Apologies for no posting yesterday. I'll try to catch up with a lot today and tomorrow.

First thing, I don't know if anyone noticed but our tech team unveiled some cosmetic changes to all the SBN blogs this week. It's a little simpler design aimed at hopefully making this site load a little faster(I don't know if that's been the case, but that's the goal at least). I'm incredibly not picky when it comes to that stuff, especially since anything looks like an improvement over the Orange Crush of the old WCH site, and they do all the work for me, which is a nice bonus. But the site design changes are still a work in progess and our tech team is very interested in what readers have to say, so if you have any comments/complaints/suggestions about what you see or what you'd like to see, the feedback is definitely welcome.

Jay Barriball went knee-to-knee with a teammate in practice, and will miss this weekend's series against Wisconsin and probably the rest of the season.

Only at Wisconsin is deciding who to sign in the early signing period like solving a Rubik's Cube--a Rubik's Cube where at the end, you tell all the green squares you don't want them to play hockey for you. In fairness, Ryan McDonagh, Brendan Smith, and Derek Stepan at a minimum look ready to make the jump to pro hockey next year, but Wisconsin's beloved Big Ten prohibits them from giving away their scholarship money until they actually leave school.

Michigan's Chris Brown is off to a good start at Michigan.His offensive production has even been a little more than I was expecting early on, though his shooting percentage is over 25%, so I wouldn't be surprised if he slows down fairly soon.

Minnesota recruit Nick Bjugstad and BU recruit Charlie Coyle will be joining the NTDP for the upcoming Four Nations Cup.