Made mention of this on twitter, last night.

Omaha's defensive corps are both offensive and offensive. That is... not good.

We're making a lot of noise about the potential of Lemay and Guevin. Both looks like strong puckmovers who will rack up a lot of assists (if we score). I also heard that Lemay and Guevin are the target defensemen for the coaches in recruiting.

The philosophy is that the coaches can teach and improve defensive play, but the offensive skill set cannot be taught or developed.

That's going to leave us with a huge liability at the back -- especially early on.

I broke down Omaha's defensemen as follows...

3 offensive defensemen: Guevin, Lemay, Tychonick

1 two-way defenseman: Mancini

2 stay-at-home defensemen: Ludtke, Proctor

2 lost/undefined: Krenzen, Pennington

Those last two seem to be stuck somewhere between being offensive defensemen, and trying to be two-way players. They may have been point producers in juniors, but just haven't figured it out in college.

I think Ludtke's injury might be a bigger loss than originally anticipated. If Ludtke, Mancini, and Proctor are all healthy... they're half your D lineup, and you can pair them with guys who get up the ice and create.

Ludtke is out. Who knows how long.

Mancini can't stay out of the penalty box. (Not his fault.)

And Proctor is either playing hurt, or has regressed this year.

So... here we are, playing 7 defensemen... and only two of them are reliable in front of their own goal. Makes you miss players like Knoepke, Messner, Eickman, and Knapp.

It is interesting because "on paper," the defense looked to be our strength this season (they might miss Ludtke more than we realize at this juncture). 

Last season, UNO allowed an average of 2.7 goals per game. That was the first season during the Gabinet era that we were under 3 goals allowed per game (this is currently his 6th season at the helm). 

To put this in perspective, UNO had a 2.3 GAA during the 2014-15 Frozen Four season. The Mavs had a 2.5 GAA during the 2010-11 NCAA tourney season.  

During the Gabinet era (5 full seasons): 

• Goals Allowed: 3.24
  
• Goals For: 2.44 
  

During the Blais era (8 full seasons): 

• Goals Allowed: 2.875 
  
• Goals For: 3.04 
  

There were a number of key defensive mistakes and breakdowns during the Niagara series (Mancini's no-look, behind-the-back pass in our defensive zone — behind the goal line — led to Niagara's first goal on Friday, and largely set the tone for the weekend). 

We were led to believe that with this current incarnation of UNO Hockey (since the current regime took the helm) we would see a more of a "lock it down" style of defensive hockey. 

Blais was known for his "racehorse hockey" style of play that was built more on creativity and an aggressive forecheck (less on goaltending and defense).

As it regards NCHC play, we've been in the bottom three in the conference every season (but one) in the "goals allowed" category since 2017 (we were in the bottom 4 during the COVID season of 2020-21). 

I still haven't figured out exactly what our strategy is as it regards game management, defense, etc. 

I'm laying the "defensive failures" on all 5 skaters. It wasn't a good showing, pond hockey at it's mediocrity. They are a Division 1 hockey team, they need to show that. Offensively, they got some bad breaks, and Niagara wasn't that bad a team. Still, our expectations should be that they play to their potential.

The effort from Omaha was there. The execution was lacking.

Credit to Niagara for capitalizing on just about every error the Mavericks made. UNO gifted both wins to the Purple Eagles. (...and if you want, I will highlight the critical moment/error on each Niagara goal.)

Jim wrote:

I agree with Chris' comments regard identity and "what are we recruiting for". Any team advancing into the NCAA and going far has two things:

-Solid defense (including goaltending) and...

-Offensive threats.

The Mavs don't appear to value the second. We recruit forwards, but they are the lunch pail types. This does not win games, it just keeps the team close enough to break our hearts.

You're absolutely right about forward recruiting. The past few seasons, a number of our talented skaters up front have been players like Brannon McManus (transfer from Minnesota), Kevin Conley (transfer from DU), and Tyler Weiss (a Boston U. recruit who wasn't pursued after David Quinn left for the Rangers). 

Taylor Ward was recruited during the Blais era (his dad played for Blais at North Dakota). 

The "scoring by committee" we see is indicative of those lunch pail players for sure. 

The question is whether or not this coaching staff can get us players of the same pro caliber as past forwards like Guentzel, Walters, Archibald, and Megna. 

Kemp had success with lunch pail guys — the historical stats illustrate that point. 

But... what worked for Kemp in mid-1990s and early-2000s CCHA play might not work in a conference like the NCHC. 

I think Miami in recent seasons is an example of this. Enrico Blasi's Miami teams had a terrific amount of success during the decade immediately preceding the formation of the NCHC — but fell apart when the conference formed.  

Part of the reason is that the CCHA (during those years) was basically a conference that had 2-3 really "good" teams annually, with the rest being fairly "middle of the road." 

As a result, you didn't need blue chip talent to compete. You could stay in the mix with those gritty "characters with character" that Kemp liked to recruit. 

Changes to the game have definitely occurred in the past 15-20 years — in terms of conference alignment and the game in general (ex. it's harder to play a physical brand of hockey without spending the game in the box). 

Certainly, the NCHC concentrated an incredible amount of pro-caliber talent in its 8 member schools. 

The challenge for this coaching staff has been the fact that none of the coaches (other than Jerrard) had NCAA recruiting experience coming in. 

Any recruiter can spot talent, but the bigger challenge is whether or not they can "close the deal" with top players out of the Minnesota high school hockey ranks (which is where a lot of the talent in this conference comes from). 

I had hoped they'd bring in an assistant like fmr. Maverick Rob Facca, who had been an assistant at Northern Michigan and at Western Michigan (and recruited a number of players on the Broncos' Frozen Four team last season) and is currently a scout in the NHL.

A lot of this business is about personal connections — who you know as opposed to what you know. 

Looking at recruiting the next few seasons, it appears we will be getting more players out of the Canadian ranks. Again, it's sort of a throwback to the early years of the UNO Hockey program. 

The key question is whether the strategy will work. Leagues like the BCHL and AJHL have talent — the question is whether or not we will get the best talent out of the league. The other question is whether or not they have equivalent talent to the USHL (which is debatable from season to season). 

It'll be fascinating to see....