The Minnesota Gopher Hockey program is going through a transition. In college sports and really all sports in general, every season is a transition but in college sports, it’s usually a bigger transition because the best players and the biggest leaders could’ve ended their careers at the program.
For the Gophers, it is definitely a leader ending their career at the program as the coach for the last 19 seasons, Don Lucia, stepped down as the head coach of the Minnesota Gophers. The Don, as he’s affectionately known, was a big reason the Gopher Hockey program was one of the top programs in college hockey:
During his tenure at Minnesota, Lucia has helped his teams raise 14 banners to the rafters of Mariucci Arena, including back-to-back NCAA championships in 2001-02 and 2002-03. His Gophers squads have also captured eight regular-season conference titles and four conference playoff crowns. In addition, Lucia has led the Gophers to 10 25-win seasons and 12 top-three conference finishes. He is a four-time conference coach of the year, winning the award as part of the WCHA in 1993-94, 1995-96 and 2005-06 and earning the inaugural Big Ten Coach of the Year honor in 2013-14.
In the last 10 seasons, he may have been a big reason why they haven’t been one of the top programs in college hockey. The Gophers missed 5 out of the last 10 NCAA Hockey Tournaments including 3 straight from 2008 to 2011. They did make it 5 out of the last 7 seasons and barely missed this year because the stars aligned against them. Part of that is due to the parity of college hockey that has happened over that span as well.
That’s because it’s more difficult to stay competitive year after year. More players are leaving early. Players are then being recruited earlier. There are more destinations available to players. Most of all, though, is the competition is better overall. There are more teams that are capable of winning now. That means it’s a bigger step from Juniors to Division 1 College Hockey so it might take the freshman longer to figure out the college game, making it take longer for each team to be competitive in the season.
The B1G Ten Conference started in 2013. That season the Gophers lost in the NCAA Championship game but the rebirth of the Big Ten Hockey Conference didn’t do them any favors because they had it easy for the first 3 years, basically coasting to the conference title. They didn’t seem to battle-ready when it came to the NCAA Tournament anymore. Then, when it came to the point where there were no players left from before the return of the Big 10 (AB10, if you will), the Gophers finished 5th in the conference after losing 4 straight to Penn State. They missed the NCAA Tournament last year by like 1/1000th of a point in the Wise Pair Rankings.
Without the upsets, the Gophers would’ve been in. There was a 1 in 64 chance for the Gophers to miss the NCAA Tourney last season; 6 teams had to lose their games. From Don Lucia’s press conference:
“There’s 1 out of 64 scenarios you don’t get in…we’d have to lose all these 6 games. If we lose all 6 of these games, the good lord’s telling me it’s time to do something else. Maybe it’s his way of telling Old Don it’s time to do something else.”
So The Don stepped down* and for a while, everyone was wondering who they could get to be the next head coach. Sure, people thought Bob Motzko but right after they had that thought, their next thought had put that out of their mind because nobody thought Bob would leave St. Cloud State, especially after building them into the #1 team in the nation.
*Don Lucia is still working for the University of Minnesota as a Special Assistant to the Athletic Director
But, low and behold, 7 days after The Don had stepped down, We Got The Motz!!! The St. Cloud State Huskies lost in their opening game of the tournament on Friday, March 23rd and on March 27th, Bob Motzko had agreed to become to the new head coach of the Minnesota Golden Gopher Hockey Team!
Do yourself a favor and watch Bob Motzko’s introductory press conference as Gopher Hockey’s new Head Coach. You’ll hear about how important relationships are to him, his weird relationship with Gopher coaches, how he started coaching and why he took the job, too.
The Motz is going to have this team play a speed-based game where they get on people so they are going to play fast with relentless pursuit of the puck. If you’ve seen how the Huskies have played and grown since Bob Motzko became their coach back in 2005, you know this team is going to play hard and play the right way.
If you need other examples, he was the head coach for USA Hockey for the last 2 World Junior Championship teams. The 2017 team won gold and the 2018 team won bronze.
Bob Motzko brought a new assistant coach along with him from St. Cloud in Garrett Raboin and he raves about his former player and former captain as a coach. Former Gopher player Ben Gordon is the other assistant coach. Ben Gordon was the associate head coach of the Chicago Steel of the USHL last season and previously worked for the University of Minnesota as the Director of Hockey Operations for the 2016-17 season. He began his coaching career as an assistant coach at Division III St. Scholastica College in 2014. Also, former players Ryan Potulny and Stu Bickel have joined the program as undergraduate assistants.
Who are the 2O18-19 Gophers?
First off, let’s see who left after last season. The biggest piece that left was current Buffalo Sabres forward Casey Mittelstadt but close behind and possibly even bigger was defenseman Ryan Lindgren because both were underclassmen but they were already losing 2 senior defensemen in Jack Glover and Steve Johnson. Also leaving were forwards Mike Szmatula, Leon Bristedt, Luke Notermann, Nate Knoepke & Connor Hurley and goalie Nick Lehr. That’s 31 goals, 54 assists and 85 points they have to replace and that’s with Leon Bristedt having a bad year.
The good news is they have a lot of seniors and juniors on this team with 9 and 5, respectively so this team is experienced and should be able to replace those points with the skill they already have and the skill they have coming in with 8 freshmen, 3 defensemen and 5 forwards.
Expect a rebound year from senior forward Tyler Sheehy after battling through a back injury for most of last season limited him to 12 goals & 13 assists in 36 games. You should also expect a better year from sophomore forward Scott Reedy. Rem Pitlick should be the speedy, point-producing machine we know very well again. It’s hard to know what to expect for lines under the new coach. Will we still see that 4th line of Jack Ramsey, Darian Romanko and maybe Ryan Norman since they are all seniors and have shown that great compete-level and will get in on the forecheck and cause mistakes? If he does that, who will The Motz have on the 3rd line? The freshmen forwards will have to make at some point during the season even if it takes them some time to adapt to Division I College Hockey.
Stopping the puck can definitely help you win games and the Gophs have 2 experienced goaltenders coming back in senior Eric Schierhorn and junior Mat Robson. Will it be the senior or the junior in the crease when the season starts on Saturday night? Where will it go from there? One over the other? Ride one for the bulk of the season or will they split time and play one game each every weekend. Does the coach even know yet?
Schierhorn struggled for the first time last season. Those struggles made Lucia give Mat Robson an opportunity and he made the most of it, eventually taking over as the number one goalie for 14 of the last 21 games and 10 of the last 14. He was 7-5-1 with a 2.11 Goals Against Average and a .933 save percentage. Schierhorn was 12-12-1 with a 2.69 GAA & a career-low .901 save %. It’s easy to think Robson is the guy because of the much higher save percentage but it’s also easy to think some competition for minutes lit a fire underneath Mr. Schierhorn to show how bad he wants that net.
Herb Brooks – Miracle
The problem area for the Gophers will be on the blue line. They have the least amount of experience. There’s senior defenseman Jack Sadek, juniors Ryan Zuhlsdorf and Tyler Nanne, sophomores Clayton Phillips and Sam Rossini and freshmen Ben Brinkman, Robbie Stucker and Matt Denman. Sadek, Zuhlsdorf and Nanne played in pretty much every game last season. Rossini played in 14 games and Phillips played in 11 as he joined the team around midseason.
It’s not good when half of your defense hasn’t played more than 14 games in their career and 1 will be a freshman who has yet to experience this level of hockey. They will plan for this, which means the forwards will have to be very good in the defensive zone at the beginning of the season and those players will get better as the season goes along.
That goes for the whole team as well. Playing the reigning National Champion Minnesota-Duluth Bulldogs in their rink and watching them raise the championship banner in front of a soldout crowd will be an eye-opener but, it will also be motivation to play and compete their butts off. If they fail or get crushed, they’ll learn from it and get better.
The last time Bob Motzko joined the Gopher Hockey program in 2001, they won 2 straight national championships. 2001 was Don Lucia’s 15th season as a head coach in college hockey and his 3rd season with the Minnesota Gophers. Can The Motz get it done that quickly again? I’m not saying yes to that question but I’m also not saying no because Bob Motzko will have this team playing good, fast, competitive hockey by December.
You just watch!
Check out these articles about the 2018-19 Minnesota Gophers Hockey Team, too:
USCHO Game of the Week Preview-Gophers at UMD Bulldogs – Dean Spiros Oct. 5, 2018
Gopher Hockey Preview from The Athletic – Eric Vegoe Oct. 2, 2018
Minnesota adds Gordon, Potulny, Bickel to men’s coaching staff – Oct. 1, 2018
Gophers Announce Captains for the 2018-19 Season – Sept. 27, 2018
How Bob Motzko became the Gophers New Men’s Hockey Coach – ANDY GREDER Mar. 29, 2018
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