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Wisconsin Hockey 2024 Offseason

As an off-season post mortem, I plan to look at production in 1/3 at a time over the season. I may try to go back and break down a little film but I think everyone can agree the offensive production just plummeted the last 3rd of the season.

Inability to close and finish teams off or produce SOG or take advantage of scoring opportunities was pretty brutal.

I hope Bants comes back for his last year.
 
Timothy A said:
So at this point the 2 Tech guys wash out DSP and Silye losses. These Tech guys are high character guys. Apparently they are hard after a killer faceoff guy from rit.
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Carter Wilkie would be huge. 41 points in 40 games this past year. 54% faceoffs with over 1000 taken this previous season.
 
I see Lucius is in the portal now. No way to sugar coat things at this point....going to take a lot for the portal to end up a net positive wiht the outflow of talent to the portal and pros. The Lucius clan has a long history with the incoming goalie Castro so that may be something to keep an eye on too.
 
If im being honest, I have to admit i was suprised Lucius didn't bolt when Granato got let go. Is he a talented scorer, absolutely. The scoring will be missed. However, I wasn't a fan of his dedication in the D zone.

I'm getting the feeling that next year is going to feel more like a year one than this past season. Guys who didn't really buy in fully on their way out, and some growing pains waiting for scheme guys to get into the program.
 
markwojo said:
I see Lucius is in the portal now. No way to sugar coat things at this point....going to take a lot for the portal to end up a net positive wiht the outflow of talent to the portal and pros. The Lucius clan has a long history with the incoming goalie Castro so that may be something to keep an eye on too.
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https://x.com/AlexMicheletti/status/1777364362862240240

You are likely right about Castro as they just got the RIT goalie.
 
Losing Lucius hurts but it looks more and more like guys who are not willing to play 200 feet are leaving. And if that’s the case so be it.

Wisconsin will be much better off in the long run.

in Hastings I trust!!
 
The thing that ticks me off is Cruz notated in the portal that he did not want to be contacted, so he already knows where he is going before he gets in the portal. Isn't that tampering? He bolted from being committed to MN in the first place, so he's not terribly loyal to begin with. He was the one guy I was really counting on to score the puck.

TDM says Kehrer and Lindmark are coming back.
 
Timothy A said:
The thing that ticks me off is Cruz notated in the portal that he did not want to be contacted, so he already knows where he is going before he gets in the portal. Isn't that tampering? He bolted from being committed to MN in the first place, so he's not terribly loyal to begin with. He was the one guy I was really counting on to score the puck.

TDM says Kehrer and Lindmark are coming back.
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NIL, the portal and the lawsuits have basically overruled any rules. It's free agency to the highest bidder. You think it's bad now, it's going to get worse. Look at NMU. they've turned over 13 guys to portal and graduation.

BB is where it is really a mess. Mid major teams have lost their whole starting roster to the large conference teams (UWGB). Calipari from Kentucky, is moving to Arkansas and they supposedly told him they have $5M NIL dollars per year to spread over 10-12 guys. That's crazy. AJ Storr is looking for $1M..... Football is more guys so it's less of an issue. But Women's Volleyball is having the same thing happen as BB.
 
When Ryan Day, Calipari and other sacred cow coaches start losing recruits the way other schools do then and only then will this be addressed seriously.

kids should be allowed one portal transfer as a freebie. Anything after that Lucius, Storr) and you sit out a year.

implement an NIL cap, $5,000,000 a year for football and basketball, 1-2,000,000 a year for hockey.

enforce with annual audits.
 
solovsfett said:
When Ryan Day, Calipari and other sacred cow coaches start losing recruits the way other schools do then and only then will this be addressed seriously.

kids should be allowed one portal transfer as a freebie. Anything after that Lucius, Storr) and you sit out a year.

implement an NIL cap, $5,000,000 a year for football and basketball, 1-2,000,000 a year for hockey.

enforce with annual audits.
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It's a private entity, not the universities, so auditing is not really going to work. NCAA let this cat out of the bag and it isn't going back in.
 
WiscTJK said:
NIL, the portal and the lawsuits have basically overruled any rules. It's free agency to the highest bidder. You think it's bad now, it's going to get worse. Look at NMU. they've turned over 13 guys to portal and graduation.

BB is where it is really a mess. Mid major teams have lost their whole starting roster to the large conference teams (UWGB). Calipari from Kentucky, is moving to Arkansas and they supposedly told him they have $5M NIL dollars per year to spread over 10-12 guys. That's crazy. AJ Storr is looking for $1M..... Football is more guys so it's less of an issue. But Women's Volleyball is having the same thing happen as BB.
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This is terribly disappointing. I hate what college athletics has become. The last bastion of the old way is women's hockey with just 1 coach mucking it up on the portal.
 
I'm feeling a lot better with Owen Lindmark coming back! I have always loved the way he plays and thought Granato really misused him.

The NCAA brought this whole mess on themselves. They could have allowed some of the actual Name/Image/Likeness money to flow earlier - instead of it just becoming a blatant cash wagon that goes to players for no real services. Plus, gray shirting and games with scholarships has been a huge problem historically. We never really saw it due to B1G rules that prohibited signing recruits when you don't have scholarships available, but SEC schools would massively oversign their recruiting classes and then yank scholarships from kids.

As much as I hate the portal and NIL money, I think it is a long overdue balancing of the power scales. I also think that the transfer portal is going to look very different once the extra COVID years are gone (which should be next year, I think?). The only way to truly address this is federal legislation. If that happens, I hope that the NCAA doesn't just force the genie back into the bottle. A limited transfer portal and organized rules for NIL are a great thing. The current wild west is not.

Regarding the players knowing where they are going. I read an article/post about this. Essentially, many of the players have known each other for years. It really isn't that hard to backdoor communicate with your buddies to try to join them. As much as it sucks, good on Cruz for not being a reactionary idiot and just dumping his name in the portal on Day 1. Instead he made sure he had his ducks in a row before he burned any bridges.
 
solovsfett said:
When Ryan Day, Calipari and other sacred cow coaches start losing recruits the way other schools do then and only then will this be addressed seriously.

kids should be allowed one portal transfer as a freebie. Anything after that Lucius, Storr) and you sit out a year.

implement an NIL cap, $5,000,000 a year for football and basketball, 1-2,000,000 a year for hockey.

enforce with annual audits.
Click to expand...

Look at you, changing your stance now that the top dawg left.

I’ll be shocked if we are decent next year at this rate. Go pull 7 24-25 year olds out of your hat Hastings! We obviously can’t retain skill.
 
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digitalbooya said:
Look at you, changing your stance now that the top dawg left.

I’ll be shocked if we are decent next year at this rate. Go pull 7 24-25 year olds out of your hat Hastings! We obviously can’t retain skill.
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What tune has changed?

seriously. Wisconsin will be just fine without Lucius. I trust Hastings. He could take 26 Wisconsin fans and get wins out of em’.

my reaction to you was essentially “sky is most definitely not falling”. Whitelaw isn’t Dany Heatley. Or Reinprecht or even Zent/Fairchild/Schier/Tuttle/Granato/Pavelski/Stepan…not yet anyway.

and as I recall I also said the players may have been selfish. Which is a different way of saying they don’t want to play a 200 foot game and play a team first game.

your notion Wisconsin can’t retain skill is erroneous. First, Whitelaw and Lucius are Granato’s players and maybe they don’t want to play D. Second, Tassy/Finley>Whitelaw/Lucius imo and time/results will bear that out.

Judging so harshly after one season is kind of crazy imo.
 
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