NCHC Semifinals-Here come the Dawgs

[Und Princess]

Good Evening! North Dakota Fans! Happy Monday! How are you doing? I released a piece about the UND-UMD Semifinal game! It's in the link below!

https://ftstspotlight.blogspot.com/2026/03/sticks-mitts-and-match-points-hockey.html?m=1

Have a spectacular night!

Und Princess 

[Brett0909]

My honest hope is KV (and others) were playing at limited capacity with the bug going around because he was a borderline liability out there too often - and UMD knew how to expose him and were relentless at doing so. It was really noticeable even before Jake started calling it out, and he isn’t one to key in on a player without cause.

That can be true while still acknowledging he’s an incredibly talented player and it was an uncharacteristic performance while he’s earned his top-4 role. 

I’m nowhere near saying he needs to be benched (he’ll be playing), and clearly the whole team was off but it'll be interesting to see what adjustments Jax makes overall - will he manage underclassman’s minutes / pairings differently now that games will be tighter and less room for high risk/high reward play? Will he trust the guys and give them some reins? He’s put them in positions to succeed all year and prepare them for this, which I love - and I hope he’ll live or die by that, while getting them to play their best.

Tough choices, especially with other teams looking to exploit any weaknesses with UMDs whomping for game tape prep. BUT who knows -maybe it was all just a rope-a-dope to rest up and throw off future game prep (no really, go after Liv and KV all game, that’s the winning strategy)…😜

[runaroundsioux]

All this angst about the defense... We. Scored. ONE. Goal...Duluth scores 2, they still win. 

[tnt]

On 3/15/2026 at 11:24 AM, Stack said:

Every time we play Duluth late in the season, they take out one of our guys. Goes back to when older brother Pionk took out Tucker Poolman right before regionals. They are a dirty team. The refs went " Old time hip check" and then when they show the replay the young Pionk just hit Ollie's knee and nothing else. 

This game was a good learning lesson and now they need to win 4 in a row to win it all. It's doable if they play like they did against Western. Still Number 2 in the NPI and no one will move ahead of us. We'll be in Sioux Falls for the regionals. We will most likely get a Hockey East team (U Mass or Connecticut) in the first round or Mankato if they end up beating St Thomas. 

It was actually Brenden Kotyk that took out Poolman.  Pionk tried to do the same to Cam Johnson.