus related). But there’s also a reason the experts are concerned. Whether overreaction or not, the public is going to try to receive medical care for every cold, along with the serious cases, overrunning our hospitals, etc. who aren’t prepared and have no treatment, even therapeutic. Combine that with virus viability, contagiousness, no immunity buffer, mortality rates, etc. It’s easy to swing completely one way or the other on this topic and call out “the other side” for over/under-reactions, but there’s good/analytical reasons for being cautious and trying to slow/manage the fallout. Anyway, hope everyone stays safe, this calms down, and nobody’s loved ones here are affected beyond the scare and economic/daily routine! Lord help us that it doesn’t cause post-season interruptions or issues for our favorite team when they’re on a tear!

I’m not strongly on one side or the other, but Berry has stated multiple times that they needed to hold themselves accountable and look in the mirror over the offseason along with the players. Changes were necessary and they implemented them. Were they slow to make those necessary changes to stay on top and deserving of some scrutiny for the years prior? Possibly. Had they not turned the corner this year, most folks would likely still have the same opinion they did before and we’d never really know this team had the capability of being #1. Could they have been really good last year had coaches implemented changes earlier? Maybe. We’ll never know. So it really just shows there were valid arguments on both sides, and I’m definitely glad the coaches and players collectively figured it out and we get to enjoy a special season...and that fans still have very (unreasonably at times?) high expectations.

Couple observations FWIW: 1) Pleasantly surprised for most part with the Duluth broadcast crew. Didn’t make me cringe or whine the whole time, all I’d ask for. Thankful I had NCHC.tv so didn’t miss the Midco debacle. 2) Team definitely struggled with having no space or time. Adapted to it better by tonight. Impressive how structured and detailed UMD is in their systems year after year, with middling talent. Critical experience for this team, I think these are the games that prepare the NCHC so well for other conferences/post season. 3) Sandy sure gets the most out of his teams. Far more with less than most coaches. Doesn’t help we got them in Duluth after a borderline shocking sweep so they were playing desperate while UND appears to still feel pretty comfy... 4) I made the mistake halfway through this game of being surprised I hadn’t noticed much diving (just blatant tackling and holding not being called). Maybe that is a “last resort” only when trailing or UMD needs a call bad. Right on cue...let the embarrassment begin. Always makes me wonder if their fans really don’t see it.. 5) I don’t think it can be overstated that UMD having last change gave them a big advantage. I like UND’s odds a lot better if they’re the home team and can get the matchups they want, especially the “heavy line”. Probably the biggest reason to root for them to stay a high 1-seed, maybe more important than the bracket matchups? 6) Overall goaltending is a concern until they figure it out and some slack in overall systems leaves me itchy but getting out with an acceptable split and taking away some critical growing pains/lessons to prepare for the stretch run — going undefeated to end the season — is probably exactly what this team needed. 7) I really (really) hate UMD. Hope everyone has a great weekend!

No kidding, anyone not in Denver would probably feel pretty good if seeding landed like this. UND would have a dream regional although it seems like every year I think something like that, I somehow end up surprised anyway so I like the cliche from most teams “just get in”. But I wouldn’t complain if they can hold onto the #1 overall either.. Feels like there’s no real runaway teams this year, wonder if the rest of the country thinks this is UND’s year to lose if they maintain through the second half?

Huge weekend for Kawaguchi in making up some ground for serious Hobey contention. He cut into Dugan and Thompson’s point totals from Providence and a lot of the less tangibles are in his favor. I think Schlossman drawing attention to these will also help throughout the season. Ie, not just the points but highlight goals, late game/OT/winners, nearly all primary assists and many of those “layups” created for his line mates, almost all 5x5s, impressive +\-. Looking at the stats, he’s a bit behind Thompson in goals, but on far fewer shots and penalty minutes. Adding leading the top ranked team and no “sharing” the credit on that line like Providence’s guys risk, he could definitely make a run, if a forward gets it this year. Will be interesting to see the points race play out!

Not condoning Pinto’s hit and it deserved the game in the stands, but Omaha was clearly targeting him all weekend and largely didn’t get checked by the refs as called out. Not just getting in his head, but I noticed several borderline intent/high potential to injure hits well before he eventually retaliated. Returning from WJC and a leading scorer, you can expect to get extra attention, but I wasn’t at all surprised he eventually gave something back and can’t say there wasn’t more or it wasn’t deserved. It was getting under my skin from the stands. He needs to learn to deal with it because he’ll likely be a focus in most games, but has to be tough to be out there with cheap shots taken at your health and ultimately your livelihood in hockey all weekend without taking a shot back...

Interesting that for various reasons, Berry and crew continue to pick up more elite (by draft standards) players at defense. Top three guys are defenseman in midterms, after Tychonick and JBD topping the group in 18’. I know Halliday had much higher expectations and obviously Pinto is a stud, but he was more of a diamond in the rough who likely developed into more than expected. Not complaining as these are great classes regardless, but thoughts on why Berry seems to have a bit more success at recruiting top talent on backend? Avoiding one and done’s? Slightly better reputation for developing defenseman or more desirable systems? Better eye for recruiting them? Pure coincidence? Good to see Kunz hasn’t completely fallen off the radar despite injury and other struggles and hopefully Halliday can start performing closer to his talent level if he can get his compete level up. Solid class With ability to quickly contribute, regardless!

He came back out and finished the game, but hopefully not a lingering issue. Can’t imagine too likely he’d be out if it wasn’t residual though..?

No doubt. Not loving the possibility of UND continuing to use its side of home and home two year series against the Gophers at destination locations, then UND playing at 3M every other year. If played at Winter Classic, that would make what, one home series against gophers since formation of NCHC (could definitely be wrong on this)? With possibility of not extending this series beyond existing contract, that could be one series at the Ralph in >10 years potentially? And I thought Lucia was the one trying to squash this rivalry. For as long as it works, it makes X’s and O’s business sense, but for season ticket holders paying an extreme premium already, it’s a raw deal for many to take the marquis series out consistently and then bank on them also traveling to support a destination series instead.

Felt bad for Western, both commentators (and I, FWIW) thought their OT goal should’ve counted but the stripes waived it off. Not pushing a conspiracy, but golden domers on nat’l tv and B10 refs no less, I felt like if there was any chance to waive it, they would...and they did. Hope there was something else to it. WMU healthy finally but Allison clearly needing to work his way back, they still dominated most of the game but couldn’t finish - deserved better, too bad they don’t get another chance until Sunday.

As everyone on here already knew, commentators on the CAN-GER WJC game just confirmed Shane Pinto’s viral “profanity” was actually “Hi mom”. What a pathetic excuse of a journalist (and human) trying to fabricate that story out of nothing about a young kid. Get a life and a real job.. Hope Shane takes his tourney success and can just laugh off this idiocy. Also, happy New Year’s Eve...eve.. to all the fine SiouxSports fans!

Sounds right to me. My understanding is there’s another variable too — if DU makes the tourney, we can’t be placed in the same regional if it would mean an intra-conference first round matchup, unless unavoidable. So no UND-DU 1/4 seed or 2/3 seed matchup either. Same thing for other NCHC teams of course. Definitely a bummer we’re not hosting after hosting and not making it previously. Obviously a lot of hockey left but can’t complain when we’re prognosticating what our matchup will be if we maintain a 1 seed or even #1 overall.

Good to know, thx for the tip! If they have the game on, we just might see you there. FWIW I finally called Midco and found out they had a problem with my credentials due to moving a couple times over the years which is why FSN didn’t show up on the channels lineup in the Fox Sports Go app. Got that all sorted and now I’m good to stream the game from my laptop, FireTv or phone. Thx for confirming this should be possible, I was starting to get annoyed.

I’ll have to try that. All of my attempts have automatically signed into xfinity here, I’ll see if I can manually sign into Midco instead. Thx all!

Thx! Ironically I still pay for Midco in ND where my wife is but the services auto-detect my location here when I log in, so even that was a fail. Paying $450 for cable from both locations and can’t see a game. Hoping I’m just not smart enough to figure it out and there’s a solution out there. Think I’m going to try the free Hulu thing and see.

Yeah, I spent far too much time trying to figure that out with surprisingly little google information, as I’m in Seattle where Midwest sports don’t exist. Came to the conclusion you can’t access outside the region through app, etc., just like NFL. Streaming services like YouTube tv and the Hulu option sound like they have the full regional lineup but even that I couldn’t confirm 100%. Anyone with first hand knowledge would be greatly appreciated!

For me, returning players didn’t just suddenly get better from last year, especially after a couple years where we saw very few “jumps”. Sure, some of that and some good talent coming in, but I’m in the camp that there was an underlying issue. I won’t blame Gardner or Shaw because I don’t have enough context to say where it came from, but whether coaching or leadership, there was clearly something wrong with the dynamic of the team. We tend to blame the coaches or the players but most of us have probably experienced a sports team or even at work where theres a problem and that can derail even your stars to not care or perform poorly (losing attitude). I never thought it was a talent issue even if slightly down, but rather an attitude and cultural issue that talent alone wasn’t strong enough to overcome. Case in point, years and years of talented Michigan/UMN/ etc teams who never gelled or played the right team game to find success. I actually thought they should consider a sports psychologist and take a very close look at any detractors in the room, last couple years. Whatever they changed, it seems to have worked to start getting the best out of the players instead of disinterested/going through the motions and playing frustrated. Suspect Karl has a big hand in that given the positivity he’s always brought and Bubbs and Dane even seem reinvigorated this year.

It’s great to be excited about the lineup (and game) again. I’m wondering at what point do the coaches consider introducing Thome selectively to get some game time? I thought they might against Miami and I understand riding the hot hand, but it seems like they’re considering Scheel getting every single minute until there’s an issue with his performance? I’m sure they have a good pulse on the team needs, Adam’s mental and physical readiness, etc. but I wouldn’t mind seeing him get a rest and some quality play from a backup to help prepare for possible injury or other situations. And avoid risk of losing Thome completely as a drafted player not even getting a sniff at game action? First world problems for sure, given Scheel has been lights out, of course.

I want to say he’s mis-charecterizing, but in his defense, I guess by limiting to “select North Dakota” fans he is technically right that only those semi-knowledgeable enough to know who he is, separate him from any other pxp, and have had the misfortune of having listened to him would categorize him as “the worst person” in this context. Funny thing is instead of getting a clue and looking at what he could be doing differently as a “broadcast professional”, he’s probably going to take this as evidence that he was right all along for being beyond ridiculously biased (poor me, those meanie UND fans just keep picking on me for absolutely no reason) - or was it simply the attention he wants. Oh well, I put it on UMD fans much like UMN fans before that they apparently want to drink the crazy kool-aid where every call is an injustice and they’d never lose a game if they weren’t cheated - instead of moving onto a better broadcast option. All the more reason to appreciate Alex and Jake’s knowledge and professionalism I suppose.

Me too... But in fairness, folks around here give Hennessy a lot of respect and according to him, “puck luck” is really the only thing that decides games. To the point of mocking frustrated fans last year who were critical of the poor product on the ice and could easily see “something“ was wrong the last couple years. Thankfully, all it took was for those same players to get “puck luck” this year, and all is good again! I don’t know where you shop for this puck luck, or how much it cost them, but I hope it’s like the REA with their refrigerant and the coaching staff bought up at least several years worth of it.