Gophers Ranked #1

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This team definitely deserves it. Also very awesome that this is coming during the 100th season of Gopher Hockey. Hopefully a championship is in the (very) near future for this team!
 

Great to be at 1.

We should stay there for a while with no games scheduled unless a team like Duluth blacks out and sweeps an entire week of NCHC games.
 

MUgopher32 said:
Great to be at 1.

We should stay there for a while with no games scheduled unless a team like Duluth blacks out and sweeps an entire week of NCHC games.
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Even if they do, rarely do the rankings voters "punish" idle teams that much.
 


This team is special. So was the team that won the last championship. I'm hoping that good things will repeat. Time will tell.
 


Three Gopher d men are playing for team USA right now in the WJC. First pre-tournament game tonight. All games on NHLN.
5 - Lacombe
11 - Faber
23 - Johnson

We have to kind of hope none of them look tooooo good, especially Johnson, as he's the highest risk of the three to leave after this season.
 




bonin21 said:
Ryan Chesley commits to the Gophers. The equivalent of another 5 star recruit for the D.
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Huge get. Looks like we should have some great d men for years to come, which is good because I foresee a lot of them leaving after 2-3 years.
 

With what he's showing at the WJC I'm going to modify Faber's early departure risk:
Ranta: 60% to go this year (JR)
Johnson: 40% this year (SO), 90% next year (JR)
Meyers: 33% this year (SO), 60% next year (JR)
Faber: 25% this year (FR), 66% next year (SO)
Walker: 25% (JR)
Brinkman: 15% (JR)
 

I’ve been a Gopher Hockey fan for a long time and this year, I swear we have 4-5 Mike Crowleys on our blue line. The depth, talent and youth is remarkable. It’s great to see Motzko’s scheme/system digging roots at the U!
 

It's true. If UND is the Midwest's forward factory for the NHL and UMD is putting out forwards and D equally, the U has been doing much better with defense for over a decade now.

Even with that, this unit is very talented. Below are the D from each team I would classify as just solid hockey players and with the potential to play 100+ games in the NHL. Will be interesting to see how the current players pan out. You'll notice the bad teams had really weak talent on the back end.

20-21Johnson/Lacombe/Faber/Brinkman/(maybe Koster)
19-20Johnson/Lacombe/Brinkman
18-19Brinkman
17-18Lindgren
16-17Lindgren/Bischoff
15-16Seeler/Bischoff
14-15Reilly/Skjei/Bischoff
13-14Reilly/Skjei/Bischoff/Holl
12-13Schmidt/Reilly/Skjei/Holl
11-12Schmidt/Holl
 



I am thinking about the large class of 2021 recruits. We have 5 current seniors on this years team. 3 good forwards including leading scorer Scott Reedy , a backup defenseman in Rossini, and starting goalie Lafountaine. What recruits will be coming in next year, and which ones will be staying in the USHL? Will we be losing any underclassmen to the pros? Is Jared Moe the starting goalie next season? Looking for some in-the-know information
 

berniebierman said:
I am thinking about the large class of 2021 recruits. We have 5 current seniors on this years team. 3 good forwards including leading scorer Scott Reedy , a backup defenseman in Rossini, and starting goalie Lafountaine. What recruits will be coming in next year, and which ones will be staying in the USHL? Will we be losing any underclassmen to the pros? Is Jared Moe the starting goalie next season? Looking for some in-the-know information
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The class next year will be good.

ASSUMING the seniors leave (they don't have to as this year doesn't count for eligibility):
Lose Reedy (F), McManus (F), Munson (F), Rossini (D), Lafontaine (G)
Potential early departures: Ranta (~60%), Johnson (~40%), Meyers (~33%), Faber (~25%), Walker (~25%), Brinkman (~15%)
Let's say Ranta and Johnson go.

Return 9-10 forwards (depending if you count Weber who has major injury problems)
Return 8 defenseman, which is usually enough for a roster
Return Moe and Close

Bring in 5 or 6 forwards:
1. Lucius (Potential top 10 draft pick, best recruit since Mittelstadt, could go to Canada)
2. Pitlick (solid)
3. Knies (high ceiling, maybe first or second round pick)
4. Broz (solid)
5. Maybe - Miller (solid but young and in first USHL year)
6. Maybe - Braccini/Pinoniemi (bottom 6 role players)
7. Maybe - Someone not currently committed
Forwards that will get pushed back another year or maybe will not end up putting on a Gopher uniform in order of the risk I think they never make it to campus: Huglen, Mittelstadt, Braccini, Warner, Strobel

No need to bring in a D but options are:
1. Mittelstadt (should be a decent college player)
2. Someone not currently committed

Not sure what they will do in net. It will be Moe's job. Pichora is committed but he has done nothing to show he's ready to come in. They might need to find a legit backup to compete with Moe, and Pichora may never end up making it to campus.
 

To summarize, this year and next year would be "the years" to try to win a championship. This year if there is a tournament it will be very hard to get past UND and UMD. Next year depending on who comes back might be the best chance. Going into 22-23 I think they will have lost a ton of talent to the pros.
 

bonin21 said:
To summarize, this year and next year would be "the years" to try to win a championship. This year if there is a tournament it will be very hard to get past UND and UMD. Next year depending on who comes back might be the best chance. Going into 22-23 I think they will have lost a ton of talent to the pros.
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You're right, but I see the new transfer rules being favorable for us going forward.
 

I really hope to see Charlie Strobel playing for the Gophers in the next year or 2. He really impressed me with his play in the state tourney last year. Clutch player and gritty - every good team needs guys like that. Braccini and Warner are intriguing as well. Watched John Mittelstadt play several times and he needs to get bigger and stronger - 2 years in the USHL would be good for him IMO. Huglen needs to get healthy and then play in the USHL to get his game back.
 

Speaking of the Mittelstadt's, is Casey relevant in the NHL? Haven't really heard of him much.
 

GopherJack said:
Speaking of the Mittelstadt's, is Casey relevant in the NHL? Haven't really heard of him much.
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No. He left too early. It was obvious. He did not dominate college hockey until the last couple weekends of the year.

He could have been a superstar in college. Now it's possible he never becomes a full time NHLer. There is still hope but this year is make or break.
 

bonin21 said:
No. He left too early. It was obvious. He did not dominate college hockey until the last couple weekends of the year.

He could have been a superstar in college. Now it's possible he never becomes a full time NHLer. There is still hope but this year is make or break.
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he's a classic guy who had a bunch of high end offensive talent that was never required to play defense. He is horrendous defensively from a positioning standpoint and his +/- reflects that. I agree completely that another year in the college game to work on his 2 way skills would've been ideal
 

Even if Canada kills the USA tonight, I can't wait to get the D back for wisconsin. I'm having a hard time remembering a better d pair than Johnson and Faber for the Gophers. Skjei and Reilly were never really a pair.
Johnson-Faber
Brinkman-Koster
Staudacher-Lacombe
Stucker

Dang that's beautiful
 

bonin21 said:
Even if Canada kills the USA tonight, I can't wait to get the D back for wisconsin. I'm having a hard time remembering a better d pair than Johnson and Faber for the Gophers. Skjei and Reilly were never really a pair.
Johnson-Faber
Brinkman-Koster
Staudacher-Lacombe
Stucker

Dang that's beautiful
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Agreed you probably have to go back to Leipold/Ballard/Martin etc. to find this level of depth on the blue line.
 

Gophers1992 said:
Agreed you probably have to go back to Leipold/Ballard/Martin etc. to find this level of depth on the blue line.
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Yeah but then you’d have to include Matt DeMarchi. It certainly could be cloudy history, but he was by far my least favorite player of that era. I recall being amazed that we could win the 2002 championship playing on the PK so often with all the stupid lazy penalties he took.

The rest of that D corps was phenomenal though.
 

Our boys are gold medalists and best of all they shut out Canada!
 

I may be wrong on this but Gopher hockey WJC champions:
2010: Jordan Schroeder
2013: Mike Reilly
2017: Ryan Lindgren
2020: Brock Faber, Ryan Johnson, Jackson Lacombe

We may have just doubled our gold medalist count in one year.
 

bonin21 said:
I may be wrong on this but Gopher hockey WJC champions:
2010: Jordan Schroeder
2013: Mike Reilly
2017: Ryan Lindgren
2020: Brock Faber, Ryan Johnson, Jackson Lacombe

We may have just doubled our gold medalist count in one year.
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Surprised me to recall Skjei didn't make the team in '13
 

I'm a little surprised, but the Gophers retain #1 over UND. And with that, both the Gopher men's and Gopher women's hockey teams are #1 in the country. I reckon it's been a while since that happened.
 

bonin21 said:
I'm a little surprised, but the Gophers retain #1 over UND. And with that, both the Gopher men's and Gopher women's hockey teams are #1 in the country. I reckon it's been a while since that happened.
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I'm not, and it wasn't close.
 

Looks like UND will host a regional in Fargo as planned and should the Gophers get a 1 seed will need to travel out east.

Best case scenario would have been a full tournament bubble in St. Paul. For those of you that don't follow religiously, the Gophers have only won one NCAA tournament game outside of Minnesota since 2008. New coach now, though.
 

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