2022-23 University of North Dakota Hockey Season

[The Sicatoka]

If the Saturday @ WMU team shows up for 2023 I like our chances.

If the Saturday @ SCSU team shows up for 2023 it'll be a long winter with no spring. 

[Kevin G]

At the mid-season break:

• Games: 19 games (plus one exhibition) completed. 16 games (plus one exhibition) to go.
• Record: 7-8-4 overall. 3-5-2 in conference. 4-4-1 at home. 3-3-3 on the road. 0-1-0 on neutral ice.
• Points leaders: Blake (21), Jandric (20), Gaber (19).
• Goals leaders: Gaber (11), Blake (9), Hain (8), Caulfield (7).
• Assists leaders: Jandric (18), Blake (12), Gaber (8), McLaughlin (8).
• Plus/minus leaders: Caulfield (+7), Jandric (+5), James (+4), Sidorski (+4).
• Plus/minus laggards: Frisch (-9), McLaughlin (-8), Blake (-7), Kleven (-7).
• Goaltending:
  • DeRidder 2.86 GAA, .890 SV%, over 671 minutes.
  • Hellsten, 3.13 GAA, .859 SV%, over 479 minutes.

• Team Scoring: 3.4 Goals/Game (10th nationally)
• Team Defense:
  • 3.2 Goals Allowed/Game (45th nationally)
  • .873 SV% (59th nationally)
• Special teams:
  • PP: 28.0% (3rd nationally)
  • PK: 89.4% (10th nationally)
• Face-offs: 53.1% (11th nationally) 
• Penalty minutes per game: 10.3 (36th nationally)

 

[The Sicatoka]

16 minutes ago, Kevin G said:

 

• Plus/minus laggards: Frisch (-9), McLaughlin (-8), Blake (-7), Kleven (-7).

 

I'm going to make a bold speculative guess:

I'd bet Frisch/Kleven are out with McLaughlin and Blake more often than not and two defensemen can't cover for the defensive shortcomings of two freshmen forwards. 

[AJS]

53 minutes ago, burd said:

Problem with a "favorable" schedule is that it is harder to move up in the pairwise.   Win and go nowhere; lose and fall.  

Agreed. Small sample size but getting a Tie / Win on the road against a decent team and moving down this past weekend was not what you wanted to see. 

[The Sicatoka]

I'd claim there are a bunch of teams overperforming right now also.

Here's hoping everyone regresses to the mean.  

[tnt]

12 minutes ago, AJS said:

Agreed. Small sample size but getting a Tie / Win on the road against a decent team and moving down this past weekend was not what you wanted to see. 

Need all of the NCHC teams to do really well in the last non-conference series or two.  

CC has Princeton

DU has Lindenwood and Alaska Fairbanks

Miami has Niagara

Duluth has St. Thomas and Bemidji State

Omaha has St. Lawrence

St. Cloud has Minnesota

Western Michigan has Michigan Tech and TBD in GLI

and as everyone has expressed we have to beat Lindenwood.  

[Sweethockey]

1 hour ago, The Sicatoka said:

I'm going to make a bold speculative guess:

I'd bet Frisch/Kleven are out with McLaughlin and Blake more often than not and two defensemen can't cover for the defensive shortcomings of two freshmen forwards. 

DING DING^^^^^^^^^^Winner winner chicken dinner!!! Totally agree with this statement!

[siouxforce19]

2 hours ago, AJS said:

Agreed. Small sample size but getting a Tie / Win on the road against a decent team and moving down this past weekend was not what you wanted to see. 

Western Michigan is a decent team but they weren’t that much ahead of us in the PWR going into the weekend so I’m not sure how much we could have moved up even if we had swept. Just gotta keep banking some wins. 

[Sodbuster]

2 hours ago, The Sicatoka said:

I'm going to make a bold speculative guess:

I'd bet Frisch/Kleven are out with McLaughlin and Blake more often than not and two defensemen can't cover for the defensive shortcomings of two freshmen forwards. 

Like Gino always said, the freshman need to grow some whiskers as the season goes on.

[Oxbow6]

There isn't a line that is close to generating offensive like Blake McLaughlin and Gaber. Are they a shutdown line....nope but their minus ratings have a lot more to do with other factors then them defensively. 

[scpa0305]

7 hours ago, AJS said:

After the first half of the season, they are currently sitting at 23rd in the PWR and 7th in the NCHC standings. 7-8-4 (3-5-2) record, not great. Taking a page from @jk post, what needs to happen in the 2nd half. 

They are in a pretty bad spot, but the results @ Western might have saved the season. I believe that's how close they were to the ledge of the season being more or less over from a practical making the playoffs standpoint. 

Let's start with the Pairwise. Their RPI is currently .5242 (23rd). The 24th place team is .5083. They are RPI points wise as close to 17th as they are to 24th. The NCHC standings. They are only 3 points away from the 4th place team. They aren't in a great spot, clearly, but they are closer to the surface then we might think.

My ultimate reason for optimism, is this team has the talent. That has never been the issue. The pieces are there defensively / in net (DeRidder) to turn that very negative first half performance into a positive. We just saw a glimpse in Western. Where I might disagree with @jk is I think the 2nd half of the schedule is favorable. 5 Home vs 3 Road series. The road series @ Denver (tough as it gets), but then @ CC, @ Miami. Although favorable to really turn things around, they would have too more or less have to use the formula that would win the league (win home games, split on the road). 13-3. That would get them on the right side of the PWR and clearly home ice as well. I would think 12-4 would do it too, would 11-5? 

I do feel confident that they'll be able to get home ice. I also feel confident that they'll put themselves in position to make it at the very least interesting (in the mix) for an at large bid. 

But how good is Western…really? They’re like a sliver better than we are. It’s not like we did that against Denver or SCSU. Sorry negative Nelly. 

[burd]

32 minutes ago, Oxbow6 said:

There isn't a line that is close to generating offensive like Blake McLaughlin and Gaber. Are they a shutdown line....nope but their minus ratings have a lot more to do with other factors then them defensively. 

I certainly don't question your knowledge, Oxbow, but which other factors have a lot more of a role in their bad plus/minus ratings

[AJS]

24 minutes ago, scpa0305 said:

But how good is Western…really? They’re like a sliver better than we are. It’s not like we did that against Denver or SCSU. Sorry negative Nelly. 

I would say they are on par with a lot of other NCHC teams, not named Denver. I don't think SCSU is that much better either. Honestly, outside of Denver, I don't think the NCHC is that tough. This team talent wise is Top 2 in the NCHC. I do believe that.

[burd]

Just now, AJS said:

I would say they are on par with a lot of other NCHC teams, not named Denver. I don't think SCSU is that much better either. Honestly, outside of Denver, I don't think the NCHC is that tough. This team talent wise is Top 2 in the NCHC. I do believe that.

As far as conferences go, the (rightfully) hated B1G is probably the strongest, though it is sure nice to see Mich take its lumps.  

[SuhakiYeahYeah]

 

 

[Kevin G]

After looking through a bunch of the stats, there is much more going well for this team than I thought. Special teams, face-offs, and team scoring are solid. We have good balance; every line can contribute something offensively. Penalty-wise the team is pretty disciplined. 

Team defense and goaltending just have to get much better. IMO, reducing defensive zone turnovers needs to be priorities one, two, and three. Also, Karl needs to work his coaching magic with DeRidder and Hellsten. 

[Oxbow6]

1 hour ago, burd said:

I certainly don't question your knowledge, Oxbow, but which other factors have a lot more of a role in their bad plus/minus ratings

Amount of ice time played in 5x5 situations, outside of last series porous goaltending and defensive pairings and their lapses.

There was a stretch earlier this season when 15 and 25 were on the ice for 11 of 13 5x5 goals against. Most likely based on ice time those two Fr. were on the ice for a few of those.

Frisch was outstanding this past series and Kleven was good too but that has not been the case for most of this season so it is a little disingenuous to look at two Fr. as the defensive liabilities based on +/-.

McLaughlin is the best playmaker at center since Nick Schmaltz. Blake is well.......just special. 

[siouxkid12]

If we didn’t lose to Arizona state and we swept bemidji, we are 16th in the pairwise.

I said this before but that loss to Arizona state is going to hurt us later on I believe. I hope I’m wrong and someone comes back to this post at the end of the year and reminds me of it.

[Godsmack]

15 minutes ago, siouxkid12 said:

If we didn’t lose to Arizona state and we swept bemidji, we are 16th in the pairwise.

I said this before but that loss to Arizona state is going to hurt us later on I believe. I hope I’m wrong and someone comes back to this post at the end of the year and reminds me of it.

Yah, as much as I hate to, we need to be rooting for ASU the rest of the season. 

[hockeytherapy13]

1 hour ago, siouxkid12 said:

If we didn’t lose to Arizona state and we swept bemidji, we are 16th in the pairwise.

I said this before but that loss to Arizona state is going to hurt us later on I believe. I hope I’m wrong and someone comes back to this post at the end of the year and reminds me of it.

No loss is hurting us worse than our home loss to Miami 

[tnt]

4 hours ago, scpa0305 said:

But how good is Western…really? They’re like a sliver better than we are. It’s not like we did that against Denver or SCSU. Sorry negative Nelly. 

Who knows, but they always play pretty tough at home. Lost to Michigan by a goal in Ann Arbor outshooting them slightly, then lost in overtime the next night outshooting them 45-27 but gave up 4 power play goals.  I’m sure Michigan wanted to pummel them because the accusation they dodged them last year, but they held their own.

[1972]

12 hours ago, siouxkid12 said:

If we didn’t lose to Arizona state and we swept bemidji, we are 16th in the pairwise.

I said this before but that loss to Arizona state is going to hurt us later on I believe. I hope I’m wrong and someone comes back to this post at the end of the year and reminds me of it.

as soon as we lost to arizona, i turned to my wife and said "we are screwed".   i hope i am wrong,as well, but this is a huge uphill battle from here on out.   we shall see......

[siouxkid12]

11 hours ago, hockeytherapy13 said:

No loss is hurting us worse than our home loss to Miami 

I converted the loss to Miami to a W and it only brought us up to 17th. The NCHC is so deep and usually has everyone ranked pretty high that losing a conference game doesn't hurt our PWR rankings. Non-conference games are killers compared to conference games; we just can't lose them.

[The Sicatoka]

I made one change (split with DU): PWR 17

I made us 4 losses (Q, UMn, DUx2): PWR 8

I made us 3 losses (Q, UMn, DU): PWR 1

Getting swept by DU hurts more than we choose to admit. 

[siouxkid12]

11 minutes ago, The Sicatoka said:

I made one change (split with DU): PWR 17

I made us 4 losses (Q, UMn, DUx2): PWR 8

I made us 3 losses (Q, UMn, DU): PWR 1

Getting swept by DU hurts more than we choose to admit. 

I guess I was wrong on the conference game's part.