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Minnesota Golden Gophers Season Off-Season Thread 2018

Re: Minnesota Golden Gophers Season Off-Season Thread 2018

trixR4kids said:
I ****in hate Duluth but their style of play (at least until they get a lead and pack it in) is infinitely better than what the Gophers were doing this year and it’s not shocking that they won. I honestly have no idea how good their goalie actually is because he never had to do anything difficult. And they did it with a pretty young group from what I understand.

From what Bob has said so far hopefully we can expect similar from this team in the near future.
Click to expand...

IMO, SCSU's biggest flaw over Motzko's era was too many defensive breakdowns. Far too many times the backside players were left unguarded, and could flip in easy goals. It's not that the D was poorly designed, just that I think the D-men had too many other things running through their heads, or the offside wing wasn't covering his guy. It was tough to say which at times, but a few years ago it seemed like the Huskies surrendered at least 1 goal per game that way.
 
St. Clown said:
IMO, SCSU's biggest flaw over Motzko's era was too many defensive breakdowns. Far too many times the backside players were left unguarded, and could flip in easy goals. It's not that the D was poorly designed, just that I think the D-men had too many other things running through their heads, or the offside wing wasn't covering his guy. It was tough to say which at times, but a few years ago it seemed like the Huskies surrendered at least 1 goal per game that way.
Click to expand...
The “risk” of playing Motzko’s high flying transition style.
 
Re: Minnesota Golden Gophers Season Off-Season Thread 2018

trixR4kids said:
I ****in hate Duluth but their style of play (at least until they get a lead and pack it in)
Click to expand...
The part in parentheses shocks me. I didn't get to watch the championship, but I have to imagine they did the same thing again ND that they did against Ohio St. Get a two goal lead and pack er in tight around the goal. They don't completely shut down the offense but they definitely reigned it in big time. That's a fine line to play and your goalie has to be on, especially against a team like tOSU who could really put the puck in the net. Props to them that it worked but I'm surprised that it did....


Just another tUMD title at the X....:(
 
Re: Minnesota Golden Gophers Season Off-Season Thread 2018

MavHockey14 said:
The “risk” of playing Motzko’s high flying transition style.
Click to expand...

This wasn't on transition. Those I understand and accept. The issue I had was during plays well established in the defensive zone. Those were the ones that irked me time and again.
 
Re: Minnesota Golden Gophers Season Off-Season Thread 2018

MavHockey14 said:
The “risk” of playing Motzko’s high flying transition style.
Click to expand...
I'll gladly take the reward that goes with it. But Duluth seemed to have it down pretty solid, they were a defensively staunch group as well not allowing many shots to go with the high flying offense.
 
Re: Minnesota Golden Gophers Season Off-Season Thread 2018

gopher wes said:
The part in parentheses shocks me. I didn't get to watch the championship, but I have to imagine they did the same thing again ND that they did against Ohio St. Get a two goal lead and pack er in tight around the goal. They don't completely shut down the offense but they definitely reigned it in big time. That's a fine line to play and your goalie has to be on, especially against a team like tOSU who could really put the puck in the net. Props to them that it worked but I'm surprised that it did....


Just another tUMD title at the X....:(
Click to expand...
Their blue line is good enough that they can play that way and win, though it didn't seem like their goalie had to work too hard other than the one goal ND scored. Eventually ND just ran out of time and they just didn't get anything going earlier on combined with the one weak goal Morris let in.
 
Re: Minnesota Golden Gophers Season Off-Season Thread 2018

Any update on GPL or another temp board like they made in 2003 during the FF?
 
Re: Minnesota Golden Gophers Season Off-Season Thread 2018

MavHockey14 said:
The “risk” of playing Motzko’s high flying transition style.
Click to expand...

Realize that St Cloud was one of the few teams that still continues to play on a big sheet too. That probably plays a role. The style of hockey they play is entertaining because they generally score a lot of goals and recruit players to utilize that mold. Unfortunately, when you play a team that is really good defensively and plays a trap/clog style of hockey on a smaller sheet, you run into trouble (example: Air Force). Whether Bob continues to try and play that way at Minnesota, I don't know. You also gotta have the players to execute it too.
 
Re: Minnesota Golden Gophers Season Off-Season Thread 2018

I'm feeling good about the decision to move on from the Lucia era. I think things were even more stale than we could tell as fans.
 
Re: Minnesota Golden Gophers Season Off-Season Thread 2018

Anyone find it interesting that some people see little value in having "M" guys for coaches for the Men's hockey team, it is all about experience, yet the U hired a woman's basketball coach based largely on the fact of her Legacy, given she has never coached?
 
Koho said:
Anyone find it interesting that some people see little value in having "M" guys for coaches for the Men's hockey team, it is all about experience, yet the U hired a woman's basketball coach based largely on the fact of her Legacy, given she has never coached?
Click to expand...

It's almost as if there are higher standards for the Men's hockey team than for the women's basketball team.
 
Re: Minnesota Golden Gophers Season Off-Season Thread 2018

Koho said:
Anyone find it interesting that some people see little value in having "M" guys for coaches for the Men's hockey team, it is all about experience, yet the U hired a woman's basketball coach based largely on the fact of her Legacy, given she has never coached?
Click to expand...

There is no one today on the hockey side that equals the legacy of Whalen. if we did, maybe it would be worth a try.
 
Re: Minnesota Golden Gophers Season Off-Season Thread 2018

The best coaches are teachers of the game. A player that had to work like crazy every step of the way is likely to be a good teacher. He or she has the ability to break things down into their component parts. The natural superstar? Not necesassarily.

Due to the Whalen's history as a "coach-on-the-court" point guard, I'm guessing she'll do very well on the coaching side. But this strikes me as an exception to the usual pattern.

Gopher & USA Hockey were much better off with Herb Brooks. Looking forward, I believe Gopher Hockey will be much better off with Bob Motzko, than whatever natural superstar you might have tabbed.
 
Re: Minnesota Golden Gophers Season Off-Season Thread 2018

pgb-ohio said:
The best coaches are teachers of the game. A player that had to work like crazy every step of the way is likely to be a good teacher. He or she has the ability to break things down into their component parts. The natural superstar? Not necesassarily.

Due to the Whalen's history as a "coach-on-the-court" point guard, I'm guessing she'll do very well on the coaching side. But this strikes me as an exception to the usual pattern.

Gopher & USA Hockey were much better off with Herb Brooks. Looking forward, I believe Gopher Hockey will be much better off with Bob Motzko, than whatever natural superstar you might have tabbed.
Click to expand...

Agreed on the superstar approach. The Great One couldn't coach, because he didn't have the understanding of how to explain the steps to get better, because it came so natural to him. The ones that have to work to get better usually make better coaches.

To put it another way, a grinder will teach: Here's how I got better, I did this and this and this.
The superstar will ask: Why can't you do this? It's so easy. I don't understand why you don't understand.
 
Re: Minnesota Golden Gophers Season Off-Season Thread 2018

Schedules thread has you backing out of the trip to Canton/Potsdam this year and possibly the SLU trip to MMMM in 2019.

What's up??
 
Re: Minnesota Golden Gophers Season Off-Season Thread 2018

Happy said:
There is no one today on the hockey side that equals the legacy of Whalen. if we did, maybe it would be worth a try.
Click to expand...

I wasn't referring to just the head coach position though. Some have argued it doesn't matter if any of the three coaches are Legacy coaches. While I support a head coach being able to choose who they want for assistants, I think it could be a mistake to move completely away from having a former player on the bench in the case of MN. They just get too many players who grew up watching the Gophs in the state to not think about this. How do you play up the 'playing for the Gophers is everything you thought it would be when you were a little kid so come and play here now' message when not a single person recruiting them experienced it themselves? None of them would be able to say what it is like to put on the M. For women's basketball, it appears they put a fair amount of weight on that (and her high visibility and accomplishments overall) and how they suspect that will affect recruiting. And of course I recognize that the Woman's BB coach at MN isn't one of the top destinations for that sport, so it wasn't like they would expect to lure away a top coach with year's of winning records under their belt from another program. But interesting zero actual coaching or recruiting experience was apparently valued less than name recognition and legacy value for recruiting. I was happy when they hired Lucia and have nothing against the Motzko hire. Lucia always had at least one guy on the bench who bled Maroon and Gold. I just hope that the value of a guy like that in some recruiting situations is considered. (It's not like all possible non-former Gopher assistant coach candidates are head and shoulders above everyone who put on the M.)
 
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