Who will be the "darkhorse" in the WCHA this season?

[Dude Love]

Re: Who will be the "darkhorse" in the WCHA this season?

Hartigan never played with Montgomery. Monty's first year was the year after Hartigan left.

And I've never been to an SCSU practice in my life.

[The Paragon of Virtue]

Re: Who will be the "darkhorse" in the WCHA this season?

And I've never been to an SCSU practice in my life.

I do remember making fun of how Mike Walsh always got playing time because Dahl said he did well in practice.

[Handyman]

Re: Who will be the "darkhorse" in the WCHA this season?

Hartigan never played with Montgomery. Monty's first year was the year after Hartigan left.

Are you sure about that...I seem to remember Monty being the practice goalie the year before...he didnt play for some reason.

Oh wait...I was right

http://www.uscho.com/stats/player.php?pid=6086&gender=m

Though I was wrong it wasnt DL that talked him up at the moment I am not sure who it was though it was probably Rabid

[The Paragon of Virtue]

Re: Who will be the "darkhorse" in the WCHA this season?

Are you sure about that...I seem to remember Monty being the practice goalie the year before...he didnt play for some reason.

Oh wait...I was right

http://www.uscho.com/stats/player.php?pid=6086&gender=m

Eh. I was using Hockeydb.

[First Time, Long Time]

Re: Who will be the "darkhorse" in the WCHA this season?

Are you sure about that...I seem to remember Monty being the practice goalie the year before...he didnt play for some reason.

Oh wait...I was right

http://www.uscho.com/stats/player.php?pid=6086&gender=m

Though I was wrong it wasnt DL that talked him up at the moment I am not sure who it was though it was probably Rabid

He didn't play because he was being red-shirted so I don't think you can really say he "played" with Hartigan.
It wasn't Rabid either BTW, no clue what you are talking about.

[SCSU Euro]

Re: Who will be the "darkhorse" in the WCHA this season?

He didn't play because he was being red-shirted so I don't think you can really say he "played" with Hartigan.

He wasn't saying he played any games with him, he said that Monty would've made a save on Hartigan in practice.

[beersong]

Re: Who will be the "darkhorse" in the WCHA this season?

Goaltender caught fire.

In a single elimination situation which UMD was in every step of the way in the WCHA & NCAA playoffs, goaltending was everything.

Facing 1 shot in the entire 3rd period of tWCHA championship game makes goaltenders look even better.

[dave29]

Re: Who will be the "darkhorse" in the WCHA this season?

I think part of the reason is that most of these seniors haven't done much outside of Sweatt.
He and Vlassopoulos are the only 2 seniors above 50 career points and Testwuide is the only other one who even has 40.
When you only return 2 guys with double digit goals and no one else had more than 6 plus you have major questions in goal with zero experience, it's not hard to see why they are being picked low.

You make some good points. However, if the seniors can step up and if some of the other underclassmen can contribute I could see them finishing maybe as high as 4th in the league. The strength of this team should be their defenseman but obviously they have questions in goal. If they struggle a lot this year then I could see them as low as 8th. I think this team will be a very hardworking team and you never know sometimes hardwork beats talent. Scott Owens teams are usually very hardworking teams they just need to have some success in the playoffs. However, this year is probably not the year for a deep playoff run.

[4four4]

Re: Who will be the "darkhorse" in the WCHA this season?

He didn't play because he was being red-shirted so I don't think you can really say he "played" with Hartigan.
It wasn't Rabid either BTW, no clue what you are talking about.

When Monty finished out his career in April of 2006 I see you didn't start posting around here until May of 2006.

[scsutommyboy]

Re: Who will be the "darkhorse" in the WCHA this season?

Just look back a few years when tommyboy and few others (I am looking at you DL) thought SCSU would be awesome because Montgomery was great in practice...even robbed Hartigan once! Being good in practice means zero!

Please show me where I ever said he would be good because he did well in practice. He was great in juniors and that is why I thought we was going to be good. He ended up to be a guy put in Dahl's dog house and never got a chacne to show his stuff.

[Handyman]

Re: Who will be the "darkhorse" in the WCHA this season?

He wasn't saying he played any games with him, he said that Monty would've made a save on Hartigan in practice.

Thank you!

And TB you can deny it all you want to...you and the "RESPECT!!" crowd (which you werent part of) were jizzing in your pants over the "report" that Monty robbed Harty on his wicked slappah in practice. Feel free to keep denying it though :d

[Slap Shot]

Re: Who will be the "darkhorse" in the WCHA this season?

It wasn't Rabid either BTW, no clue what you are talking about.

Hmm.

[SCSU Euro]

Re: Who will be the "darkhorse" in the WCHA this season?

Thank you!

"...You're Welcome!" -Dogg Pound

[Sloe Gin]

Re: Who will be the "darkhorse" in the WCHA this season?

I say MTU, as Coach Russell put it to the Misfits tonight, last year we never really had the chance to play as a team with all the injuries, so it's still to be seen what the team can accomplish.

you're joking, right? Really?

Hate to say it, but CC will be better than people think.

bottom half team. Guaranteed.

Minnesota will be the "dark horse" this season. Before you judge me, keep in mind that this is a team that got lucky to finish 5th last season. They will return to the top 3-4 spots and will likely make a run in the playoffs.

St. Cloud sucks as always this year.

[uwbadgers14]

Re: Who will be the "darkhorse" in the WCHA this season?

Darkhorse to win the conference is Wisconsin, I believe they are a favorite to win the conference specially when you factor in there schedule, only playing DU and UND once and no trip to UAA but not a lot of publications or websites are very high on UWs so nationally they have to be considered a darkhorse. Plus not a lot of people look at the schedule and how that will play out, UW has far and away the easier conf. schedule. They return everybody but McBain (D), Gorowsky (F) and Connelly (G). With the depth and talent on D losing McBain won't hurt that bad IMO. Losing Gorowsky is not that big of a deal because we get Ben Street back who missed all of last season with an ACL and I think Ben Street is a better all around player then Gorowsky anyway. Losing Connelly in goal could have hurt a little bit but we got Brett Bennett who put up decent numbers at BU and dominated the USHL last season so i think all and all the goaltending will be a tad better with the potential to be great. If you look strictly at the returning group of players of the teams outside of DU, UND and UM who are everyones top 3 in the conf. Wisconsin has far and beyond the best group of starters returning both numbers wise and Talent wise. So to come out of the pack and contend for a conference title I will pick wisconsin but personally anybody who knows anything about the WCHA probably wouldn't be surprised if they did.

As far as a Darkhorse that could jump up into the top 5 i'm going to pick st. cloud, they return a ton of offensive talent so if they can get average goaltending they will be a tough team to get points from all season long.

A team to watch for will be UAA, they faded a tad last season but they played a lot of good hockey all season long and really could have finished higher then 9th last season without those tough loses.

Once again this season will be much like last season IMO, which means the WCHA will beat that crap out of each other all season long again and probably only get 4 into the NCAA tourney. The reg season conf title will most likely come down to the final weekend with Wisconsin playing at Minnesota being the key series for UW, UM, UND and DU