NCAA Hockey Pairings

Oh man, to lose on a wrap around!!! That Sucks!!! poor Gophs, Time to go Home

I’m glad your team knows how to win with class, because you sure as h*ll don’t know how to!

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Oh man, to lose on a wrap around!!! That Sucks!!! poor Gophs, Time to go Home

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Fair weather fan? didn’t get any responce out of you after last weeks WCHA Tourney…

Oh come on it’s all in fun, if it was the other way around all the gophers fans would be on it as well.

Both teams played extremely well, (both this and last weekend) I meant no offense to anyone. Someone had to win both of those games, and it could have been either team.
Well Played by both

And as far as winning with class, awfully strange that you never see a Sioux player skate around the rink and tug at thier jersey.

I like the fact that Lucia gets the U to the NCAA on a regular basis, but I’m getting a little upset that he never has a team thats willing to play the body. Way too many times tonight the UND players were playing keep away with the puck in the Gophers end and all the Gophers did was try to stick check the guy with the puck, and it didn’t work. Wheeler was the only Gopher that actually threw his body around and that was only a couple times. If you can’t knock the puck off a players stick, you have to knock the player off the puck.

I agree with you all the way bragduck. Both teams played very well last weekend and tonight. Could have been anyone. Its a sad night for us gopher fans but if we keep everyone over the off season we’ll be hard to beat next year . Waht a good bunch of kids.

About the jersy grabbing… A little embarrassing.

About the pairings. What the are they thinking. Don’t they want this kind of game at the Frozen Four???

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It ticked me off because I really think the NCAA title game was the WCHA title game last week. Three WCHA teams in the best league in the country picked for this tourney. Come on, lets see this program they have for picking these teams.

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Good point landscats. They said at the selection show that they wanted to fill the seats at the regionals. Unfortunately this is how they do it.

Check out BC… Looking pretty good…

Good luck Sioux… Saying that feels worng

Well for the second year in a row I will be cheering for the Enemy. It was a good game and we couldnt have lost to a better team. Good luck to the sioux I will be cheering for you here on out show those boys out east how to play some Puck

Here’s my take guys,

BC is going to be pretty tough to beat at the Frozen Four.

The Gophers had a pretty great season, But I would bet that at least a couple of those guys will move on, it’s hard to be that good, and not get tempted to take to money and move to pro hockey.

Well, ND’s date with BC will be a pretty interesting one, It is also interesting to see that no #1 teams made it to the Big Dance

Another amazing thing is watching Dave Hakstol as his team plays, When Bina scored to go ahead to make it 2-1, he didn’t even smile. But the man has taken his team to the Frozen Four all 3 years he has been the Head Coach

Great year for gopher fans ….

I think even the Sioux fans can look forward to the Wild in the playoffs .

What was the explanation for the goal that was waived off.

I’m glad its over, no more Clay Matvick

Fire Lucia! The guy does nothing but choke as of late. Kinda sounds like a Vikes fan
I hate Hockey, can’t watch nor do I care to, but wheres the out cry, you know that typical MN “FIRE the coach” stuff?

Start the cry for his head Jack!

The explination for the goal that got waved off…..the Gophers got shafted!!!!!!!!
The goalie was at the top of the crease already so it couldn’t have been a crease violation….not to mention if you are pushed into the crease it isn’t a violation anyways. If it was goaltender interference there should have been a penalty on Wheeler but they didn’t call one. Either way in the replay you can see a ND player riding Wheeler into the goalie so the goal should have counted, absolutely no reason to blow the whistle or waive that goal off.

I was not impressed with the officiating in that game at all. The hold they called on Wheeler when he and the ND player had the puck tied up on the boards and the interference on Stoa in front of the net…..the guy he knocked down is the one that just played the puck into the corner…that isn’t interference if the guy just played the puck.

The NCAA got what they wanted.. …2 teams from the East Coast in the Frozen 4. I am absolutely not a ND fan…..but with the Gophers out…I hope the Sioux kick those cake eaters from out east right in the and take the whole thing.

It was kinda cool seeing a national championship caliber game 2 weekends in a row…..I doubt we will see games that good from here on out….bummer for ESPN since they are airing the Frozen 4 games.
JB

I second that I felt he was getting rode in there as well and yes it should have been either a goal or a penalty one or the other instead of nothing once again a AWSOME game to watch but I had a bad feeling in my gut that overtime was not going to go to the gophers with the physical play of the sioux and overtime takes murder for the whistle to be called and when it comes to that style of play the sioux thrive. Now we need to the sioux to move on and shut the ESPN anouncers up and make them realize real hockey is played here in the midwest dare I say it GO SIOUX!!!!!

OK I was working around the house with the game on 2 different TV’s. I know they were hockey east refs for our game, why is that? when you have 2 WCHA teams? just curious on that part. but one observation I had, and like I said I did not sit down and watch the whole game. Did see the goal waived off and agree that Wheeler was road through the crease and you could see the goalie flop. which was pretty bad acting, but good enough for the refs.. . But seemed like when the gophers ahd the puck in teh ND zone on teh end boards there were some pretty quick whistles and when there was a loose puck in front of the net why was the guy out of position blowing his whistle for a stoppage when there was a ref in position seeing the puck? And then in teh gopher zone seemed like they wanted them to keep grinding in the boards and play the puck out. now like I said I saw the majority but not all of it. BUt did look like it was as a good of a game as the last one. but ND did look really good in the OT period .

Broncs

Brad I was just joking….

I’m not blaming the Ref’s……the power play we tied the game on was not a penalty on Nodak.

We need a goalie…..

The Gophs should have scored on the 5 minute major. When that didn’t happen it was all but over. I think Wheeler’s skate was in the crease and since we had the puck the whistle blew immediately. We can’t [censored] about the refs since they gave us a 5 minute major and we dd nothing with it.

I will be pulling for the Sioux, but I bleed Maroon and Gold.

Finally, Erik Johnson played poorly on that last play when he let thier guy skate right around him untouched. He needs to put a thumping on that man into the boards.

Dave

Wow, that was a finals quality game all the way! Too bad it wasn’t for the NCAA championship. The Gophers had a great year, and will be awesome in the next couple years, if too many don’t leave early.
I agree the 5 min. major was a turning point, it gave the Sioux something to build on. After their slow start in the season, I really didn’t expect this ride to the Frozen Four! GO SIOUX!!

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What was the explanation for the goal that was waived off.

I’m glad its over, no more Clay Matvick

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I agree Clay Matvic got really sickening last night.
The Gophs have to stop playing dump and chase hockey on the power play though it clearly wasn’t working for them last night. I think they ran out of gas a little at the end of the third, they were just watching a lot of loose pucks and the Sioux were all over them, then they started icing it at the end. Either way good season. And I hope NoDak kicks the eastern teams

I hate the dump and chase on power plays as well. They need some improvement on defense as well. Way too much standing around in front of the net. I think Frazee will get better. Another Hobey Baker foward would be nice too.

Quote of the game from Clay Matvic with 10 seconds left in the period and 1 minute left in the ND power play.

“I think this power play is going to carry over into the next period, yes it will, unfortunately for the Gophers there is more than 10 seconds left on the power play”

Or how about this one. Every time Tony Lucia touched the puck…

” The coach’s son now has the puck” The coach’s son just took a nice shot” ” Here comes the coach’s son again”

I am not an advocate of dump and chase when you have the talent the Gophs have but when you are being forced to do something at the blue line there aren’t many options.

Dump and chase on the power play can work great when you execute it properly. Off wing going hard, puck carrier dumps it in around the boards hard enough the goalie can’t play it or to the opposite corner and the weak side wing wins the race to the puck since he has forward momentum in his favor. If the wing isn’t going hard…which they weren’t, or they half the dump in which they were it will never work because the goalie will stop it and play it to the D and they will clear it.

I do agree that the gophs needed to do something with the 5 minute power play and when they didn’t it was a boost for UND.
I absolutley do not agree with the goal that got waived off. If Wheelers skate was in the crease because he was pushed or rode in, it isn’t a crease violation. They blew the whistle because the goalie flopped like he got hit by a Mack truck. Not to mention if they blew the whistle EVERY single time a player coasted through a portion of the crease the game would take 4 hours with all the stoppages.

I did notice there were some quick whistles at some points and some that took forever. At one point during a MN powerplay they let them scrum along the boards forever but during a ND powerplay the whistles were quick not allowing MN to chew up the clock in the same manner ND was allowed to.

Don’t get me wrong the Gophs had their chances and didn’t play with the same fire they did last weekend.

I am not blaming the refs just stating that to me it looked like if there was a questionable call it seemed to me it always went in ND’s favor whether it was questionable penalties or quick whistles at the right times.

Now it is just a matter of who stays and who goes. A guy I work with heard that 6 might be leaving but nothing is solid yet.
Wheeler, Johnson, Okposo, Bariball, Goligoski and Carmen.
If that happens…..next year will be interesting….not sure if Lucia has that many top line players waiting in the wings or not.

The broadcast of the game was pretty bad. Maybe we just get spoiled by how good the normal FSN crew is. I also agree “Now the coaches son has the puck” was getting pretty old. I also caught the genius power play observation. How about the same Hobey Baker report between every period or the Final Four bracket put up atleast twice a period?

The Gophers accomplished more than I expected at the start of the season. I had a blast watching them on that long winning streak and the Final Five championship was unbelievable. The Gophers got outplayed yesterday, and lost to a very good team. The Sioux exploited every weakness. They dominated the face offs, kept their feet moving in the offensive zone, and shut down the dump and chase. Lucia said there is a bad and good team, and I think the team in the middle showed up on Sunday.

I am looking forward to next season. No matter who goes to the NHL, they will still be good. Okposo, Wheeler, and possibly Johnson are the only players I could see going. Remember the “Gophers don’t recruit, they reload.”

IMHO, the UND forecheck won the game for them. They just beat the crappola out of the Gophers physicaly to the point that the Gophers didn’t want to catch a pass for fear they would get checked, and they would have.

The Gophers need to be able to play the more physical game, not just poke check and skate.

I agree the Sioux forecheck was unbelieveable, they had a body on the gophs every chance they got. As far as people leaving I heard that it was just Okposo, Johnson, and Goligoski so far but who knows I didn’t really think that Irmen would leave last year either.

I think Lucia has been watching the Wild play to much with all the stick checking. What lost the game for the gophs in my opinion is they could not pass tape to tape at any point in the game to get some speed going. They always seemed to have to slow down to catch a pass then the ND defender would be all over them. NODAK was a better team Sunday!