siouxnatty#8

I don't band wagon jump. I'm a died in the wool Minnesota Vikings fan too. If the pain doesn't kill you it makes you stronger.

The only other team that I can root for if UND gets bumped is Bemidji and I hate all the other teams so I am done watching.

Yes you are correct that this was a rebuilding year on top of Sanderson being injured for most of season. I have said this before about my take on this season but here goes again. We went through this season what most teams will go through the next two seasons with the extra covid year. Look at teams that had several super seniors and didn't bring in a bus load of new guys like we did this year. Losing in the first round sucks but I feel we felt the extra covid year a year earlier than most teams and we didn't fare great but we fared ok considering.

Whatever the pairwise ranks you is pretty darn close to correct with all the criteria they use. I see the reason for it not playing out closer to where teams end up as far as how the season ends after the NCAA tourney is the one and done format. If the NCAA tourney was played as 5 or 7 game series or even 3 game series for that matter the better teams would likely win more titles. One and done scenario makes for not always the best team winning.

Having Kleven back is huge for clearing out Notre Dame's net front presence. The thing about our D and I disagree with Starman about this on his assesment of Wester Michigan and Denver's D being the most mobile D corps. When our D is going and up in the play I think we are really hard to slow down. It's crazy to see our D so many times come in as F1 a lot of times. I wish Sanderson wasn't hurt as he is the best of the best as far as being offensive but it is what it is and this group has adapted well to him being out. Moore and Bast have grown their games so much also made our D corps even better. Just hope they do shore up in front of our net and I think the offense from our D will be there.

Our D has got to do a better job of clearing out the front of our net. Western was standing in front of our net tipping pucks and getting sticks on rebounds all game because our defense were not clearing the Western players from in front of our net. Gonna be a long game if we don't clear out the front of our net.

I take it they like to clog up the neutral zone also. Short crisp passes out of our zone with the D jumping into the play will neutralize some of this. I also like our chances to win this game if we play disciplined.

Kunz to me plays a style more like Hain.

When Albrecht, Portz and Ness were playing together they put together a nasty forecheck and they were scoring goals. The Senden line plays a similar style but this time of year chemistry to me wins out over experimenting with line combinations.

Kunz on the heavy line? I think there's more chemistry with Portz, Albrecht and ness. Like Kunz better with Jammer and Senden. Our bottom 2 lines can match up well with other teams top line and gives us more favorable matchups if we don't have last change which after ND game we prob won't have.

The way I look at it is the Albrecht line is what the Senden line was before Hain got hurt. Jammer has become a good offensive threat with Senden but they’re one musketeer short. The Albrecht line with Portz and ness is that heavy line no one wants to play against.

We will have Albrecht back which is huge so we have another good checking line that can create offense on the forecheck. Albrecht reminds me of Poganski he hits clean and very hard. Huge to have him back to reunite 4th line

We will be in Worchester. The NCAA loves to send us to Worchester.

If they try that in the nhl somebody’s gonna put them in the hospital

At least get your moneys worth. Chicken !@#$ rule imo

I say unload on them if they do that on purpose and tell that’s how they do it in the nhl.

The sticking their leg out is cheap in my book.

Buty is the healthy scratch.

I guess we have to agree to disagree.

I guess I disagree. Everyone including me was saying the sky was falling when we went on our skid. We lost 4-2 and should have capitalized on a couple golden chances and we go to ot playing with a severely depleted team. I see positives not negatives. You are wrong about Albrecht not being a big loss as that 4th line with him seperating people from the puck had them being difference makers when the 3 are intact.

Two plays where they stuck their legs out could have taken a knee but other than that attempted slew foot on Driscoll was the only other dirty play tonight.

I don't see many red flags. By rights Ford scores if he handled the puck and elevates it and we go to ot. I think for as short handed as we were it makes more optimistic than anything. We did not get blown out and were getting most of our injured players back for the NCAA's. Not having Albrecht was huge. That 4th line was scoring almost a goal a game lately. The sky is not falling so call off chicken little.

I think Western will make an early exit from the NCAA tourney.

We almost and should have tied the score in the third if Ford could have elevated the puck. We were playing extremely short handed minus our 2 best defensemen and by all rights if Ford scores this game goes to ot with us having momentum. I am not impressed with Western at all and I think UMD clobbers them tomorrow.

I've been saying Denver peaked too for a while also. This outcome is not all bad. Our 4th line was out of synch without Albrecht and his absence was very noticaable when they were out there.