North Dakota at Canisius January 4-5, 2019

[The Sicatoka]

Where in this lineup is the guy that strikes fear into opposing defenses? 

That's the problem. 

[stoneySIOUX]

12 minutes ago, scpa0305 said:

It's shot selection.  There is zero creativity.  They are firing a ton of rubber on net but it's all from the perimeter with no screens.  The fact we have great possession metrics shows that we are (on most nights) much better than the team's we play.  Now it's offensive creativity.  I'm fully convinced it has something to do with the system they are running.

Yes! 

I think it's definitely part of the system. Maybe we need to adjust to the players we have. We don't seem to have a forward that can create enough space alone, so we need more playmaking, as I see it. That, or just abandon all of the creativity, keep getting pucks on, but GET IN FRONT for dirty stuff.

[OgieOgilthorpe]

17 minutes ago, stoneySIOUX said:

I didn't really get the impression that they made it sound acceptable. To each, their own. 

Pooly is NOT a "rah-rah" guy. If you want anything other than cliches or "proud" talk, he's not the captain for you. 

To be honest I'd rather have a captain that knows how to lead a team and makes sure his guys win games like these so we don't even have to talk about what he says. I can't remember one post game interview from 2016 now that I think about it. 

[stoneySIOUX]

4 minutes ago, OgieOgilthorpe said:

To be honest I'd rather have a captain that knows how to lead a team and makes sure his guys win games like these so we don't even have to talk about what he says. I can't remember one post game interview from 2016 now that I think about it. 

Questioning his leadership ability seems hard to do. I'm not in the room. We're not winning, sure, but to pin it on Colton's leadership seems a bit far fetched, to me. We're just not good enough offensively. That's why we don't win. 

[Irish]

10 minutes ago, The Sicatoka said:

Where in this lineup is the guy that strikes fear into opposing defenses? 

That's the problem. 

I've been saying this on this form for quite a while now and getting ripped for it.  We need some talent in here and right soon.  And the guys we do get seem to go backward.

[tnt]

24 minutes ago, stoneySIOUX said:

Lol I wasn't saying that to imply that you don't, whatsoever. Over simplifying it, I guess. Oh well... it is, what it is. We're not very good offensively. That's the long and short of it. 

Because we missed on one class?    How is it that Denver can lose Borgstrom, Terry, Gambrell, etc.  and be as high as they are in the pairwise?  I realize we could still finish ahead of them, but they aren't exactly lacking for offense.   The fact is that under Hakstol UND won either a regional, or the league title, or the Frozen Faceoff/WCHA Final five just about every year, if not every year, thus adding to the culture of UND.  Unless we somehow win the Frozen Faceoff, this will be 3 straight years with nothing added to the culture.  Since becoming part of the NCHC, one could surely argue that St. Cloud and Denver have owned the league far more than UND.  Add to that losing to an Atlantic team for the not only the first but second time in one weekend, and Duluth having a run against us like they haven't had, and you wonder why there is some concern.   I was the one always arguing that losing players to the NHL has been the cause of most of our issues, but other programs like Duluth and Denver have lost quite a bit more than us the last few years and still seem to thrive.   Bottom line is that in today's age of college hockey, you have to score on the power play to win, and we still haven't seemed to figure that out.  Until the US lost to Finland last weekend the team with the best power play in the tourney had won the Gold, that tells you where the nexus for change needs to start.  

[stoneySIOUX]

5 minutes ago, tnt said:

Because we missed on one class?    How is it that Denver can lose Borgstrom, Terry, Gambrell, etc.  and be as high as they are in the pairwise?  I realize we could still finish ahead of them, but they aren't exactly lacking for offense.   The fact is that under Hakstol UND won either a regional, or the league title, or the Frozen Faceoff/WCHA Final five just about every year, if not every year, thus adding to the culture of UND.  Unless we somehow win the Frozen Faceoff, this will be 3 straight years with nothing added to the culture.  Since becoming part of the NCHC, one could surely argue that St. Cloud and Denver have owned the league far more than UND.  Add to that losing to an Atlantic team for the not only the first but second time in one weekend, and Duluth having a run against us like they haven't had, and you wonder why there is some concern.   I was the one always arguing that losing players to the NHL has been the cause of most of our issues, but other programs like Duluth and Denver have lost quite a bit more than us the last few years and still seem to thrive.   Bottom line is that in today's age of college hockey, you have to score on the power play to win, and we still haven't seemed to figure that out.  Until the US lost to Finland last weekend the team with the best power play in the tourney had won the Gold, that tells you where the nexus for change needs to start.  

I'm a bit confused on what you're responding to since that post is different, so I'm not sure how to respond. We missed on one class, yes. Sophs need to continue to develop and turn it on really quickly for this season to be saved. I don't wonder why there is some concern. I get it.

You have a solve? I don't know what it is, but firing Bubbs isn't, in my opinion -- particularly in season -- the best option.

[tnt]

1 minute ago, stoneySIOUX said:

I'm a bit confused on what you're responding to since that post is different, so I'm not sure how to respond. We missed on one class, yes. Sophs need to continue to develop and turn it on really quickly for this season to be saved. I don't wonder why there is some concern. I get it.

You have a solve? I don't know what it is, but firing Bubbs isn't, in my opinion -- particularly in season -- the best option.

This isn't something in the fire Bubba category, nor was I in the fire Hak camp, but I think who runs the power play should change.  So if you don't have finishers, get guys in front and fire away.  You can't do any worse.  

[stoneySIOUX]

3 minutes ago, tnt said:

This isn't something in the fire Bubba category, nor was I in the fire Hak camp, but I think who runs the power play should change.  So if you don't have finishers, get guys in front and fire away.  You can't do any worse.  

100% agree.

Sorry for assuming this was a "fire bubbs" thing.

[Irish]

5 minutes ago, stoneySIOUX said:

I'm a bit confused on what you're responding to since that post is different, so I'm not sure how to respond. We missed on one class, yes. Sophs need to continue to develop and turn it on really quickly for this season to be saved. I don't wonder why there is some concern. I get it.

You have a solve? I don't know what it is, but firing Bubbs isn't, in my opinion -- particularly in season -- the best option.

If firing Bubbs isn't an option (which it probably isn't right now) then the only solution I can see is for him to do his job a lot better - something he has had at least a year and a half (we'll give him the year right after our championship) to figure out.  Make some changes to our dreadful offense - Watching our guys is painful - many posters have mentioned solutions - does he have the ability to make any changes?  Second - fix our dreadful power play - this is costing us big time.  Absolutely no, none, nada, zip reasons why we should have a crap power play.  Third - a serious upgrade in our evaluation and recruiting of players.  There again is no, none etc reason we are so talent less.  We have the resources, program history, tradition, and fans to be a top school - time to recruit like one.  And I don't buy the argument that all recruiting is done years before they enter college.  Many studs sign late - see Boesser and Schmaltz for example.  Time to get it together and save the analysis about Hoff's improvement for someone who buys it.  Do some serious self-analysis and get to work making changes.

[stoneySIOUX]

14 minutes ago, Irish said:

If firing Bubbs isn't an option (which it probably isn't right now) then the only solution I can see is for him to do his job a lot better - something he has had at least a year and a half (we'll give him the year right after our championship) to figure out.  Make some changes to our dreadful offense - Watching our guys is painful - many posters have mentioned solutions - does he have the ability to make any changes?  Second - fix our dreadful power play - this is costing us big time.  Absolutely no, none, nada, zip reasons why we should have a crap power play.  Third - a serious upgrade in our evaluation and recruiting of players.  There again is no, none etc reason we are so talent less.  We have the resources, program history, tradition, and fans to be a top school - time to recruit like one.  And I don't buy the argument that all recruiting is done years before they enter college.  Many studs sign late - see Boesser and Schmaltz for example.  Time to get it together and save the analysis about Hoff's improvement for someone who buys it.  Do some serious self-analysis and get to work making changes.

I never said firing Bubbs isn't an option, I just don't believe it's the right one. Haha "we'll give him the year right after our championship." So, you're discrediting a playoff season in which we were a controversial call away from playing for a shot at the Frozen Four. OK then haha.

You don't have to buy the argument that recruiting is done years before, but it's the case. You don't think Boeser and Schmaltz were in our pipeline for years? When Boeser decided not to go to Wisconsin, since we he was always on our radar and we recruited him heavily, we were near the top of his list.

I'm fine with the self-analysis and almost all of your execution take, but I wholly disagree with your recruiting portion. 

[Irish]

3 minutes ago, stoneySIOUX said:

I never said firing Bubbs isn't an option, I just don't believe it's the right one. 

You don't have to buy the argument that recruiting is done years before, but it's the case. You don't think Boeser and Schmaltz were in our pipeline for years? When Boeser decided not to go to Wisconsin, do you think he just got a whole bunch of new interest? No. He was always on our radar and we recruited him heavily. 

I'm fine with the self-analysis and a lot of your execution take, but I wholly disagree with your recruiting portion. 

Ok - I'll buy that I was a bit off of the timing of recruiting - Here's a question for you (not being argumentative, just would like your opinion) - Where did we go off the rails so far on recruiting and so fast?  I have been a Sioux hockey fan since the Barn days and this team has the least amount of talent offensively I can ever recall (although Bjorkman teams had other issues).  I just can't believe our downfall - other teams seem to have frosh and sophs that can score - Passolt - WMU(soph) - 19 pts, Petterson - Du (frosh) - 18 , Perunovich UMD (soph) 18, Walker - St. Cloud - (frosh) - 18, Richards - UMD (Soph) - 16 ..... Well, you get the idea.  We don't have a scorer in the top 30 in the NCHC.  No excuse for this lack of talent. 

[Maddogg1971]

1 hour ago, stoneySIOUX said:

I don't think Brad is going to ever provide that kind of a kick, nor should he. But, he didn't make excuses in the least bit.

From his Weekend Rewind:

"UND seemingly has to labor and labor and labor and labor and pile up 35 shots just to get a puck to go in the net. And when it does go in, it feels like the team just climbed Mt. Everest. Then, the other team gets one good look — and sometimes not even a good look — and it goes in. Could there be a better example of that than Saturday night’s first period when UND outshot Canisius 23-2 and didn’t have a lead to show for it? And the telling part is that period didn’t feel strange. It seemed normal.

It’s fairly obvious by now that UND lacks high-end finishers this season. This has happened in too many games now to just chalk it up to bad luck or running into goalies who are playing out of their minds. Every team is going to run into a hot goalie a few times a year, but not every week. UND has been held to 1 or 0 goals in more than a third of the games now. That’s a trend."

The problem is that we have taken on that gopher mentality of "Yea, well we lost, be we out-shot them heavily so we must be the better team". Good Lord, even Schloss keeps writing about how bad we out-shoot our opponents!!! Who F*&^ing cares!!!!! A loss is a loss. We have lost our way on what our team jersey means and the institution and people they represent and what an Honor it is to play Fighting Sioux Hockey. This isn't Minnesota, BC, Michigan or Denver. Say all you want about those teams but we have much higher standards than those schools. 

[Irish]

25 minutes ago, stoneySIOUX said:

I never said firing Bubbs isn't an option, I just don't believe it's the right one. 

You don't have to buy the argument that recruiting is done years before, but it's the case. You don't think Boeser and Schmaltz were in our pipeline for years? When Boeser decided not to go to Wisconsin, do you think he just got a whole bunch of new interest? No. He was always on our radar and we recruited him heavily. 

I'm fine with the self-analysis and a lot of your execution take, but I wholly disagree with your recruiting portion. 

Ok - I'll buy that I was a bit off of the timing of recruiting - Here's a question for you (not being argumentative, just would like your opinion) - Where did we go off the rails so far on recruiting and so fast?  I have been a Sioux hockey fan since the Barn days and this team has the least amount of talent offensively I can ever recall (although Bjorkman teams had other issues).  I just can't believe our downfall - other teams seem to have frosh and sophs that can score - Passolt - WMU(soph) - 19 pts, Petterson - Du (frosh) - 18 , Perunovich UMD (soph) 18, Walker - St. Cloud - (frosh) - 18, Richards - UMD (Soph) - 16 ..... Well, you get the idea.  We don't have a scorer in the top 30 in the NCHC.  No excuse for this lack of talent. 

Actually I would like Goon to weigh in on this too - he has been critical of our criticism - where do you things went wrong and how do we fix them?

[stoneySIOUX]

3 minutes ago, Maddogg1971 said:

The problem is that we have taken on that gopher mentality of "Yea, well we lost, be we out-shot them heavily so we must be the better team". Good Lord, even Schloss keeps writing about how bad we out-shoot our opponents!!! Who F*&^ing cares!!!!! A loss is a loss. We have lost our way on what our team jersey means and the institution and people they represent and what an Honor it is to play Fighting Sioux Hockey. This isn't Minnesota, BC, Michigan or Denver. Say all you want about those teams but we have much higher standards than those schools. 

Look at the Corsi numbers. Possession usually leads to wins. It's not, this year, and that's why it's a story. Who's taken the mentality that it's any sort of a moral victory that we're outshooting teams? He's saying that because it's true. So, you want him to ignore that we outshot Cansius 3-1?

[Oxbow6]

7 minutes ago, stoneySIOUX said:

Look at the Corsi numbers. Possession usually leads to wins. It's not, this year, and that's why it's a story. Who's taken the mentality that it's any sort of a moral victory that we're outshooting teams? He's saying that because it's true. So, you want him to ignore that we outshot Cansius 3-1?

UND got swept......end of story.

[stoneySIOUX]

15 minutes ago, Irish said:

Ok - I'll buy that I was a bit off of the timing of recruiting - Here's a question for you (not being argumentative, just would like your opinion) - Where did we go off the rails so far on recruiting and so fast?  I have been a Sioux hockey fan since the Barn days and this team has the least amount of talent offensively I can ever recall (although Bjorkman teams had other issues).  I just can't believe our downfall - other teams seem to have frosh and sophs that can score - Passolt - WMU(soph) - 19 pts, Petterson - Du (frosh) - 18 , Perunovich UMD (soph) 18, Walker - St. Cloud - (frosh) - 18, Richards - UMD (Soph) - 16 ..... Well, you get the idea.  We don't have a scorer in the top 30 in the NCHC.  No excuse for this lack of talent. 

We've recruited plenty of heralded guys. I'm not going to keep repeating myself as it's not worth my time, but, again, we missed on one class -- the current junior class. That hurts our Sophs. But, our sophs are our best talent right now and we need to get them going. There isn't some magic ball that guarantees them performing at this level. For every Brock Boeser, there's 15 Mike Cichys. We recruited guys that MANY, if not most, wanted (Kawaguchi, Mismash, Adams, etc.).

In my view, we have a lot of talent on this team, particularly on the back end with the forward reinforcements (And still loads of new d-men) coming in the next couple of years. I don't see recruiting as a weakness in any way, shape or form. As others have said, maybe we need to change up the system for the current roster?

[stoneySIOUX]

Just now, Oxbow6 said:

UND got swept......end of story.

Lol alright.

[Blackheart]

15 minutes ago, Maddogg1971 said:

The problem is that we have taken on that gopher mentality of "Yea, well we lost, be we out-shot them heavily so we must be the better team". Good Lord, even Schloss keeps writing about how bad we out-shoot our opponents!!! Who F*&^ing cares!!!!! 

I always heard shots was a losers stat.  It's more about the quality of the shot vs the quantity as many on here have already stated.

[stoneySIOUX]

1 minute ago, Blackheart said:

It's more about the quality of the shot vs the quantity as many on here have already stated.

This is very true. No corner picking, for us, of late. Pretty much all season. Lots of logo burners.

[BarnWinterSportsEngelstad]

2 minutes ago, Blackheart said:

I always heard shots was a losers stat.  It's more about the quality of the shot vs the quantity as many on here have already stated.

Would mostly agree, but we missed many great opportunities this season.

[tnt]

18 minutes ago, stoneySIOUX said:

Look at the Corsi numbers. Possession usually leads to wins. It's not, this year, and that's why it's a story. Who's taken the mentality that it's any sort of a moral victory that we're outshooting teams? He's saying that because it's true. So, you want him to ignore that we outshot Cansius 3-1?

Maybe that is part of the problem.  The coaching staff is big into analytics, but to me there is only one analytic that matters, and that is did you score more than you gave up. 

[stoneySIOUX]

10 minutes ago, tnt said:

Maybe that is part of the problem.  The coaching staff is big into analytics, but to me there is only one analytic that matters, and that is did you score more than you gave up. 

I'm an analytics guy, so I'd disagree. I promise I'm not just being contrarian haha. 

In this particular Corsi piece, possession usually leads to goal and this supports that premise with most of the Top 20 teams in Corsi being pretty successful -- the outliers -- Us, BSU, BC, for sure. Other than that, that's a list of the best teams in the country.

[tnt]

15 minutes ago, stoneySIOUX said:

We've recruited plenty of heralded guys. I'm not going to keep repeating myself as it's not worth my time, but, again, we missed on one class -- the current junior class. That hurts our Sophs. But, our sophs are our best talent right now and we need to get them going. There isn't some magic ball that guarantees them performing at this level. For every Brock Boeser, there's 15 Mike Cichys. We recruited guys that MANY, if not most, wanted (Kawaguchi, Mismash, Adams, etc.).

In my view, we have a lot of talent on this team, particularly on the back end with the forward reinforcements (And still loads of new d-men) coming in the next couple of years. I don't see recruiting as a weakness in any way, shape or form. As others have said, maybe we need to change up the system for the current roster?

You stress that we work hard.  Do you think the most talented guy on our roster, Grant Mismash, works hard consistently?

[brianvf]

Quote

Had UND gone into HarborCenter and swept Canisius, it would be sitting at 11-7-1, at No. 14 in the Pairwise and on pace to generate momentum into the second half.

That's the problem with the last two seasons...woulda, coulda, shoulda.

Berry isn't going anywhere after this season, but something needs to change.  If that means bringing in a different assistant to run the abysmal PP, then so be it.
Hoping that some of our recruits that are doing so well right now can come in and score some goals.  And that's asking a lot to pin the hopes of next year's team on a freshman class.