scpa0305

Whoa, outside of Th recent Hain chance we stink. This is two of the more boring periods of hockey I’ve ever watched.

Only time will tell. I'm just saying that if I were Bubs....I'd keep throwing him out there. Especially on the PP.

Need to play good this weekend. Should be a fun series (hopefully). Need some luck. I've been really curious with the JJ situation. He didn't score like many thought he would, but it would be great to have another upperclassmen out there. Very interested with what's really going on. Either a mental thing or injury. If he got into a bad situation or some trouble he would have been booted.

Bingo. Problem is, current setup requires them to leave home. Which is nuts considering they can field one team and complete with top MN and Canadians teams. They do it at the bantam level. Many of kids all went you central and you saw no one could remotely compete with them.

We'll have to agree to disagree. You can slice and dice the pie to create more parity around the state however all you are doing is watering down the league. Good players like to play with good players, it adds in a layer of creativity and growth. I get that creates problems for the rest of the state. That's the only reason I think they should explore Tier one. So our better players can play better competition and continue to develop. I mean, I would have loved to see central's team play against Edina.

Which is exactly why I think GF/Fargo has to create some sort of Tier 1 option. You create more high schools or teams to balance things out because other, smaller, towns, obviously can't compete. All this does is water down the overall league and make things more fair to the smaller teams; it creates parity. Which is great for the smaller towns (and definitely should happen) however what about the high end kids? They are now playing in a worse, less competitive league (which could not complete against better MN communities). Yes, I think parity should be the focus for ND high school hockey, however there has to be some other local options for the higher end kids as well. Which includes better coaching (i.e. Grant P.).

I'm from ND....live in MN

Does it happen? Yes, every year. It was just a bad example, Edina's team this year is full of Edina kids....except the goalie. Edina actually fills Benilde, Blake, St. Thomas (to some extent), St Louis park, Breck, etc. Also, Edina does not have open enrollment. It's why the houses cost so dang much.

He's a super good Edina kid. Only first year on the bantam AA team.

I know. Agreed.

I know....and I'm seeing it in my home state as well.

All the kids go to central now, so them playing an small single A MN team isn't that big of a draw. Also, I rarely see them ever play Moorhead. What I meant was they don't play any D6 teams...ever. The Bantam AA teams spends all winter playing those good teams and good Canadian teams. The kids get to HS and the competition goes down (unless you're playing as a frosh or soph). Also, waiting on a response to that Edina comment.

Outside of the goalie....who are you talking about? I live in Edina.

Expensive, yes. But all the good kids are doing that anyway during spring/summer (to keep up with the competition). If top end ND teams could actually schedule some games against real MN competition there would be no problem. But they don't. Not on a regular basis, and definitely not like the Bantam AA team does.

They announced the U17 NTDP evaluation camp yesterday. Miami tied with ND (Notre Dame) for most committed recruits attending. I don't believe UND has any, as of yet.

...this year.

Very true....and my initial post was never meant to really discuss him. The more I thought about it the more I could have seen where his numbers could have been a bit higher. Again, he really wasn't the focus.

Poolman .73 pts/gm as a soph and Jones .88 pts/gm as a junior. Both have regressed and both play (or did play at one point during the season) top PP. Guch's numbers probably make sense, from a progression standpoint. But he's also logging juicy minutes in offensive situations. Given his finish last year, I actually expected him to be in that .8 or .85 range. Not a big deal though. My initial post was more to those upperclassmen who are hovering around .35-.45 pts per game. Absolutely inexcusable.

Yep, they could play shattuck, Sioux Falls power, Manitoba teams, etc. it should have been done a while ago. ND hockey wants so bad to be like MN, it’ll just never happen. Mn has too many solid programs. ND doesn’t, and never will. Everything is fine until the kids get to high school.

Agreed. I do think guys like Mismash, Adams, Weatherby, and guch will be nice. They’re simply underclassman. Wait until next year. I could see a guy like Adams having big junior and senior season’s. It’s just not clicking right now and nothing really happens in the ozone (from a forwards standpoint). There’s zero creativity which doesn’t seem like it suits Adams game.

Agreed, he seems to score at a decent rate.

Oh sure, I'm indirectly pointing to the fact that they may not come in and save the day next year. They are not first round talents and may slip a bit past the second round. I simply used you post to point that out. They did have good years, but appear to be more of the normal type of recruit UND should be getting.

They could be Tier 1....and attempt to go to nationals. They wouldn't and shouldn't be governed by the MSHSL. I would actually keep the Riders and Knights (obviously) and let kids who don't make the Tier 1 team try out for the local HS teams. Tier 1 is expensive though.

….and seniors. We barely get production from our upperclassmen. It's pretty nuts. Poolman is average .5 pts/gm (which is bad considering what he has done and the amount he plays) and Jones averages .75 pt/gm...which is not good considering what he did last year. No one else is even worth mentioning because their numbers are so far off expectations. The only two players on this entire roster who are probably outpacing their expectation are Kiersted, Smith and Senden. Everyone else is, statistically, having a bad year.

I can empathize with a lot of your points, but this is college hockey. You just named three underclassmen. Yes, each of them should have WAY better numbers and I do believe the vanilla/bland ozone strategy is mind-numbing to watch (as everything flows through the dmen), but they are underclassmen. In this day and age, if you're only relying on underclassmen to produce you have a colossal team makeup problem.