UNO 2015-16 Season Thread: Frozen Four, New Barn, What Next?

[Red Cows]

Re: UNO 2015-16 Season Thread: Frozen Four, New Barn, What Next?

If any "one" wants to got to the game tonight or tomorrow night, that's exactly how many tickets Ticketmaster says remains for each game.

One.

[gomavs#1]

Re: UNO 2015-16 Season Thread: Frozen Four, New Barn, What Next?

You got that right!!!!!!! Any who every Sioux fan there is is waiting for the Jan. 15-16 series against UNO! Good luck, hopefully there isn't a blowout either nights just good old fashioned grind hockey games!

Don't hold your breath. Next weekend could be a snoozer, especially if this weekend was any indication. If our starting goalie doesn't play, I'd guess UND will put at least 4 goals in net each night.

[gomavs#1]

Re: UNO 2015-16 Season Thread: Frozen Four, New Barn, What Next?

Well....what's that about those Pairwise ratings? Way too early. We drop from 4 to 7 on one weekend. We play the #1 ranked team next weekend in their barn. I think we are just beginning to see how difficult this second half is going to be. Our home undefeated record was padded with games against lesser opponents. And Denver proved it.

If Evan is injured for more than another series, watch that Pairwise plummet quickly.

We have a LONG way to go.

[Tipsy McStagger]

Re: UNO 2015-16 Season Thread: Frozen Four, New Barn, What Next?

I don't have any designs on or even care about winning the conference title

Looks like your boys took care of that this weekend.

[Red Cows]

Re: UNO 2015-16 Season Thread: Frozen Four, New Barn, What Next?

Looks like your boys took care of that this weekend.

No lie.

In spades.

[Red Cows]

Re: UNO 2015-16 Season Thread: Frozen Four, New Barn, What Next?

Coach Blais, in a local radio interview earlier this past week, mentioned his biggest concern about this team and, boy, did last weekend make him look utterly clairvoyant.

He talked about how the guys on this team are "making one too many passes instead of shooting the puck". He characterized this trait of the team as selflessness and trying too hard from a teamwork perspective. What it looks like to me is that we have a bunch of guys that are too concerned about scoring "pretty" goals and not getting what they ought to be as a result.

We outshot DU this weekend 63-37 over the two game. And, DU, by far, by far had the higher number of real, quality scoring chances despite being outshot by a ton. We looked like our teams circa 3-5 years ago, a couple of in which we lead the NCAA in shots on goal, whereby we got tons of "shots" but not the effect one would expect from so many shots.

It is some measure of what I am talking about when our student section spent two consecutive nights screaming at our guys to shoot the puck, literally. They were chanting this! If they had heeded them, we'd have outshot them even more decisively. Even more to my point was Jim Montgomery's comments after last night's game:

"Nebraska-Omaha, I thought, was a much better team than we were, and I thought Tanner Jaillet was the first star of the game,” he said, adding that his penalty kill was also very good. “We need to be better if we’re going to have success. We can’t expect our goaltender to win us games like he did tonight.”

I think there was at least some level of BS in this because Jaillet really was only challenged seriously once, to my eye on Friday night. It's pretty easy to shut someone out when you aren't really being challenged, despite his facing 38 shots on Friday night.

Kudos to DU for making the most of the opportunities they got. They put on a clinic in this regard.

Not a good weekend for our guys.

[Red Cows]

Re: UNO 2015-16 Season Thread: Frozen Four, New Barn, What Next?

UNO practiced in Sioux Falls, on their way to North Dakota today, early, since the President of the United States was busy using their arena today:

https://twitter.com/UNO_Hockey/statu...91248705953792

[Red Cows]

Re: UNO 2015-16 Season Thread: Frozen Four, New Barn, What Next?

Take a gander at this article from City Pages in the Twin Cities, which examines the state of the Gopher hockey program (in about as unkindly a way as-is imaginable) that contains the following quote:

In more than a dozen interviews for this story, the same take emerges:

"If a kid is going to Minnesota," says one NHL scout, "concerns are openly discussed in our rooms about how it might affect his development. If one of our players is heading to say, North Dakota or UMD or [Nebraska-Omaha], we are comfortable with them going to any of those places."

http://www.citypages.com/news/what-h...rogram-7960026

Whoa.

[Red Cows]

Re: UNO 2015-16 Season Thread: Frozen Four, New Barn, What Next?

The President of the United States today here in Omaha at Baxter Arena. The salient parts are at the 3:20 mark and beyond:

http://www.ketv.com/news/president-o...arena/37424366

If you had told me back in 1997 that the President of the United States would ever speak at UNO's brand spanking new hockey arena, a destination he specifically identified for the purpose of following up his last State of the Union address the day after he made it, and, a black president at that (full disclosure: I voted for the man in both '08 & in '12), congratulate them on having just gone to the Frozen 4, and speak directly to what a magnificent edifice that facility is, I'd have laughed in your face.

Several thousand people are currently in front of Baxter Arena hastily building a statue of Trev Alberts.

[Red Cows]

Re: UNO 2015-16 Season Thread: Frozen Four, New Barn, What Next?

Preview of the series this weekend up in Grand Forks from the The Hockey Writers:

http://thehockeywriters.com/looking-ahead-uno-vs-und/

Pretty much spot on. There have been several wild & epic games featuring some crazy stuff between these two teams, particularly when you consider that the first ever meeting didn't even take place until 11-19-10 and that they have only played each other a grand total of 16 times.

The article didn't mention things like UNO's first ever victory against North Dakota, a 1-0 shut-out in which UNO scored the winning goal with 1/10th of a second remaining in the game. Another game that featured the first and only 6th attacker goal I have ever seen in a 5-3 situation, a game in which UNO also scored 5 power play goals in a single period against North Dakota (the aforementioned goal being one of them) while administering the biggest beat down of North Dakota, ever, since they moved to the Ralph. Oh, did I fail to mention that that game was the first time UNO had ever played in the Ralph as well? Or that the weekend of the only sweep in the series they mentioned, featured the first and only outdoor game ever played by either program (that weekend was an utter debacle for UNO on many levels), to say nothing of the trials and tribulations their team and their fans have had to go through just getting back to North Dakota the last two times they have been here. The game where Coach Blais was tossed for refusing to send a player to the penalty box? UNO won that game 6-3 after rallying from the 3-1 deficit they faced when Coach Blais was tossed and it featured the only hat trick ever in this series, by UNO's Josh Archibald. Just to name a few.

North Dakota week IS circled on my calendar. I am glad I was able to extra tickets to both games the weekend they come down here.

[Red Cows]

Re: UNO 2015-16 Season Thread: Frozen Four, New Barn, What Next?

Key to the series for UNO this weekend can be somewhat summed up in this stat.

Austin Ortega has 18 game winning goals in his career. That is more goals than all but two North Dakota players have for their entire careers, total.

That line must score up there or we are in trouble. Ortega/Guentzel/Parizek had 4 points, total, last weekend between them and they all came in the 3rd period of the Saturday night game. They get shut down like that again...........................

That, and then there is the little matter of who will be in goal the next two nights because of the injury to Weninger. Ugh.

[Red Cows]

Re: UNO 2015-16 Season Thread: Frozen Four, New Barn, What Next?

Nice read about Coach Blais and his days of yore at UND:

http://americansportsnet.com/for-dea...nd-uno-series/

I think one of the reasons we have acquitted ourselves so well in Grand Forks in the 8 games we've played up there (3-4-1) is because our guys know that it means a lot to him if they show up and play well up there.

[Red Cows]

Re: UNO 2015-16 Season Thread: Frozen Four, New Barn, What Next?

The game tonight can summed up, thusly.

Our starting goaltender did not make the trip. And, the back-up goaltender was benched in favor of a guy that had never played in a game in his college career.

Tomorrow night is tomorrow night but tonight lent credence to my suspicions that North Dakota is at least somewhat overvalued.

Here, you have a team with a very average SOS ranking, beating up on the 26th ranked schedule in the country, that is being led by a head coach with exactly zero head coaching experience, anywhere, before his 23 games so far with North Dakota.

So, I find the postgame fan and media reaction to our game there tonight pretty odd for a team in that situation.

From Brad Schlossman at the Grand Forks Herald:

Austin Ortega finished it off in the extra session by converting on a 3-on-1 rush – one of many given up by this usually stingy defense.....................

and.............

UND (18-3-2, 9-2 National Collegiate Hockey Conference) entered the weekend ranked No. 2 nationally in scoring defense, but allowed more than one goal for the first time since Nov. 21.

In fact, in 62 minutes, 29 seconds, Nebraska Omaha piled up the same number of goals on UND and goaltender Cam Johnson that opponents had in the previous 480 minutes and 55 seconds.

Wow, no kidding, Brad. When you actually play somebody instead of beating up on inferior opponents, you might just not look so "superior" any more when you actually play a team that has roughly the same talent and skill level as your team does. To say nothing of that opponent having a head coach that forgot more about being a head coach than yours (at age 50) will ever know. Plus the Fighting Hawks were playing a team whose offense is nearly identical to that of their own--achieved while playing a more difficult schedule.

Here's a beaut from Gage Ausmus in a Bismarck Tribune article:

"We handed them the game," North Dakota defenseman Gage Ausmus said. "We outplayed them."

I read the entire UND/UNO gameday thread, postgame, at Sioux (sic) Sports and few people expressed any sort of sentiment like that. Many people there were complimentary, even.

What was a recurring theme with some, (not all), was that losing a game to us is some sort of anomaly.

North Dakota fan needs to understand that our team and your team are now essentially equals, whether they like it or not. If they want to try and make some sort of argument that they are somehow a fundamentally better team or even a program than us they can knock themselves out trying. Keep in mind that I am talking snapshots of the here and now, mind you. The past is exactly that, the past. We were both Frozen 4 teams last year and the same thing might even happen this year, who knows?

These two programs are at point where, after playing a hypothetical 50 games against each other, that series is going to be tied at something like 25 all. Get used to it. Because, until Dean Blais walks out the door, nothing is likely changing that. Considering that his job is now a destination job in college hockey, things probably won't change much, even then--unless we hire, for some goofy reason, somebody with ZERO head coaching experience, that is.

When did North Dakota hockey become a proving ground for head coaches with no experience, by the way?

And, in addition, I have no idea what the basis is for this statement about Austin Ortega at the Sioux Sports Forum:

I hate Taco. Eff him.

By one of the forum moderators, no less.

Very classy. He has the temerity to beat you (again) and that's your reaction?

I have a suggestion.

Play better.

[Sioux-perDrunk]

The game tonight can summed up, thusly.

Our starting goaltender did not make the trip. And, the back-up goaltender was benched in favor of a guy that had never played in a game in his college career.

Tomorrow night is tomorrow night but tonight lent credence to my suspicions that North Dakota is at least somewhat overvalued.

Here, you have a team with a very average SOS ranking, beating up on the 26th ranked schedule in the country, that is being led by a head coach with exactly zero head coaching experience, anywhere, before his 23 games so far with North Dakota.

So, I find the postgame fan and media reaction to our game there tonight pretty odd for a team in that situation.

From Brad Schlossman at the Grand Forks Herald:



and.............



Wow, no kidding, Brad. When you actually play somebody instead of beating up on inferior opponents, you might just not look so "superior" any more when you actually play a team that has roughly the same talent and skill level as your team does. To say nothing of that opponent having a head coach that forgot more about being a head coach than yours (at age 50) will ever know. Plus the Fighting Hawks were playing a team whose offense is nearly identical to that of their own--achieved while playing a more difficult schedule.

Here's a beaut from Gage Ausmus in a Bismarck Tribune article:



I read the entire UND/UNO gameday thread, postgame, at Sioux (sic) Sports and few people expressed any sort of sentiment like that. Many people there were complimentary, even.

What was a recurring theme with some, (not all), was that losing a game to us is some sort of anomaly.

North Dakota fan needs to understand that our team and your team are now essentially equals, whether they like it or not. If they want to try and make some sort of argument that they are somehow a fundamentally better team or even a program than us they can knock themselves out trying. Keep in mind that I am talking snapshots of the here and now, mind you. The past is exactly that, the past. We were both Frozen 4 teams last year and the same thing might even happen this year, who knows?

These two programs are at point where, after playing a hypothetical 50 games against each other, that series is going to be tied at something like 25 all. Get used to it. Because, until Dean Blais walks out the door, nothing is likely changing that. Considering that his job is now a destination job in college hockey, things probably won't change much, even then--unless we hire, for some goofy reason, somebody with ZERO head coaching experience, that is.

When did North Dakota hockey become a proving ground for head coaches with no experience, by the way?

And, in addition, I have no idea what the basis is for this statement about Austin Ortega at the Sioux Sports Forum:



By one of the forum moderators, no less.

Very classy. He has the temerity to beat you (again) and that's your reaction?

I have a suggestion.

Play better.

There is homer fans and then there is you buddy! Out shot but won In overtime on a play that UND made a pretty tough mistake on and you give this kind of rant. Haha nice way to try spin a heck of a game into some thing completely different. Good game tonight hoping for another one of this caliber tomorrow!!

[Tipsy McStagger]

Re: UNO 2015-16 Season Thread: Frozen Four, New Barn, What Next?

The game tonight can summed up, thusly.

This "summation" was probably longer than the gamer.

North Dakota fan needs to understand that our team and your team are now essentially equals, whether they like it or not. If they want to try and make some sort of argument that they are somehow a fundamentally better team or even a program than us they can knock themselves out trying. Keep in mind that I am talking snapshots of the here and now, mind you. The past is exactly that, the past. We were both Frozen 4 teams last year and the same thing might even happen this year, who knows?

These two programs are at point where, after playing a hypothetical 50 games against each other, that series is going to be tied at something like 25 all. Get used to it. Because, until Dean Blais walks out the door, nothing is likely changing that. Considering that his job is now a destination job in college hockey, things probably won't change much, even then--unless we hire, for some goofy reason, somebody with ZERO head coaching experience, that is.

This is one of the most delusional things I have ever read.

Your team just got swept at home by a team that wasn't even in the top 16 of the PWR last weekend. UNO isn't even in the top half of the conference. They have given up more goals than they have scored in conference play. It would be one thing to say that you think UNO is as good as North Dakota this year. For today, and probably today only, you could make that case based on RPI. But to pretend that UNO is equals with North Dakota as a program is something that you might literally be the only person who believes.

Your team has made one Frozen Four, and only did so because they got to play the autobid team from Atlantic Hockey to get there. It is the only accomplishment your program has. You have one banner and are now going to act like your program is on the level of North Dakota? Omaha is now a destination job? Because they made one Frozen Four? So did RIT and Bemidji. Are those destination jobs?