With OSU and ND losing over the weekend, the conference has gone from three teams last year to none this year. OSU was struggling near the end of the season and ND didn't have the offense to keep up with UMass. It's time to start thinking about next year. Guy Gadowsky says he thinks most of the underclassmen will stay to complete some unfinished business. Barratt and Pavlychev are the two most likely to leave, we shall see.
With OSU and ND losing over the weekend, the conference has gone from three teams last year to none this year. OSU was struggling near the end of the season and ND didn't have the offense to keep up with UMass. It's time to start thinking about next year. Guy Gadowsky says he thinks most of the underclassmen will stay to complete some unfinished business. Barratt and Pavlychev are the two most likely to leave, we shall see.
Losing Talvitie really hurt us this year, I think we'd easily been in the NCAA tournament had he not been injured. Still had a good team, but it was that much better with him on the ice. I know he was a 4th line guy, but the production he brought to that line was impressive as a freshman.
With OSU and ND losing over the weekend, the conference has gone from three teams last year to none this year. OSU was struggling near the end of the season and ND didn't have the offense to keep up with UMass. It's time to start thinking about next year. Guy Gadowsky says he thinks most of the underclassmen will stay to complete some unfinished business. Barratt and Pavlychev are the two most likely to leave, we shall see.
After being in frozen 4 last two years, losing last year's final 2-1 to Minn-Duluth, I really didn't expect ND to get back this year, especially losing a lot of guys, and playing some freshman..I watched the Clarkson game, was surprised ND won after trailing most of night; missed the UMAss game attending a MLB game, but really didn't expect ND to beat UMASS, I think the no 1 seed.Future should be bright for ND with a lot of young players returning....Big 10 hockey should be exciting and entertaining next yr..
Roam, I agree that Talvitie was a big loss. I also wish they'd played better overall defense earlier in the season. Having a potent offense that scores lots of goals is great when you can, but they struggled against really good defensive teams and other teams with potent offenses. They gave up too many odd man rushes and took too many penalties in some games. They tend to pick up their defense late in seasons when things are on the line. However, wins in November through January count just as much in the pairwise as those in February and March. Two less losses against Michigan, Michigan State, or Wisconsin and they'd have made the tournament.
Culture, ND did great with what they had returning. I agree the future for ND and the conference look promising. However, parity actually worked against the conference this year with teams 2-6 only separated by 3 points. I'm looking forward to expansion. If Illinois decides to sponsor hockey, I wonder how long it would take them to get up and running?
