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NORTH DAKOTA @ MINNESOTA - Friday


AZSIOUX

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Two things: Paging Carter Rowney. Come in Carter Rowney. Maybe I'm wrong here, but the first five, six seeks of the season I thought the freshman line of Grimaldi, Caggiula. and St. Clair looked unreal. They were a high enerry "buzz buzz" line that kept everyone on the ice back on their heels. Can't understand why that line was broken up.

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I've just read the last few posts, but I think I get the general idea. I attended, and I'll just say I disagree with the general tone. Through most of the game, it looked like two teams that were so good they just didn't give the other team much of a chance to get anything going. I thought the Sioux defense was quite composed in their own end for much of the game, making smart D to D passes to take advantage of the extra room and get the puck to safety. MN rarely set up in the offensive zone for extended time 5-on-5, and it's not like Saunders stood on his head to make miraculous saves throughout the game. This would be in contrast, for instance, with the Final Five semi last year, when Dell kept that game at 3-0 through the first two periods rather than twice that, when UND couldn't even touch the puck. That team was overmatched badly, despite the wondrous comeback. Last night was not such a mismatch; it was two teams that played pretty close to equally well, and one got things to go in the net.

UND made mistakes and can obviously be better, but they weren't terrible and I still like their potential to accomplish good things this year.

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Tonight is going to tell us A LOT about this UND team

I have a feeling it will reinforce that minnesota is better than us and that gap is widening. hard to beat a team when they are way better than you in all areas. sure "talent wise" und matches up with the gophers but that is where it ends. you make a mistake against minnesota and it ends up in the back of your net, teams make a mistake against us, we turn it over and head back to our d-zone.

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Again, I thought und got extremely unlucky last night, take away the broken stick and eng and its a 3-1 game. Then factor in that the goofs capitalized on a percentage of their chances and we capitalized on zero (I'm not counting the fluke deflection that popped in). Also their goalie played outstanding and ours simply played decent. For everyone saying we didn't play physical....that is how we were forced to play, other we would be in the box the whole game, shepherd was refing people. If we cut down on our turnovers I think we would have won last night.

Some takeaways...bjugstad is a man child and should be playing in the show right now, he's something we're simply going to have to contain, we can't stop him. He was by far the best player on the ice last night. Also, I am a huge gothberg fan, but this is not the environment you throw him into tonight, Clarke was not bad last night. Hak has already messed up by not letting gothberg play more during the season, maybe next weekend he gets the nod. I am also not sure about Mitch Macmillan, I think he is a role player at best, we'll see though.

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I think we will see a few lineup changes tonight and would guess the lineup will look something like this. I thought Schmaltz showed some good glimpses last night but also had a few bad lapses and wonder if Hak won't try to send him a message tonight.

Grimaldi-Knight-Kristo

Mark Mac.-Rowney-Parks

Caggiula-Gaarder-St.Clair

Mitch Mac.-Pattyn-Rodwell

Mac-Mattson

Simpson-Gleason

Forbort-Panzerella

Gothberg

Saunders

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FWIW

The sky is not falling....

The Dmen are not that bad

Saunders isnt exactly a sieve

And evem with a loss tinight the season isnt over ...the McNaughton may be out but the season is far from over .

I say home playoff series. ..Final five run.. and a 2 seed in the tourney...

And from there its a crap shoot as always.

UND can beat this goofer team butvthey have to play almost perfect to do it.....

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Everyone needs to stop giving Minnesota the national title and taking us out of the race for the MacNaughton Cup and calm down. It is mid-January. There are 3-4 teams bunched up at the top of the league standings right now. The playoffs are a couple of months away. Our team won't be in a slump forever. Once we get our line combos figured out and get back to playing solid D in front of our own net, we'll be okay. Like I said earlier this week, whatever happens this weekend, both teams will have a lot of important games down the stretch. I want a split, but getting swept wouldn't be the end of the world or the end of our season. This group still has a ton of potential and I still have faith they can realize it. GO SIOUX!!!

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The Gophers have all the top teams at home this year, nothing we can do about that. From what I remember, the motto is split on the road sweep at home. I know we had a bump at home last weekend, but I foresee that happening this weekend with us winning tonight. My gut is telling me that at the end of the year we will be seeing the goofs at ralph south. Then maybe again on the road to Pittsburgh.

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If you're going to lose, I'd rather do it now and use this game/series as a learning experience to get better. Maybe we needed this game to serve as a wake-up call. There are so many facets of our game that can be improved upon. Hak is a good coach and has a good staff. If we play as a team and solidify the lines we'll be just fine.

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The Gophers have all the top teams at home this year, nothing we can do about that. From what I remember, the motto is split on the road sweep at home. I know we had a bump at home last weekend, but I foresee that happening this weekend with us winning tonight. My gut is telling me that at the end of the year we will be seeing the goofs at ralph south. Then maybe again on the road to Pittsburgh.

I know I am in the extreme minority on this, but I want nothing to do with them again this year we have a better chance of beating BC, NH or any other team college hockey except them(not to say we would though). I think it is telling that you supposedly play the number one team in the nation even and still lose 5-1. if und is one of the top programs int he country we shouldn't have to play a perfect game to beat them if we "match up" with them. either it is talent or coaching but there is a big gap between the two teams. for whatever reason x-mas killed all the momentum this team had going for it and is struggling mightly to find it again. like I said earlier I don't see more than one 2 plus point weekend left on the schedule.

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I would like to see:

Grimaldi - Knight - Kristo

Caggiula - Rowney - Parks

MacMillan - MacMillan - Gleason

Pattyn - St. Clair - Rodwell

I'd throw O'Donnell back out there to see if a couple games off have helped him-

Knight with Grimaldi and Kristo

Rowney with Parks and Cagguilla

Mac with Mac and O'Donnell

Pattyn with Gleason and St Clair

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What was with Kristo's total non-effort on that shorty? They were down 2 and on the PP. If he skates at all that goal never occurs. Gleason got walked but at least he made an effort. There was a post earlier about "good luck keeping Kristo off the score sheet". It's not hard when he brings that kind of effort. Not good from a team leader.

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I'd throw O'Donnell back out there to see if a couple games off have helped him-

Knight with Grimaldi and Kristo

Rowney with Parks and Cagguilla

Mac with Mac and O'Donnell

Pattyn with Gleason and St Clair

That would be a good lineup, too. O'Donnell has talent, so it would be nice if he could get going.

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