Re: Minnesota Golden Gopher Season 2018-19: The Motzko Era Begins!
They are Lucia's guys. This is what happens when you hold onto a coach for multiple years too many.
Now that I have a deer hung, I want to reply to this and other comments that suggest Lucia, and the Gophers in general, have a history of recruiting prima donnas who are afraid to get dirty and that is why they haven't won more. It is a simplistic narrative I am tired of hearing (mainly from fans of opponents). "We need more lunchpail guys and less guys who just want to dangle the puck. The dangler's are afraid to be physical." Guys who don't want to work don't make it in the NHL. Period. (Well you can argue a few guys like Patrick Kane survive on phenomenal offensive skill.) The history of how many NHL players the Gophs have produced counters the argument, unless you believe they suddenly change their work ethic the minute they leave college. The make-up of a winning team takes a number of things to come together, and winning at this level has gotten harder, with the 'have not' teams getting more competitive.
Yes, there are different styles of play and the makeup of teams can dictate how they will be most successful. But if you look at the teams that typically win championships in either NCAA of NHL, speed is often what differentiates the best from the rest, not pounding on the other team. Both speed to outskate for possession, and speed to win races to the puck. In other words, team effort. So much of this has to do with team chemistry. Having a couple Kloos or Rowe type players can be infectious to teammates and make the coaches job easier, but the guy who plays with that effort and has the high skill level is hard to find when recruiting kids years before they play. Good coaches can overcome marginal chemistry, in other cases, it can be mostly on the players. And it is hard to know when recruiting how well the pieces will fit (other than avoiding the occasional locker room head case kid you hear about). We've all seen teams that seemed to under-perform based on talent, and some that exceeded expectations. In most of these cases, it is chemistry, which may only be partly due to coaching that created those results.
One of the biggest determining factors for consistency in effort in college players is age. Older guys figure it out. I believe that is why we see in the last decade or more, more and more 3rd and 4th seeds in the NCAA beating higher seeds and even winning, while seeing teams like BC and BU, with lots of young talent on their rosters, struggling at times. Also, there seem to be less games in the regular season that are practically 'gimmees'. MN typically has more of the younger guys. (Hopefully with recruiting rules changes, MN will improve in being able to better predict recruits' futures.)
So let's get beyond the "MN just recruits/Lucia just recruited guys who want to skate around and avoid hitting people" dialogue. Having a good team is a combination of having guys who want to play for each other and have the drive to win every battle, guys, who when faced with an equally aggressive opponent, have more skill, and coaching to get the most out of them, with some luck that all of these come together at the right time of the year. The days where half the opponents you played were less skilled but also comprised of mostly kids out of high school seems to be over. Let's just hope MN can get a few teams with this winning combo.
