Silver Lining Special - There is one, if you are willing to look for it

UncleSam'sMisguidedChild said:

I've agreed that MN can play with anyone. I've just stated that I have serious doubts about their being able to do it consistently. The pattern of the year so far would predict a Notre Dame win tonight, probably by 2 or more goals. Yes, they're #1, so it could happen in any year. If the Gophers win, maybe that'll mark the upswing you've been talking about.

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Sadly, you were right. Or we were, because after you pointed it out, I check on it, and you were right. And so, the trend continues. Not sure what could be the cause of it? Is the team out of shape and so they get tired by the 2nd game? Do opposing coaches simply figure out how to change their game plans against us in between games?

Frustrating for sure.

I thought I've heard that too, but I honestly don't know. When I was there a few weeks back I remember thinking, "How are they going to do that?" But that could just be my inner engineer at work. As much as I love watching our fast and skilled teams fly up and down the big ice sheet, they're at a disadvantage come tournament time. It's time for change.

This was in response to GopherJack's post.....for some reason it wouldn't quote him.

KillmeNow said:

Sadly, you were right. Or we were, because after you pointed it out, I check on it, and you were right. And so, the trend continues. Not sure what could be the cause of it? Is the team out of shape and so they get tired by the 2nd game? Do opposing coaches simply figure out how to change their game plans against us in between games?

Frustrating for sure.

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Frustrating. Yup. Though, Notre Dame is #1, so is there really any shame in being defeated by them? Probably not, but yes, the trend continues. Wish the Gophers could have put up more of a fight, though.

What's the cause? Wish I knew. I highly doubt it's anything to do with conditioning. Maybe opposing coaches make adjustments Friday night/Saturday morning. I think most likely it's a lack of solid leadership, either from coaches or upperclassmen, making sure the same effort is brought every night. Look at the T-Wolves....loads of talent for a while, but still inconsistent. Jimmy Butler arrives and things change. Not a perfect comparison, but you should get the jist.

Another possible explanation is youth. It's too late for me to check average age age and compare it, but it seems the Gophers are usually pretty young due to early signings, etc. Combine talented youth with a lack of a strong leader, you'd probably see what we're seeing. My $0.02

KillmeNow said:

Is it really a so-so season? Or the first year of a 3 year cycle like 2012-13-14???

Look who we have beaten? #3 SCSU, #4 Clarkson, #4 Clarkson, #12 UND, #16 PSU, #17 Harvard, #17 Harvard, #20 Wisc.

And look who we've hung with ON THE ROAD, one goal losses to #1 Notre Dame, #6 OSU, #10 UMD & #15 Michigan. Also got a tie on the road vs Michigan, too.

And look who we HAVEN'T lost to. 7-0-0 vs the Bottom 40.


The only thing so-so about the season is how we've played SO MANY MORE Top 4, 8 & 20 ranked teams that everyone else. And get punished in the polls for it while those that play nothing but creampuffs and get NO big wins at all, get rewarded???


21 to 0 Northestern 0-0
21 to 2 Cornell 1-1
21 to 2 Providence 0-2
21 to 4 Harvard 0-3-1

Those teams are a combined 1-6-1 vs The Top 20. UMn has THREE TIMES MORE Top 4 wins than all 4 of those teams combined have Top 20 wins.

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Pump the brakes. What is the Gophers conference record? 7-11-1? They are sixth out of seven in the conference. Sure.....they can hang with the best teams in the nation.....but they also tend to lose to teams that they SHOULD beat. The lousy conference record should tell you everything you need to know about where this team is at.

You can throw around all the stats you want to justify your pet theories, but it is really plan and simple that Donny has got to go. He should have been “retired” about 5 years ago. It has to do with his lazy style of play and his inability to develop players.


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alchemy2u said:

You can throw around all the stats you want to justify your pet theories, but it is really plan and simple that Donny has got to go. He should have been “retired” about 5 years ago. It has to do with his lazy style of play and his inability to develop players.


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It's possible that his "supposed" lazy style of play and his "supposed" inability to develop players has something to do with how the Gophers have been coming up short lately, but Gopher fans seem to ignore a lot of other factors out there that they just seem desperate not to want to accept. Like, if they close their eyes and don't look, and see X, then maybe they can wish X out of existence or something???


Gopher fans lazily judge Lucia up against the standards of yesteryear. Gone are the days of the Blue Blood programs dominating college hockey.

7 non-blue bloods made the Frozen Four from 1998 to 2007.
21 non-blue bloods made the Frozen Four from 2008 to 2017.

0 non-blue bloods won Natl Titles from 1998 to 2007.
4 non-blue bloods won Natl Titles from 2008 to 2017.


The increase in the # of high quality players being taken from UMn early by the NHL is a factor that most Gopher fans seem to discount.


And go ahead and point to programs like Denver, UND & BC. But the reality is, the coach that won DU their b2b titles is gone and it took Denver ELEVEN YEARS to return to the FF. If they don't return this year and start struggling in the next few years, they will basically join the rest of college hockey programs out there. 1-2, sometimes 3 good years and then they disappear from the FF landscape for long periods of time.

UND is without Hakstol, and like with Dungy and TB, Tubby and UK, same with UND's new coach and Hakstol, the new guy won a Title with mostly, Hakstol's guys. Since those Seniors graduated and others may have left early, UND won 13 fewer games the next season, and so far this season is just 4 games over .500 and has just 1 win vs a high quality opponent(Top 8). The new guy has yet to truly establish that he's going to continue to keep UND going to lots of FFs like Hakstol did.

And finally BC. After their run of 3 titles in 5 years, they have slowly tapered off, going 5 years with a return to the Title game, and this year would be year 6, and could be the 2nd year in a row without even making the tourney. York is old and retirement may be around the corner? Or maybe he's lost his touch? OR, maybe what ails all other blue blood programs out there is also affecting BC now, too???

The success of his former players in he NHL is more of an indictment of his lack of getting the most out of his players. Just like the coach of the Rangers said of Lucia when they signed Okposo during the season. Why are the Freshman typically the best players every year and subsequently fall off as they get older. The Gophers typically have more talent than most of the teams they play, but typically get out worked and out hustled. Just watch and note which team wins many of the lose puck races. It is like rebounding in basketball, it is directly related to effort. I used to be a season ticket holder for many many years, but I just couldn’t keep watching them lose because of lack of effort. They are also very poor about doing the little things that make a big difference in the flow of the game. That is all directly related to coaching.
Stop making excuses about how the landscape has changed, the U still gets their pick of most of the best players. They should not be the 3rd or 4th best team in the state of Minnesota!


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alchemy2u said:

The success of his former players in he NHL is more of an indictment of his lack of getting the most out of his players. Just like the coach of the Rangers said of Lucia when they signed Okposo during the season. Why are the Freshman typically the best players every year and subsequently fall off as they get older. The Gophers typically have more talent than most of the teams they play, but typically get out worked and out hustled. Just watch and note which team wins many of the lose puck races. It is like rebounding in basketball, it is directly related to effort. I used to be a season ticket holder for many many years, but I just couldn’t keep watching them lose because of lack of effort. They are also very poor about doing the little things that make a big difference in the flow of the game. That is all directly related to coaching.
Stop making excuses about how the landscape has changed, the U still gets their pick of most of the best players. They should not be the 3rd or 4th best team in the state of Minnesota!


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This post is spot on, in my opinion. Well, except it was the GM of the Islanders, Garth Snow, that was ripping Lucia. Other than that, well stated.

alchemy2u said:

The success of his former players in he NHL is more of an indictment of his lack of getting the most out of his players. Just like the coach of the Rangers said of Lucia when they signed Okposo during the season. Why are the Freshman typically the best players every year and subsequently fall off as they get older. The Gophers typically have more talent than most of the teams they play, but typically get out worked and out hustled. Just watch and note which team wins many of the lose puck races. It is like rebounding in basketball, it is directly related to effort. I used to be a season ticket holder for many many years, but I just couldn’t keep watching them lose because of lack of effort. They are also very poor about doing the little things that make a big difference in the flow of the game. That is all directly related to coaching.
Stop making excuses about how the landscape has changed, the U still gets their pick of most of the best players. They should not be the 3rd or 4th best team in the state of Minnesota!


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But the landscape has changed. If you can't see that, then its simply because you don't want to.

And UMn is NOT the 3rd or 4th best team in the state of Minnesota. Maybe on a down year? Doesn't mean overall.

# of FFs past 6 seasons

Minnesota = 2
UMDuluth = 1
St Cloud S = 1
MnMankato = 0
Bemidji St = 0

Even if you go back 12 years, that just adds 1 for Bemidji and 1 for UMD.

KillmeNow said:

But the landscape has changed. If you can't see that, then its simply because you don't want to.

And UMn is NOT the 3rd or 4th best team in the state of Minnesota. Maybe on a down year? Doesn't mean overall.

# of FFs past 6 seasons

Minnesota = 2
UMDuluth = 1
St Cloud S = 1
MnMankato = 0
Bemidji St = 0

Even if you go back 12 years, that just adds 1 for Bemidji and 1 for UMD.

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Check the North Star Cup. In the four years it has existed.....the Gophers have taken last twice with only Mankato performing worse overall. Sure.....go back a few years and use those as metrics.....but they don't matter any longer. Minnesota joining the Big Ten hurt. Their natural rivals play in the NCHC. These are the teams that players grew up watching.

UncleSam'sMisguidedChild said:

This post is spot on, in my opinion. Well, except it was the GM of the Islanders, Garth Snow, that was ripping Lucia. Other than that, well stated.

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Thanks for the correction, I should have checked my facts.


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KillmeNow said:

But the landscape has changed. If you can't see that, then its simply because you don't want to.

And UMn is NOT the 3rd or 4th best team in the state of Minnesota. Maybe on a down year? Doesn't mean overall.

# of FFs past 6 seasons

Minnesota = 2
UMDuluth = 1
St Cloud S = 1
MnMankato = 0
Bemidji St = 0

Even if you go back 12 years, that just adds 1 for Bemidji and 1 for UMD.

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You have to learn how to deal with people who don’t come to your same conclusions without insulting them. It is possible to manipulate numbers to back anything you want to say. As someone pointed out, the U has not been winning too many games against the other Minnesota teams over the last few years.
The simple fact of the matter is the Gophers are very frustrating to watch because of how poorly they are coached and out worked. That is what I mean by lazy hockey. How many times have we had a young hot shot player on our team that traditionally is the star of the world juniors team, but just blends into nothing under Lucia? How many of those great NHL players that you list blossomed or improved as a player when they were under Lucia?
And don’t go touting Grant P as the next coach, he was a good player for the Gophers and I am sure he is a nice guy. But mister “stand in front of the next and wait for the puck to hit you in the ass then try to slap it in the net” doesn’t strike me as an offensive mastermind. Excuse my poke at humor, I am sure he will develop into a good coach. The Gophers are of the stature that they can cherry pick most any coach in the country, and they need to get the best coach they can get.


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alchemy2u said:

Thanks for the correction, I should have checked my facts.


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I'll be completely honest, I didn't check either. So there's a chance I'm incorrect, too. I just went from memory, but when it comes to things I really care about, my memory is usually pretty good.

alchemy2u said:

You have to learn how to deal with people who don’t come to your same conclusions without insulting them. It is possible to manipulate numbers to back anything you want to say. As someone pointed out, the U has not been winning too many games against the other Minnesota teams over the last few years.
The simple fact of the matter is the Gophers are very frustrating to watch because of how poorly they are coached and out worked. That is what I mean by lazy hockey. How many times have we had a young hot shot player on our team that traditionally is the star of the world juniors team, but just blends into nothing under Lucia? How many of those great NHL players that you list blossomed or improved as a player when they were under Lucia?
And don’t go touting Grant P as the next coach, he was a good player for the Gophers and I am sure he is a nice guy. But mister “stand in front of the next and wait for the puck to hit you in the ass then try to slap it in the net” doesn’t strike me as an offensive mastermind. Excuse my poke at humor, I am sure he will develop into a good coach. The Gophers are of the stature that they can cherry pick most any coach in the country, and they need to get the best coach they can get.


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I agree with the top 2/3 of this post. When it comes to Grant Potulny, I'll disagree. He wasn't the best player on those back to back teams, for sure, but I don't think you need to be the best player to be the best coach. That very rarely happens. Patrick Roy is a good example. Wayne Gretzky couldn't do it either as a GM. Just because Grant wasn't the best player doesn't mean he doesn't know how to X&O. He was, however, a hard worker and a team player. As a bonus, he is quite highly revered here because of his goal in 02. I'm not saying he's a slam dunk, but I really like his chances of being successful when you combine his style of play, experience in the NHL (though not vast), and his knowledge/connections within the area. I just wish he had more time to get more head coaching experience.

stocker08 said:

Check the North Star Cup. In the four years it has existed.....the Gophers have taken last twice with only Mankato performing worse overall. Sure.....go back a few years and use those as metrics.....but they don't matter any longer. Minnesota joining the Big Ten hurt. Their natural rivals play in the NCHC. These are the teams that players grew up watching.

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Give me a North Star Cup Trophy and a quarter and if I can find a payphone anymore, lol, I'll be able to make a call to someone who might give a rats arse that I have a North Star Cup Trophy.

Those teams look, or at least used to look at their matchups with Big Brother UMn as their super bowl. I remember a season when the Vikes had 2 wins, and one of them was vs the Div Champion Packers. The head to head records do not win Championships.

Bemidji and Mankato for sure still look at a match up with Minnesota as akin to their super bowl.

UMD is starting to rise up to the ranks of the really respectable, but they still only have 3 Frozen Fours in the last 14 years and until they can do it more than once every 5 years, they are still just a non-blue blood team that has the occasional good year.

And the minute you point to UMn only having 3 FFs in the past 13 years, I'll point to how DU and UND and BC have struggled in similar ways...

BECAUSE the landscape has simply changed. It has.


Teams with multiple Natl Titles last 22 years

Michigan,
North Dakota,
Minnesota,
Denver,
Boston College.


Guess whose alums score the most points in the NHL right now


Those 5 teams alums all regularly rank among the Top 6 and historically rank among the Top 10.


Only team in the Top 6 without multiple titles, Wisconsin. But they got their title right on the heels of UMn and DU getting their b2bs, and were historically one of the teams regularly near the top up until recently.


AND... all of those 6 teams suffered a slump of some degree after their run of multiple titles in a short period of years.

Michigan went 12 years without making another Title game & the one they got to was the only one they've been to in 19 years, so its been 19 since they won a Title.
UND went 15 years without another title, and from 2002 to 2015 they never got to the Title game even.
Minnesota went 10 years before returning to a Title game, their only title game appearance in 14 years.
Denver went 10 years before returning to just the Frozen Four.
BC went 5 years without getting back to the Title game, this year will likely be their 6th as it will likely be their 2nd year in a row of missing the playoffs.


And those slumps, brought on in part by the NHL plucking all of their best talent from their rosters early, is what has led to the increase in the # of non-blue blood programs getting to the Frozen Four and even winning titles the last 10 years.


And a lot of you say that joining the B1G hurt? well, is that Lucia's fault?

KmN.....I'm really not sure what you are trying to argue. The past couple of years.....the Gophers have been outplayed by a few other MN based teams. And UMD has a more recent national championship (2011), in which they beat the "blue blood" Michigan Wolverines, than the Gophers.....as well as another championship appearance this past season. Recent success matters. The Gophers SHOULD be the best program in the state. But as of the past few years.....they haven't been. Sorry to burst your bubble.

alchemy2u said:

How many of those great NHL players that you list blossomed or improved as a player when they were under Lucia?

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As for development of those future NHL stars? Well, I don't think its so cut and dry.

Ryan Potulny went from 14 pts his freshman season to 41 his sophomore season to 63 his junior season.
Vanelli's best season was his Senior season, and it wasn't significant but he scored more each year of his 4 years at the U. 11-16-17-39. Danny Irmen's Sophmore season was a big step up from his frosh, 22 to 43 pts. And yes his pts went down his Junior year, but there were a lot of great players coming into the program each year that may have stolen some of his time on the ice or got him moved down a line or taken off the pp, or he may have gotten injured? I just looked up the raw numbers, so someone with a super great memory and is a defender of Lucia may have to fill in some of the blanks.

Goligoski went from 20 his frosh season to 39 his Sophomore season despite having to compete with Kessel and Wheeler, but leveled off and got 39 again his Junior season. Doesn't mean Lucia stumped his growth. Sometimes its the player's own fault, or like I mentioned earlier, hot freshmen coming in stealing their time on the ice or injuries, etc..

A couple guys from Goligoski's class inched along or went up and down, but all had their best year their Senior season. Maybe these are the kind of guys that people are thinking about, EK, MH, DP? My memory is not the best, I just wrote their initials down and don't want to guess and get their names wrong even though I think I'd get them right, but none of them were major contributors, 21, 21 & 19 their sr seasons. And these guys all had to deal with guys like Kessel, Wheeler, Okposo and Johnson all coming in the 2 classes after them. BG scored 9 pts his freshman season and 29 his sophomore season, then 31 and 29. Maybe PK, BW, KO & EJ all being gone by their senior season? I mean 4 frosh came in their Junior season and scored over 20 pts, including 2 with over 40, but their senior season, not a single Frosh got more than 19, EJ was gone, Okposo left after 18 games and JB got half of what he got his freshman season for some reason?

Kessel and Johnson of the next 2 classes only played one season, so we honestly can't say how Lucia did towards developing them, cept that Kessel scored more than any other Freshman for the 2 seasons before him and every season after up to Mike Reilly's frosh season. That, MR's last season, is where I quit my searching, maybe I'll go back and keep looking later.

Wheeler went from 23 to 38 to 35 to the NHL. Was his progression his sophomore year HIS doing and his regression his junior year Lucia's fault, or maybe it was the other way around, or maybe like I said earlier, an injury or something? Maybe I'll go back and do a pts/game analysis for a more accurate look at this.

That RS from Kessel and Wheelers incoming class plateaued in his sophomore season, but jumped from 24 to 46 his junior season. There was an injury redshirt in between those 2 seasons I'm assuming.

Leddy only played one season.

Haula went from 24 to 49 to 51 then the NHL
Bjugstad went from 20 to 42 to 36 then the NHL
NC went from 17 to 30 to 31
MA went from 10 to 22 to 7
Schmidt went from 1 to 41 to 32.

Now were their regressions in their junior seasons because of Lucia? Or...

guys from the class behind them going

SW going from 13 to 23
BM going from 13 to 19
TB going from 9 to 14
SA going from 8 to 16
CI going from 0 to 20

That's a 49 pt increase for that crew. Did those sophomores cut into the Juniors ice time? Juniors pts went down 27 pts?


So I see a trend here, Sophomores get better almost across the board and then a lot of them level off their Junior years. Maybe Lucia feels the younger players deserve to be given time and instruction whereas the Juniors should be able to get better on their own? A lot of these Juniors left after their Junior season, maybe they developed that short timers attitude and put in less effort knowing they already had the NHL future set in stone as long as they didn't get injured their junior seasons? Maybe letting upperclassmen dominate time on the ice doesn't allow the younger players the time and experience to improve?

Maybe the constant changing of the guard with hot new freshmen coming in every season made it difficult for the upperclassmen, as they saw younger teammates leave for the NHL already, but they were still there? Does that effect the mindset of that player?


Yes, that's a lot of maybes, and it might sound like I'm just making excuses for Lucia, but unless I see data suggesting players at the other blue blood programs are progressing and scoring more and more points their Jr and Sr seasons, then I won't believe its a Lucia only problem. Because there has to be a reason programs like Michigan, UND, Denver and BC all seem to struggle more than they used to.

When was the last time a team got to 3 straight FFs, WITH THE SAME COACH???

BC & UND in 2008, the year that was either the last year of blue blood dominance, or the first year of non blue blood ascendency with Notre Dame making the Title game. Maybe it was a little of both, because there hadn't been a non-blue blood in a Title game the entire decade before, but there were still 3 blue bloods in the FF that year including the Champs.


# of Title game appearances from 1998 to 2007 by non blue blood programs

ZERO

# of Title game appearances from 2008 to 2017 by non blue blood programs

TEN!!!

stocker08 said:

KmN.....I'm really not sure what you are trying to argue. The past couple of years.....the Gophers have been outplayed by a few other MN based teams. And UMD has a more recent national championship (2011), in which they beat the "blue blood" Michigan Wolverines, than the Gophers.....as well as another championship appearance this past season. Recent success matters. The Gophers SHOULD be the best program in the state. But as of the past few years.....they haven't been. Sorry to burst your bubble.

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UMD's title in 2011 was equal to Yale's in 2013 and Union's in 2014 and Providence's in 2015.

They were a non-blue blood program that had ONE GOOD SEASON and then followed that up with what?

Providence has gone 2 seasons without returning to the Frozen Four and I'd bet money they don't return this year either.
Union has gone 3 seasons without returning to the Frozen Four and look to make this their 4th year in a row.
Yale has gone 4 seasons without returning to the Frozen Four and look to make this their 5th year in a row.

Ferris St has gone 5 seasons without returning to the Frozen Four and look to make this their 6th year in a row.

Bringing us to UMD. It took them moving to a new conference, and 6 years to get back to the Frozen Four and there is no guarantee they make it back this year. Until UMD can get to more than 1 FF every 5 years or so, I'm not going to be overly impressed or frightened of them.

Their 1 goal victory up in Duluth doesn't make me feel that Minnesota can't beat them in the NCAA tourney this year. Nor does their being 2 or 3 spots ahead of us in the corny PWR rankings.


And IF they do start kicking tail and making multiple FFs in a row, then we'll see how they handle the NHL coming to take all of their best young talent out of their roster year after year.


UMn's alums are outscoring UMD's by about 10 to 1.


It's why ALL non-blue blood programs can produce Title winning teams randomly on that one special season when it all just comes together for them, and then they disappear not to be heard from again for at least 5 years.

"Blue Blood" programs in basketball (Duke, Kentucky, Kansas, etc.) have no problem being good year in and year out and making it to the NCAA tournament and doing well (while having their rosters robbed year in and year out by the NBA) Same goes for "Blue Blood" football programs (Alabama, OH State, etc). Why can't our Gopher "Blue Blood" hockey team do that?

A simple question but prepare for a 5,000 word answer.

All this talk about alums, many of which have been gone for years and would have made the NHL if they played a couple years at St. Thomas. Yikes.

I'm gonna go with UMD is better because they've beat the U 8 times in a row spanning the past 3 seasons, but maybe that's just me. Also, they had 3 undergrads from last year's team go to the NHL, so that's already happening.

As for "not being heard from", since 2011 they've won 6 NCAA tournament games. Sure, it doesn't matter much if you don't win it all, but Minnesota only has 5 NCAA tournament wins in the same time period.

By all measures, UMD has been at least an equal program for the past 8 years, if not even better. Heck, if we go back to 2008, UMD has 7 wins and the U still is at 5.

But Gopher Alumni in the NHL have more points! So there's no way UMD has been a better hockey team than the U in many seasons lately!

GopherJack said:

"Blue Blood" programs in basketball (Duke, Kentucky, Kansas, etc.) have no problem being good year in and year out and making it to the NCAA tournament and doing well (while having their rosters robbed year in and year out by the NBA) Same goes for "Blue Blood" football programs (Alabama, OH State, etc). Why can't our Gopher "Blue Blood" hockey team do that?

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Men's hockey has more parity now, it's not as easy as it used to be. Is there a D1 college sport that has more parity than men's hockey? I don't think there is. What is it (are they) if so?

Having said that it seems Lucia's run at Minnesota has to be coming to an end soon. The end of his current deal next year probably should be the latest a change is made. Bums me out how early on so much of the fan base turned against him-it's been going on for years now-but it really feels like rejuvenation is needed.

Our recent record against other Minnesota schools is a disaster. Fans were upset about losing WCHA hockey and going to the Big Ten. Our record against the other MN schools is making it impossible for the fan base to get over it.

adchester said:

Also, they had 3 undergrads from last year's team go to the NHL, so that's already happening.

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And SCSU lost a freshman and at least one other underclassmen as well.


SO... lets wait and see how those programs deal with what Minnesota has been dealing with for over a decade now.


Maybe SCSU's winning only 3 of their last 9 games is partly because of missing some of their best players from last year??

How did they jump up so high in the rankings in the first place? Beating highly ranked BC maybe? BC's since fallen way down. Schedule has gotten tougher for SCSU, and they aren't doing much better than Minnesota on the road, either.


So lets see how losing players early to the NHL affects how SCSU and UMD do come NCAA tourney time.

GopherJack said:

"Blue Blood" programs in basketball (Duke, Kentucky, Kansas, etc.) have no problem being good year in and year out and making it to the NCAA tournament and doing well (while having their rosters robbed year in and year out by the NBA) Same goes for "Blue Blood" football programs (Alabama, OH State, etc). Why can't our Gopher "Blue Blood" hockey team do that?

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That is bb and fb, not hockey.



Ask DU when they couldn't get back to the FF for TEN YEARS after 2005???

Ask BC why this will probably be the 6th year in a row without making it back to the Title game and 2nd in a row probably not even making the NCAA tourney?

Ask Michigan why it's been 19 years since they've last won a Natl Title with only 1 Title game App in 19 years?

Ask UND why it took 16 years for them to win another Title after 2000?



It's NOT just Minnesota struggling. It's ALL Blue Blood hockey programs, some more than others.

Hakstol did well, but he's not at UND anymore.

DU's b2b coach is gone.

York is getting old and who knows, may die or retire or get fired even?


Wisconsin's made 1 FF since their title, in 11 seasons.

MSU has not returned to the FF since their title.

BU has made just 1 FF in the 8 seasons since their Title.

Maine?? 17 years since their last title, 10 years since their last FF.



Is there a Blue Blood that I didn't mention?


EVERY SINGLE ONE HAS STRUGGLED TO SOME DEGREE since the NHL started raiding the cupboards of all of their best players.

Last 10 years?

Just THREE programs with more Frozen Fours than Minnesota


UND & BC. UND's since lost the coach responsible for most of that. York's going to miss his 2nd NCAAs in a row

And Notre Dame who got to their 3rd last year.

Just 5 non-blue bloods made a FF from 1998 to 2007.

TWENTY-ONE made it from 2008 to 2017.


21 > 5


That is QUADRUPLED!!!




ZERO non-blue bloods made Title games from 1998 to 2007.

TEN made it to Title games from 2008 to 2017.


10 > 0


The landscape HAS CHANGED, and it has changed RADICALLY!!!!!!