as15

I followed the 2011 NHL draft (Rocco's draft) fairly closely, one tidbit that I heard that was interesting was that among many other things, Grimaldi supposedly had the best one-timer in the draft. I have never seen it, and if it is that good maybe we should incorporate it into our Powerplay a little more perhaps.

If Rocco can start burying more of his chances, he is going to put up monster numbers.

I agree, picture quality as well was much improved.

Except the part where Hammer mentioned that, "Kristo hasn't been involved on the score sheet tonight, but he has been involved other places", right after he made the big ht.

UND's third line is going to be a match-up problem with most teams, great speed on that line.

Lower body, something with his leg I believe. Still a few more weeks, not a really a definitive time-table I know but that is all Hakstol has released to the public.

Students started lining up at about noon.

And for as highly touted is Gothberg is, I really think he will be hard pressed for playing time, Saunders has looked very good, and should look even better when we have our full lineup in front of him. "The best defense is a good offense", if UND has the puck the whole time, the other team can't score.

I totally agree, I feel like hockey sense is the most important attribute. I really think it makes or breaks a hockey career. There are a lot of guys with the physical attributes; skating, size, shot, stick handling, and the main difference between being Evgeni Malkin rather than a Jason Chimera is hockey sense. That being said, I think you can be an effective player with any combination of those attributes, but those attributes that you do have will determine which role you will play on the team. A good example on our team is Derek Rodwell. He has very good physical attributes. He is very big, fast, shoots hard, but does not play on our scoring lines. I don't think he will ever play on a scoring line at UND but thats ok because he is a very good checking line player, he might even be good enough to play that role in the NHL if he continues to develop.

Is anyone else surprised to see that Luke Johnson has only 1 point through 4 games so far? Has anyone seen him play this year that can make some comments on his play? He should be our biggest forward recruit for next year so I was surprised to see his low point totals.

Ha sorry, I was being facetious.

I agree, I didn't hear his name once. It was almost as if he wasn't even playing.

No it doesn't. But if we win 25 games from here on out, this one game is gonna mean basically nothing at the end of the year.

We played like crap, its one game, who cares. We didn't generate much offense, I can't really explain why. We got the puck in the offensive zone but never really did anything with it. Just move on, its the second game of the year, our coach is Dave Hakstol, we will be a force this year.

Yes that is an advantage, that is why some of the best goal scorers in the NHL play the off-wing, Gaborik and Ovechkin come to mind off the top of my head. It is much harder to catch passes in your own zone, so most people don't like it.

That wouldn't be a bad idea, but Hakstol has mentioned it is very hard to play the off-wing and doesn't normally like to play people there, so I wanted to put everyone on their strong sides if I could. St. Clair right-handed, Caggiula is left-handed.

Here is my take for the lineup tonight: O'Donnell-Knight-Grimaldi MacMillan-Rowney-St. Clair Chyzyk-Caggiula-Rodwell Senkbeil-Sanderson Schmaltz-Forbort Mattson-MacWilliam Gleason-Simpson Gothberg Saunders I wish Saunders would get the start again, I think he is clearly our #1 right now, Its an early season, non-conference match up, I would be fairly surprised if Gothberg doesn't play tonight.

I'm not bashing him, just making the point that even though our supposed one offensive threat going into this game played poorly, our offense was still more than adequate.

Going into this game, most people thought Grimaldi would have to have a big game for us to win. In my opinion, Rocco played pretty poorly, his passes weren't accurate and he had many turnovers. Besides the one time at the beginning of the game, he didn't generate anything off the rush. Yes he scored a goal, and yes he hit a post but other than that I can't remember a scoring chance. After the exhibitions I was expecting a lot more. Him playing poorly makes the win last night even more impressive.

There isn't really anyone else to "count on", he is easily the most consistent offensive threat in the lineup tonight other than Rocco.

MacMillan too. Don't forget we have all of our offensive-minded defensemen in the lineup as well.

http://www.americaonesports.com/partner_members.asp?id=460

That is absolutely unheard of, hopefully he can sustain that.

Me too, with the depleted lineup we are putting out on Friday, we are still substantially more talented than UAA. Our goaltending will be good, the only d-man we don't have is MacWilliam. UAA is known for recruiting big players, which most of the time are slow. This is a perfect recipe for the little guy to dominate. I expect a multi-point game from him Friday, as he will be playing a lot.

Yep, thats what I took from his post as well.