jk

I thought this the first time I saw him, in college, but it's still true. Quinn Hughes' skating reminds me of Hrkac's. Similar posture.

Prime memory from the 1987 trip. The concourse during the first intermission was packed but quiet. Sparty was in shock.

Your list is basically the US Olympic team plus two Norris winners. Good company.

It's popular now to disparage everything to do with BB, but the facts don't always agree. I was ready for a change, and for me it was getting dominated by CC and Omaha that did it. But the NCHC titles didn't happen by accident. Good players had to be coached well and play hard to win the league. I haven't looked, but I'm guessing nearly all teams had a worse season than UND's worst season during his tenure. Again, I was ready for the change, but I wish people were kinder to someone who gave a lot to the program.

Curious lack of goals in Mankato this weekend, with Mankato winning 1-0 Friday and BSU winning 1-0 in OT Saturday. MSU scored one goal and got four points. The beavs were shut out for six periods and got two points.

Denver had fallen to the bubble with a six-game winless streak after their Friday loss in GF. After winning that Saturday, they lost their next game to SC, and haven't lost since. Back to NPI 8, and given their coach and recent history, they've gotta be considered a serious threat in the conference and nationally. Unfortunately.

I know the thing about the scoreboard, but outshooting the #22 npi team 42-12 is pretty wild.

St Cloud and Miami have both been good down the stretch. The league is tough.

Still a lot we don't know, but I'm guessing winning a bar fight is a plus to most NHL execs.

Attended the Mankato augustana game tonight. Mankato won 4-1 and that's about how it played. Thought Augie would be better based on their season so far.

The shots in this game, 36-18, brought back a memory of Hrkac's freshman year stat line, a favorite of math fans everywhere: 18-36-54 in 36 games.

Big and can skate is a good place to start in getting drafted. Klee is a good example. I could see him working his way into an NHL lineup some day.

UND hasn't had to deal with the revolving door of high-draft pick two-year players that some other big names have, since that was largely the usndt pipeline that didn't lead here. Now that a similar CHL pipeline may lead to GF, it'll be a new challenge. We know most of those programs have not won the national title despite being loaded with future NHLers.

Clarkson up to npi 28.

Gotta score before the makeup call.

Hopefully I don't regret this, and it usually bothers me when fans don't respect the opponents, but there's still a lot of talent in town and I'm expecting two convincing wins. Even with guys missing, the pressure game UND has been playing should be intact, and hard to handle.

Re Michigan, it's hard to say yet. The only upper echelon team we've played is Duluth, and we didn't seem out of our element against them. We'll have a better idea after the Denver weekend. I have a hard time seeing this team look outmatched against anyone.

A couple midseason thoughts. First, I just adore the north-south, push the pace approach. So many times, the normal thing would be to go D-to-D, but nope, we're skying it up the rink. It results in some extra icing calls, but that's a small price to pay for the extra pressure it applies. Second, what forward do you take out when Reschny and Zakreski return? Everyone seems practically indispensable. Unfortunately injuries will probably make that decision for us, but wow, the forward group on this team.

Promisingly, they're usually not on the same line, which means they're not feasting on each other.

Plenty of teams have won it off-schedule. Just in UND's history, 1997 was arguably early and 2000 was late. By contrast, 2016 was right on time.

Not following the disrespect of BSU after this one. They played well, including pushing the play offensively. There've been plenty of boring games in the past, but Bemidji pushed the pace on this one.

Had a fun time in attendance tonight. Not even remotely the goalie's fault. ASU has some slick offensive players and they made the most of their very few chances. 4 and 18 were on the ice for both those second period goals. 18 is almost unbelievably gifted offensively for a person his size and age, but defensive coverage is not currently a specialty. Not down at all about the squad, as they had a lot of jump and were clearly the better team. Sometimes the other team (which, you know, has good players too, and they're trying too) has momentum and you have to weather those times. That was the downfall tonight. But this UND team is good, and they carried the play.

That sounds a lot like Blake at the start of his college career. Drove me nuts, but the next shift he might try something that worked. Good for McKenna to be in the NCAA this year to get better.

Need to find a way to break that split pattern, but it's so difficult, as we see all over the country every weekend. The fifth goal is how I want this team to be. Croal won the puck in the corner and wasted no time in wiring the puck to Strinden, who immediately put it in the net. Just like in bubble hockey.

PTSD from going 1-4 against them the prior year, including some beatdowns. Even the regular season split that preceded that playoff weekend included a 7-3 Omaha win. So I am tired of it. Likewise CC.