2023 Early Departures & Portal Transfers

[Green Banner]

1 hour ago, MoSiouxFan said:

Not that crazy about all the major penalties and game misconducts, though.

Well with Kleven gone, we needed someone to fill that void

[Big A HG]

5 minutes ago, jdub27 said:

This made me chuckle a little bit. Won't argue that a passionate fan base is (mostly) a positive for a program but if you think that that program will go stale if people don't complain on a message board and social media, well, I just disagree.

I can assure you the people in, behind and running the program live and die more with the wins and losses than pretty much everyone else. 

 

I had an earlier edit before you quoted me that clarified I was not berating the program.  Not sure why you didn't include it.  The program encompasses more than just one person, and as a whole, I don't think UND is failing to live up to expectations.  I just think the head coach is.  I'm not sitting here saying that Brad Berry doesn't want to win.  They all want to win.  Not sure what you mean by people living and dying more with the wins and losses that everyone else.  No one has died, figuratively or literally, in the Brad Berry era except Matt Shaw (which was a good departure).  Coaches get hired and fired all the time.  Dane preceded Berry and I think Karl fits his role well, but our head coach has been caught flat-footed during the new era of transfer portal and NIL and has failed to have a steady pipeline of good recruits coming in.  That's why we're in this predicament.

[brianvf]

Today's portal entrants:
Michigan F Eric Ciccolini (NYR)
Michigan F Nick Granowicz
Michigan D Keaton Pehrson
BU F Brian Carrabes

Michigan loses three to the portal, including a drafted forward.

[SiouxForever]

1 hour ago, Big A HG said:

Quinnipiac had something like three total transfers.  One was a sophomore this year and he was the only player in the top 11 in scoring that was a transfer portal kid.  They also had one fourth year senior and your LSSU guy was a third line defensemen.  Nordqvist, the kid from LSSU, was arguably LSSU's best defenseman, LSSU being a better program than Lindenwood, and was only a third line defenseman for Quinnipiac.

I'm not saying you can't have transfer portal kids, totally wrong.  You need to use the portal to your advantage, but it should be a means of the rich getting richer instead of band-aiding a roster where 3/4 of the team up and left or graduated.

Don't forget this guy- https://www.collegehockeynews.com/players/career/Ty-Smilanic/56765 was forced off/or something happened to transfer out of Quinnipiac and went and played @ Wisconsin this year...

2020, Round 3 (No. 74 overall) by FLA

[The Sicatoka]

12 minutes ago, brianvf said:

Today's portal entrants:
Michigan F Eric Ciccolini (NYR)
...
Michigan loses three to the portal, including a drafted forward.

[scpa0305]

23 minutes ago, brianvf said:

Today's portal entrants:
Michigan F Eric Ciccolini (NYR)
Michigan F Nick Granowicz
Michigan D Keaton Pehrson
BU F Brian Carrabes

Michigan loses three to the portal, including a drafted forward.

That’s because they’re basically done unless they want to be 4th line or in and out of the lineup. Mich is reloading next year.

edit- actually michigans 23-24 incoming class is fairly light by their standards.

[siouxweet]

11 minutes ago, scpa0305 said:

That’s because they’re basically done unless they want to be 4th line or in and out of the lineup. Mich is reloading next year.

Michigan reloads and UND goes shopping in the clearance isle at Family Dollar.  Sounds about right where the programs are.

[Irish]

1 hour ago, jdub27 said:

This made me chuckle a little bit. Won't argue that a passionate fan base is (mostly) a positive for a program but if you think that that program will go stale if people don't complain on a message board and social media, well, I just disagree.

I can assure you the people in, behind and running the program live and die more with the wins and losses than pretty much everyone else. 

Do they also understand that recruiting has gone off the rails - and are they taking steps to fix this?  This type of roster management is not seen in any other top program - and if it continues we will not be among the top programs.  Schloss is good at getting early scoops on signees - I wish he would ask a few hard questions about our recruiting.  I don't know what is going on behind the scenes but I can't understand why we can't sell our program to top talent.  

[siouxfaninseattle]

• This is not a good pick up, not a bad pick up, it's a desperation pick up.

[The Sicatoka]

Johannes was the second highest available scorer at his announcement. And he's big and his PIMs say mean. Again, he's a one-year backfill rental.

Judd's rights being traded (PIT -> ANA) and then signed after he said he's returning probably caught them off guard. This is amazingly good under that scenario. 

[Big A HG]

Just now, siouxfaninseattle said:

• This is not a good pick up, not a bad pick up, it's a desperation pick up.

 

UND is like the hot girl everyone's talked about for 15 years, played hard to get despite having her pick of town, only for everyone to find out she's super crazy and so they all moved on to bigger and better things.  Now she put in 50 pounds, uses her Instagram filter for all her Facebook posts trying to relive the glory days of being hot, and married the town's leftover bachelor...but hey, it was the best she could get so it was a great match!

[scpa0305]

10 minutes ago, Irish said:

Do they also understand that recruiting has gone off the rails - and are they taking steps to fix this?  This type of roster management is not seen in any other top program - and if it continues we will not be among the top programs.  Schloss is good at getting early scoops on signees - I wish he would ask a few hard questions about our recruiting.  I don't know what is going on behind the scenes but I can't understand why we can't sell our program to top talent.  

Bubs is an awesome guy. The portal is new…I think everyone got a bit greedy last year when they hit the portal so hard. I’ve criticized the roster (mis) mgmt plenty but in no way do I want a new coach. I honestly believe the coaching staff thought they would make a run last year. Tons of players had off years, underclassmen got buried (which I still question), and the dzone/goaltending was just plain odd. But Bubs shouldn’t go anywhere…he needs to get back to our roots and start recruiting hard and developing hockey players. The free agency approach does not work. Build from within. I think he starts that now moving forward. Last years approach clearly backfired and it will most likely cost us next year too.

[Walsh Hall]

Just now, Big A HG said:

 

UND is like the hot girl everyone's talked about for 15 years, played hard to get despite having her pick of town, only for everyone to find out she's super crazy and so they all moved on to bigger and better things.  Now she put in 50 pounds, uses her Instagram filter for all her Facebook posts trying to relive the glory days of being hot, and married the town's leftover bachelor...but hey, it was the best she could get so it was a great match!

Again, how many teams will be better over the next 20 years?  Based on the doom and gloom I assume UND will be lucky to be in the top half?

[brianvf]

3 minutes ago, Walsh Hall said:

Again, how many teams will be better over the next 20 years?  Based on the doom and gloom I assume UND will be lucky to be in the top half?

Top half?
That would be optimistic from reading some of the posts on here.   

[fightingsioux4life]

2 hours ago, Big A HG said:

When we're excited about this acquisition as fans of the University of North Dakota hockey program, that tells you all you need to know about the state of our program right now.

I agree with you and share your concerns about the program. But you can find good players in the portal. Some of whom may have slipped through the cracks when they were being recruited the first time.

[Big A HG]

1 minute ago, Walsh Hall said:

Again, how many teams will be better over the next 20 years?  Based on the doom and gloom I assume UND will be lucky to be in the top half?

 

20 years is such an arbitrary number and is completely pointless.  I can't even process your question because there is nothing remotely thought-provoking about it.  UND could have three new coaches and a new conference by then for all we know.  Elite college programs are about "what have you done for me lately" and "what does our near-term future look like". That's it.  Kids coming in now are only there for four years max (five with a redshirt), so you're asking about the state of a program over the course five complete roster turnovers.

 

Brad's playoff success is no longer recent and based on how he's handled roster turnover, he hasn't managed his team well.  Throw in other things like lack of identity in our playing style lately, poor recruiting by UND standards, kids leaving, culture problems in the locker room this year, and the whole Nodak trademark fiasco that conveniently was swept under the rug, and there's a lot of issues with the program.  Fans are turning out less and less since conference titles are not exciting when everyone else starts ramping their playing level up in late winter and spring.

[1966guy]

16 minutes ago, The Sicatoka said:

Johannes was the second highest available scorer at his announcement. And he's big and his PIMs say mean. Again, he's a one-year backfill rental.

Judd's rights being traded (PIT -> ANA) and then signed after he said he's returning probably caught them off guard. This is amazingly good under that scenario. 

Don't let your sensible facts get in the way of the negative narrative taking place in this forum.  Don't let the sky that's falling hit you in the head either.

[Big A HG]

4 minutes ago, fightingsioux4life said:

I agree with you and share your concerns about the program. But you can find good players in the portal. Some of whom may have slipped through the cracks when they were being recruited the first time.

 

I know 56 pages is a lot to go through, so not going to fault you for not seeing me reference that before, but I am on the side of picking up the kids in the portal.  What I'm not on the side of is using it as an act of desperation to fill out a roster when we're NORTH DAKOTA.  We should have our own pipeline of talented recruits and use the portal to fill an unexpected gap or to pick up a kid who was a diamond in the rough who wants to play for a winner.  A kid who did nothing in the USHL, very little after in the NAHL after getting demoted there, nothing at AIC, and then has one decent season at Lindenwood, is not the type of player we should be acquiring.  In this case, we have to do it out of necessity, but that necessity is why this whole thing is a problem.  We shouldn't be in a position to have to make this Lindenwood kid a necessity.

[Kevin G]

Where are the d-men needed to fill out the roster?

Patience, patience.

[AJS]

Does anyone else find it frustrating that there are only TWO freshman forwards they feel are ready to come in? Why is that an issue? Because it looks like they are going to add 3 from the portal. Also sounds like they will end up going 4 Freshman / 4 Portal on defense. 1 Freshman / 1 Portal in Goal. I really like the pipeline they have, but clearly they don't have enough. The University spends more money on their program than any other school in the country. They should not have to rely on the portal like this. Here's to hoping this off-season is just one giant reset from last year's disaster.

[Big A HG]

Just now, Kevin G said:

Where are the d-men needed to fill out the roster?

Patience, patience.

 

Waiting for the top scoring defenseman from UW-Stout to hit the portal....if he's top scoring at a s*** school, the sensible facts are that he's still amazing!

[UND1981]

21 minutes ago, The Sicatoka said:

Johannes was the second highest available scorer at his announcement. And he's big and his PIMs say mean. Again, he's a one-year backfill rental.

Judd's rights being traded (PIT -> ANA) and then signed after he said he's returning probably caught them off guard. This is amazingly good under that scenario. 

I thought this kid was much stronger on his skates than Juddy.  He's a great pick up.

 

[Kevin G]

3 minutes ago, Big A HG said:

We should have our own pipeline of talented recruits and use the portal to fill an unexpected gap or to pick up a kid who was a diamond in the rough who wants to play for a winner. 

I think the vast majority of us agree with this assessment. I imagine Coach Berry agrees too. The question is, Why are we in the place of needing the portal so badly?

[The Sicatoka]

4 minutes ago, Big A HG said:

A kid who did nothing in the USHL, very little after in the NAHL after getting demoted there, nothing at AIC, and then has one decent season at Lindenwood, is not the type of player we should be acquiring. 

Sure am glad you didn't get a vote on recruiting Tucker Poolman <- the late-bloomer's late bloomer. 

[The Sicatoka]

3 minutes ago, Kevin G said:

Where are the d-men needed to fill out the roster?

Patience, patience.

That should be the conversation, not Johannes the rental to replace Judd.

So do it along with me ... because I have to the longer we don't hear about D ... 

In through the nose, out through the mouth, breathe in, exhale, serenity now, serenity now, ... in, exhale out, ...