Jordan Nelson Commits to Mankato

Fargo Force forward Jordan Nelson’s future got a lot clearer this week; he’s made his decision where he’ll be lacing up his skates next season.  The 2010 North Dakota Mr. Hockey winner has verbally committed to play hockey for Minnesota State University-Mankato next season. "I'm really excited about it.  I really like their coach and just had a great feeling about the school and team.  I feel like it's going to be a great fit for me" Nelson said.

The Mavericks, who are tied for 4^th in the WCHA this year, have been a huge surprise to those that weren’t paying attention.  However, anybody in the hockey world saw that they were heading in the right direction coming into this season.  They replaced Troy Jutting with a proven winner in new Head Coach Mike Hastings and they have a handful of very talented underclassmen that include forwards Matt Leitner, Jean Paul Lafontaine and Teddy Blueger, defenseman Zach Palmquist, and goalie Stephon Williams.

The Mavericks are going to return a strong core of players next season and not one of the teams above or tied with them this season will remain in the WCHA (Denver, St. Cloud and UND will go to the NCHC and Minnesota and Wisconsin will go to the Big 10) so Nelson has to be feeling lucky to have gotten on with the ascending Mavericks.  However, the excitement surrounding the commitment is surely reciprocated by the Maverick’s coaching staff.  Coach Hastings and his crew are getting a very nice recruit late in the game.

“They are getting a reliable guy; a day-in, day-out kind of player that can also put up numbers for them.  Jordan should be an every night kid for them if he picks up where he leaves off here” said Assistant Coach Jesse Davis.  Coach Davis was a member of Jason Herter’s coaching staff that drafted Nelson in the first round two years ago and he’s seen the development in his game over the last couple seasons.  “Jordan’s really come into his own as a Junior player the end of last season and this season.  The last 20-30 games he’s really become the player we expected him to be when we drafted him (in the first round).  It’s a tough transition from High School to this league.  I think it’s tougher to adjust from High School hockey to our league than it is from our league to college.  He should have a pretty smooth transition next year" said Davis.

Nelson is relieved to have the decision over with so he can focus on the rest of his season with the Force who are in second in the USHL.  "It's nice to know where I'm playing next year.  I can finally go out and just focus on playing hockey and not worrying about next year.  We have a good team this year; I think we have the ability to go pretty far.  We're in second now, but would obviously like to get up into first, get home ice advantage, and hopefully make it all the way to the Clark Cup.  It's nice to just be able to focus on that stuff now."

Beyond the Pond wants to congratulate Jordan and thank him for always being open to talking with us!  Williston and the State of North Dakota are proud of you!  Mankato is getting a great player and an even better guy!

First off, I apologize for the lack of posts lately.  It’s been a pretty busy couple of weeks, and I just couldn’t find the will to sit down and write something.  I promised myself I would write up something while on the bus to our game in Minot.  I could write about the NHL season being back, Brian Burke being fired, or one of the never-ending topics in college hockey.  However, I can’t get my mind off of the huge win that the high school team I help coach just had.  So while the team is “cellying hard” on the bus ride back and reliving each and every moment of the game, I’m attempting to capture it in writing for all of you to read. 

Disclaimer:  Yes, this will be biased.  For an unbiased recap see willistonherald.com or minotdailynews.com

Coyote Girls Hockey Beats Minot in 2-1 Thriller!

                Ralph Engelstad once said, “The harder you work, the luckier you get."  While every North Dakota kid has heard these words hundreds of times, the frustration was obviously starting to settle in on the Williston Coyote Girls’ Hockey team.  The last few weeks it seemed like no matter how hard they worked, they couldn’t catch a bounce.  However, head coach Mat Ekblad was not willing to accept the “bad luck” excuse when he walked into the locker room at the Maysa Arena to address his team before the game.  Coach Ekblad spoke about making your own luck and emphasized that there was still more the girls could give to create the bounces they needed.  It turns out he was right, and the girls responded by controlling the play and coming away with a huge 2-1 road win.

                The Coyotes came out flying in the first period putting up twelve shots and limiting Minot’s chances.  They established a strong forecheck and were controlling the play, but couldn’t get one past goalie Sydney Swanson.  The first period ended 0-0, and despite controlling most of the period, the Coyote girls knew they had more to give.

                At the start of the 2^nd period, everybody in the building could tell that the Williston squad wasn’t content with being tied 0-0 and simply controlling play.  They threw more pucks at the net, crashed the net on every opportunity, and battled even harder.  Halfway through the period, Amanda Nelson put the Coyotes on the board.  Linemate Kayla Buck came down on a 2 on 1, drew the defenseman to her, and slid the puck to Nelson who sniped it top shelf.  The Magette’s, starting to get frustrated, took a penalty and the Coyotes went back to work.  Kayla Buck came off the side boards looking to pass the puck up to the Miller, but she was covered.  Buck found the opening in the middle of the ice, cut in to the scoring area, and rifled one past Swanson for a 2-0 lead.  The Magette’s had a couple of good scoring chances, but couldn’t get one past Maddy McLees, and the Coyotes ended the second period up 2-0.

                In the third period, Minot came out with more heart trying to get back in the game.  They got on the board with a Sydney Boyce goal at the halfway point of the period.  However, it wouldn’t be enough as McLees and the Coyotes went back to work and finished the hard-found game 2-1.  There were hugs, cheers, and tears in the locker room and on the bus.  “Why?” you might ask.  Yes, this was just one game, but the excitement comes  from 19 players giving everything of themselves for fifty-one minutes against their biggest rival and it being enough to yield the result they desired.  That’s the beauty of sports.  Tonight they got to live out the quote “The harder you work, the luckier you get!"

Family Ties Not Enough For Gersich

Coach Hakstol and company just had one of their biggest wins of the season while the team wasn’t even playing.  Just two days after St. Cloud Cathedral’s  Austin Poganski committed, UND won the Gersich recruiting battle, essentially stealing the top  sophomore prospect in the state of Minnesota out from under the Gophers.  Shane Gersich (Holy Family) is thought to be the best Sophomore in the state and possibly the nation.  He put up 41 points as an 8^th grader and a whopping 60 points as a freshman giving him over 100 varsity points before his sophomore season even started.  He was drafted first overall in the USHL Future’s draft by Omaha and led the 16’s National Camp.  Not only is this a huge get because of the talent he possesses, but also because it comes as such a surprise to the hockey world.  Gersich’s family ties made it seemingly inevitable that he would wear the maroon and gold.  His father played for the Gophers from 1985-1988 and his uncles are the Golden Gopher golden boys (Neal, Aaron, and Paul Broten).  However, Gersich stated that he wanted to carve his own path and that UND felt like a better fit. 

See article

 

Silent Knight

Silent Knight

At the beginning of the season, I wrote a blog on my pre-season Hobey Baker predictions and sent them to my editor, Katie Schauer, for review.  Her response was “No Corban Knight?”  I responded that he’s steady and probably the best 2-way player in the WCHA, but he’s not fancy enough.  This wasn’t a slam on Knight; it was more of a slam on the media and other coaches that don’t realize the things that he quietly does night in and night out to help the team win.  Things have changed since then; Knight is leading the WCHA scoring, ranked 7^th nationally, has the highest +/- on a top WCHA team, is riding a 13 game point streak, and is on pace to break his own  face-off record of 59.9%.  Keep in mind that he has never received any post-season honors.  So some people that don’t watch Knight on a regular basis are wondering “where did this guy come from?”

Corban Knight hasn’t come out of nowhere.  He very quietly put together 40+ point seasons as a sophomore and junior.  He is 50th on the list of career points by UND players with 120 points.  This puts him ahead of players like Zach Parise, Matt Frattin, Terry Casey, Marc Chorney, and Drew Stafford.  Some of these players didn’t play all four years, but it is impressive company, nonetheless.  In fact, all but Stafford received All-American honors.

Last season, Knight led a young, injury-plagued line-up to a 3^rd straight Broadmoor trophy and into a regional championship game where they fell short.  In that regional he had the winning goal against Western Michigan, was a +3 in the tournament, and won 72% of his face-offs.  Once they lost out to Minnesota and his season was over, it was revealed that he had played the last month of the season with a broken hand.  Yes, he won 72% of his face-offs at a regional tournament with a broken hand.

So where did Corban Knight come from?  The real question is when did the media start taking notice?  He’d be the first to admit he doesn’t have remarkable speed like Kristo or Grimaldi, a shot like Frattin, or hands like Evan Trupp.  In fact, if you had to pick one skill that Knight is “flashy” at, it’s his incredible knack for face-offs. 

Flashy or not, Corban Knight is leading the WCHA in scoring this season  and is playing his reliable 2-way center role on a team that’s tied for first in the WCHA heading into Christmas Break.  Given his consistency, I don’t see his production dropping off much this season either. The rest of the hockey world is starting to take notice of the player that UND players, coaches, and fans have known about for three years and he’s made it almost impossible for coaches and media to not discuss him as an All-WCHA, All-American, and Hobey Baker top 10 pick in the spring.  So much for a Silent Knight!

 

 

 

Friday Humor

 

I just thought I'd post a familiar video to get everybody excited about the UND/Denver games this weekend.  For those of you that were not watching the game and haven't seen this video yet, you are in for a treat!

 



Lockout Sweepstakes

 

 

Well the NHL lockout is almost three months in and even though it’s going to mediation, it doesn’t look like it’s going to be resolved anytime soon.  A few weeks ago, I joked about a few of the reasons that the lockout is good for the Wild.  Today I’m actually going to illustrate why one of those is starting to look pretty appealing.

The 2013 draft is shaping up to be one of the best in the last decade.  Not only is it a relatively deep class, but it has incredible top end talent.  Nathan MacKinnon has drawn comparisons to Sidney Crosby in his draft year.  He has incredible speed, dazzling hands, and a rocket of a shot.  He will make an immediate impact on the club that drafts him.  Seth Jones is a once-in-a-decade defenseman that is sure to be the next franchise blue liner.  He has a rare combination of size, skill, and intelligence that has scouts drooling over him.  Throw in Aleksander Barkov, Jonathan Drouin, and Sean Monahan and you have five players that might as well keep their draft day jerseys on because they’ll be in the big league from the get-go. 

So how exactly do they determine draft order after a lockout?  Well, after the 04-05 lockout the draft order was decided by a lottery.  Teams could have a maximum of three balls in the lottery and a minimum of one.  Teams lost a ball for every time they had been to the playoffs the previous three seasons or had a first overall pick the previous three seasons.  If that’s the case this year, the breakdown will go like this.

3 Balls (7 teams)
Dallas
Calgary
Winnipeg
Toronto
Minnesota
Columbus
Carolina

2 Balls (6 teams)
New York Islanders
Florida
Tampa Bay
St. Louis
Colorado
Anaheim

1 Ball (17 teams)
Edmonton
Washington
Philadelphia
New York Rangers
Boston
New Jersey
Buffalo
Ottawa
Vancouver
Phoenix
Nashville
Detroit
Chicago
San Jose
Los Angeles
Montreal
Pittsburgh

This would mean there are fifty balls total in the lottery.  That gives the 3-ball teams a 6% chance at the top pick, the 2-ball teams a 4% chance, and the one ball teams a 2% chance.  Like I said before, this class has five (or more) fantastic picks so we wanted to see what the Wild’s odds were of getting a top five pick.  I had our volunteer statisticians (WMS teachers Jeff Winslow and Aaron Finders) figure out the range of odds.  There isn’t an exact percentage because if teams with one or two balls get drawn first the odds don’t increase as much as if a team with three balls is drawn.  Therefore, they computed a range of odds given various scenarios.  The probable range of a top five pick for the Wild is 6-8% with a best case scenario of 10%. 

One last thing to ponder is if the league decides to change the lottery system to prohibit top teams from having any chance of a top pick.  Bloggers, beat writers, and fans have all discussed the chance of the league drawing for the top seven picks, middle six picks, and bottom seventeen picks separately.  If this was the case, this would be a jackpot for those seven teams.

In closing, it is still too early to say that there won’t be an NHL season.  However, you can see just how lucky the Wild could get if this were to happen.  If the Wild were to add McKinnon or Jones (or even Drouin, Bartok, or Monahan) to their current crop of prospects and summer free agent signings, the State of Hockey could see a Stanley Cup contender as early as next season!

It's the "Dub's" turn this time

Last summer, the NCAA fans rejoiced and the CHL fans cringed when the Canadian junior league finally took a stand against the Windsor Spitfires for breaking the player-benefit code (more or less offering money they are not allowed to in order to have players bail out on their college commitments and opt to play for them).  Well back then I said I didn't think that would be the last we heard about this, and this has turned out to be the case.
 

The Windsor Spitfires of the Western Hockey League ( aka The Dub) just got the book thrown at them.  They were fined $200,000 and lost their first five round picks for the 2013 draft and their first round pick for 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017.  See the article here.
 

For UND fans, this is especially intriguing since big-time defenseman Seth Jones had narrowed his choices to UND and the Everett Silvertips. The Silvertips owned his rights before they traded his them to Portland who were able to convince him to go there.  Many believe Jones told Everett he wasn't coming there, so they let Portland try to convince him to go the junior route.  Just to be straight, I'm not talking down about Seth Jones.  He's a tremendous player, has great character, and handled his decision the right way by not committing to a college and bailing out.  All I'm saying is UND fans have a reason to not like Portland and most aren't going to feel to bad about the sanctions.  Oh, and I'm a little bitter that they still get to use a certain "hostile and abusive" logo.