2012/13 college hockey season and results

[scsavre]

Sounds like most teams are starting play this weekend.

Are coaches still limited to 2hrs a week? That's a terrible rule if exhibition starts Saturday. Give the coaches at least a full week on the ice prior to games ans scrimmages.

Gophs have leethbridge Saturday. I excited to see our freshman d and line combos. It's gonna be a battle to make the top 6 d this year. We return all 7 and have 2 stud freshman.

Brooks, you got any eligible players up there for the weekend.......

[Shorelunch]

]Sounds like most teams are starting play this weekend.

Are coaches still limited to 2hrs a week? That's a terrible rule if exhibition starts Saturday. Give the coaches at least a full week on the ice prior to games ans scrimmages.

Gophs have leethbridge Saturday. I excited to see our freshman d and line combos. It's gonna be a battle to make the top 6 d this year. We return all 7 and have 2 stud freshman.

Brooks, you got any eligible players up there for the weekend.......

The NCAA hockey practice rules are a joke. No sticks sometimes, no coaches until today. Silly.

UND is going to forfeit against Manitoba and is doing community service at the Lawn Boy dealer. I kid. Go Sioux, go Beavers - beat those pesky "Bisons."

[scsavre]

Sue players might better off doing their service elsewhere. They have a bad trackrecords with lawnmowers. Too tempted to through them into the street.

[archerystud]

How about everyone giving an outlook on their team.

I'll start with SCSU.

Defense - Unlike most Husky teams of the past this appears to be their biggest strength by returning Jensen, Prochno, Gravel and Rabey. Rabey moved up to forward last year when the forwards got depleted based on injuries. If another D-man steps up I could see attempting to move Rabey up to forward again.

Goalie - Faragher returns and was quite a surprise last year taking over for Mike Lee while he was injured. Should be able to improve on his 2.78GAA, .915 save% (24 games) with a more experienced defense in front of him. Depth at goalie could be an issue as the other 2 goalies are freshman.

Forwards - Hanowski, Jim Dowd and (the return of) Drew LeBlanc should all be VERY strong. After that the forwards appear to be thin at this point. The one notable exception would be Corey Thorson who started showing up regularly on the score sheet until a shoulder injury mid season. He played through the injury for the remainder of the season but wasn't the same player and had off-season shoulder surgery. Sophmores Oliver, Milan, Bertsch and Holka all played in over 25 games last year as Freshman.

Rookies - Joey Benick and Ethan Prow (D) come in with the highest expectations. Also of note is David Morley who sat out last year because of a concussion.

Outlook - Expect the Huskies to be led by their very capable defense. Injuries up front could easily decimate the team as there does not appear to be much depth there. If another forward or 2 can step up this should be a much better Husky team from the previous couple of years. First PP line of Hano, Leblanc, Dowd, Jensen and Prochno should be deadly.

[solbes]

Good write up Stud. I agree that Cloud should be stepping up this year with the big boys. Jensen's one of the best blue liners in the league.

I'll go next with Duluth. Bit of a rebuilding year with all of the top scorers from 2 years ago now gone. Brown, Oleksuk, Lamb, and the Hobey winner are all huge losses on the scoring tally sheet.

Forwards - Seidel, Herbert, and Basaraba are our top returning guys. I expect continued scoring out of Seidel, effective puck movement and flash from Herbert, and more effort from Basaraba. Sophomore Justin Crandall might compete with Basaraba for first line time and paired well with Herbert last year. Incoming freshmen Austin Farley and Tony Camaranesi hope to make a splash impact on line 2 with Connolly^2 size. Farley is a spit fire and will draw penalties. This team does not have the depth of scoring from past years. Hope I'm wrong.

Defenseman - This should be the strength of this team. Bergman returns as a senior and Casto had a great year as a freshman. Drew Olson made huge strides last year and will likely play with incoming freshman Andy Welinski. Welinski has been playing with Green Bay pretty successfully in the USHL the past couple of years. Johnson, McManus (played awesome down the stretch last year), and Smith should all compete for third pairing time.

Goalies - Kenny Reiter graduated last season with numerous Bulldog records. Duluth returns Aaron Crandall, who has a little Jekyl and Hyde in him. He's perhaps best known in Duluth for a doing a mean "Bernie" (

). If he can't step forward we have two incoming freshman. Matt McNeely who played on US u18 team, then played for Cedar Rapids. So far he's underachieved to expectations, but this is a clean slate start for Matt. Alex Fons comes in from the cold of Alaska and could see some ice time as well. Your guess is as good as mine on who takes the reigns.

Next years freshman class is looking better and better: Dom Toninato, Jared Thomas, Willie Raskob, Blake Heinrich, and Dan Molenaar. Still pining for Hudson WI blue liner Ian McCoshen.

[archerystud]

Solbes,

I really like watching Bergman play (except against the Huskies!!!). He's just very solid back there.

[Bear55]

Gophs - Big expectations this year, not sure if the team can live up to them or not but we certainly have the horses to get us back the frozen four.

Up front he Gophers are in very good shape, returning one of the top lines in college hockey. As long as they stay health Budish, Bjugs, and Rau are going to do some damage. After that returning leading scorer Eric Haula and speedy Nate Condon give us some nice offensive depth. Plenty of solid players after those five but its hard to say right now if anyone is going to step up. but there are 3-4 guys who have the tools. They might not have to step up but it alwasy helps to have some extra scoring depth.

Gophs are very deep on the back end as well, all 6 starters are returning and 2 stud freshmen are coming in to take their jobs. I don't know who the odd man out is but Lucia is talking about shifting one of them to forward for the season, that should help releive the logjam on D and add a little more depth at forward. Still a quality D man with experience or very talented frosh could be riding the pine. Nate Schmidt had a huge breakout season last year, I expect more of the same this year.

Goalie as everyone knows is the big ??? and Wilcox and Shibbysomething will be battling it out. At this level the team in front of them can make up for some mistakes so I am not super worried. Gut says Wilcox will be the guy by the end of the year but what the he11 do I know.

[archerystud]

Not a good start for the Huskies. Joey Benik broke his leg today in practice. Hopefully he can be back by mid season.....

[Bran32]

Are we doing the College Hockey Pick Em' again this year??

[Bear55]

We sure will but that isn't until the ncaa tournament.

[cbrooks]

http://unitedstatesofhockey.com/2012/10/...media-to-blame/

This is pretty weak but it sounds like its gonna be a year long suspenstion

[scsavre]

We did a year long one too. I just signed up for it again

[Bran32]

I just signed up again!! Forgot about the season long Pick em!!

[Bear55]

what site are you guys using or the season long pickem?

[cbrooks]

what site are you guys using or the season long pickem?

If I remember right Bear you have to sign up with facebook

[Bran32]

It is just collegehockeypickem.com and then create a free account. Last year I had to use facebook but this year I didn't!

[Bear55]

Ok just signed up and made a few picks, I kind of like the bonus point idea, made a few of those pics.

[Bear55]

Woo Hoo real hockey tonight! Time to let Michigan State know they will be forever battling it out with Penn and Ohio State at the bottom of the Big Ten.

Still makes me a little sick to have to type Big Ten and hockey in the same sentence.

[scsavre]

State was bad last night, or maybe we were that good. Still not sure. I thought we looked pretty sloppy, however it was the first game ans when you roll 4 lines games tend to look a little sloppy. Our goalies made some saves but he sure looked nervous. Pucks were bouncing off him. Our d is gonna be challenged to clear those rebounds against better teams.

Any body watch the USA game. Looked like they double up shots vs sue. I was hopping for a recap on how facing looked. 1 goal 2 assists

[cbrooks]

Darn it,i miss the UND/USAU-18 game. I heard hudson stood out though....so you should be excited there

[archerystud]

Well SCSU stunk it up and got swept. Looks like they'll finish in the bottom half of the league.

I know it's early but they didn't help the WCHA by getting swept by HE. From the SCSU boards it sounded like their D-men were horrible (which is supposed to be their strength) so I guess there is room for improvement.

[Bear55]

Gophs looked strong, weren't really challenged. I guess MS has a very young group of D men and it showed.

[solbes]

Early start to the college hockey weekend last night. Duluth played some Irish dudes last night in Dublin or Southbend, winning 3-1. Even big ol' Dan Delisle got a breakaway goal Matt McNeely won his first career start in net.

Duluth put on the ol' 3rd period "send one guy into the zone and then pray they don't score" bits. Can't stand that stategy. I still have heart palpatations from last years North Dakota game where they almost came back from 3 down.

Series wraps up tonight with the Saturday football crowd coming in.

[Bear55]

Good win for UMD, ND had an off year last year, they are a solid team with some very good players.

[Bear55]

Fun weekend prediction, the Sioux drop a game in Alaska, not sure which game.