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Minnesota Golden Gophers Season Off-Season Thread 2018

SteveO said:
It was inevitable. Every new HC needs to hire the assts he can work with. Raboin's been with Motzko for years, knows his coaching style and will bring a lot more physicality to the D lineup. IMO in terms of coaching style, Guentzel and Motzko together was not a good fit.

Best of luck to Mike. I hope he lands a HC job somewhere soon...
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I am not sure how much SCSU hockey you have watched, but physicality is probably the last trait I would attribute to the SCSU defensive corps.
 
Re: Minnesota Golden Gophers Season Off-Season Thread 2018

Tipsy McStagger said:
I am not sure how much SCSU hockey you have watched, but physicality is probably the last trait I would attribute to the SCSU defensive corps.
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Outside of Borgen, I agree with this entirely.
 
Re: Minnesota Golden Gophers Season Off-Season Thread 2018

I honestly don't know that much about Raboin, but Motzko has intimated that there will be more "toughness". Gophers have lacked some of that in recent seasons. I assume that involves the D as well.
 
Re: Minnesota Golden Gophers Season Off-Season Thread 2018

Minnesota just got a commitment from Prior Lake native Matt Denman. '98 Offensive Dman who started the year in the NAHL but Cedar Rapids brought him up midway and he led the Roughriders in points from the blue line
 
Re: Minnesota Golden Gophers Season Off-Season Thread 2018

Had to post a congrats to former Gophers Nate Schmidt and Eric Haula for helping the Vegas Golden Knights reach the Stanley Cup Finals in their inaugural season.

They are the first expansion team to reach the Finals in their debut season in 50 years since the St Louis Blues, who played in a division of nothing but expansion teams after the NHL grew from six to 12 teams prior to the 1967-68 season. Exciting stuff... :)

Interview with Nate: https://streamable.com/wcg54

<img src="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dc19dMIVQAEiOpt.jpg" class="irc_mi" style="margin-top: 6px;" height="400" width="850">
 
Re: Minnesota Golden Gophers Season Off-Season Thread 2018

SteveO said:
Had to post a congrats to former Gophers Nate Schmidt and Eric Haula for helping the Vegas Golden Knights reach the Stanley Cup Finals in their inaugural season.

They are the first expansion team to reach the Finals in their debut season in 50 years since the St Louis Blues, who played in a division of nothing but expansion teams after the NHL grew from six to 12 teams prior to the 1967-68 season. Exciting stuff... :)

Interview with Nate: https://streamable.com/wcg54

<img src="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dc19dMIVQAEiOpt.jpg" class="irc_mi" style="margin-top: 6px;" height="400" width="850">
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I am still not sure about how much of an opportunity the NHL gave this team and the fact they will have to do the same to Seattle. Vegas has a ton of depth so will likely suffer less in the next expansion draft than a lot of teams out there. I think they will likely be contenders for the next few years, while teams like the Wild that were close, took a step back in the Vegas draft and will likely do so again with the loss of another upper half player. As a Wild fan, I am conflicted about Vegas. I like the MN connection and they play a fun style of hockey. But I can't help but feel bitter that Haula and Tuch would have looked better in Green and helped the team be more of a contender. And that MN didn't have nearly the quality of players made available to them so had to build to this. (They had the one early run, but that was playing a very defensive style that required everything to fall their way. Not a team that was near the top in talent.)
 
Re: Minnesota Golden Gophers Season Off-Season Thread 2018

Koho said:
I am still not sure about how much of an opportunity the NHL gave this team and the fact they will have to do the same to Seattle. Vegas has a ton of depth so will likely suffer less in the next expansion draft than a lot of teams out there. I think they will likely be contenders for the next few years, while teams like the Wild that were close, took a step back in the Vegas draft and will likely do so again with the loss of another upper half player. As a Wild fan, I am conflicted about Vegas. I like the MN connection and they play a fun style of hockey. But I can't help but feel bitter that Haula and Tuch would have looked better in Green and helped the team be more of a contender. And that MN didn't have nearly the quality of players made available to them so had to build to this. (They had the one early run, but that was playing a very defensive style that required everything to fall their way. Not a team that was near the top in talent.)
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It's frustrating to me hearing all the praise heaped upon the Vegas GM. He did make some nice moves, don't get me wrong, and he obviously chose the right mix of players that teams were exposing. I wasn't a huge fan of hockey back when the Wild came into the league, but from what I understand Vegas played by a very different set of rules than the Wild did back then. Not to mention they were the only team coming in while the Wild also had Columbus coming in that same year which took away from the talent pool they were choosing from. I'm not trying to take toooooooo much away from the guy because he obviously made some good decisions but I just feel like Vegas was set up for success.

And yes, the fact that Haula and Tuch are having such success there is very frustrating for me.
 
Re: Minnesota Golden Gophers Season Off-Season Thread 2018

gopher wes said:
And yes, the fact that Haula and Tuch are having such success there is very frustrating for me.
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I think the "and" part is the most frustrating part for me. It's the expansion draft, so you have to lose one player. But to protect someone (supposedly Dumba) we end up losing 2 guys. I think the GM deserves a lot of blame there.
Of course, he's gone now, so I guess he took his blame.
 
Re: Minnesota Golden Gophers Season Off-Season Thread 2018

purpleinnebraska said:
I think the "and" part is the most frustrating part for me. It's the expansion draft, so you have to lose one player. But to protect someone (supposedly Dumba) we end up losing 2 guys. I think the GM deserves a lot of blame there.
Of course, he's gone now, so I guess he took his blame.
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I think Flecther deserves blame for the 'and' part as well(shame on Fletch also for not getting guys like Pominville, Koivu, etc to waive their no trade clause because Vegas likely wouldn't have taken them anyway as they seemingly went young). But you gotta give the Vegas GM a little credit in that regard also because he swindled a couple teams IMO, the Wild being one of them. Did I hear that he got Fleury and a pretty high draft pick from Pittsburgh? That's pretty insane as it's playing out.
 
Re: Minnesota Golden Gophers Season Off-Season Thread 2018

SteveO said:
Had to post a congrats to former Gophers Nate Schmidt and Eric Haula for helping the Vegas Golden Knights reach the Stanley Cup Finals in their inaugural season.

They are the first expansion team to reach the Finals in their debut season in 50 years since the St Louis Blues, who played in a division of nothing but expansion teams after the NHL grew from six to 12 teams prior to the 1967-68 season. Exciting stuff... :)

Interview with Nate: https://streamable.com/wcg54

<img src="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dc19dMIVQAEiOpt.jpg" class="irc_mi" style="margin-top: 6px;" height="400" width="850">
Click to expand...

So anyone want ti take a shot at which former Gopher they think had the best season this year (individual play, not who experienced teh best season based on team play)? Wheeler?

How about best player from MN?
 
Re: Minnesota Golden Gophers Season Off-Season Thread 2018

Wheeler. Assist machine. Also walks that line of being gritty but not a total d-bag pretty well. Haula was good this year, Vanek also had a renaissance of sorts.
 
Re: Minnesota Golden Gophers Season Off-Season Thread 2018

Koho said:
So anyone want ti take a shot at which former Gopher they think had the best season this year (individual play, not who experienced teh best season based on team play)? Wheeler?

How about best player from MN?
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Wheeler's still the best. Schmidt's stock increased the most.
 
Re: Minnesota Golden Gophers Season Off-Season Thread 2018

Koho said:
So anyone want ti take a shot at which former Gopher they think had the best season this year (individual play, not who experienced teh best season based on team play)? Wheeler?

How about best player from MN?
Click to expand...

Although he struggled in the postseason, my pick for best regular season for a former Gopher is Phil Kessel. Wheeler is a close second, and had a career best postseason. Third, Erik Haula had his best season at any level (29-26-55). Bjugstad also had a good season with the Panthers (19-30-49).

Best player from the State of MN? For forwards, probably Wheeler and then Anders Lee with the Islanders (40-22-62). On D, Jake Gardiner had a career best season for Toronto (5-47-52). Active All-Time? I'd probably go with Matt Cullen. Although He was not very effective with the Wild this season and may retire.
 
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