jk

Academics are not a plus compared to some of the competition . It's also like Siberia for a chunk of the season. I don't know Cooley's story, but we should never ever be surprised when a metro kid picks MN.

I'm not happy with this one either, but they seem to be doing ok in general. I mean, they finished #1 in the PWR the last two years, and they're hanging in there this year after graduating over half the team. You can't do that without good recruiting and coaching.

I still like next year's group quite a bit, and the pipeline in general, but Motzko has definitely had the upper hand the last year or so. Chesley, Moore and Cooley. That hurts.

farce, that's great. I wonder if getting into an Ivy via transfer is even harder than as a freshman. Also wonder if the academic culture shock would be pretty intense. But, as to the Ivy degree, there could be players who initially went another way under delusions of greater hockey ability who now realize their ticket might be better punched outside the hockey world. They should line up to get in. Thinking closer to home, it seems doubtful UND would pursue any portal forwards. Maybe a goalie, and maybe someone on D if anyone beyond Sanderson leaves.

I think CC got worn down by winter by the end of the weekend, like Napoleon and Hitler in Russia. You can think you're ready for it, but until you've live it, you're not.

UND has clinched a top 5 league finish, as Omaha can no longer catch them. Some points next week (2+) would clinch home ice. Edit: I'm wrong on next week. It depends on UMD's result tonight, but it will take at least 3 points next week.

Has Bast passed Ferner on the depth chart?

Say what you want about the quality of the big 10 (I don't have much to say given UND is 1-2 against them), but MI and MN have been real impressive during the Olympics.

I've hardly seen DU play since they left GF with a 4-4 record. But 17-1-1 since then speaks for itself. Of course it doesn't guarantee a thing for the postseason.

Well, Sanderson's injury will obviously be a huge issue for this team. Hopefully he can be 100% when it matters.

It's a close call. If SC goes back to abusing the bottom of the league, they get 12 points there the rest of the way, putting them at 34 plus whatever they can get of the 9 points they'll share with UMD. So they could still be a threat if UND struggles. I see UND needing 5 more points to clinch fourth. Every point UMD and SC drop to anyone else along the way shrinks that number. The bigger concern is the PWR. Since the losing streak, UND is 3-0-2 (basically, as the 55/45 is just about a tie), and has stayed stuck at 12. Beyond frustrating.

Denver may just be on another planet this year. But to your point about UND, they are not impressive or explosive. They need to make the right play all game long and hope to get more bounces than the other guys. Two point shots, a basic hockey play that works only very occasionally, making it into the UND net last night is an example of how tenuous it is when the breaks go the other way. If you said UND had to play a shutdown game to win, fine. But if you said they had to do it without 19, 27 and 10, well, good luck. That said, three points Saturday night is just crucial, however they can scrape them up.

It feels like five of the eight conference spots are just about set. 1. Denver 2. WMU 6. Omaha 7. CC 8. Miami That leaves UND, UMD and SC fighting for 3,4,5. Somehow UND needs to fight through the injuries and get to 3. The 4/5 death match in the first round could be loser-season-over. If the shutdown guys are out for long, two wins this weekend seems difficult, and any wins at Duluth seem unlikely. Then you'd have to hope reinforcements arrive from IR and China and they can win some games in the last two weeks. Then the PWR has to be good enough to make it at large, because beating WMU and DU back to back in St Paul seems unlikely.

I haven't felt like Driscoll was giving up much in the way of real soft goals. But he was just giving up too many, even on pretty high quality chances, and that's how you get to 0.890, or whatever the number is.

If Mel was going to lie to get that game against UMD played last spring, I wish he would have done a better job of it. Maybe then UMD wouldn't have started the game the next night fresh as a patch of daisies.

I'm not at all confident UND will be hosting. Four home wins in the next eleven days would help, but anything short of that and hosting is in jeopardy.

Gotta say, Ness, Albrecht and Portz might have been the team's best line all weekend. A real positive sign for the next couple months.

Shot attempts 26-3.

I never like it, but have accepted it as part of the deal. Taking an entire year off for covid may have affected his development, and most likely affected the staff's ability to evaluate his readiness for college hockey. Hence the delays.

It's possible the WJC experience could sour some players on the Olympic opportunity. Like, I've already sat around while games are cancelled once, do I want to go through that again?

Power has better numbers than Sanderson, and is as high profile as it gets, as the first overall pick in the draft. On the other hand, his numbers are helped by playing on a stacked team, and I haven't seen him enough to know if he erases opposing offensive possessions as smoothly and consistently as Sanderson does. Leaman just called Sanderson the best player in college hockey, so that's one eastern voice.

I resist the urge repeatedly, but I can't help it. The love for the boosters is because they reduce the risk of serious illness and death. With no downside and at no cost.

Pretty nice job by Hellsten. Seems confident handling the puck and moving it, pretty quick recoveries, didn't seen to get wildly out of position, and was a battler. Hopefully rebound control will improve. Also, Jammer is becoming one of the team's best and most important players. Just relentless.

How is it possible they've already played 19 games? That's more than half the season. Not a powerhouse at all, but they'll start January pretty high in the pairwise. While the sweep of Denver looms large, the real accomplishment was salvaging splits out of four weekends against good to great teams that seemed too much for UND to handle after one night. The second half looks very tough, with Cornell on top of the NCHC grind that will include match-ups with an apparently very good WMU team that we haven't seen yet. All in all this team has been a pleasant surprise.

Not sure, but I think Power and Johnson may be at Canada's WJC camp.