Gopher Hockey Season Postmortem
Further update from a prior thread: Gophers were the first team left out of the NCAA's. UMD was probably in anyway after beating us Thursday, but then they went and became the first team to ever come from the 4/5 play-in game to win the WCHA Final Five, so they moved all the way up to a 2 seed. Definitely pull for them in the tourney; they've never won it all (I'm pretty sure they've never made the Frozen Four, in fact), they're a 'Sota team with a lot of 'Sota kids, and they beat the Gophers. Plus, it's a way to pull for the conference without feeling dirty about it, as Denver and NoDa are the only other WCHA entrants. The tide has definitely receded a bit on the conference over the last two seasons - last year we were back on a par with the east coast and the CCHA was the strongest conference, and this year Hockey East has reasserted itself and we got only three teams in the big dance and none of them are among the favorites. That's a big contrast from just two or three years ago, when we were putting at least two (or all four, that one year) teams in the Frozen Four and winning five titles in a row.
Apparently what sank the Gophers was actually a Hockey East outcome, which moved Ohio State (yes, that Ohio State) past UMass-Lowell in their Pairwise matchup, giving them the same number of Pairwise "wins" as us, so we were tied for the last at-large spot. They somehow had the tiebreaker, although I don't know what it was. I don't recall playing them head-to-head.
Anyway, it's frustrating to not make the tournament, but even worse than not making the tournament is not making the tournament because f'ing Ohio State did. That is humiliating for Minnesota.
It's difficult to swallow, wspecially after the team was performing so well early in the season, and we looked like we had finally overcome the loss of folks like Okposo and the others who've left early in droves the last few years. Last year was certainly excusable, with a total lack of players. This year not so much, with a lot more talent on hand. There's apparently still some work to do, though. Recruiting is not an issue from a talent standpoint, although at times leadership is - I didn't sense this team had quite the personalities and will to win that the Potulny/Pohl/Vanek teams did. Keeping the stars around for more than a season would certainly help in that regard. We seem to be relying on newcomers every year, whereas BU and Michigan and the like have clear hierarchies of leadership. But still, we've got 8 or 10 guys who played on the U.S. Under 18 Team. There's no reason they shouldn't be in the NCAA's. I guess this is something Lucia needs to deal with. From games I've seen this season he looks a little too stoic, too. Has he lost his edge? No team with this much ability should sleepwalk through a 1-6-1 stretch in the middle of the season. Also disconcerting this season was goaltending. Kangas looked better than Frazee when he was the understudy, but he's disappointed as the unchallenged starter. That needs to get better.
If Schroeder and Stoa both stick around, this team can make some noise next year with better goaltending. That's a big If, though, given the last several years' inability to keep guys in town for even two seasons. The plus is that Schroeder doesn't really have an NHL body and his draft stock shouldn't be that high, yet. I'd be fairly surprised if Stoa doesn't hit the draft, though.
5 Comments:
What a poop of a Gopher hockey season. I was in business school when they won that first NCAA championship (actually at Liquor Lyle's of all places with a friend from Iowa who was watching his first hockey game ever, seriously) and I thought "Finally, Gopher hockey (read: Minnesota hockey) is going to live up to it's name." With that 2nd title, Mariucci was in risk of being called "Lucia Rink at Mariucci Arena." Then the bottom has kind of fallen out (epitomized by that Holy Cross loss - I was at "Bunnys" for that one, it was wall to wall - unreal we lost.)
As you mentioned, the 1-6-1 slump is more about leadership (and goaltending) than talent. They're always young with guys who leave after a year or two (exception being Blake Wheeler who I guess was a leader, just didn't take them anywhere.) End of the day, the puck has to be stopped before going across the goal line, something Kangas has not done.
Not mentioned was Lucia's health problems this year. About the time of that 1-6-1 slump he had some undiagnosed problems that kept him away from the team; very hush-hush. Very telling that the team did NOT rally around that 'shared experience' and play harder.
There was a Strib article last week calling for Minnesota hockey to hit 'reset' and send both Lucia and Lemaire packing. Not sure we need that but something has got to give.
While I'm on the subject of Minny bars - note to Al's lovers, it's getting knocked down this summer for condos and retail.
March 24, 2009 at 8:38 AM
I'm sure those condos will sell like hotcakes in this market. Just what downtown Minneapolis needs, I'm sure.
I had forgotten about the mystery illness this season. And you're right, the failure of the team to work through not having their coach is not a good glimpse on their character. Cuts both ways as to Lucia, I guess. Obviously, they really need him as the steadying hand, but at the same time you'd like to think that he's instilled enough leadership in his captains that being gone for a couple weeks doesn't lead to an implosion against Wisco and Tech.
He's won two titles in an era of significantly increasing parity. That's better than any other coach the last decade (other than Gwozdecky, of course, whom I've always admired). So the suggestion of getting rid of him doesn't get far with me yet. That said, I think Maturi needs to sit him down and divine what the five year plan is. What's the recruiting business model? How are we going to build teams who finish strong instead of flaming out from mid-February onward? (funny how I've just started to see Duke hoops get beyond this issue, and now it's migrated to Mariucci.) And it needs to be stressed that if they fail to make the tourney next year, the hot seat is officially turned on. I can take a year of it, but two is pushing it.
FWIW, I didn't worry too much about Holy Cross - they were coming off making the Frozen Four the year prior, and good on David for getting Goliath once in awhile. But not even making it to the tournament, after getting pasted in the first round by BC last year, is stressing me more.
As to Lemaire, I've thought they should get someone else in there for at least a year or two. He and his system did a good job at making an expansion team respectable in fairly short order, but it's obvious they're not moving up the ladder and won't be anytime soon. His system was fine for the '90s, but the league's moved on to more offense. After a point, getting the 7th or 8th seed in the playoffs and losing in the first round gets a little blase.
March 24, 2009 at 9:49 AM
Jan, I remember you telling me about the meeting for that proposal years ago and how it truley was a lesson in civics. I feel bad for the old guy who will now have the equivalent of the C. Montgomery Burns sunblocker casting a shadow over his house 23 1/2 hours a day. You know he will die within a year.
Sucks about the Goph's. I had more to add but have run out of time.
March 24, 2009 at 1:14 PM
Coming back to the Gophers, is it right to be so critical of the program? I know in our minds they are they end all be all of college hockey and we are the state of hockey. Is this true to the rest of the US? Do the Michigans, BU, BC and North Dakotas of the world view us that way? Are we way out of whack, the way that Georgia thinks that their Buldogs are the team to beat while the rest of the nation does not even consider them the best team in their half of the SEC? To me as a casual fan it seems a bit absurd to even talk of firing a guy who has won two NCAA championships. Sure they might be in a slump, but it is not the Doug Woog era. Flame away.
March 24, 2009 at 3:19 PM
Good point, rts. I think jan and I are trying to take a rational approach, but there is a perception out there that Gopher fans are becoming the Kentucky fans of hockey, expecting a Frozen Four every year. Which is kind of funny, since it was just a decade ago that we were begging to get off the quarter century national title schnide, and annointing Lucia a saint for doing it. It's also sort of humorous because it's so unlike the stereotype of Minnesota sports fans in general, as incredibly tolerant of mediocrity.
But, no, we're not the equivalent of Georgia (that would probably be Boston College). Minnesota hockey is hated by the entire rest of the college hockey world, which should tell you something. This is partly due to sactimoniousness about how our teams are filled with homeboys and yours are a bunch of mercenary Canadians and our castoffs, but more than that it's due to the fact that we've been in the Frozen Four more than just about any other school, and have advantages over every other program that will always be there. Now, Michigan, BU and NoDa see us as their equals, which is right, but everyone else is definitely at least a notch below in terms of history and historical success. Even Wisco, who has as many titles as us but mostly because they've won every Frozen Four they've ever made (or very close to it).
There are only about 60 teams in D1 hockey, and at least half of them traditionally suck or have only been D1 for less than 20-25 years. It's true that some new players have joined the big spending, legit programs - Miami and Ohio Fucking State come to mind. But there are still 2 out of 6 conferences that never get at-large bids in the tourney, a third that's consistently pretty weak, and a bunch more programs at places like Vermont and Ferris State and Michigan Tech and Anchorage where it's just impossible to sustain quality when you're up against flagship schools that suck money off football and basketball programs. Bowling Green may have to scrap their program entirely due to the financial crisis.
None of those other programs, other than UND, have facilities like ours. None of them, including UND, have the revenue stream and fanbase we do. None of them have the recruiting base we do. This all leads to expectations being, I would say justifiably, a little higher than they are anywhere else.
Which is a long way of saying that not making the tournament is a little more difficult for us to pull off than, say, UK not making the hoops tourney this year.
For the record, I'm certainly not calling for Lucia's head. A few are, but I don't get a general sense that's anyone other than cranks at this point. I do think that failing to make the national tournament, after a flameout in the first round in two of the prior three years, is cause for legitimate concern. Especially when we've got so much talent on the squad. We're not the only ones losing people to the NHL, but somehow we haven't adjusted well. And it's been a precipitous drop in performance, too. There needs to be a stop to the current trend of poor endings next year, or it will look less like a trend and more like the new state of normalcy. Two consecutive less than 20 win seasons is absolutely cause for concern for this program. Three would be unacceptable (and probably hasn't happened in half a century). Combine this steep drop in performance with the Tyler Hirsch episodes, and with Okposo leaving in the middle of the season, and something is, if not rotten, certainly a little ripe in the State of Denmark right now.
By way of history, the Woog Era was by no means a catastrophe. He won a ton of games, like 27+ basically every year, until his last two seasons, and made 4 or 5 Frozen Fours. He just couldn't win the big ones, so when a few behavioral problems started popping up and the wins went away, he didn't have the titles to hide behind.
Also worth discussing is that Lucia is prickly with the media, is considered as heavily arrogant, and is rumored to be both disliked by a lot of players and not a good boss to his assistants. I don't know how much truth there may be to the locker room relationship part of that, but his perception certainly doesn't help him when we're not winning. Contrast to Woogie, who everybody loved and wanted to see succeed.
Jan, have I missed anything?
March 24, 2009 at 4:56 PM
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