USCHO article on Frozen Four teams
As in title. DU matchup is first I remember since 2002 game at Yost. Another title would give DU they're 9th natty and a share of Michigan's lead.
https://www.uscho.com/2022/03/27/an-early-look-at-the-2022-ncaa-mens-frozen-four-denver-minnesota-state-minnesota-and-michigan/
Thanks, I tried to repost and use HTML... but, alas, I'm an idiot
Two games with third period focus will really help. The announcers talked about all the Senior Leadership on Quinnipiac. Our young studs appear to play like they grabbed a few beers and relaxed in the second intermission.
March 28th, 2022 at 11:30 AM ^
Team has gotten out to big leads and got bored basically all year. Like if we went 100% in one of the MSU games we could have scored 15.
March 28th, 2022 at 12:26 PM ^
I don't see an issue with running up 15 on MSU...
20 would be better
I really wish there wasn't such a long layoff....this team is hot and peaking. Would be great to play this weekend, but i know its about TV and eyeballs, and you cant compete with basketball.
Go blue! Lets go get a natty!
March 28th, 2022 at 11:56 AM ^
seems like they could do F/S for hockey and S/M for basketball.
Yup. Always like me some S&M.
F/Su is the women's Final Four, which is a better TV rating for ESPN.
i was thinking about this when i saw espn mention it in the game last night. that is right. I forgot about it even though UM was in it.
March 28th, 2022 at 10:31 AM ^
Should be a wild game with Denver. They're statistically pretty similar to us: elite offense, good defense, good goaltending. Schedule has been pretty similar to us recently too- mostly winning the games they should and generally going .500 or better vs tournament teams. No obvious weaknesses like AIC and Quinnipiac showed. The caveat being that the mental lapses we saw Michigan have vs those two teams might be devastating vs an offense like Denver.
Only thing jumping out on first glance is that Denver has the 41st ranked PK. Hopefully we get to take advantage of that
March 28th, 2022 at 11:54 AM ^
The Quinnipiac goalie came into the game with a tiny goals against average. The TV guys were talking about a near 1 goal a game stat. Later in the game, they were like "can you believe this Michigan team? Perets (Q's goalie) doesn't give up this many goals!"
Yeah but anyone who looked a little deeper knew Quinnipiac's SOS was weak and their shiny stats looked a lot less intimidating when they played anyone in the upper half of D1. Denver won't have any asteriks like that
Denver winning goal was pretty lucky. Bounce off the backboard onto the goalies pad and then in. Try to do that again
March 28th, 2022 at 10:48 AM ^
I wish that the USCHO writing staff had put a little more thought into the article, e.g. instead of stock blurbs about each of the teams, I would like to have seen some analysis on why none of the defensive oriented teams made the FF. Is this part of a long term trend or is this year's set of teams unique?
I think it’s just sos. There are no great teams in the East - UMass and QU are good but undertalented and overaged. They were the class of their conferences this year
fact is, the talent, both coaching and player, is all in the west now that BU and BC and Cornell are down. The overage strategy of t he last 15 years evened the playing field enough to get QU and Union some success but now other teams are collecting a few overagers along with the Uberyoung and talented. It may be extreme leveling due to COVID extra years, but that will work itself out in the next 2 years. Won’t be easy to determine bc odds are the big 3 in the East will not be down for long