Don Lucia spent the drive to Duluth last Friday night watching the first two periods of the University of Minnesota hockey team's 3-0 loss that night to Minnesota-Duluth at Mariucci Arena.
And the Gophers coach didn't like what he saw.
"Sometimes, you watch a game live and you go, 'Well, I don't think we played very well,' and then you watch it on tape and you're like, 'Maybe we were a little better than we thought,' " he said. "Well, that was one of those nights where it didn't look any better" the second time around.
Lucia said he thought Friday's game was one of the team's worst efforts in years.
The Gophers took a penalty 22 seconds into the game, gave up a goal 2:07 minutes in, failed to create high-quality scoring chances most of the night and finished with seven penalties -- some because of mounting frustration.
"(The coaches) didn't say much (Saturday morning), but they didn't need to say much, because we saw it," forward Connor Reilly said. "Most of our guys know what we saw on video; yeah, that's not us. I don't know how we play that poorly."
And yet the Gophers (7-3) followed that up with another loss to Duluth (8-4) on Saturday night, 2-1 on the Bulldogs' home ice.
"Everyone was (upset)," Reilly said. "Trainers, players, coaches -- which is how it should be with the way our performance was."
Several Gophers players said this week that they have put the winless weekend behind them. The team has a chance to regroup with Friday's exhibition game against the U.S. Under-18 Team.
"It's an opportunity to play," Lucia said.
"I think that's the most important thing."
Sophomore forward Hudson Fasching played for the U-18 team against the Gophers two years ago. He remembers former Gophers forward Tom Serratore knocking him out of the game with a hard hit.
"It'll be interesting to kind of see the other side of that," Fasching said. "I was really amped up to play the Gophers ... and even just playing Division I games was such a big deal."
Reilly said the Gophers aren't treating the game as just an exhibition.
Instead, it will serve as an opportunity for Minnesota to fix its problems before heading to Boston next weekend for games against Boston College and Northeastern.
"It's a time for us to regroup, kind of reorganize, figure out some of our weaknesses and try to make up for them," Fasching said.
One glaring weakness was scoring -- Minnesota scored just one goal in the two weekend losses.
"We need a little bit more offense from what I call our 'black and blue' lines," Lucia said. "We haven't had it yet, for sure."
Beyond that, Reilly called the team's effort in Friday's game "atrocious."
"We know we have a lot of skill and a lot of talent. We have some big-time players, but if we're not going to work and the other team outworks us, it doesn't matter how talented we are," he said. "We're probably not going to win enough games -- as many as we want to, at least."
I would hope the Gophers have more pride than that, and will show the U18 kids who's boss.
