Jordan Schroeder watch...

Since the Gophers season will end tonight or next week in the latest, I wanted to start a Jordan Schroeder watch. Here is my question; if Schroeder’s team is eliminated tonight will he be on the plane to Vancouver from Grand Forks, ND. Will call on the cell phone come from his agent? Will the contract be sitting in the fax machine in the Gophers locker room when that elimination game is over. The Jordan Schroeder watch is officially on.

Jordan Schroeder's Golden Gopher squad is in tough tough in the playoffs against North Dakota, losing the first game in the best-of-three series 6-0, and may be available in a matter of days. His numbers have dropped between last year and this one (45 points to 27), but remember that this is University level hockey, and dramatic swings between seasons are commonplace as the teams change composition every year. Plus, even with the fall in scoring, he leads the Gophers in points despite missing two games this season; he has ten points in 34 games on the power play; he's over .500 in face offs and he was given an "A" this season.

The black mark against him is his size: but even at (a somewhat generous) 5'8", he's very strong on the puck and has a heavy wrist shot, even if he doesn't use it enough. He'll have to get his mindset away from passing and into scoring, but once he does he's going to be just deadly. Bring him up and let him try![Nuck Misconduct]

Cross posted first at the Sin Bin.

Sioux vs Gophers

Some of these pictures should get people thinking about tonight's game between the Sioux and Gophers. Remember folks it's just a game and it's supposed to be fun. Let's not have anymore incident where people end up in the hospital.

Sioux vs GophersSeries Prediction from Stephen Lyngstad aka Gopherz

My mind would like to say that this series is going to be a split, but I'm going to have to say the Gophers get 3 points with a tie tonight and a big win tomorrow. 3-3 Friday, 4-2 (ENG) Saturday.

The homer in me is going to have to say 2 Gopher wins by 2+ goals as we get back on track.

My Brother-in-law's brother Steve Brink said:

5-1 Gophers with an empty net goal

Russo's slight?

After reading one of Russo's articles about the USA Olympic roster selection yesterday I realized that he had left out Zach Parise's college "UND" after mentioning a few area players and where they had gone to school. I was going to make a blog post about it but decided against it because I like Russo's work; I doubt that Russo would do it maliciously.

Parise, a Minneapolis native, former Shattuck-St. Mary's player and current Devils star, will be one of the Americans' go-to scorers. He finished third in the NHL last season with 45 goals, and he's scored 42 points this season and leads the league with a plus-21.
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Besides Parise and Langen- brunner, six other Olympians have Minnesota ties: Devils defenseman Paul Martin is a former Gopher and Elk River High standout; St. Louis defenseman Erik Johnson hails from Bloomington and is a former Gopher; St. Louis winger David Backes is a former Spring Lake Park High and Minnesota State, Mankato standout; Tampa Bay winger Ryan Malone played at St. Cloud State and lives in Plymouth; Toronto's Kessel is a former Gopher, and Los Angeles defenseman Jack Johnson played at Shattuck-St. Mary's. [Russo's Rants]

Apparently one of our fellow Sioux fans noticed the slight (it was probably unintended) and took issue with it because here is what Russo put in one of his blog posts today. You have to love Russo's humor.

Lemaire nuggets; Burns traveling; Gushing about the Devils, and hatred of the Sioux

As usual, Lou Lamoriello's put together another great room with guys like former UND star Zach Parise (labeling it that because a reader today accused me of hating UND, and in actuality that we at the Star Tribune have a "policy" of not naming UND when a player played there. Being the longtime Minnesotan that I am, he's right. I have an immense hatred for the Fighting Sioux. It keeps me up at night. I have a dartboard with Jonathan Toews' face on it), two of my favorite players that I've ever covered, Brian Rolston and Rob Niedermayer, Brodeur, Jamie Langenbrunner, etc., etc, etc. I'll write a lot about Rolston for tomorrow.
[Russo's Rants]

Time for the "what-if" calculator

You can go over to the what if calculator and make your predictions for the final WCHA standings. I was goofing around with the numbers on the "what if" calculator and this is what I think the Fighting Sioux can do. I preface this with the assumption that the Sioux will get Chay Genoway back soon for the second half and will pull off one of their historical patented second half runs.
["What if" calculator]

WCHA Final
Team GP Pts
Denver 28 39
UND 28 38
CC 28 37
UW 28 35
SCSU 28 30
UMD 28 29
Mankato 28 27
UMN 28 22
AA 28 16
MTech 28 7

Sioux 5 - Seawolves 0

In the offseason we heard about how UAA was the biggest team in college hockey, we were also told by the self appointed experts and the college hockey media pundits that UAA was going to be bigger, stronger and better skaters. We also heard how UAA was going to use that size and new found skill to wear down their opposition and take a game over in the third period. Hum...

After watching the game last night and seeing UAA play against Michigan a few weeks ago, I would say that this season’s version of the UAA Seawolves resembled last season’s UAA team. It's no mystery that the Seawolves work hard and try to play an up tempo game but frankly the Seawolves have had a hard time keeping up with the skilled teams like UND and Michigan. In boths instances they were out classed and they got smoked. Last night the Seawolves were beat to the puck up and down the ice by a speedier Fighting Sioux hockey team. Frustration set in and the Seawolves started taking ill advised penatlies. UND was 3-7 on the PP while UAA went 0-7. UND has yet to give up a power play goal on the season so far.

We got a Dell

I not a fan of that stupid commercial but the Fighting Sioux started freshman goaltender Aaron Dell and the rookie responded with a shutout win in his first start for the Fighting Sioux. Dell’s start breaks a streak by Fighting Sioux goalie Brad Eidsness who had started 37 games in a row was relegated to back up last night. I would like to see both goalies split time untill one of them establishes himself as being the "starter". While Eidsness was the top freshman goalie in the WCHA last season he tenders to wander and fails to cover the short side post in key situations. This was replayed last weekend against the Gophers, where he over played the puck and cost the Sioux a goal. All I can remember the first goal he gave up to UMD during the Final Five game last season. It's like on replay loop in my brain and it plays over and over again.

I believe that Dell will and should get more starts this season based on his "solid" performance in last night’s game. Although Dell wasn’t tested a whole lot he did make some impressive saves and stopped UAA freshman forward Mitch Bruijsten’s cold on a breakaway in the second period. From watching Dell in the UAA game and during the Manitoba exhibition, I like Dell's positioning and he does stay more square to the puck than Brad Eidsness, Dell also didn't get caught out of position by over playing the puck in key situations. Hakstol and company now have options and don't have to have one goaltender shoulder the whole load himself. Having two goaltenders should make both of them better.


Insignificant players get points and score goals for UND

This was a pontification of a unnamed bombastic blogger from UAA. I am sure that he will delete the post. Lets break down how insignificant these guys are.

A UND fan would naturally think nearly all of their upperclassmen are significant. Big surprise.

But yes ...

Darcy Zajac is insignificant.
Brent Davidson is insignificant.
Jake Marto and Evan Trupp are .5 insignificant each.
Derek Lapoint is insignificant.

That equals 4 significant upperclassmen. And I actually undercounted UAA's significant upperclassmen. I probably should have said 11. But I left off the goaltenders and underrated a couple of other guys. I was sandbagging.

Further investigation revealed that of the fore mention players only one of them (Davidson) didn’t register a point during the game. If my math is correct that is five points for the insignificant upperclassmen of the Fighting Sioux. I am pretty sure that if Alaska native Evan Trupp played for the Seawolves he would be one fo their top players. PWND!
Evan Trupp (1g-1a-2pts)
Darcy Zajac (0g-1a-1pts)
Jake Marto (0g-1a-1pts)
Derrick LaPoint (0g-1a-1pts)


[Box Score]
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1st Period (20:00)
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NDK 1 - 0 6x6 GW LL Mario Lamoureux (2) (Darcy Zajac, Carter Rowney) 5:47
NDK (+): 9,11,27,2,20,G32 AKA (-): 21,17,20,4,11,G30
NDK-1 Brad Malone (2-Hooking) AKA 0x1 8:15
AKA-1 Jade Portwood (2-High-Sticking) NDK 0x1 10:58
AKA-2 Jared Tuton (2-Holding) NDK 0x2 11:15
AKA-3 Jade Portwood (2-Charging) NDK 1x3 16:30
NDK 2 - 0 6x5 PP Jake Marto (3) (Evan Trupp, Joe Gleason) 17:24
NDK: 25,19,20,22,26,G32 AKA: 16,27,11,4,G30
NDK 3 - 0 6x6 Jason Gregoire (3) (Derrick LaPoint, Danny Kristo) 18:40
NDK (+): 17,3,5,7,29,G32 AKA (-): 22,7,16,18,9,G30

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2nd Period (20:00)
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NDK-2 Carter Rowney (2-Tripping) AKA 0x2 2:02
NDK-3 Jake Marto (2-Cross-Checking) AKA 0x3 3:57
AKA-4 Josh Lunden (2-Tripping) NDK 1x4 5:41
AKA-5 Kevin Clark (2-Hooking) NDK 1x5 5:41
NDK-4 Chay Genoway (2-Tripping) AKA 0x4 6:01
AKA-6 Mitch Bruijsten (2-Hooking) NDK 2x6 11:11
NDK 4 - 0 6x5 PP Evan Trupp (1) (Brad Malone) 12:39
NDK: 19,22,20,25,26,G32 AKA: 7,14,22,21,G30
NDK-5 Jake Marto (2-Holding) AKA 0x5 14:11
NDK-6 Darcy Zajac (2-High-Sticking) AKA 0x6 15:37
AKA-7 Kane Lafranchise (5-Checking from Behind) (Served by Craig Parkinson) NDK 3x8 16:27
AKA-8 Craig Parkinson (10-Game Misconduct) 16:27

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3rd Period (20:00)
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NDK 5 - 0 6x5 PP Chay Genoway (4) (Chris VandeVelde, Aaron Dell) 0:34
AKA: 36,21,4,11,G30
NDK-7 Derrick LaPoint (2-Tripping) AKA 0x7 8:48
NDK-8 Andrew MacWilliam (2-Cross-Checking) 10:11
AKA-9 Tommy Grant (2-GRASPING THE FACEMASK) 10:11
NDK-9 Corban Knight (5-Checking from Behind) AKA 0x8 15:50
NDK-10 Corban Knight (10-Game Misconduct) 15:50

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End of Game