jk

Hatefulness must be in the eye of the beholder, because I never saw that in Hakstol.

I disagree. Despite not being able to put the puck in the net to save their lives, or their season, they came to play hard every game, which you couldn't do with a broken culture. I thought it showed good coaching. They were one of the best puck possession teams in the country, which you can't be without playing hard. It's as simple as they just couldn't score.

A few ways of thinking about the commitments of a few older guys last year, Gaber, Ness and Budy. At the time, I wondered if they were trying to go more the Mankato route and get a little older. I also thought because of their lack of size that these might be the type of high energy, make-the-right-play guys Duluth has cleaned up with lately. Looking at some of the posts above, this situation is also reminiscent of a time a bit ago when UND had some MN high school forwards lined up, but they weren't developing, and so they went home to Alberta and picked up Rodwell and Rowney as older guys. They were at least big bodies who could check, and the guys who didn't pan out never made it to campus. Not a bad fall-back call, as Rowney ended up in the NHL. Could the recent older pick-ups be coming because some of the earlier commitments aren't? I guess we'll see.

Patented Schlossman and his pesky facts.

I had not seen this until now. I had seen the thread but not opened it because it was started on April 1 by a bit of a rabble-rouser, so I wrongly assumed it was a gag of some kind. Only just now did I wonder why a gag thread was still pinned to the top. Boy, is this terrible news! I never met Tim, but sprig and I saw eye-to-eye all the time here, from way back. I will miss him. Condolences to his family and friends.

Good luck to Shaw. Thanks for the contributions to the program and for helping win a national title. For the critics, we have no idea if he was the problem with the PP. It could be that Scotty Bowman and Bill Belichick together couldn't have made it work with the pieces they were given. When Jackson was hired, few outsiders saw it coming. That scenario is possible this time around as well. If it's Schneekloth and he does well, I may forgive him for Kolanos.

I'm pretty excited about next year, but I need to remember the siren song of the offseason line chart. Top of a fan's mind for returning players are their flashes of brilliance, and forgotten is a month of diligent checking, up and down the rink, that amounted to little on the scoreboard. And incoming players are certain to be even better. We read what their junior coaches say about them, and it's a wonder they even bother with college before embarking on the long NHL career. There's no way they'll need time to adjust to the pace and physicality of grown men in the best college league in the country. The lines in my head have two legitimate Top Six scoring lines (maybe more like two seconds than a first and a second), a pretty awesome third energy line, and a fourth line of rotating characters including future scoring line players and seasoned veterans nearing the end of their competitive hockey careers. Behind them may be the best group of defensemen in the country, depending on who UMD returns, and two solid goalies. And a good coaching staff that I hope demonstrates its greatness.

Hain may be a top six guy. And then see if you can find someone else to fit well with Senden and Smith.

Ha. Yesterday I said all they do is win, but they don't dominate anyone. Scratch that. The last few years have shown how well the NCHC prepares a team for the tournament. Every weekend down the stretch seems so tough ... I guess because they are. UMass was for Duluth what Q was for UND, just not ready for the pace and tight checking.

It's sports and things happen, but given the way they've played in big games, it would be shocking to see Duluth lose tomorrow.

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.