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Ewert86PC

Ewert86PC

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So I am watching the Minnesota HS Hockey tournament and I don't recall hearing that any players on these teams are going to Minnesota. Now I could have missed one or two, but I hear St. Cloud State and Mankato State, even UND.

It seems like the prestige of Golden Gopher Hockey has been greatly diminished since the advent of the B1G Hockey Conference. Why?

Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk
 

Many will blame Lucia but I blame it on the switch to B1G. Every team in our conference has diminished to varying degrees.
 

The best player on the best team (Middelstadt for EP) is coming here is if I'm not mistaken
 

Derhey said:
Many will blame Lucia but I blame it on the switch to B1G. Every team in our conference has diminished to varying degrees.
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Michigan has had Dylan Larkin, Derw Werenski, and Kyle Connor in just the last two years. Wiscy has a phenom though his name escapes me. The Gophers have a bunch of talent lined up. I agree, Big Ten hockey sucks, but schools with tons of tradition like MN, MI, and WI should be able to recruit even if they made the switch to the North Suburban Conference.

I don't know who or what to blame, but the Big Ten is too new to scare away potential recruits just yet IMO. If in ten years its still terrible, then you'll have a point. For now though it could be as simple as bad luck or just plain poor recruiting strategy. Also, watching the state tournament looking for Gophers recruits is flawed in that it depends on which teams make it.
 

You realize most of the best players don't play their senior year in HS hockey anymore...

Mittelstadt is head and shoulders above everyone else that played this weekend, and he's committed to the U.
 


Ewert86PC said:
So I am watching the Minnesota HS Hockey tournament and I don't recall hearing that any players on these teams are going to Minnesota. Now I could have missed one or two, but I hear St. Cloud State and Mankato State, even UND.

It seems like the prestige of Golden Gopher Hockey has been greatly diminished since the advent of the B1G Hockey Conference. Why?

Sent from my SM
The best player in the tourney is going to the Gophers.
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bemidjigopher said:
Ewert86PC said:
So I am watching the Minnesota HS Hockey tournament and I don't recall hearing that any players on these teams are going to Minnesota. Now I could have missed one or two, but I hear St. Cloud State and Mankato State, even UND.

It seems like the prestige of Golden Gopher Hockey has been greatly diminished since the advent of the B1G Hockey Conference. Why?

Sent from my SM
The best player in the tourney is going to the Gophers.
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Last time I checked one player doesn't make a team.

Now if it were the best player in the tournament AND Mr. Hockey Minnesota, then that *might* make a difference.

Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk
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bonin21 said:
You realize most of the best players don't play their senior year in HS hockey anymore...

Mittelstadt is head and shoulders above everyone else that played this weekend, and he's committed to the U.
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and he's a prick. But young, so we'll give him a pass.
 

Ewert86PC said:
bemidjigopher said:
Last time I checked one player doesn't make a team.

Now if it were the best player in the tournament AND Mr. Hockey Minnesota, then that *might* make a difference.

Sent from my SM
You asked if anyone in the tourney was going to the U I gave you an answer, don't move the goalpost. Anyways Gopher hockey has plenty of talent in the wings, some are on the younger side but I can assure you are very talented.
At Edina they have Brinkman, Phillips, Zhulsdorf, Walker and Wait. Most of these guys are freshman and sophomores so Edina will be loaded next year. At Shattuck they have Lindgren, McManus and Pitlick.Nate Knoepke who is from Farmington currently playing in Ann Arbor and Jaxon Nelson who plays for Levurne. It'll be a couple years before we see most of these guys on campus, but they can all play. Will probably see all those cake eaters back at state next year so you'll get the see the remaining recruits who don't bolt for Juniors
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Sparlimb said:
and he's a prick. But young, so we'll give him a pass.
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He apologized on twitter, which takes maturity. Unless you're the one guy on GPL that ripped into him and got ripped into.
 

bonin21 said:
He apologized on twitter, which takes maturity. Unless you're the one guy on GPL that ripped into him and got ripped into.
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Nahh, I'm Sparlimb there too but rarely post. I was, however, ripping him on a high school board until someone reminded me how young he is and then I remembered how stupid I was then.

I am not a fan of scoring and then jumping into the glass right into the opposing teams student section. That annoyed me more than ripping off medal.
 

bonin21 said:
You realize most of the best players don't play their senior year in HS hockey anymore...

Mittelstadt is head and shoulders above everyone else that played this weekend, and he's committed to the U.
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Like Tufte and Noterman? Most might be an overstatement.
 

Mvgopher said:
Like Tufte and Noterman? Most might be an overstatement.
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There are only ten seniors committed to D1 right now. The guys below are better than basically all but about five players. If the Gophers only took kids that stayed all four years, they'd suck.

Bellows
Zuhlsdorf
Wait (bad in USHL but would have destroyed HS hockey)
Rossini
Zimmer
Swaney
Anderson
Kierstad
And so on
 



bonin21 said:
There are only ten seniors committed to D1 right now. The guys below are better than basically all but about five players. If the Gophers only took kids that stayed all four years, they'd suck.

Bellows
Zuhlsdorf
Wait (bad in USHL but would have destroyed HS hockey)
Rossini
Zimmer
Swaney
Anderson
Kierstad
And so on
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They do suck, but I suppose it's debatable...
 

bonin21 said:
There are only ten seniors committed to D1 right now. The guys below are better than basically all but about five players. If the Gophers only took kids that stayed all four years, they'd suck.

Bellows
Zuhlsdorf
Wait (bad in USHL but would have destroyed HS hockey)
Rossini
Zimmer
Swaney
Anderson
Kierstad
And so on
Click to expand...

My point being, there are many good players that choose to play juniors are there are many that stay in HS. Because one chooses to play Juniors doesn't mean they're better
 

bonin21 said:
Mittelstadt is head and shoulders above everyone else that played this weekend, and he's committed to the U.
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But Tufte is better than Mittelstadt, right? Tufte looks like a hybrid of Bjugstad & Fasching to me.
 

TheMetroTheFaust said:
But Tufte is better than Mittelstadt, right? Tufte looks like a hybrid of Bjugstad & Fasching to me.
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Tufte is better based on size. Tufte is huge, Middelstadt looks like Rau. That said, Rau had a very solid career here...
 

OK, the comparison to Rau seems fair, he was a helluva college hockey player. I do like the fact that Mittelstadt had five assists in the Tourney opener vs Anoka. Tells me that he can distribute the puck as well as finish. I hope his game continues to ascend over the next several years and he becomes a Haula or even a Kessel-level player. I want the Gophs to have another guy who the instant he jumps on the ice something magical seems imminent.
 

It's about 50/50 if you ask people who is better between CM and Tufte, and CM is a year younger.
 

The best players don't even go to regular high school anymore. My brother's son is the #1 rated hockey player in North Dakota for his age group and they are looking at club teams and private home schooling so he can play against better competition. If he continues to develop he may never play college or high school hockey. I'm pretty sure he'll go to UND if he does play in college though. smh.
 


Otis said:
The best players don't even go to regular high school anymore. My brother's son is the #1 rated hockey player in North Dakota for his age group and they are looking at club teams and private home schooling so he can play against better competition. If he continues to develop he may never play college or high school hockey. I'm pretty sure he'll go to UND if he does play in college though. smh.
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If they live in GF or Fargo might as well cross the border and go play for EGF or Moorhead. Or he could go to Shattuck if he's really good
 

bemidjigopher said:
If they live in GF or Fargo might as well cross the border and go play for EGF or Moorhead. Or he could go to Shattuck if he's really good
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Fargo has their own Bantam AA team now and they play almost exclusively against Minnesota teams.

My brother didn't want to pay the $45K per year for Shattuck.
 

Otis said:
The best players don't even go to regular high school anymore. My brother's son is the #1 rated hockey player in North Dakota for his age group and they are looking at club teams and private home schooling so he can play against better competition. If he continues to develop he may never play college or high school hockey. I'm pretty sure he'll go to UND if he does play in college though. smh.
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Well, and I don't mean this to sound rude or superior, but part of that is he's in ND. and ND hockey is typically much much weaker outside of a big 3 (rotating between one of the GF schools, a Fargo school, and one of the western teams) so he would the majority of the time be running show on whoever they're playing. Moorhead wouldn't be much better as 8AA typically only has 1-2 good teams. Sounds like it's more a location issue. If he was in the greater metro area, he would be playing good competition but its' probably just easier to attach onto a club team and play AA as you mentioned then leap to juniors when he's ready. playing at Edina (for example) would do something similar and let him grow without having the crazy lifestyle that comes w/ AA and club in general
 

My Brother says he is going to play summer league in Boston this year. When he isn't on the National team.
 

Regarding the best players not even playing high school hockey anymore... I understand that and I get it, I guess, but I never see those games so it's kind of out of sight out of mind. I even live pretty close to Shattuck and yet I never get down there to watch any of their games, which is probably a mistake. The few times a winter when I venture out to watch a youth hockey game I just prefer to see a high school game. And then the state tourney rolls around and that's still a special event. Anyway, I digress, I hope all the prodigious young players I'm (not) seeing in HS hockey will end up lighting the lamp for the Gophers.
 

upnorthkid said:
Well, and I don't mean this to sound rude or superior, but part of that is he's in ND. and ND hockey is typically much much weaker outside of a big 3 (rotating between one of the GF schools, a Fargo school, and one of the western teams) so he would the majority of the time be running show on whoever they're playing. Moorhead wouldn't be much better as 8AA typically only has 1-2 good teams. Sounds like it's more a location issue. If he was in the greater metro area, he would be playing good competition but its' probably just easier to attach onto a club team and play AA as you mentioned then leap to juniors when he's ready. playing at Edina (for example) would do something similar and let him grow without having the crazy lifestyle that comes w/ AA and club in general
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Ya, but you're an 8AA like Moorhead there are some solid 8A teams on the schedule as well. Mariucci's a decent conference, it's not the Lake by any means, but top to bottom I'd put it up there with most Metro conferences. Plus Moorhead plays a lot of the metro powers out of conference, they play one of the toughest schedules in the state so their usually battle tested by the end of the year
 

You also have to keep in mind how many open spots on the roster there are going to be next year. There were only like 2 or 3 seniors this year.
 


bemidjigopher said:
Ya, but you're an 8AA like Moorhead there are some solid 8A teams on the schedule as well. Mariucci's a decent conference, it's not the Lake by any means, but top to bottom I'd put it up there with most Metro conferences. Plus Moorhead plays a lot of the metro powers out of conference, they play one of the toughest schedules in the state so their usually battle tested by the end of the year
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Yeah I get this (played in 8A) and I know most of the teams pretty well. Moorhead has ramped up their schedule in recent years for sure. The only reason they're decent schedule wise for a top end kid is the OOC schedule. The Mariucci is a decent conference, some years much better than others (this year I'd rank it above the average for sure as TRF, Bemidji, and EGF were good but it was coupled Roseau and Warroad being pretty poor and Crookston always sucks now). And in 8AA itself, really only Bemidji was a solid team. That all being said, could he develop there, definitely. But the metro is going to likely give him far better opportunity (with much less travel as an additional perk) consistently.
 

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