Where the heck is your season thread? I've been looking all over for it.
I duly note that UNO is currently 17th in Pairwise (to whatever extent you give it any credit this early) and UNO is 5th in "others receiving votes" in the USCHO poll.
Meanwhile, tUMD is ranked 20th in the latest USCHO poll, but is nowhere to be found in the Pairwise, not even in the top 31.
As far as UNO is concerned, that is certainly a pretty big disconnect from reality where they are concerned, IMHO. They have been pretty good, so far, even encouraging.
Arbitrary comments about the season to date:
The Mavs played very well against Notre Dame (common opponent) in the Icebreaker (I went) and lost one that could have gone either way. Frankly, I thought we had the better scoring opportunities overall (by a tad) and the game winner was sort of a fluky goal. Notre Dame players and fans were very complimentary in the press and to me, in person, and Jeff Jackson said, post game, "
That's the
#7 team in the WCHA?
In the preliminary, against Army, they did not look they even belonged on the same ice with us and, if not for a very good performance by their goalie, we'd have beaten them worse than we did.
In our split with Northern Michigan at home, after our Friday night win, Coach Blais called it the finest performance by UNO since he took the helm as head coach. Then, we lost a 2-1 nail biter the next night.
After that, we took a loss and a tie at home against the Beavers. They own us. This has reached the point that they are in our heads. To the point that I don't think it is really that meaningful any more insofar as who we are or are not as a team. They have stomped on us and spit on our grave every opportunity they have had to do so. They are even in our fans heads. I'm throwing the BSU series out as far as my assessment of the team although we managed a tie and a 3-2 loss with them. Both games looked like every game we ever seem to play against them.
Finally, we swept Tech in Houghton (without our best player, Matt White, who did not make the trip) and started the weekend out in style by beating them with a shortie with only 70 seconds left in the game. Then, we just flat-out stomped them the following night. They got the first goal and we thereupon ran them out of the building. UNO was 2nd in the NCAA in shorties last season with 10 and we already have 2 this season. A trademark of Coach Blais, at least, since he's been here. We look better shorthanded than we do on the power play
Our power play, despite the departure of Mike Hastings to Mankato, who was in charge of the UNO power play, is in even worse shape so far this season (49th in the nation) than it was under his tutelage. It's horrific and is something that MUST improve if UNO has serious post season aspirations, which, to me, look like is a reasonable goal this year. We are clearly better than last season.
Besides, fixing the power play, this team needs to finish better on offense. Just like always, since Blais took over, zillions of shots and not enough going in relative to the number taken. Jeez, under Coach Blais, we seem to outshoot just about everybody. Win
or lose. (Uh, at least a slight exaggeration but not by a lot).
UNO is undefeated with Faulkner in goal.
I am reasonably certain we are going to be better than the preseason 7th that we were ordained.
Can't go on Saturday. Mother-in-law's retirement party that night.
Dunno why more UNO fans don't post here. Wish they did. Mavpuck is rather cliquish and they mostly stay over there with some exceptions.
Anybody know why this is a Saturday/Sunday series this weekend? If you are coming, cheap tickets here (11 bucks) for the Sunday afternoon matinee:
http://www.mavpuck.com/mpboard/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=9024
