2024-25 University of North Dakota Hockey Season

[.357]

1 hour ago, fightingsioux4life said:

It's high time UND focuses on hanging #9 and not focus too much on the Penrose. 

It sure seems like the coaching staff focuses an inordinate amount of energy on winning the Penrose. Looking at the players hootin' & hollerin' last year after they clinched the Penrose, only to have a major drop in their performance thereafter. Amost like they peaked too soon & didn't have enough left in the tank. Part of being a successful coach is having enough insight to change course when the old philosophy isn't getting you the desired result: a championship, or at the very least a deep run into the playoffs most years. The team has more than enough talent most years to inflict its share of postseason damage, they just seem to fizzle out mentally late in the season. 

All this based on an outsider's perspective who has no idea what is emphasized or talked about behind closed doors between the coach & his players. Am basing my opinion on what I hear Berry say to the media, the players' response to winning the Penrose & their subsequent play in the postseason. 

[hockeytherapy13]

12 hours ago, cberkas said:

After seeing the preseason poll and rosters 

1. North Dakota - They seem to win Penrose Cups. But they do what they do best and lose the first game in Fargo and the fans get the pitchforks (barrowed from ASU) and torches if that happens again.
2. Denver - Bring back 18 players but they are more focused on 11 and lose the Penrose Cup
3. Western Michigan - A team that is always plays tough and they get their first NCAA win this year
4. CC - They finally end the 68-year drought beat Denver for their 3rd National Title
5. Arizona State - They surprise people and make the Frozen Face Off and make the NCAA tournament. 
6. St. Cloud - I think they make the NCAA over Omaha as a 4 seed.
7. Omaha - Not high on Omaha and they might be the first team out of the NCAA's
8. Duluth - Young team and someone has to finish last in the "pod of death"
9. Miami - Still going to be here, in two years should move up. They get 4 conference wins 

I could see 6 teams making the NCAAs with goaltending being a strength of the teams. 4 through 7 could be a toss-up on where they finish, just like I could see UND being the worst team in the "pod of death" and miss the NCAAs. 

We may have a pretty good idea of whether or not our guys will make the NCAAs after the first month. We have an absolute battery of a non-conference slate which could make or break our pairwise. BU obviously is a top-4 team, Cornell might be top 7-10 and providence top 10-15. Mankato will be no slouch either since they are older and heavy.
Bubs set us up with a beast a few years ago when putting this together haha. With the NCHC being deeper than ever, we need to make hay non-conference.

However, if we come out of those first 4 weeks cleanly above .500 that will be a solid start and a crazy way to acclimate freshmen to what the big boys looks like. 

[AJS]

I’ll say this after and before every season. IMO, the key is for the coaching staff to project what lineup will have the highest ceiling in March and play that in October. They have not done that in the past. Favoring low ceiling experience over high ceiling youth. 
 

Edit: I really want to emphasize LOW ceiling experience. 

[Oldguy]

1 hour ago, AJS said:

I’ll say this after and before every season. IMO, the key is for the coaching staff to project what lineup will have the highest ceiling in March and play that in October. They have not done that in the past. Favoring low ceiling experience over high ceiling youth. 
 

Edit: I really want to emphasize LOW ceiling experience. 

The difficult part of deciding the roster early in the year is that the season can be over before it gets going if young guys cost you games.  So little wiggle room with the schedules that UND plays.

[Kevin G]

19 hours ago, brianvf said:

The 12 Iron Man tests are the isometric belt jump, squat jump, on-ice 6-meter acceleration, on-ice 35-meter acceleration, on-ice acceleration between 10 and 20 meters, on-ice 4x4 conditioning test, broad jump, single leg lateral jump, pull-ups, maximum velocity bench press, VO2 max on Wattbike and the mile run.

I’d bet all the pennies in my penny jar on who won the jumping tests. 

[.357]

3 hours ago, AJS said:

I’ll say this after and before every season. IMO, the key is for the coaching staff to project what lineup will have the highest ceiling in March and play that in October. They have not done that in the past. Favoring low ceiling experience over high ceiling youth. 
 

Edit: I really want to emphasize LOW ceiling experience. 

Whatever the issue is, be it lineups, coaching philosophy, leadership, training, etc., something ain't working when the playoffs roll around. What has been successful in October has been not so successful in March; it's beyond anything flukey or bad luck-ish & has become a predictable pattern. Hopefully the coaching staff took a long, hard look in the mirror this off-season & made some changes with how they manage the team; instead of trying to pound the same square peg into a round hole & hoping it'll somehow fit this time. But old habits in old men die hard, so we'll see. I don't claim to know the core issue(s) causing UND to nosedive every spring, but something needs to change.

 

Even though MI lost against BC 0-4 in the FF last year, they played hard & fast every shift; giving it their all until the final whistle, even though the game was all but over halfway through the 3rd period. I really admired that tenacity. Contrasted to how UND played 2 weeks earlier in the regional, in which they basically got pushed around & lost all intensity for 10-12 minutes in the 3rd period. That kind of disappearing act simply cannot happen in the playoffs. It's incumbent on the coaches to examine why that prolonged lapse happened so it won't be repeated in the future. 

[hockeytherapy13]

8 hours ago, AJS said:

I’ll say this after and before every season. IMO, the key is for the coaching staff to project what lineup will have the highest ceiling in March and play that in October. They have not done that in the past. Favoring low ceiling experience over high ceiling youth. 
 

Edit: I really want to emphasize LOW ceiling experience. 

And by this you mean: if we see Schmaltz in a top 6 role and frequent power play minutes we are in trouble… cuz he he could be awesome as a 4th line center to give this teams lot of depth; let’s not try to turn him into something he’s not 

[LuvHockey]

20 days till the drop

[Irish]

In my opinion we had talent equal to Denver last year - in addition to peaking too early and losing intensity once again I think that the Goalie stability of Denver for the last few years has been the difference.  While we need a portal goalie almost every year Denver has recruited talent and developed them.  No question in my mind that a hot goalie was the difference for Denver - especially in the tourney where they faced several teams with a lot of firepower.  The final game was the cap in their season and the goalie was lights out.  

 

[fightingsioux4life]

1 hour ago, Irish said:

In my opinion we had talent equal to Denver last year - in addition to peaking too early and losing intensity once again I think that the Goalie stability of Denver for the last few years has been the difference.  While we need a portal goalie almost every year Denver has recruited talent and developed them.  No question in my mind that a hot goalie was the difference for Denver - especially in the tourney where they faced several teams with a lot of firepower.  The final game was the cap in their season and the goalie was lights out.  

Whatever the causes, our program must figure it out. Some people on here have convinced themselves that winning the last game of the season in April simply doesn't matter. I respectfully disagree; it does matter. And we need to figure out what is causing these late season burnouts.

[burd]

17 minutes ago, fightingsioux4life said:

Whatever the causes, our program must figure it out. Some people on here have convinced themselves that winning the last game of the season in April simply doesn't matter. I respectfully disagree; it does matter. And we need to figure out what is causing these late season burnouts.

Interesting.  Who said it doesn’t matter?

[brianvf]

4 hours ago, Irish said:

In my opinion we had talent equal to Denver last year - in addition to peaking too early and losing intensity once again I think that the Goalie stability of Denver for the last few years has been the difference.  While we need a portal goalie almost every year Denver has recruited talent and developed them.  No question in my mind that a hot goalie was the difference for Denver - especially in the tourney where they faced several teams with a lot of firepower.  The final game was the cap in their season and the goalie was lights out.  

The crazy thing was how crappy Davis was for a good chunk of the early season. He was definitely the weak link on that team for most of the season. But, he certainly pulled it out when it mattered most for his team. 

[.357]

1 hour ago, brianvf said:

The crazy thing was how crappy Davis was for a good chunk of the early season. He was definitely the weak link on that team for most of the season. But, he certainly pulled it out when it mattered most for his team. 

He basically went from being average, at best, the entire season to making Patrick Roy look like an amateur during the playoffs. I can't remember a college goalie who was that lights-out over the course of 4 games. So in-the-zone he was. The moral of the story being, you can have a team chalked full of NHL-caliber players like BC had, but if you have a goalie who sold his soul for 30 pieces of silver, it doesn't really matter. If you put last December's version of Davis in net in April, DU doesn't win it all. Something clicked for him mentally at the right time where he had a razor-sharp focus & everything seemed to slow down for him, just in time for the playoffs. 

That coupled with his team playing solid hockey & hitting their stride when it mattered most earned them #10. 

[Benny Baker]

Davis only played 5 games the first half of the season and was 3-1-1.  He did not play at all in November or December.

Perhaps his back up, Halyk, wasn’t the greatest during that stretch Davis was out though?

[siouxforce19]

15 hours ago, Benny Baker said:

Davis only played 5 games the first half of the season and was 3-1-1.  He did not play at all in November or December.

Perhaps his back up, Halyk, wasn’t the greatest during that stretch Davis was out though?

Davis wasn’t good to start the season but Denver was scoring a lot so it didn’t really affect their win/loss record. Denver’s team save percentage was sub .900 for quite a while. Backup wasn’t good either. 

[stoneySIOUX]

22 hours ago, fightingsioux4life said:

Some people on here have convinced themselves that winning the last game of the season in April simply doesn't matter.

 

21 hours ago, burd said:

Interesting.  Who said it doesn’t matter?

No one has ever said this on here.

[Blackheart]

Don't mean to break up the DU lovefest here...tickets vs the Purple Cows of Mankato went on sale today and our group will be attending Saturday, October 19.  Hope to see a lot of green there!

[Benny Baker]

12 hours ago, siouxforce19 said:

Davis wasn’t good to start the season but Denver was scoring a lot so it didn’t really affect their win/loss record. Denver’s team save percentage was sub .900 for quite a while. Backup wasn’t good either. 

Hey man, whatever floats your boat. 

I was more confused by the earlier comments that Davis was “crappy” “for a good chunk of the early season” and, particularly, .357’s comment about “last December’s version of Davis” when Davis only played 5 of Denver’s first 17 games (losing just 1) and never played in December, at all. 

[PHE]

10 hours ago, Blackheart said:

Don't mean to break up the DU lovefest here...tickets vs the Purple Cows of Mankato went on sale today and our group will be attending Saturday, October 19.  Hope to see a lot of green there!

Blackheart...thanks for the heads up. Got tickets for Saturday night. Go Sioux!

[cberkas]

32 minutes ago, Benny Baker said:

Hey man, whatever floats your boat. 

I was more confused by the earlier comments that Davis was “crappy” “for a good chunk of the early season” and, particularly, .357’s comment about “last December’s version of Davis” when Davis only played 5 of Denver’s first 17 games (losing just 1) and never played in December, at all. 

Because Davis got hurt that season Denver had to bring in their backup for this year in last year.

[Benny Baker]

25 minutes ago, cberkas said:

Because Davis got hurt that season Denver had to bring in their backup for this year in last year.

Right. I think that was the point someone was trying to make earlier; folks are confusing Davis with Halyk. 

On 9/15/2024 at 5:29 PM, Benny Baker said:

Davis only played 5 games the first half of the season and was 3-1-1.  He did not play at all in November or December.

Perhaps his back up, Halyk, wasn’t the greatest during that stretch Davis was out though?

 

[cberkas]

10 minutes ago, Benny Baker said:

Right. I think that was the point someone was trying to make earlier; folks are confusing Davis with Halyk. 

 

Halyk wasn't that bad, just became the starter too early.

[.357]

2 hours ago, Benny Baker said:

Hey man, whatever floats your boat. 

I was more confused by the earlier comments that Davis was “crappy” “for a good chunk of the early season” and, particularly, .357’s comment about “last December’s version of Davis” when Davis only played 5 of Denver’s first 17 games (losing just 1) and never played in December, at all. 

Uff da, I stand corrected on saying December, but the gist of my post was that Davis was on a completely different level during the playoffs, compared to the reg. season where even though he was very good, he was still beatable & hadn't sold his soul at that point. Per the denverpioneers website, Davis was ... "Recognized as both the NCAA Frozen Four and Northeast Regional Most Outstanding Player after finishing the four-game national tournament with a 0.63 goals-against average, .979 save percentage." 

 

 

[Benny Baker]

1 hour ago, cberkas said:

Halyk wasn't that bad, just became the starter too early.

Sure. I won’t disagree, and if Halyk “wasn’t that bad”, then we necessarily agree that Davis wasn’t that “crappy” either. 

[Benny Baker]

12 minutes ago, .357 said:

Uff da, I stand corrected on saying December, but the gist of my post was that Davis was on a completely different level during the playoffs, compared to the reg. season where even though he was very good, he was still beatable & hadn't sold his soul at that point. Per the denverpioneers website, Davis was ... "Recognized as both the NCAA Frozen Four and Northeast Regional Most Outstanding Player after finishing the four-game national tournament with a 0.63 goals-against average, .979 save percentage." 

 

 

Yup, I agree he was a very good goalie last year but on a completely different level during the playoffs.  That’s how you win championships. 

5 losses in 31 starts isn’t that bad for a starting goalie.