jk

Asking too much of Ludwig at the moment. Only down one, don't need to be so loose all of a sudden.

Now this will be a test. They went down against CC and completely fell apart. We'll see how this goes.

To me, the NCHC has fewer weak teams, but is easier to win because there are fewer top teams as well. You're basically competing with Denver, SC and UMD for the title every year. In the WCHA you had to also gain more points than WI and especially MN.

Discussion is ok. I'm a fan of both guys, but regarding league titles, I'd say Hak coached in a tougher league (WCHA with MN and WI) for most of his years.

Hey I was too. At the end of the first it was 3-0 (after Murray Baron of all people scored) and I'm not sure MSU had three shots. The concourse during the first intermission was spectacularly eerie, as the home faithful waited in line for their lukewarm weiners in stunned silence.

Duncan was obviously not the best player on his line, considering the other two guys are NHL or Olympic legends, and he seemed to have no problem acknowledging that. Without looking at boxscores to fact check this, I believe he did not miss a beat when the future legends were out of the lineup, and just went right on scoring. I think that helped his Hobey case. It may seem easy to put the puck in the net when you have a little room, but surprisingly few guys can do it. And he often didn't have much room from his office. Great player.

Oh my goodness, you've hit upon one of my main Hak observations. He built teams to win playoff series. That physical defense would have been hard to handle for more than a game.

That's a conclusion we can draw!

Thankfully Berry has Ness, Albrecht and Benoit on the PP. And Berg in case a hatty shows up.

Probably can't draw any conclusions about UND based on this game. They look great, yes, but time and space wise it's been like a Bisons game.

Umm, they've been cheap as hell for most of the last 15 years.

Considering that he stepped into the NHL six months later and was easily Ottawa's best defenseman his whole rookie year, I'd say he would have made a difference in his 30 minutes per night down the stretch for UND.

I'm not ready to say this team doesn't belong with those others. I'd say it's behind on team defense, but has an unusually high level of offensive creativity, with more guys than usual who can pick corners.

To be fair, I try to keep it in perspective, and it still sort of ruined my weekend, until later Sunday. I try not to blame anyone, but I was still grumpy.

Reminded me of a trip to Maine early in a Hak season when they just got annihilated both nights. The upside then was there was still most of a season to get better. This time around, I guess the next month will tell us whether this was an aberration or a sign of things to come. Very strange set of games. If UND rights the ship, I wonder if these two might meet again in SD.

Respectfully disagree. You take a shot at getting back in the game. Who cares if the final is 5-2 or 6-2? Blais would have done it and people would have loved him for it.

It's not like CC has been the better team tonight. For the first half of the third, yes. But not the first two periods. This is just one of those weekends when everything goes wrong. Better now than later.

CC's second goal was not even a good scoring chance, just throw it on goal like UND has a couple dozen times tonight. That's what we we've been hoping would happen, but the hockey gods appear displeased.

UND going for volume on offense tonight, getting the puck to the net often. Not great chances, but you hope for deflections or rebounds, which have not happened. It's the opposite of being too cute.

Except for the offense, defense and goaltending, I thought it was good. But the biggest no show was UND's goalposts - not one save, and they had plenty of opportunities. CC's posts had a heck of a game, bunch of saves.

I will now concede that a comeback is less likely.

Over? Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Keep the faith baby. Hockey is bizarre and you never know what can happen.

The NCAA tourney field looks very tough this year. If a team is fortunate enough to make a regional final, they will probably have to beat a very good team. We've seen UND pass the eye test against some of those top teams, but we've also seen them lose some of those games. Basically the corner-pickers are going to have to be on target, and the goalie will need to be at his best.

Well, he played 77 of 82 games his rookie year and 47 of 48 this year, so I'm going with "most of the time." Are we supposed to hold it against him that his hand got stepped on in the crease?

I agree on Johannes. I realize there are different opinions on this, but I like him with Berg and Gaber, as he creates space. I also think the bottom lines haven't been as good as they were earlier, with the shuffling of 18 and 29 up the lineup. They're good and will probably be mainstays higher up next year, but for now they make the lower lines more dangerous and there's no one I want to pull out of the top six.