This Week in Big Ten Hockey: Golden Gophers booming with confidence heading into Wisconsin series as Minnesota’s blue line a ‘catalyst for us’

[MisterGopher]

After sweeping Penn State in their opening weekend of Big Ten play, Minnesota is 7-1-0, the team’s best start since beginning the COVID-shortened 2020-21 season with 10 wins in a row.

The seven wins in eight games is the Golden Gophers’ best start under Bob Motzko outside of that truncated season.

“A lot of guys feeling confident about their offense and we’ve scored some goals,” said Motzko. “We thought even going into last week, it’s not going to stay at that pace, but we’re off to a good start.”
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Motzko said that there are several factors that are contributing to Minnesota’s fast start, one being the way the Gophers’ defense is playing both sides of the puck.

“We really felt like our defensive core could take a massive step forward in being offensively productive for us,” said Motzko. “Our ‘D’ core was excellent a year ago, but they had nine goals.”

Now that the Gopher blue line is more veteran, Motzko said that’s a “catalyst for us,” leading to a much more offensive-minded defense.

This Week in Big Ten Hockey: Golden Gophers booming with confidence heading into Wisconsin series as Minnesota's blue line a 'catalyst for us' - College Hockey | USCHO.com

After sweeping Penn State in their opening weekend of Big Ten play, Minnesota is 7-1-0, the team's best start since beginning the COVID-shortened 2020-21

www.uscho.com

 

[UncleSam'sMisguidedChild]

It's unlikely a that a bunch of goals are going to come from the D corps. Mike Vanelli and Jordan Leupold aren't on the team. I'm hoping, though, that they can continue to feed the breakout and transition from defense to offense, where the forwards clearly do have guys that can finish.

 

[MisterGopher]

It's unlikely a that a bunch of goals are going to come from the D corps. Mike Vanelli and Jordan Leupold aren't on the team. I'm hoping, though, that they can continue to feed the breakout and transition from defense to offense, where the forwards clearly do have guys that can finish.

Yeah. I guess being offensively productive could include initiating and assisting in goal production.

 

[Gophers1992]

It's unlikely a that a bunch of goals are going to come from the D corps. Mike Vanelli and Jordan Leupold aren't on the team. I'm hoping, though, that they can continue to feed the breakout and transition from defense to offense, where the forwards clearly do have guys that can finish.

I would say Rinzel has tons of offensive upside, and both Chesley and Mittelsdtadt have at least shown flashes of being able to provide some offense. We haven't really seen it from Gruba yet but he put up a lot of points in juniors as well. Koster had 29 points his junior year albeit aided by being on a stacked offensive team.

I wouldn't be surprised to see a fair amount of points come from the back end this year.

 

[bonin21]

I think Rinzel will get 10 goals, probably closer to 15.

But I don't think any other D man will hit 10. Mittelstadt is a mystery as the offense he showed his freshman year has basically disappeared completely. Gruba will take a year to get used to the speed. Chesley started hot but I think the goals were an outlier.

 

[upnorthkid]

It's unlikely a that a bunch of goals are going to come from the D corps. Mike Vanelli and Jordan Leupold aren't on the team. I'm hoping, though, that they can continue to feed the breakout and transition from defense to offense, where the forwards clearly do have guys that can finish.

The d core has 25 points and 8 goals already in roughly 20% of the season. They scored 7 goals and 83 total points. They had 30 goals in the Cooley year. Vanelli had 10 and 29 his senior year (that’s the last time we had a defenseman score 10 goals in a year). Rinzel is currently well on that pace but yeah he’s not going to put up Leopold numbers. That said, you score 30 from the D in total and that’d be a huge scoring jump. Chesley and rinzel both look better in that regard. Gruba should be good for a couple with how he’s shot (and I’ve enjoyed his willingness to join the rush and crash the net). This team more looks like a depth scoring d core with Rinzel the higher flyer.

 

[UncleSam'sMisguidedChild]

I agree that they'll put up points. I just don't see tons of goals coming from them. Bob made the point about lack of goals from the D-men last year and I just don't think there will be a huge jump up this year. I'd be very pleasantly surprised if any of them get to 10 or more.

 

[GopherPete]

What do you consider a huge jump up? They've already basically reached their goal total from last season, 8 games in.

 

[UncleSam'sMisguidedChild]

What do you consider a huge jump up? They've already basically reached their goal total from last season, 8 games in.

Fair point, and I guess I don't have an actual number. For me I think it's more about how dangerous they are on the PP and while in the O-zone 5v5. Watching this team so far, they do not put me on the edge of my seat when I see a D-man get set up with a one-timer. I hope I'm underestimating them, but I'm still waiting to have my eyes widen.

 

[GopherPete]

As far as one timers, I think Chesley can rip them. But behind him, I wouldn't say any other defenseman has been very effective. The thing with one timers is you almost have to be on your off hand to pull it off, and I don't think any of our d-men play on their off hand, so it's not likely that we would see very many one timers.

 

[upnorthkid]

Fair point, and I guess I don't have an actual number. For me I think it's more about how dangerous they are on the PP and while in the O-zone 5v5. Watching this team so far, they do not put me on the edge of my seat when I see a D-man get set up with a one-timer. I hope I'm underestimating them, but I'm still waiting to have my eyes widen.

their PP setup is horrible and their zone entries mediocre. Clearly still trying to figure it out but Rinzel is not set up as a shoot first d man (Snuggy is set up as the shooter when they roll with that set). For whatever reason they've been a lot more looking to set up the multiple one touch passes as an approach which I don't love (much more of a pass or two and puck on the net approach to use your man leverage to score around the net rather than passing it into the back of the net at the college level). I guess I disagree with you on the O zone comment 5v5. First time in awhile aside from seeing Lacombe do it at times we've had a D man circling the wagons in the offensive end with Rinzel and both Chesley and Gruba are going to the net with give and gos frequently. We don't plant guys in front of the net with much consistency where we're going to be a one timer point shot kind of team as you don't consistently beat college goalies 1v1 from the blue line without traffic.

 

[Gold Vision]

How is this game only on B1G+ with student announcers? What a joke.

 

[bonin21]

Three games in a row the Gophers decide not to show up in the first period. That can't continue.