COMMITTED UND Recruits

[AJS]

1 minute ago, The Sicatoka said:

How soon we forget what Stetcher, Ladue, and Thompson looked like as freshmen. 

Johnson, Peski, and Poolman the younger, will be fine. Poolman the younger is 21 so you can see it's slowing down for him game by game; Johnson and Peski are showing progress. 

I haven't, Stecher and Ladue were fantastic as freshman. I'll give you Thompson though. Stecher had "it" from his first game with the team.

[fightingsioux4life]

39 minutes ago, siouxfan512 said:

I think a lot of the frustrations have to do with coming off of a Nat'l Championship season, with a team that was pretty much dominant across the board. It'll even out.

Personally, I just don't want to see the team miss the tourney. They haven't missed since I have cheered for them, so it would be a major bummer to not get to watch them compete (postseason is such valuable experience for the younger guys). Also, if you make the tourney, anything can happen. After that, the hope is we don't lose too much, so we can compete hard again next season.

Last time we missed the NCAA tournament was 2002.

Before that, it was 1996.

[stoneySIOUX]

29 minutes ago, AJS said:

I haven't, Stecher and Ladue were fantastic as freshman. I'll give you Thompson though. Stecher had "it" from his first game with the team.

I don't know about you guys, I thought Peski was one of our best three defensemen this weekend. KId mad smart play after smart play.

[Oxbow6]

1 minute ago, stoneySIOUX said:

I don't know about you guys, I thought Peski was one of our best three defensemen this weekend. KId mad smart play after smart play.

As bad as he looked early on this season I'd agree. He and Johnson need to be in the lineup with the Poolmans. Pick 2 of the 3 left.

[iluvdebbies]

33 minutes ago, AJS said:

I haven't, Stecher and Ladue were fantastic as freshman. I'll give you Thompson though. Stecher had "it" from his first game with the team.

Totally agree about Stecher and LaDue. Thompson wasn't too bad either.....he won the 6th d-man spot at the end of the year over Ausmus.

[SiouxScore]

Adding a d-man makes sense especially a righty. You lose Ausmus and pretty likely Poolman. Bast is a question mark that I don't think you can count on and Evers may not ever step foot on campus. That leaves you with 8 defensemen not counting Bast and Evers. With the lack of depth we have had this year I also wouldn't be surprised to see next year be a year where you see a little bigger roster and just let the guys battle it out each week to see who is in the lineup. Most of the time it has been 15 forwards and 8 defensemen but I wouldn't be surprised to see it be a year where we have 17 forwards 9 defensemen or something like that.

[AJS]

5 minutes ago, iluvdebbies said:

Totally agree about Stecher and LaDue. Thompson wasn't too bad either.....he won the 6th d-man spot at the end of the year over Ausmus.

Agreed, Thompson wasn't bad (either was Ausmus). I've actually been pleasantly surprised with how the freshman this year have played (imo the worst defenseman has been Ausmus). I don't think however that any of the three have a high ceiling to be anything more than an ok college defenseman. Same with the group they have coming in next year.

 

 

[stoneySIOUX]

9 minutes ago, AJS said:

Agreed, Thompson wasn't bad (either was Ausmus). I've actually been pleasantly surprised with how the freshman this year have played (imo the worst defenseman has been Ausmus). I don't think however that any of the three have a high ceiling to be anything more than an ok college defenseman. Same with the group they have coming in next year.

 

 

I think Colton has every chance to be a SOLID defensive defenseman. Shaw, too. Wolanin has the offense side down, but is becoming a liability defensively. That being said, these are ALL underclassmen. All of them have time to develop and saying their ceiling isn't very high is premature. Shaw is a former USHL d-man of the year and Wolanin is a draft pick. The talent is there. 

Also, no way to know about next year's d-men until they get here. 

[AJS]

1 minute ago, stoneySIOUX said:

I think Colton has every chance to be a SOLID defensive defenseman. Shaw, too. Wolanin has the offense side down, but is becoming a liability defensively. That being said, these are ALL underclassmen. All of them have time to develop and saying their ceiling isn't very high is premature. Shaw is a former USHL d-man of the year and Wolanin is a draft pick. The talent is there. 

Also, no way to know about next year's d-men until they get here. 

My comments were only about the freshman dman.

I think both Shaw and Wolanin will be great college players. Both have shown flashes this year and I'd say Shaw has been our #2 Dman. Once Wolanin puts it all together, he's going to be a stud.

[InHeavenThereIsNoBeer]

10 minutes ago, AJS said:

Agreed, Thompson wasn't bad (either was Ausmus). I've actually been pleasantly surprised with how the freshman this year have played (imo the worst defenseman has been Ausmus). I don't think however that any of the three have a high ceiling to be anything more than an ok college defenseman. Same with the group they have coming in next year.

 

 

I think I'm the only person who thinks Ausmus has gotten better from the beginning of this yr to right now.  IMO he's not holding onto the puck as long when exiting the zone and is making more level-headed plays when making the first pass. Not saying he's immune from a bad play now and then but I think he has improved in taking care of the puck for the most part.

[stoneySIOUX]

4 minutes ago, AJS said:

My comments were only about the freshman dman.

I think both Shaw and Wolanin will be great college players. Both have shown flashes this year and I'd say Shaw has been our #2 Dman. Once Wolanin puts it all together, he's going to be a stud.

Ok, thanks for clarifying. I must have missed that. Agreed on Shaw and Wolanin. I've loved what I've seen out of Peski and Johnson in the second half. ESPECIALLY with how bad they both were in the first.

[scpa0305]

1 hour ago, AJS said:

I haven't, Stecher and Ladue were fantastic as freshman. I'll give you Thompson though. Stecher had "it" from his first game with the team.

Stecher actually didnt have it from the get go.  His first couple games he looked ok (skated well) but he too had his down games.  One of the dumbest posts I have had was saying that Stecher should have been the odd man out starting his sophomore year.  Solely because he wasnt that great his freshman year.  He got man handled in front of the net towards the end of the year.  Obviously that all turned around his sophomore year; he got confidence and put on 20 lbs.

[UNDhoops]

1 hour ago, AJS said:

Agreed, Thompson wasn't bad (either was Ausmus). I've actually been pleasantly surprised with how the freshman this year have played (imo the worst defenseman has been Ausmus). I don't think however that any of the three have a high ceiling to be anything more than an ok college defenseman. Same with the group they have coming in next year.

 

 

ausmus has been terrible this year i think. kid can't skate. id love to see some good reliable individual possession numbers in college hockey cause it seems like we are always pinned in our own end when he's out there. 

[The Sicatoka]

Duluth was dumping it toward Ausmus this weekend. 

[Irish]

Agreed that defensemen can be difficult to judge early, but we may have our third average defensive class in a row - the last two and the next one.  With our three successive Frozen Fours, our Championship,  and the type of defense we showed on a national stage, we should be able to recruit some studs.  Am I missing something? 

[scpa0305]

51 minutes ago, Irish said:

Agreed that defensemen can be difficult to judge early, but we may have our third average defensive class in a row - the last two and the next one.  With our three successive Frozen Fours, our Championship,  and the type of defense we showed on a national stage, we should be able to recruit some studs.  Am I missing something? 

Wolanin was a nice get.  Since schmaltz we haven't had any high enders though.  We do have a few in the pipeline but they're out a ways.

[Irish]

36 minutes ago, scpa0305 said:

Wolanin was a nice get.  Since schmaltz we haven't had any high enders though.  We do have a few in the pipeline but they're out a ways.

It's Wolanin's sophomore year and he's still killin' us frequently.  Why no high enders?  We should be able to attract them. I can see one class, but 3 in a row?

[UNDMOORHEAD]

3 minutes ago, Irish said:

It's Wolanin's sophomore year and he's still killin' us frequently.  Why no high enders?  We should be able to attract them. I can see one class, but 3 in a row?

You don't need high enders if you bring in the right guys. (Stetcher, Ladue, Poolman) Also remember a guy like Finley. It's not an exact science, but you can find gems that aren't first or second rounders.

[UNDBIZ]

Starting since the 2006 freshman class, we've brought in 2 defenseman drafted in the 1st or 2nd round. Forbort and Schmaltz. Neither were present for the natty. 

[UNDMOORHEAD]

2 minutes ago, UNDBIZ said:

Starting since the 2006 freshman class, we've brought in 2 defenseman drafted in the 1st or 2nd round. Forbort and Schmaltz. Neither were present for the natty. 

And who would you take if you had to pick one, Stetcher, Forbort, or Schmaltz?

[SiouxFanatic]

Just now, UNDMOORHEAD said:

And who would you take if you had to pick one, Stetcher, Forbort, or Schmaltz?

Stecher. Not even close. 

[UNDMOORHEAD]

13 minutes ago, SiouxFanatic said:

Stecher. Not even close. 

I realize it's hard to always find a Stetcher or a Caggulia, but those are two recent examples of why you don't need first round draft picks to compete. The other plus is you get these guys for three or four years instead of one or two.

[burd]

25 minutes ago, UNDMOORHEAD said:

And who would you take if you had to pick one, Stetcher, Forbort, or Schmaltz?

Depends on who else I have around them, but Stetcher before Forbort.  

[Irish]

My original comment was to the point that we need better guys on defense than we have brought in recently and should be able to get them given our program status.  I don't care about draft status, but I do care that we have a much better defense than we have seen this year and so far next year looks to be more of the same.  Not only are we puking up goals, we are having tremendous difficulty starting our rushes and gaining the zone.  This starts with the D.

[UNDMOORHEAD]

2 minutes ago, Irish said:

My original comment was to the point that we need better guys on defense than we have brought in recently and should be able to get them given our program status.  I don't care about draft status, but I do care that we have a much better defense than we have seen this year and so far next year looks to be more of the same.  Not only are we puking up goals, we are having tremendous difficulty starting our rushes and gaining the zone.  This starts with the D.

I guess my thoughts on our current D group is that their ceiling remains to be seen. They may get a little better or they may get a lot better. For Shaw and Wolanin this is the first year at this level that they're playing meaningful minutes and then you got three freshmen. Hard to hide them like you could with freshmen last year. Another thing I thought about was we haven't sent a lot of defensemen to the NHL in the last decade. Maybe that's why some of the better guys don't come here, I don't know. You hear guys like Jost or Caggs talk about Toews and that probably being the thing that put us on the radar for them. We just don't have a defensemen equivalent of Toews, Parise, Oshie, etc for younger guys to look at and wonder about the path they took to the NHL.