jk

I have to give some credit to UMD. The funny thing is, I find them far from dominant. When you watch a game, you don't come away thinking they were a powerhouse. Through two periods of their NCHC final against SCSU, SC looked far superior and should have been ahead about 5-1. But there was UMD with the trophy a few hours later. I didn't see the BGSU game, but Duluth was down with four minutes to go, and they managed to win. And most of the game against Providence seemed like a pretty equal matchup. Then you look up, there are ten minutes left, Duluth has the lead, and Providence can't even buy a decent chance the rest of the way. For as much as people wished UND scored more, Duluth has won these last two years without scoring. Or, more accurately, by scoring just barely enough. Compare them, for instance, to the 2016 Sioux team, which dominated down the stretch, winning most of its NCAA games handily. Duluth dominates no one, but they are great at one thing, keeping the puck out of their net, which leads to being great at the only thing, winning. This isn't a dig at UND's coaches, who I support, but Duluth is really well coached. And they've benefited from decades of good fortune being shoved into a couple year span.

Re Rizzo, what if he's just not ready, and the hard thing to do is actually the right thing, which is to let him develop more before coming? PP, PK, big minutes in juniors, or low minutes on the fourth line because he's not ready for a top six spot in college.

I don't know how good a player he will eventually be, but he is one heck of a skater. Good luck except against UND.

Jeff Panzer was one of my all-time favorites. If you can stomach it, watch his last game, the OT loss to BC in the title game. He constantly got to the puck first, and set guys up all game long. Only a future nhl goalie pulled that out for BC. If his kid does in fact skate like him, get ready for his sweater flapping in the breeze as he flies down the ice. Great memories.

Not sure where to put this, but boy is it interesting: https://www.neutralzone.net/mens/2019/04/01/ncaa-d1-mens-hockey-recruiting-class-rankings-study-2016-2019/ Since their rankings are based on both quality and quantity, some of UND's classes were highly ranked because they were large, replacing early departures from earlier years. But still. One may not agree with their methodology, but I'm guessing it is at least consistently applied to all teams.

I personally don't mind the announcer. She seems to know the game. Doesn't get all wound up over every little thing.

One thing's for sure, this team will not need to employ forwards on the PP point.

They leave with a national title. Thanks for all the dedication and hard work.

Taz wins the off-season.

Really the only dumpster fire around the program is on the SS message board. Tim Hennessy last night thought this was one of the better coaching jobs he's seen, because they came to play every night. Keep the puck possession dominance and add more finish, and this turns around very fast. Next year starts with solid goaltending and very good defense, regardless of what Poolman decides. Up front, the freshmen do not need to star. Each class needs to surpass the class it is replacing. Points this year, forwards only: Seniors 38, Juniors 38, Sophomores 43, Freshmen 34. This year's juniors may have trouble beating 38 points their senior year. This year's sophomores will crush their comparison next year, as will the incoming freshmen. This year's freshmen, without a real scorer, may have trouble matching the Guch-led 43 points. It should be easy if guys take steps, but we will see. They're not finishing sixth next year. They'll be top three in the NCHC and at least an at large team.

I agree. The deficiencies in the upperclass forwards are well established, but I think not mentioned as often is that the sophomores have disappointed as well (just the forwards). Kawaguchi has done well, but I didn't feel Mismash was having anything close to a breakout year pre-injury and Adams hasn't exactly forced his way into an important lineup spot. The high expectations I had for the group are my problem, but they were probably as high as for next year's class. Mismash was probably the top ranked recruit since Jost, Kawaguchi scored like crazy, and Adams put up very good numbers in the USHL. They still have time, but it will be important for next year's team that they get going.

I know it's hard to believe, but Berry actually may know more than we do and he may be playing the guys, and putting them in roles, that he thinks give the team the best chance to win. Perhaps he feels that if Adams and Kawaguchi were together they'd get scored on a lot. I don't know. But it's much more likely that he has sound reasons than it is him sticking with guys even though he knows it makes them a worse team.

Funny enough, two years later UND is again 3rd in the country in EV Corsi. Also in the top 10 are the top 5 Pairwise teams. (UND is 2nd in overall Corsi, behind Duluth.) I don't get how two years ago UND had some bad luck, but this year the program is headed into the dumpster. Seems like things aren't as bad as they appear now, even if the season ends next week.

Haha, I thought about trying to define bps (basis points) but decided against it. Happy to see it.

Don't look at the Pairwise, look at the RPI. Since they tweaked the formula a few years ago, the Pairwise almost always ends up in the exact order of RPI. Currently, the top 32 RPI teams are in exactly the same Pairwise spot, with one exception: RPI #19 UND and #20 Union are flipped in the Pairwise. Looking at the RPI, with the understanding that it's going to wiggle around as teams win and lose, you can get a sense of how close you are to moving up or down. Using this current Pairwise chart, which shows RPI and RPI rank in the fourth and fifth columns, you can see that UND is only 0.0030 from 15th. That's pretty easy to make up. However, the gap to 14th is another 0.0038, so that's a tougher nut. To 13th takes another 0.0045, so another leap, and then to 12th is 0.0044 more. To recap, it'll be pretty easy (with wins, the hard part), to get up near the bubble, but tougher to move up to safety after that. I believe 12 was the last safe spot last year, and it's going to take a lot of wins to get there.

It's funny that people complain the coaches won't sit someone, then the coaches sit someone, but it's not the someone they want, so they complain about that too. Is it possible that the coaches see everything, or at least much, much more than the feverishly imagining masses do, on which to base that decision?

Just for anyone flying by, not everyone has torches and pitchforks. Even if they miss the tournament, which is probably likely at this point, the future is bright. When the same staff has them rolling in the next few years, we'll see how selective the memories are of the bandwagon jumpers.

More than 15 years ago, I used to spend time here defending the program, as it had stumbled after Mr. Blais's two titles. Then I defended Mr. Hakstol, who was a terrific GM and coach who just barely failed to win national titles. I feel that Mr. Hakstol's main problem was that he built teams to win seven-game series, rather than a single-game elimination tournament. With a different format, he probably wins titles in 2004, 2005 and 2011, perhaps also 2006 and 2007, and maybe a few others. But it's tiring defending the program on the internet, so I haven't lately. Now I feel the need again, and it's comical that some of the detractors are the same ones who were on Mr. Hakstol's case, and who probably were Mr. Berry's biggest fans almost three years ago. Also, sadly, some current detractors are long-time reasonable fans that have surprised me. I feel that the state of the program is not materially different than it was under Mr. Hakstol. UND had a run of NHL first-round talent at forward from 2002-2008, and again from 2014-2017. In between, the teams usually looked a lot like this one, with more skill up front but less at defense, but with a similar tight-checking style of play. But "two missed NCAAs!" 2018 was basically no different from a number of seasons under Mr. Hakstol. Pairwise #14 usually gets in, and last year it didn't. From a rational evaluation standpoint, that's the same kind of season UND had a few times during the NCAA streak. This season, although they may still qualify, it seems more likely that they actually miss with a Pairwise finish between 15-20. But a top 20 Pairwise is not a sign of a program in disarray. How has the team played at the end of the year for Mr. Berry? In 2016, but for 25 minutes against Denver, they put on a four-game clinic. In 2017, they absolutely dominated BU and suffered a fate that is exhibit A for how dumb this sport can be. They didn't allow a shot on goal for the entire first overtime period, they actually scored in overtime but had the goal dubiously reversed, and ultimately two future NHL stars combined to score a goal against them. In 2018, they played a very good St. Cloud team into overtime before losing, then beat Duluth in a game that Duluth felt it needed to win to get into the NCAA tournament, which it won three weeks later. UND was basically playing as well as the best teams in the country in March. This season, it just finished four weeks against teams ranked something like #1,3,5 and 9 nationally. They split with SCSU, dominating them 5-1 one night; Lost a "hot goalie" game 2-1, with Denver's goalie stopping 45 of 46, before tying the next night; Split with WMU, dominating them 5-1 one night. Split with Duluth, dominating them 4-1 once. That was in Denver without Poolman, and against Duluth without their goalie and essentially what would have been one of their two scoring lines in Jones, Mismash and JJ. With the "hot goalie" and injuries, you can say "excuses." Whatever word you want to use, a level-headed analysis considers the actual facts of the situation, and those are occurrences that likely affected the outcomes. To be fair, St. Cloud had ill players when they got waxed, and all teams deal with injuries. Even setting aside these mitigating circumstances, the truth, both from the results and the play on the ice, is that UND is playing just as well as the top teams in the country. Could a program in disarray do that? The main things I read here are: 1) They are much less talented than nearly everyone. 2) They are poorly coached. 3) They don't show up. Given that they are playing as well as the best teams in the country, those three things cannot all be true. All of those deficiencies would doom a team, they would be like Canisius (!). In fact, even just one of them probably makes a team uncompetitive against top opponents. Which suggests that actually none of them are accurate. Of course Canisius will ultimately be the reason they fail to qualify for the tournament, if that happens. It is unfortunately another one of those things that happen in hockey. The much-derided shots on goal actually do usually reflect play, and if you drop two games when you outshoot the opponent 82-30, you just shake your head and try to make up for it the next week. I'm personally proud of how they have persevered, the coaches and players. My timing for this post may be off, because I suspect next weekend maybe as tough or tougher than the last four. CC has been consistently good, and at times excellent, since Christmas, and they are hungry and playing at altitude. I still expect another strong effort from UND, both this weekend and for the rest of the year. I also think the next three or four years look to continue the run of excellence that started in about 1996, with only a few dips along the way.

Watching Michigan OSU. Q. Hughes looks like Hrkac carrying the puck. Same wide base, same little lateral shifts with the puck when moving up ice. Deja vu.

There's always a reason to complain about recruiting. Missing the local guys, too many local guys, too many Minnesotans, not enough from MN, not going for the top national guys, getting burned by going for the top guys and having them skip up to major juniors. Maybe recruiting has changed because that's where they think the right guys are. UND killed it with Shattuck, and then stopped. After UND's run of NHLers and a Hobey, did a bunch of Shattuck players shine elsewhere? I think the school had its run and UND was there at the right time. Looking at the committed recruits, I mainly see an overweight position in the GF and Fargo area. But that might just make sense, as some of those committed players are very good prospects, and the program has had some great players from that pipeline in the last five years. Of course Penticton has provided a lot, but they are a factory for all of Division 1 and UND's Penticton players have generally been good. The coaches have also branched out to national recruits, some very highly regarded, from outside the footprint. It doesn't really scream lazy to me.

Mountains of detailed speculation, based on nothing. Shoulda done this or that, because of some imagined fact-set.

Just to be clear on people wanting coaches fired. You actually have no idea what you're talking about. These people are near the top of their profession, almost certainly more accomplished at their jobs than most of us are at ours. They know what they're doing.

At least we have a thread to look back at later in the year where everyone looks stupid for breaking their ankles jumping off the bandwagon eight days into the season.

It may not get the players to the NHL, but it may help some players decide to go the NCAA route. This is an easy one to me. Do what the NHL does.

Probably the guy who stayed at UND longer than he had to by the greatest margin. He was ready for a regular NHL shift that last year. So, very glad he won it.