jk

Yes, quite. Except Eaves was a high scoring forward and Berry was a stay at home defenseman. Also except Berry coached the team to the last three league titles and Eaves didn't. Seriously. Exactly the same.

Then please stop watching and go away. Pathetic.

James seems to turn most of his touches into chances. And right away, no monkeying around.

Similar to MN's sleep walking outing the first game this weekend.

He's going for the Cy Young. 5-1 so far.

You knew two months ago this was MN's year. Undeniable star power up front, but what really did it was inexplicably returning three veteran high-end defensemen. That was a shocker, and made them big favorites this year. Motzko can coach, we've seen that over the years. Maybe goaltending will be a weakness, but average goaltending can be enough sometimes. The Big Ten's weakness has failed to properly prepare teams for the postseason in the past, but that may be ending as the league improves. It'll just come down to whether they can win four games of playoff hockey, when checking gets tighter, the rink is smaller, and sometimes the bounces go the other way (like last night). Teams most likely to spoil it: UND, Denver, Mankato, Q. Maybe SCSU or Duluth, but I haven't seen them.

It's harder to play keep away on a regulation rink.

Sanderson and Pinto just killing it with Ottawa. Both already beloved by the fan base.

Super excited for the next few weeks. And glad HC showed up to play for the last five periods so we got a taste of competitive hockey.

Probably Kunz and Portz in for Strinden and Ness. Albrecht was so good late last year and there's no room currently. Injuries will happen again, but this year it appears the team will not be running out of good players unless it gets really bad.

Brent Johnson looked like a completely different player. Now I understand how he got drafted in the third round. He and Blake are more skilled than anyone in the lineup down the stretch last year. (Johnson last year was in the lineup but was not this player.)

Yes

Um, yeah. He is very slick. Wow is he going to be good.

The checking line hasn't done much checking.

If he can just quicken those first couple steps, he could be a force.

That's amazing. I'm scarred from some of Hak's trips out East, like one where UND got annihilated by Maine. Also even last year at Q, where UND pretty much got worked all weekend long, but somehow got a split out of it. In fact, much of the first half last year was UND getting blown out Friday and then squeaking out a win Saturday. At least it seemed that way.

Looking at the rankings, those back to back October weekends against Q and Mn should be interesting. I've felt that UND has often not been sharp before about Thanksgiving, so they could be extra challenging.

There's only room for about one small guy on an NHL team, so about 32 jobs total. Guys that size usually need to be explosive skaters, like Grimaldi, for instance. I'm not sure Gaber fits that mold, and I think he still faces long odds to be a regular NHL player. That said, there are a lot of places to play hockey for money, and I expect that he can have a long career if he wants to. Most importantly for me, he's an excellent college player.

I've assumed Jammer Senden Hain as a key strength of this team, and I still think they're together when it counts.

Was thinking the same thing about fall visits. They can only help UND. If it's early enough, the campus is beautiful in the fall. And the game experience is second to none.

Last I checked Excelsior is in the metro. If they want the metro kid ...

What I got out of it is that it's really hard to make the NHL. Some of those guys were very good college players. Get a degree then take your shot, unless you're a Toews/Spicer level prospect.

I don't know if this is the case, but I would guess the players would rather play in a full rink, even if it is hostile. What could be better than shutting up 6,000 partisans? Think Jon Casey stopping the RPI powerhouse that would go on to claim the title the following year.

He obviously wasn't doping. He wasn't trying to enhance performance. Pretty horrible that his name gets dragged through the mud like this.

There's a school of thought that says, bring him in to keep from losing him. I'm sympathetic to that. It's easy to trim another lower rung player for the roster spot. Here's where it gets problematic. Let's say the coaches think he's not physically ready to win a spot in the lineup, because the other guys are just better right now. (I don't know what they think, and if they think it they could be wrong. But I could see this being the case.) He spends most of the year in a suit, largely misses a year of development, and could get disgruntled and leave. If you're the coach and see it this way, of course the best thing is a year of juniors. In this regard, Spicer could indeed end up being just like Toews. David Toews.