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2024-25 University of North Dakota Hockey Season


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9 hours ago, .357 said:

That's what I was wondering, if there is a tendency sometimes (unconsciously) for a team to sit back & let the star players carry the team offensively. Perhaps the team will put in extra effort up & down the lineup next year to get more balanced scoring now that Blake is gone.

I think there's truth to that.   In any group effort, including workplace, it's called ownership.  They have a bigger stake in the outcome.  

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13 F currently. Good / Bad news.

Good: 1 can / should be a Ness/Albrecht replacement. 14/15F with Montgomery.

Bad: Are Littler / Klee ready? If not, is there anyone in the portal worth getting? Lucius definitely, but he's been tied to ASU. The portal is really weak this year! I would rather bring in Littler / Klee early as 13F than some mediocre Portal guy. 

*Montgomery is currently the only depth F. I don't want to see any of the FR (Croal, Littler, Klee) start out essentially as the 14F. If you hope for them to be contributors eventually, which I think we can all agree those three can be, then they can't start out buried. Not in 2024. We know how that'll play out. 

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My optimistic look at next year's F group is there are absolutely areas where they can improve over last year. Ultimately, last year's team had really bad depth scoring. Before some get overly excited, I'm not saying these players don't have positive attributes, what I am saying is they have little offensive ability. For arguments sake, let's consider Emerson a "miss". From my point of view, here's the list of the players who have little offensive ability.

  • Schmaltz
  • Emerson
  • Ness
  • Albrecht
  • Montgomery

That list ideally, should be 2 or 3 deep (3rd being a FR that needs time to adjust). Schmaltz being on the PP / 3rd line compounded the issue. 1/3 of last year's roster essentially couldn't score. 

IF, Berry goes down the middle like this, they are in a considerably better spot than last year. 

1C - Berg

2C - Wilkie

3C - Jamernik

4C - Schmaltz

 

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3 hours ago, AJS said:

13 F currently. Good / Bad news.

Good: 1 can / should be a Ness/Albrecht replacement. 14/15F with Montgomery.

Bad: Are Littler / Klee ready? If not, is there anyone in the portal worth getting? Lucius definitely, but he's been tied to ASU. The portal is really weak this year! I would rather bring in Littler / Klee early as 13F than some mediocre Portal guy. 

*Montgomery is currently the only depth F. I don't want to see any of the FR (Croal, Littler, Klee) start out essentially as the 14F. If you hope for them to be contributors eventually, which I think we can all agree those three can be, then they can't start out buried. Not in 2024. We know how that'll play out. 

I don’t know the Lucius’ personally but from what I’ve read and heard over the years, they might not be “Fighting Sioux “ material…   Obviously very talented though. No argument there . 

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2 hours ago, AJS said:

My optimistic look at next year's F group is there are absolutely areas where they can improve over last year. Ultimately, last year's team had really bad depth scoring. Before some get overly excited, I'm not saying these players don't have positive attributes, what I am saying is they have little offensive ability. For arguments sake, let's consider Emerson a "miss". From my point of view, here's the list of the players who have little offensive ability.

  • Schmaltz
  • Emerson
  • Ness
  • Albrecht
  • Montgomery

That list ideally, should be 2 or 3 deep (3rd being a FR that needs time to adjust). Schmaltz being on the PP / 3rd line compounded the issue. 1/3 of last year's roster essentially couldn't score. 

IF, Berry goes down the middle like this, they are in a considerably better spot than last year. 

1C - Berg

2C - Wilkie

3C - Jamernik

4C - Schmaltz

 

I would have Boisvert as third line center  , with Jamernik and Strinden 

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3 hours ago, AJS said:

13 F currently. Good / Bad news.

Good: 1 can / should be a Ness/Albrecht replacement. 14/15F with Montgomery.

Bad: Are Littler / Klee ready? If not, is there anyone in the portal worth getting? Lucius definitely, but he's been tied to ASU. The portal is really weak this year! I would rather bring in Littler / Klee early as 13F than some mediocre Portal guy. 

*Montgomery is currently the only depth F. I don't want to see any of the FR (Croal, Littler, Klee) start out essentially as the 14F. If you hope for them to be contributors eventually, which I think we can all agree those three can be, then they can't start out buried. Not in 2024. We know how that'll play out. 

Agreed on the Littler/Klee situation...if you bring in both and those two + Croal end up sitting most nights, we're gonna see some portal entrants from that group this time next year.  Which you hate to see from those players that might just need some extra time to get up to the NCAA speed level but could then turn into good college players.

Props to the guys like Montgomery, Komzak, etc that stick with the team and earn playing time.

Portal entrants are pretty few and far between now, that really slowed down.  Not sure how many players we'll see enter the portal from the F4 teams once this weekend is over, but prob some.  If we're gonna grab one more portal forward and then bring in just one of Klee/Littler, I could see Whitelaw or Copponi or Israels being a nice option.

Really surprised that no one has picked up Dman Lovell from ASU yet.  He's small, but 37pts is legit for a dman.

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5 hours ago, AJS said:

My optimistic look at next year's F group is there are absolutely areas where they can improve over last year. Ultimately, last year's team had really bad depth scoring. Before some get overly excited, I'm not saying these players don't have positive attributes, what I am saying is they have little offensive ability. For arguments sake, let's consider Emerson a "miss". From my point of view, here's the list of the players who have little offensive ability.

  • Schmaltz
  • Emerson
  • Ness
  • Albrecht
  • Montgomery

That list ideally, should be 2 or 3 deep (3rd being a FR that needs time to adjust). Schmaltz being on the PP / 3rd line compounded the issue. 1/3 of last year's roster essentially couldn't score. 

IF, Berry goes down the middle like this, they are in a considerably better spot than last year. 

1C - Berg

2C - Wilkie

3C - Jamernik

4C - Schmaltz

 

Guessing Boisvert will get some reps at center too. Interested to see how he’ll be in the faceoff dot

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Looking at some numbers:

23/24 -- 151 goals, 243 assists -- 394 points

11 players departing for graduation, pros, or portal:

- 67 goals, 103 assists -- 170 points

3 players incoming from portal (this year's numbers):

+ 20 goals, 35 assists -- 55 points

7-8 incoming freshmen -- numbers TBD, but expecting some to have substantial opportunities to contribute
Judging portal pickup stats can be a crapshoot, but looking at this year's UND portal players...all except two had better stats this year compared to the previous year (Zmolek +1, Britt +2, Johannes -10, Pyke +6, Berg +13, Pehrson -3)...net improvement of +9 points compared to their old teams.

= 104 goals (69%), 175 assists (72%) -- 279 points (71%) returning & incoming portal players

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5 hours ago, Sioux>Bison said:

If Bubba isn’t on the hot seat then Berry will never be no matter how many tourney games he loses!

Duluth football:

3 seasons before Bubba: 28-7

4 following seasons with Bubba: 22-21

3 seasons following Bubba: 41-2

 

Hindsight is 20/20, sure. But still can’t believe we hired that doofus over DeBoer to begin with, let alone the fact we extended him after last season.  

I agree with you.  With this athletic department, Berry ain’t going nowhere.

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Food for thought using the Frozen Four teams this year.

 

David Carle (DU), 34 years old - 3 Frozen Fours in 4 seasons.

Brandon Naurato (Mich), 39 years old - 2 Frozen Fours in 2 seasons.

Jay Pandolfo (BU), 49 years old - 2 Frozen Fours in 2 seasons.

Greg Brown (BC), 56 years old - 1 Frozen Four in 2 seasons.

Brad Berry (UND), 59 years old - 1 Frozen Four in 8 seasons.

**2020 season omitted in statistics since tournament was cancelled

 

The younger hires of David Carle and Brandon Naurato have both shown to be successful hires so far.  Pandolfo is younger now than Berry was when he was hired.  Greg is of similar age to Brad, but has shown he is able to provide elite recruiting.  There's no agenda to push here, just some interesting tidbits to note.  Maybe having a younger head coach wouldn't be such a bad thing.  Maybe just having a fresh face can spark new life into the program.  Maybe none of it matters and you just need a good coach.  But, combined, the four of those coaches have 8 Frozen Four appearances in their 10 collective seasons while UND hasn't been to one in 8 years.  Not only that, we've only won one NCAA tournament game since then.

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14 minutes ago, MafiaMan said:

I can’t respect pineapple on pizza, sorry.  

My wife likes pineapple on her pizza, so, I've had to pick pineapple off my pizzas for 28 years. :) 

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2 minutes ago, cowboys5xsbs said:

Can't you just go half and half :lol:

Most of the time we do, but if I eat my half before she is done, I will go that route. :) 

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19 hours ago, Big A HG said:

Food for thought using the Frozen Four teams this year.

 

David Carle (DU), 34 years old - 3 Frozen Fours in 4 seasons.

Brandon Naurato (Mich), 39 years old - 2 Frozen Fours in 2 seasons.

Jay Pandolfo (BU), 49 years old - 2 Frozen Fours in 2 seasons.

Greg Brown (BC), 56 years old - 1 Frozen Four in 2 seasons.

Brad Berry (UND), 59 years old - 1 Frozen Four in 8 seasons.

**2020 season omitted in statistics since tournament was cancelled

 

The younger hires of David Carle and Brandon Naurato have both shown to be successful hires so far.  Pandolfo is younger now than Berry was when he was hired.  Greg is of similar age to Brad, but has shown he is able to provide elite recruiting.  There's no agenda to push here, just some interesting tidbits to note.  Maybe having a younger head coach wouldn't be such a bad thing.  Maybe just having a fresh face can spark new life into the program.  Maybe none of it matters and you just need a good coach.  But, combined, the four of those coaches have 8 Frozen Four appearances in their 10 collective seasons while UND hasn't been to one in 8 years.  Not only that, we've only won one NCAA tournament game since then.

Pffft.  How many Penrose Cups have those other coaches won though? 

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On 4/11/2024 at 11:44 AM, dustnyou said:

I don’t know the Lucius’ personally but from what I’ve read and heard over the years, they might not be “Fighting Sioux “ material…   Obviously very talented though. No argument there . 

What have you heard?

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5 minutes ago, Wilbur said:

I can't see Lucius in GF.  I mean his parents built him his own school. 

Or are we the new landing spot for spoiled rich kids who committed when they were 11?  

I'm honestly surprised that they weren't steered to UND by their dad based on the images he wants associated with him:

www.chucklucius.com

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