Scoggins: Lucia tweaks approach, and better results have followed

per Chip:

Lucia made a conscious decision a few years ago to balance his roster with some “program” guys, players who could grow and develop and stick around for three or even four years.

He studied the success that Boston College has enjoyed with veteran rosters. That reinforced Lucia’s belief that his own program needed a similar approach in order to withstand early departures to the NHL. It’s OK to occasionally recruit players for specific roles.

“You have to have a mix,” Lucia said. “We can’t build our program if there’s constant turnover. You just can’t. And we went through that a few years back. We need to have good college players.”

http://www.startribune.com/sports/gophers/254660201.html

Go Gophers!!

In addition to recruiting more four year guys, it seems like Lucia has also gone to recruiting more roleplaying time guys (Ambroz, Serratore, Parenteau, etc.). The combination of those two tweeks has given us more experience and better chemistry. I was very critical of the Don during our 3 year tournament drought, my problem wasn't just the fact that we had too many freshman/sophomores, but it seemed like every guy on the roster thought his job was to score goals. Nice to see a coach who doesn't rest on his laurels and instead works to improve his game.

bleedsmaroonandgold said:

In addition to recruiting more four year guys, it seems like Lucia has also gone to recruiting more roleplaying time guys (Ambroz, Serratore, Parenteau, etc.). The combination of those two tweeks has given us more experience and better chemistry. I was very critical of the Don during our 3 year tournament drought, my problem wasn't just the fact that we had too many freshman/sophomores, but it seemed like every guy on the roster thought his job was to score goals. Nice to see a coach who doesn't rest on his laurels and instead works to improve his game.

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Yes! I think it shows that he is not an arrogant guy. He had to figure out what worked here at Minnesota. Was a different world in Alaska, and then Colorado College. And you can't overlook that a lot of their success is thanks to Mike Guentzel.