Shooter: People in the know think "Minnesota will contend for a national championship in two years"

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BleedGopher

BleedGopher

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per Shooter:

If the current Gophers men’s hockey team doesn’t lose any underclassmen to the NHL — and none are expected to leave — and considering incoming recruiting classes, Minnesota will contend for a national championship in two years. That’s the opinion of people in the know.

Gophers with major futures include sophomore forward Sampo Ranta from Finland and freshman defenseman Ryan Johnson, last June’s first-round draft pick of the Buffalo Sabres and son of ex-Gophers star Craig Johnson.

www.twincities.com

Charley Walters: These Twins will win another hundred in 2020

The signing of slugger Josh Donaldson two weeks ago probably made the Minnesota Twins the second-best club in the American League, behind only the New York Yankees, heading into spring training thi…
www.twincities.com www.twincities.com

Go Gophers!!
 

Not that I put any stock into anything Shooter writes, but I think if this group sticks around, this could be accurate. My biggest fear is whether we will have a solid, established goaltender when our time to compete nationally rolls around.
 

Everyone has known this...

Next year was always looking to be "the year" if there are no departures this spring. And then after that they may reload with Lucius and Knies to replace Ranta and Walker.
 

bonin21 said:
Everyone has known this...

Next year was always looking to be "the year" if there are no departures this spring. And then after that they may reload with Lucius and Knies to replace Ranta and Walker.
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And then Lucius to replace Lucius :)
 

Win the vast majority of our games going out, might get us into the NCAA tourney, or just win the Conf Tourney and get in, and do like UMD a couple years ago, barely slip into the tourney and then win the thing. I'm not predicting anything, just saying, UMD proved it's not impossible.
 


It's a nice thought but that UMD team was much better than this Gopher team so it is a bigger uphill battle.
 

bonin21 said:
It's a nice thought but that UMD team was much better than this Gopher team so it is a bigger uphill battle.
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Was it? Or did we just get a slow start with our young lineup? I mean, who were our early losses to?

First series we lost a close one to a CC team we would probably easily sweep right now.
Then #4 ranked UMD? That early in the season? No way we had a chance.
Then we struggled vs Notre Dame at home.
Then 2 ties and 2 losses vs a not very good UW and a decent Mich squad sandwiched our being pummeled by PSU.
Then a opening night pummeling by #1 UND.

But I believe this is where men are separated from boys. Boys at this point quit and give up and suck the rest of the season. But men, well, they pick themselves up off the ice and charge hard down the rink and try to break up the charge of the other team and turn the tide, get the puck back down to the other end of the rink.

Close one goal loss to the #1 team in the nation follows that Friday night beat down.
This was followed by a 3 goals to 4 goals performance on the road against a highly rated, at the time, OSU squad that seemed to put an extra pep in the team's step.
They then beat a pretty decent BSU and a not so good SCSU, followed by a road split with MSU
Then they put down back to back 10 goals to 4 goals beat downs on OSU at home and Wisky on the road.

And all of that great hockey means nothing because of last weekends let down against MSU and/or last night's tie?

No one was going to just lay down and let us run over everyone on the way to the Natl Title. The team is still young, and while they are starting to figure things out, they will likely have a bad night once in a while as well.


But we've only played 5 teams this year that are looking to be in the tourney, the best three we played back in Oct and Nov. and went 0-6 vs them.

The other 2, we played in Dec and Jan and went 3-1-1 vs them, outscoring them 18-10.

And we have a chance to even up the series with ND tonight, and PSU next weekend and then complete an almost pure sweep of Michigan after that and go into the B1G Conf tourney hopefully not needing to win it to get in. And then who knows?
 


TRF Guy said:
They could do it this year yet. Why not I say
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They're heating up and playing much better, that's for sure. Competing for a National Championship....I don't see it. I was at the Friday night win vs MSU and nothing I saw led me to believe they're ready to take down UMD or (vomit) North Dakota. I am, however, getting excited about next year's possibilities.
 



UncleSam'sMisguidedChild said:
They're heating up and playing much better, that's for sure. Competing for a National Championship....I don't see it. I was at the Friday night win vs MSU and nothing I saw led me to believe they're ready to take down UMD or (vomit) North Dakota. I am, however, getting excited about next year's possibilities.
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While we having been playing better of late I agree that we are not Nat'l championship material this year. A sweep of Penn State this weekend would go a long way to change my mind though after seeing them dismantle us at home earlier this season. The only way I see us winning it all this year is if one of the netminders gets hot and we ride them.
 

Why do we suck so bad against Penn State?? I'm too lazy to look up the records but it seems like they put up 6 goals half the time on us. Right now its 12-1 shots early.

That said, I think even next year we could be really, really good.
 

MUgopher32 said:
Why do we suck so bad against Penn State?? I'm too lazy to look up the records but it seems like they put up 6 goals half the time on us. Right now its 12-1 shots early.

That said, I think even next year we could be really, really good.
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They are the only very good team in the Big Ten. The middle of the pack are all good teams but not very good, Gophers included. So it's just a talent/age/speed gap.
 

bonin21 said:
They are the only very good team in the Big Ten. The middle of the pack are all good teams but not very good, Gophers included. So it's just a talent/age/speed gap.
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It was remarkable to me how much FASTER Penn State was than the Gophers last night. Much better control of the puck as well. Zeesh. Walker looked like the only guy that could keep up. It is nice to see a Gophers team with some fight in them, though. That was also noticable.
 



When I checked late last night, we had moved up into a tie for 13th.
 


bonin21 said:
They are the only very good team in the Big Ten. The middle of the pack are all good teams but not very good, Gophers included. So it's just a talent/age/speed gap.
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That doesnt explain every single season tho lol
 




Despite the loss the Gophers move up to 14 in pairwise

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Gophers are legitimately within reach of passing up to or catching up to, or distancing ourselves from 4 teams.

We are technically ahead of #15 WMU in # of Comparisons 0-2 despite WMU having the comparison over us for now, because they are ahead of us via RPI, but by only .001, but also in common opponents. Good chance they've played Michigan, so if we get a sweep of Michigan, that could help us gain this comparison? So, a couple wins over Michigan and advancing in the B1G tourney could keep us ahead of WMU by flipping that RPI comparison.

#13 Arizona St? We are 1-1 vs them, but we are close to passing them in the RPI, that would turn that comparison from a wash to being in our favor. Same with #11 Northeastern. ASU is at .5393 and NE is at .5420. And Ohio St is ahead of us 2-3 and a sweep of Michigan and a win or two in the B1G conf tourney could flip this comparison in our favor.

So there is a lot of room for us to improve, but we need to win next weekend, at least 4-5 pts if not 6, and then we have to win our 1st game in the Conf tourney, at least, if not our first 2 games? Depends on whether we get the bye or not?
 

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