Young Minnesota Gophers hockey team faces NCAA champs in Duluth
University of Minnesota men's hockey coach Don Lucia is facing a season in which he will have to do more teaching and developing because of the team's youthful roster, but how does he balance that role with perhaps a more challenging task?
The Gophers have not been to the NCAA tournament in three years and have suffered first-round eliminations in the past two Western Collegiate Hockey Association playoffs. Recent postseason disappointments have elevated the significance of the 2011-12 season, even though 19 of Lucia's 27 players are either freshmen or sophomores.
Lucia said he is not lowering his expectations, but he threw up a caution sign by acknowledging the team is in transition.
"We're going to be a work in progress," he said. "We're in a very good league. We have to look at it as we're going to do some good things and things that aren't very good. That's where the teaching part comes in. The improvement ... we'll have to see."
Lucia should learn a lot about his young team tonight and Saturday during the Gophers' two-game series at defending NCAA champion Minnesota-Duluth at Amsoil Arena.
In only the second week of the season, the Gophers (2-0) will be matched against a UMD team (1-0) that returns goalie Kenny Reiter, two-time All-American Jack Connolly and J.T. Brown, the Bulldogs' second-leading goal scorer last season.
The Bulldogs' title has magnified the questionable stature of the Gophers' program. For Gophers players, it's unsettling to know the NCAA championship trophy is only three hours north of the Twin Cities.
"For a lot of years, we have been the dominant program over Duluth," said defenseman Jake Hansen, one of only seven seniors on the Gophers' roster. "They have the crown now...that's a little strange. The University of Minnesota is supposed to be the premier program. That's what we're trying to get back to this year."
If the Gophers, picked to finish sixth in WCHA preseason polls by the coaches and media, return to prominence this season, they likely will do it with seven freshmen or sophomores among their top three lines. Freshman winger Kyle Rau already has earned a spot on the Gophers' No. 1 line. Lucia also will have at least three sophomores and a freshman among his top defensemen.
Lucia is counting on the experience many of his young stars gained from playing junior hockey. Rau and fellow freshmen Sam Warning, Seth Ambroz, Travis Boyd, Ben Marshall and Blake Thompson joined the Gophers after juniors competition.
Warning, from Chesterfield, Mo., has been paired with Hansen on the Gophers' No. 2 line; Marshall and sophomores Mark Alt and Nate Schmidt are battling to become the Gophers' second-line defenders behind junior Seth Helgeson and sophomore Justin Holl.
"The growth of our defenders will be a big part of what we do this year," Lucia said. "We have no senior defenders. They have to grow a great deal between now and the end of the season. We need to have that consistency. Our penalty kill wasn't that good last season."
Alt, a former star quarterback at Cretin-Derham Hall, is confident the team's chemistry will help the players deal with any consistency or inexperience issues that might surface.
"The team is a lot more driven than any team I've been on in the past," Alt said. "The atmosphere is a lot more competitive. We have a much different team this year."
