0:05 The GPL Podcast, sponsored by Vintage Minnesota Hockey, your exclusive source for throwback Minnesota jerseys. 0:14 Visit vintagemnhockey.com. 0:19 Now, here's Hammy, Vigo and your host, Jupiter. 0:23 Bye. 0:23 Good evening, and welcome to The GPL Podcast, episode number 130. 0:47 Well, Hammy's on the road tonight. 0:49 He's hoping to call in a little bit later. 0:50 He's out in Malibu, California, hobnobbing with all the high-end business people he works with. 0:55 So we're hoping he'll call in a little bit later. 0:58 But as always, we do have Vigo here. 1:00 How's it going, Veegs? 1:02 It's going better than the gophers we can. 1:06 Well, you know, we had a big mistake is listening live. 1:10 And he was in the chat early, or at least the chat for the Mixler chat, the live broadcast, because he was pretty fired up about this past weekend. 1:20 And I don't blame him. 1:23 What a pile of crap that was, Veegs. 1:27 Friday night was probably the worst I've seen the gophers play in a long time. 1:34 I mean, I remember there was a game against St. 1:36 Cloud last year where they just mailed it in. 1:39 They fell behind early, but I just don't know if I've seen them play as poorly as they did on Friday. 1:45 It was just like every puck battle they lost. 1:49 Every dump in Penn State got back. 1:52 Even when they got in the power play, they just couldn't gain the zone and get going. 1:56 It was just a really bad game and it got away from them. 2:01 And it could have been much worse if Robson didn't play well because he did play well Friday night. 2:06 Yeah, I mean, the amazing thing was, I think it was 2-1 in the third period when Sturz got his five-minute major. 2:16 They had a chance to get back in the game at that point and just steal the one point that they needed out of the weekend to get home ice. 2:24 Robson played great early in that game. 2:28 And they definitely had a chance. 2:30 If they got a special team goal early in the third period, tie it up, it could be a completely different game. 2:35 But instead, they just let the game get away from them and a couple of shenanigans. 2:40 And they threw away the points. 2:43 And they only need one point on the weekend to get home ice. 2:48 Just one point. 2:50 And they couldn't do it. 2:51 And they were playing uninspired hockey. 2:54 On top of that, you've got the Shot Happy stats crew at Penn State saying there's 60 shots. 3:01 Well, there wasn't 60 shots, but there was close to 50. 3:05 It was just all around. 3:06 Ugly, Vee. 3:08 Well, and the attempted shots were maybe somewhat close to accurate. 3:12 Maybe some of the dump-ins and stuff that aren't really shots counted towards attempts. 3:16 But I bet their attempts were in the 80s. 3:19 And Minnesota sure didn't have more than 15. 3:23 You know, it was a rough weekend for them to start off that way. 3:28 The biggest thing you'll hear the coaches talk about in the availability stuff from today was puck retrievals. 3:35 You know, Penn State, you know when you play them, they're going to gain the red line. 3:39 They're going to get it below the goal line, and they're going to go to work on you. 3:43 And if you're not sharp on getting back and picking up pucks and getting it going the other way in a hurry, you're in for a long night. 3:50 You're going to be in for long shifts, and you're going to take some body checks, and it's going to be a tough night for you. 3:57 And it was for the Gophers, and you can almost tell. 4:00 Sometimes the Gophers knew that they were going to be under pressure, and so maybe they rushed plays a little bit. 4:06 You know, we saw a couple turnovers just at their own blue line where guys probably not as comfortable as they usually are, because they know that forecheck's coming. 4:19 There were a lot of angry peak bill out there, and they should have been angry, because as a lot of people like to say, they didn't play with any heart. 4:27 They came back Saturday night, and though they did play better, I don't think Robson played as good. 4:32 It still comes back to no offense. 4:38 Yeah, and they had chances. 4:41 I think they had a 2-1-0, they had a breakaway for Pitlick. 4:45 They had chances to get things going, but they just couldn't capitalize. 4:50 Peyton Jones played really well for Penn State throughout all of last year. 4:53 He hasn't been as good this year, but I thought Minnesota had a much better start on Saturday night, and they probably did enough to give themselves a chance to get in the game, but then they fell behind 3-0, and it's tough to come back when you're down 3-0. 5:11 Well, Nate Wells always coming through for us. 5:13 He's listening live. 5:14 He was at the games this past weekend. 5:17 He says, Friday night, Penn State was credited with 109 shot attempts. 5:24 Probably a little high for College Hockey game, but I don't think it was that out of line. 5:30 It wasn't. 5:31 It was, obviously we know the stats in Penn State are inflated, but it was obvious. 5:37 The Gophers were just, they were outplayed in every aspect of the game. 5:45 Yes. 5:47 I mean, you know, so many people were so angry. 5:51 I mean, they were angry at us. 5:52 They were angry at everyone. 5:54 You saw the discussion on Twitter this week, you know, and you know, the anger about getting, you know, they need one point to be at home. 6:02 And then you had the whole TV situation on top of that that was just intensifying everything else. 6:07 Obviously the TV got solved, but earlier this week, it was looking pretty down for this program, Veegs. 6:15 Well, I do think big picture going into the series last weekend, Penn State had everything to play for. 6:22 You know, they have a regional that they're the host for and then NCAA tournament. 6:26 They're on the outside of the pairwise. 6:28 You know, they've been on a bad streak of six games where they've been close, but they haven't been rewarded. 6:35 And on the flip side, you have Minnesota, they're pretty much locked into ninth in the pairwise, regardless of what happens in these games against Penn State. 6:43 Yes, they could be at home for the conference tournament, but you know, they don't need to do well in the conference tournament to make the postseason. 6:50 So you could just see that creep into the mindset probably. 6:53 I mean, these are young kids and it showed in, I think, especially in college hockey today, if you don't bring a good A game to the rink, you're going to be in for a long night. 7:04 And if you don't battle through it, you're going to see what happens like on Friday night. 7:10 That's why the fans are upset. 7:11 And we have a lot of fans who are used to hockey the way it used to be 20 years ago. 7:16 Well, it's just not just 20 years ago. 7:19 I mean, if they just had an average power play, this team would have won more games. 7:28 Nate's been keeping track of it. 7:30 They had those three power plays goals recently. 7:33 It must have been Michigan State and Wisconsin. 7:36 They had some power play goals. 7:37 But other than that, this has historically low power play numbers. 7:44 And it's getting close to historically low just offensive numbers in general. 7:48 Their average goals per game are way down. 7:52 I mean, you look at compared to any years, you might have to go back to what maybe the early 70s. 7:57 You know, some of those terrible Glenn Sonmore years in the early 70s, they were this bad. 8:02 This is historically bad, Veegs. 8:06 Well, I think for a power play, it's especially historically bad. 8:09 Goal scoring, it's down. 8:11 I don't know if it's historically awful. 8:14 It's not obviously a strength of theirs. 8:16 It's one of the things I looked at when I did my article for the Athletic Girl in the year is what was going on through their down offensive year. 8:25 And the fact is, they are a little bit down on shots, but they're way down on goal scoring. 8:31 The one thing about this year's team, though, is they've been better defensively. 8:36 When they went through their stretch of success is because they were getting good goaltending from Sheerhorn at the start of the year. 8:42 They were getting a good penalty kill in the middle of the year and at the end of the year, they're getting really good goaltending from Matt Robson. 8:48 And so for this team to be successful, it doesn't look like it's gonna come through with them being heyday pride on ice, four or five goals a game. 8:56 It's gonna be one of those teams that's gonna have to kill penalties. 9:00 They're gonna have to get good goaltending and they're gonna have to counter attack. 9:04 And that's one of the things they did really well against Wisconsin and they were able to put up a lot of goals. 9:12 Their defense has been approved until this past weekend. 9:14 Obviously, they gave up 10 goals, but you gotta have some offense. 9:23 I mean, you're giving up one or two goals a game and you're not scoring that even. 9:29 You're still not gonna win games. 9:30 You could have some great defense, but if you're still just giving up those low numbers of goals, you still gotta counter it with some offense. 9:36 And there's just nothing there except for the Wisconsin series. 9:41 Well, Don Luchy always says that if you can score four or five, you can outscore your mistakes. 9:46 This team can't outscore mistakes. 9:48 If they don't kill penalties, if they don't play sound defensively, they're gonna lose. 9:54 You know, it's sure, it's sure it's gonna happen. 9:58 Like that's what happened in the game. 9:59 They lost Notre Dame this season, game they lost to St. 10:02 Cloud, game they lost in North Dakota. 10:05 That's what happened. 10:07 They couldn't outscore their mistakes. 10:08 The games where they held on against top teams, you know, it's not cause they outscored them. 10:13 It's cause they played really good defense. 10:15 Where's the offense then? 10:18 It's not there this year. 10:19 I mean, it's just not there. 10:20 And it ultimately comes down to recruiting. 10:22 I mean, are they not getting the right guys? 10:25 Are they not getting those role players? 10:27 I think the one thing that you can criticize this year's coaching staff on is their defense. 10:31 I know this is something that Hammy goes to time and time again. 10:35 They don't have the kind of defensemen that they usually have. 10:37 That's why their power play is down. 10:40 That's why their rush scoring is down. 10:42 That's why scoring's down overall. 10:45 They're having a hard time getting going. 10:47 And the other thing is their centers. 10:49 They miss Justin Klusin, Vinnie Leteri. 10:52 Those are 200 foot players who really drove that team last year. 10:58 And this year, their top centers are Novak, who's coming off a ACL repair and a broken hand or something. 11:07 And then Casey Milstead, a freshman, who it'd be a lot easier if they stuck him on the wing, but they wanted to put him at center and develop him over the year and see what they had at the end. 11:18 But as you saw against Penn State, when they put Pavlocheva out against them, they struggled. 11:25 Well, it ultimately comes down to coaching again. 11:28 He needs to be prepared to have centers fill in these spots. 11:31 You can't, I mean, you know, Cluess and Lettieri were four year guys. 11:36 You gotta have some guys underneath them, grooming them to coming up. 11:40 And it's clear he did not have that. 11:45 I'm not disagreeing with you. 11:46 I'm just saying that that's part of the big problem. 11:49 And that's just the frustration with the fans. 11:51 It's like, you know, they're pissed because they could see it happening. 11:54 It's like, does the Don not see it happening either? 11:56 You know, you get a lot of people. 11:59 I think you expected some of the development to come along. 12:02 You know, Smetula was a point of game player out in Hockey East. 12:05 You thought he might be a better scorer in the Big Ten. 12:10 You thought Tommy Novak, high pick from Nashville. 12:13 You think he would be a high performer in the Big Ten, but it just hasn't been that way. 12:19 And you can't predict Tommy Novak to tear his ACL last year. 12:22 And that hurts a center who needs to skate. 12:26 And, you know, we just got, you know, I've got tons of little questions here from earlier, just from a couple of days ago. 12:33 You know, obviously, big mistake, we know you're listening live. 12:36 You know, after this weekend, where's the pride on ice that Go4Hockey keeps talking about? 12:42 I mean, he tweeted that three days ago. 12:44 And it's really kind of lacking. 12:48 Is it just the leadership? 12:49 It's not just the coaching. 12:50 It's also the players. 12:52 Where's the heart and the leadership from the players to say enough is enough and, you know, we just got embarrassed in Penn State. 13:01 Well, I think we'll see it this weekend. 13:03 You know, if they can rally and turn around, you know, maybe it's there, but it obviously wasn't there last weekend. 13:10 And you know, hockey is a tough sport where if you don't perform, it's going to show in the score sheet. 13:16 And unfortunately, you know, we've talked about this. 13:19 It looks like their numbers are pretty good to get in the tournament, even if they do get swept this weekend. 13:23 It might move them a little bubble and they could drop out. 13:27 But you know, we think their numbers are solid. 13:31 But they could have three weeks off of not playing if they don't win this weekend, Veex. 13:39 Yeah, it could be a lengthy break. 13:41 I think that was something that people looked at when the Big Ten announced their format was, you know, there could be a long layoff before the NCAA tournament. 13:49 Maybe not the worst thing for this group, but I think we'd like to see them get going here and find their game again before the tournament. 13:57 Because as Don said on his coaches show, if you make it and don't play well, what's the point? 14:02 True, but you're gonna kind of get even, you know, it's bad enough that they've been forgotten about a lot this year, but you go three weeks without playing and you kind of back your way into the tournament. 14:19 Lose again, boy, there's gonna be a lot of apathy already, and just having three weeks off and then going to the tournament, it's gonna be tough to build any kind of momentum or excitement for an NCAA tournament if you take three weeks off. 14:33 Well, that's part of the rub for me anyways, the apathy with this team, even if they were to win an NCAA tournament this year, I don't know if the fan base would respect it. 14:44 You know, I don't know what this team would have to do to get the respect that it used to have, unless they went undefeated and won the tournament and had three guys go on to great NHL careers and land every top prospect in the state. 15:00 I don't know what the expectations are right now that would end that apathy. 15:04 And you know, I honestly think it's, I think a lot of people just have it in for the don. 15:10 They want new blood and I think even a lot of people want to see the team not do so well. 15:18 So it almost pushes Don out. 15:21 I see that on GPL all the time. 15:23 You do see a lot and they're like, I would take a bad season for new leadership. 15:28 I see that all the time and it's like, who are you out there supporting? 15:32 You're out there supporting a personal spite against Don Lucia or do you care about the program? 15:37 I even had one of the students from the icebox come at me and said if they won more, the students would show more interest. 15:46 Mike, the students don't have to complain about high ticket prices. 15:50 There isn't probably a lot of other options for them to support. 15:54 I don't understand why they can't have a full student section when they play St. 15:58 Cloud State when it's two top 10 teams. 16:01 And especially when most of them are sold. 16:04 You look at those Saturday, this Saturday is sold out for the student section. 16:07 And they haven't come close to filling it at all this year. 16:11 And I just don't get that because Gopher Hockey's still been pretty successful the last five or six years, but this apathy is carried over into the student section too. 16:20 And I don't understand that. 16:24 It doesn't seem like it's that hard for them to get to the games. 16:26 You know, I still think some of the blame does go to the administration on that. 16:30 I mean, they've got these set rules that the first few rows are for the special students who follow these rules. 16:37 It's like they, let the kids just be kids. 16:41 Let them go sit down in front. 16:44 It just seems like the university is not doing themselves any favors by making a little special section of the first three or four rows. 16:54 And the students are like, well, screw this. 16:56 I'll just go out and party on the Friday or Saturday night. 17:00 Probably not. 17:01 I'll have to get in touch with the people who lead the ice box here at some point for a story and get their side of it. 17:06 But from my perspective, I see a lot of empty seats in the student section. 17:10 And I know all those tickets are sold. 17:13 Most of the other tickets are sold. 17:14 And I like the idea of the ice box. 17:18 But I think a lot of the people in the ice box, I think their hands are tied to by the administration. 17:27 Oh, you cannot swear down there. 17:30 You must be a perfect student and behave yourselves. 17:34 And it's just like, there's no intimidation for other teams anymore. 17:39 I think it's tough. 17:41 It's not a real student section. 17:43 It's like they've been kind of handcuffed a bit. 17:46 And I'd like to see a little change there. 17:50 Well, I'd like to see them have a little bit more freedom, but at the same point, what are the consequences if they do step over the line? 17:59 I've heard a lot of curse words come out of them this year and some I don't appreciate whenever they just do the, you know, F the badgers or whatever. 18:07 I don't like that. 18:09 I'm sure the kids in the stadium and their parents don't like it. 18:13 I mean, there's other things they can do that are probably easier, but it's just frustrating to see all the empty seats. 18:21 It is frustrating and I'm with you there because- 18:24 I'm almost more frustrated with those seats being empty than the corporate seats. 18:28 I can understand a business who has tickets laying on someone's desk that don't get in someone's hands, but there's 1,700 people who have student tickets. 18:38 I would think they'd be able to show up and they can show up and get standing room tickets for I think 10 bucks or five bucks. 18:45 It's not a big barrier to entry for those people. 18:48 Well, the first few years of the general admission, I don't know if it was five or six years ago, six o'clock happens, the gates open. 18:56 Those first few, five, 10, 15 rows were filled up pretty quickly. 19:02 Yeah, I mean, you see the Gophers go to Duluth or St. 19:05 Cloud and those stands are packed for warmups. 19:07 You see them go to Ann Arbor and Yost and those stands are packed for warmups with students. 19:12 But now they've got the ice box rolls where those first four or five rows are cordoned off and they're only for the certain special students. 19:23 And I don't know, maybe the students have become just as apathetic as the fans. 19:30 Maybe they're frustrated too because we see it in football, where a lot of the football students aren't showing up. 19:37 It's happening all around college sports. 19:39 We've seen college sports is starting to get hurt by attendance. 19:43 We're seeing attendance down in all the big sports, football, basketball. 19:48 It's starting to hit hockey now. 19:49 So it's not just a Minnesota thing, but boy, it just seems a little amplified here at Mariucci. 19:56 Well, when they do show up, it certainly makes a difference on the crowd and the atmosphere. 20:00 And they bring the juice when they're there. 20:03 They definitely do. 20:04 They definitely do. 20:06 Let's go for more questions here, Veegs. 20:08 Let me see. 20:10 Kay Ferck, I'm not sure of that name. 20:13 He says, what happened to Clayton? 20:16 What happened to Mr. 20:16 Phillips? 20:17 He is, has he kind of been in the dog house for some of his play? 20:21 Well, I think they're in all these close games where a defenseman making a turnover is crucial to the outcome of the game. 20:30 And I think Minnesota was hoping they could probably slip in to the lineup, have them be effective on the power play and kind of hide them elsewhere. 20:40 And they've just found that they can't hide them. 20:42 And coming down the stretch, they've needed to play players who can defend and he's not there yet. 20:51 It was worth a shot to bring him in. 20:53 I'm sure that Clayton wanted to be part of Minnesota. 20:56 He was asked by the staff to come in this fall. 20:59 He couldn't because of some academic things he had to finish up. 21:02 He did that over the fall semester. 21:05 So he was able to come in halfway through. 21:08 They gave it a shot and I don't think it really worked out, but maybe this is best for him long term. 21:15 Well, hopefully he doesn't get frustrated and decide to leave or something like that. 21:19 Well, he'll get playing time next year when there's a full season to go. 21:23 You know, he's got offensive flair. 21:25 He's just got to clean up the rest of his game and that'll come with time. 21:30 Well, speaking of leaving early, you know, Jay Condon wants to know every year we were hit with an early departure to, actually it's been quiet the last few years, but is there any sense of who might leave early? 21:39 And the chat I've been hearing is Lindgren. 21:43 We should be worried about Lindgren leaving early. 21:46 Well, his eyes definitely brightened up today during availability when he was asked about his trade by Nate Wells, my peer at The Athletic of Zone Coverage. 21:58 And Lindgren spoke very eloquently about what an honor it was to be part of the New York Ranger organization. 22:04 And he talked to some front office people and he's excited to get there for Dev Camp this summer. 22:11 I thought for a second he was gonna say Training Camp this fall, but he didn't. 22:16 But he's definitely a guy who's excited about the next level and he's a player who's hopped around a little bit. 22:22 He's been a bit of a mercenary hockey player going from JV Hockey and I think Lakeville to the Florida Everblades and then Shattuck and then the development program and now the Gophers. 22:36 So he's probably looking at that next step as well. 22:40 I don't think there's any problem with him staying longer in college. 22:45 I did my article in the Athletic recently about early departures and how for NHL teams to sign these guys, it's hardly anything for them. 22:53 You know, they pay that signing bonus that's under 100,000 and then the HL salary is like 67,000 a year. 23:01 So there's very little risk to get a run at the professional ranks on these guys. 23:07 And Lindgren needs a lot of work. 23:09 He needs to improve his skill and he needs to improve his size. 23:12 He's still kind of a slight guy for as tough as he plays. 23:15 And staying in college and staying definitely would help his game. 23:19 Well, I definitely think it would help, but their defense could be decimated next year if he does decide to leave because they also lose Johnson and Glover, I believe, to graduation. 23:31 You lose a Lindgren. 23:34 It could be even worse situation than it is now. 23:39 Much worse. 23:40 Yeah, I think they're counting on him coming back because there'd be a huge hole in their line of if he left. 23:45 Not just for his play on the ice, but his leadership. 23:48 They really looked to him in the locker room. 23:51 Condon put out a couple of other numbers. 23:53 He's got Sheehy. 23:54 He's got even Sheerhorn on that list. 23:57 Behind the scenes, some of us, if anyone mentioned, Robson playing so well, maybe he leaves. 24:02 So we've got a lot of dynamics here of players that could just say, you know what, I've had enough of this. 24:08 I'm gonna go to the next level. 24:10 Whether if they make it to the NHL or not, they might have just decided to move on. 24:16 I mean, I would be surprised if any of these guys moved on and got NHL games next year. 24:22 I just don't know if they're ready. 24:25 Just the effort that they've given in some of the games this year, I think a lot of these guys would benefit by working with CalDeeds, taking advantage of all the amenities that the university provides these guys and play in another year, but as Don Lucia said so eloquently last week, it doesn't matter what we think. 24:46 It matters what the players and their families think. 24:50 Yeah, that is true. 24:51 Okay, on to another question. 24:52 We got Andrew Fritz wondering, why do we take so many slash slash hooking penalties by wingers in the offensive and neutral zone? 25:01 He was talking about guys like, Brischdett and Pitlick. 25:04 They seem to be in the box way too often, and they're not defensive zone penalties. 25:09 And we know that really frustrates the Don. 25:12 Offensive zone penalties are probably the one thing that Don hates almost as much as a turnover at the blue line. 25:21 Things that can kill a team. 25:23 And it's gotta be frustration for these guys. 25:26 They're not scoring as frequently as they'd like. 25:28 And when they turn over the puck or having a hard time getting it back, it just comes out and they think that they're making a tough play, but they're just not. 25:37 It's been a huge issue. 25:39 I've been a little surprised that Don hasn't been a little more quick with sitting guys on nights after they do this kind of stuff. 25:47 Because there are players who can play the second half of the season. 25:51 Noterman, Maroney are young players that could probably get a chance if Don wanted to send a message to certain guys. 25:58 But he hasn't been willing to do that this year. 26:01 Well, if you would have sent a message, it would have been to Brischstedt about two months ago. 26:06 And he never did that and Brischstedt just had to play through his incredible scoring or lack of scoring drought. 26:14 Yeah, Brischstedt does a lot of things that are good during the game. 26:17 He works hard and he still gets probably more shots than a lot of guys in the lineup. 26:23 And he does put the puck on that. 26:27 The offensive zone penalties though are a huge issue in his game. 26:30 Because I think he's just trying to make an impact so hard. 26:32 He is trying to make an impact, but there's always that thought of, just take a game off and watch a game from up top. 26:39 Maybe you'll come back with a little different perspective. 26:42 And Don has done that to a lot of players in the past. 26:45 And he just has not done that this year. 26:47 And I think that's kind of one of the things he maybe should have taken care of back in November and December, maybe even early January. 26:53 He just didn't. 26:55 And that was the time to do it too. 26:57 Now, it's probably too late to send a message in the last weekend of the year because there's no impact to it. 27:03 But it's one of the things that surprised me this year that he didn't take care of that earlier. 27:08 All right. 27:11 Well, a couple more questions, but let's... 27:15 Oh, wait, actually, it looks like we can get Hammy on the line here if we can here. 27:20 Hammy says he's ready to be added to the conversation. 27:24 So give me a second here and let's see if I can add Hammy to the conversation and see how he's doing. 27:31 We're producing magic. 27:32 Well, I try to. 27:35 I try to. 27:37 Let's see if we can get Hammy. 27:38 Hammy is in California. 27:41 He said he might call from his car. 27:42 We'll have to see. 27:43 Hopefully he doesn't have the top down. 27:49 Well, while I'm trying to get Hammy, let's have a listen to sponsor. 27:55 vintagemnhockey.com is a proud sponsor of The GPL Podcast. 28:00 Well, what is Vintage MN Hockey? 28:02 Well, it's kind of the place to get all of your history of Minnesota hockey from the pros to the minors, the collegiate teams, to even the high school teams. 28:13 All information about any of those teams can be found on vintagemnhockey.com. 28:18 They also have great interviews with some historical Minnesota hockey figures like John Mayessich and Lou Nani, Glenn Sonmore, some of the greats of Minnesota hockey. 28:27 So make sure you check out those interviews. 28:28 It's a really great thing. 28:30 But as I always say, I think my favorite part is the store. 28:34 The store, you can buy a custom historical jersey from the Gophers or the Bulldogs or some of your favorite high school teams. 28:41 And if you do make a purchase, just use the code GPL Podcast, all one word, and you'll get 10% off your order. 28:48 So make sure you visit vintagemnhockey.com and follow them on Twitter at VintageMNHockey. 28:56 Thank you to Vintage for sponsoring us these last few years. 29:00 Hammeh, are you there? 29:02 I am here, can you hear me? 29:05 We can hear you just fine. 29:06 You sound like you're on the phone, but we can hear you. 29:09 How is sunny California? 29:10 I saw some of those sunset pictures. 29:12 It looks beautiful out there right now. 29:14 Yeah, needless to say, it's pretty nice. 29:17 It's definitely nice to get away. 29:18 I know it's warm back there this week, but you can't beat some of the sights, that's for sure. 29:25 Yeah, I've seen some of your beach pictures, some of the video you're posting. 29:29 Yeah, you're just hobnobbing with all the Hollywood types, aren't you? 29:33 I'm not trying to rub it in. 29:35 I'm just trying to share some of the warmth is what I'm trying to do. 29:39 Well, can you share some of maybe some of your anger from this past weekend and that lovely display of hockey we saw from our gophers against Penn State? 29:50 You know, I don't know that I feel anger as much as shock. 29:54 I mean, I really did not expect to see such a poor performance. 29:59 I would have thought that at least one of those games, we would have seen a pretty good performance or at least a decent performance. 30:07 And we didn't get that obviously at all. 30:10 So for me, it wasn't anger as much as shock. 30:14 And obviously, it's very disappointing when you have the opportunity to land home ice for the first round and you fail to do it. 30:22 So, but I understand why people are mad, that's for sure. 30:27 Definitely a lot of anger in the vehicle. 30:29 And I've kind of covered that quite a bit already. 30:33 So then we've got this turnaround. 30:35 We're going right back to Penn State this week, guys. 30:39 VEGS, it was not looking good to television until today when a lot of people at the University of Minnesota, including Brian Deutsch, who we've worked with for quite a few years, he's been on the phone for days, working with the Big Ten, the Big Ten Network and Fox, and we're gonna get the games on TV this weekend. 31:00 Yeah, huge move by the University of Minnesota. 31:03 I think they were trying to figure out a way to get the games televised, if they were gonna be at Marriott Arena this weekend. 31:10 I feel like they had something kind of lined up for that. 31:14 People would have enjoyed that broadcast as well, but when they went out to Penn State, the Big Ten wasn't quite ready to broadcast the games, so Mark Coyle rallied the troops, and Brian Deutsch and Tom McGuinness came through and worked out a deal with Fox and the Big Ten to get them on the air. 31:33 This isn't a for-profit move by these groups. 31:35 This is a gesture of the fans to get these games on. 31:41 Try to get them goodwill from the fans. 31:42 I don't know if that was the reaction they got on social media, but I'm sure there's a lot of silent fans who are happy. 31:49 Well, I'm definitely happy about it. 31:52 I love listening to Frank and Wally. 31:54 It's always great to see the games on TV, Hammy, and at least we're gonna get to see them this weekend, huh, Hammy? 32:03 Yeah, I mean, I think we hear fans give them a lot of grief for games not being on at certain times or schedules being different and all that kind of stuff. 32:14 And to see them kind of go to the extra mile to be able to get the games on TV, I think it says something. 32:20 Obviously they know they have to build some goodwill back up given some of the ticket prices and some of the other things that we've talked about pretty consistently over the last couple of years. 32:30 So it's something that they definitely need to do more of and figure out a way to kind of keep the fans happy. 32:37 How long do we have you for, Hammeh? 32:42 Well, as long as you want. 32:44 I mean, I get to drive up to Mission Viejo, which is about 20 minutes away from where I'm at now. 32:52 Well, that's good because we've got some Gensel audio we're going to play here in a little bit. 32:56 I just thought you might want to hear it. 32:59 One thing that is going to be interesting about this weekend, Veegs, is that Big Ten's covering it, but you know what? 33:06 Our announcer Dan Kelly and Fred Pletch, they will actually be in the studios in Chicago calling these games. 33:13 They're very public about that and you know what? 33:16 I'm perfectly fine with it because you know what? 33:19 They're up front about it and they're telling us about it. 33:22 Unlike a few years ago when FSN tried to pull the wool over our eyes and do it with Frank and Doug and didn't quite work out so well, but Frank's still a little bit bitter about that because of the way he was treated about that. 33:37 It was kind of a bunch of BS, but I don't think anyone should complain about how the games are called this weekend because you know what? 33:45 A lot of people came through just to get these games on TV and I don't care if they're broadcasting from a closet somewhere, the games will be on. 33:55 Yeah, and that's the important thing. 33:57 You know, it's probably gonna be a nice quality broadcast as well because FSN and Big Ten are putting this on. 34:04 You know, the alternative for people is that it would have been streamed by PSU students putting together whatever they could and then the Penn State Radio announcer broadcast mixed in. 34:17 So it'll be a big improvement for that. 34:19 I know for ESPN for years, they did their Champions League Soccer broadcast with announcers in Bristol, Connecticut. 34:26 And I'm sure Dan Kelly's looking forward to reenacting that kind of performance. 34:33 Hopefully he says, you know, when Gophers get a goal, they're putting it in the onion bag. 34:40 Well, you know, a lot of people were angry. 34:43 You heard Lou Nanny talking on KFAN, how he couldn't believe there was no television and maybe Lou made a few calls and got more people involved. 34:52 But the university really came through this time, Hammy, and that's one of the good things. 34:59 The university did come to bat for us this time. 35:02 Well, let's not give Lou Nanny any credit that he might not deserve, all right? 35:08 The man's probably got enough of an ego if we don't need to add to it. 35:12 So, yeah, I mean, like I said, it's great that they have the games on and they worked obviously to really kind of find a way to get it done. 35:25 It is disappointing, I think, that they wouldn't have been on in the first round. 35:28 I mean, after all the years that we've seen them playing games in the playoffs. 35:34 So they're gonna have to, I think, figure out what to do moving forward because obviously this kind of situation isn't gonna be acceptable from a fan perspective. 35:43 And as I said, we're already trying to win back, you know, a certain segment of the fans. 35:48 And this is the kind of stuff that they have to do in order to do something like that. 35:55 Well, let's get more into this weekend's games, guys. 35:58 You know, we had media day today and, you know, Gensel talked, Lucia talked, a few players talked, and we thought we'd bring in the audio from Gensel's, you know, as a three minute interview with the media today. 36:10 So I thought we'd play that during the show so we can kind of hear and react to it, a little different than we usually do. 36:15 Hopefully you can hear this hammy, but let's take a listen to Mike Gensel from this afternoon. 36:21 Like obviously a lot of intensity, a lot of emotions flying around the last weekend. 36:26 How are you going to keep those in check this weekend? 36:28 Well, certainly hope we bring in emotion this weekend. 36:31 We didn't have a lot of it last weekend, but we have to play a little bit more passionate, a little more energy and a little more attention to detail this weekend if we're going to have some success out there. 36:39 How was that lacking? 36:40 Why was that lacking? 36:41 Why, that's a good question. 36:42 That's the hardest thing I guess to explain to people is why we didn't come out with the effort we needed on Friday night with one point in hand to clinch home ice and to play here and obviously give us a chance to be in the regionals. 36:53 So, it was an inexcusable effort from us and something we have to own up and live up to and we have to go back and respond this weekend. 37:00 Was it you or was it them? 37:01 Their energy seemed not to church. 37:02 Well, I will say this, Penn State played better in that one game than anybody played against us all year long. 37:06 I mean, that was close to a perfect hockey game as you could play. 37:10 I thought their effort and their execution was outstanding, but I certainly think with us, we weren't mentally focused like we had been. 37:17 I mean, we were 6-1-1 going in there and to walk in there, I think we all expected we'd put a good effort forth and the way we had played the weekend before against Ohio State, we just didn't bring that same attitude and intensity and didn't handle a road experience like we should have. 37:30 Is effort the key to good puck retrievals or is it attention and detail? 37:33 Well, I think first of all, for us, we got to get to the puck first. 37:36 They just continually put pucks below our goal line and come with a real aggressive forecheck. 37:41 We got to get back there quicker and then we got to have a better plan when we get the puck on our stick. 37:45 I mean, it's got to be on our stick and off our stick as soon as possible. 37:47 And right, hopefully either chipped out, rimmed around or right on somebody's tape. 37:51 But we were slow to getting pucks. 37:53 They seem to dump every puck and win every race to the loose puck. 37:55 And I think we've got to change that mindset this weekend. 37:57 Is that big for your penalty kill to get back and beat them to the puck? 38:01 Well, I think 90% of the time, they shot the puck in on their power play breakout and they just, you know, whether it was a cross corner dump or a hard rim, and then just tried to outnumber us. 38:09 I mean, we got the people back in the right spots. 38:11 We just didn't execute our plan to get it out. 38:14 And I don't think our effort when there was a, you know, a tight scrum in there was good enough to get the puck out. 38:18 So I think, you know, getting the pucks quicker, having guys faster to the puck than they do. 38:23 And then obviously when it's on our tape, getting it out as soon as possible. 38:25 Because our MO always try to clear the puck 200 feet. 38:28 So we have to take the stick handle out of our game and get the puck off our tape, off the glass, and on as quick as possible. 38:33 Is that the number one key to your penalty kill? 38:35 For sure. 38:36 You know, they're such a good puck recovery team. 38:38 I mean, they'll have some strategy and some structure when they set up, but I mean, basically, they got pucks off the end boards and made two passes and put it on our net and then converged on our net with three to four guys. 38:48 So I think if our puck recovery game is better and we can execute that and get it out, then we'll spend less time on our end. 38:54 We gave up 16 grade A chances on our penalty kill last weekend and a lot of that was because of their pressure recovering pucks. 38:59 And so our mentality to get pucks back and get them out will be key to this series. 39:05 All right, that's the audio from Mike Gensel today. 39:10 I heard a lot of you, Viggo, in that. 39:16 Veegs, are you there? 39:17 Yep, I'm here. 39:18 I didn't know if you're gonna finish a question there. 39:21 But yeah, I'm writing an article for the Athletic Previewing the weekend and one of the big things I'm gonna write about is the puck retrievals. 39:30 I talked to a couple players about it today as well. 39:33 And one of the big things is communication between the D and the goaltender because it's not just getting back and making a play. 39:40 It's getting back and making the right play and executing it. 39:43 And that's one of the things Mike Gensel was talking about there. 39:47 A lot of times they were getting back there and it was just sloppy and they couldn't get out of their own zone and that leads to a team getting 108 shot attempts against you. 39:56 And Hammeh, one thing that Gensel did lead off with was the lack of emotion of the team. 40:01 And one thing that's big with Gensel is emotion. 40:06 And he seemed kind of offended by their lack of emotion this past weekend. 40:11 Obviously, Gensel is a passionate guy. 40:15 You know, hockey is a passionate game and that's what's really frustrating about watching a team that has an opportunity to do some good things and get home ice and to watch them pretty much lay an egg. 40:27 And yeah, you do have to give Penn State a lot of credit for in particular how they performed in the one game, but you expect more out of Gopher Hockey and I'm hoping that they kind of find their pride this coming weekend and kind of rise up and kind of snatch some of that glory back from Penn State after this last weekend. 40:48 But if things are gonna turn around, V, it's a lot of like you had talked about with Gensel, you know, we've got to get that puck retrieval, we've got to get that emotion and everything going because without that, it's gonna be another long weekend. 41:03 Well, and the guys making these puck retrievals are all drafted defensemen. 41:07 You know, Glover, Zulestorf, Johnson, Nanny, Sid Pradeck, Lindgren, they're all owned by NHL teams and they're all talented guys. 41:15 You know, they have the ability to beat anybody Penn State has to a puck on a dump. 41:21 Are they willing to do it? 41:23 You know, you look at guys in the NHL, one of the hardest things for a defenseman to do is to go in the corner, take a hit and make a play. 41:31 And Minnesota was not able to do that last weekend. 41:34 And that's an effort thing. 41:35 And that's probably the biggest thing that frustrates fans is seeing a lack of effort on those plays. 41:41 Because it's not an easy thing to do to go in there in the corner and retrieve a puck when you've got a six foot seven Russian right on your heels. 41:50 But for them to win, they're going to have to do that. 41:54 And you know, the Don has talked about a lot of those type of things this year. 41:59 They don't have the talent to do a lot of these things. 42:01 They need to do those other things much harder and get in there and work. 42:04 And he says, when they do that, they're successful. 42:07 When they don't, you see what happens last weekend. 42:11 Well, I think the best game I saw them play all year is when they played St. 42:15 Cloud. 42:15 And St. 42:16 Cloud's known for having a very aggressive four check. 42:19 And in that Saturday game, you know, they got back at the puck and got in transition better than they did all season. 42:27 Well, what happens this weekend, Hammeh? 42:28 I mean, we could have three weeks off or, you know, technically it could be the end of the season. 42:34 But do these players come back and at least put up a fight this weekend? 42:41 Well, I think they'll play better than what we saw this last weekend. 42:44 But, you know, it's kind of hard to come back one week later to the same exact brink and think like you're going to win a couple of games or whatever. 42:53 You know, I think it's, for me, I think that we're going to see the team get several weeks off and, you know, hopefully they make use of whatever. 43:03 If that happens, they make use of it. 43:06 But, yeah, you don't like to be off that much amount of time. 43:09 The only time I ever really remember that working for anybody was, I think, Denver one. 43:14 Didn't they get knocked out in the first round of the WCHA, one of those back-to-back years that they won, and they were off for a couple weeks or something like that. 43:22 So that's about the only time I can remember a team being, you know, kind of out of competition for a little while and then coming back and actually doing some serious damage. 43:33 So maybe if they lose this weekend, we can replicate that. 43:37 But they definitely have to get things buttoned up, especially defensively. 43:42 And you can't just count on the goalie bailing them out all the time. 43:47 Well, Veegs, I'm thinking this is going to be a three-day weekend for the Goavers. 43:51 I think they do kind of get that split, you know, Friday, Saturday. 43:54 And, you know, I'm not feeling good about Sunday. 43:57 I think they might lose Sunday and we'll have almost three weeks off. 44:01 But I'm thinking it at least goes to three this weekend. 44:04 What are your thoughts? 44:07 I agree. 44:07 It feels like a three-game series. 44:09 One of the things to keep in mind is spring break for Penn State. 44:13 So they might not quite have the atmosphere that they've had in games past. 44:18 Could help. 44:19 I know that communication between the defense and the goalie is going to be huge. 44:23 If the students aren't there, that could be a factor that is in Minnesota's favor. 44:29 I just feel like they have the talent to pull it out. 44:32 They've shown it over the season that they can play top teams and win. 44:37 I don't necessarily think Penn State's a top team. 44:39 They just went through a stretch of six games up until last weekend where they won one game. 44:43 I don't feel like this is a tough match for Minnesota other than the fact that they played so poorly last weekend. 44:52 Probably a little over three games, but I think Minnesota is going to pull it out. 44:56 We also thought last weekend was going to be not as tough as it was. 45:00 I think Penn State's going to be the same no matter what. 45:05 It's really all how Minnesota reacts and how they perform and their emotion level and all those things that Mike Gensel talked about. 45:15 So we'll just have to wait and see. 45:18 Veegs, what else are we going to hear from the media day-to-day? 45:21 We already heard Gensel, Coach Lucia, and what else we got? 45:25 You'll hear some similar stuff from Don Lucia talking about the inexcusable effort by the team. 45:32 It's going to be up to them. 45:34 They might make some changes to their lineup. 45:37 We might see some shuffling in the top nine guys. 45:40 I do think we'll probably see 12 forwards and 6 D this weekend. 45:45 Tyler and Annie blocked a shot in practice today and was kind of hobbling around. 45:49 They think he'll be back for the weekend, but time will tell on that one. 45:55 It's a big series for them coming up. 45:57 Well, it's definitely big because ideally you want to build momentum going into the postseason. 46:05 Maybe a three-week vacation would be good for them, but I'm not always big on that. 46:12 I'd like to see at least one more weekend to try to build something, but we'll have to wait and see. 46:16 I was going to say that's the frustrating thing about last weekend is the fact that they were building some positive momentum, and then it just got completely derailed in a couple games. 46:28 I can't disagree with that. 46:30 Like I said, they were 6-1 over the past few weeks, and they were playing so well. 46:36 Hameed's got a pretty good point there. 46:38 They were building, and then it just kind of came to a screeching halt. 46:42 I think if they would have played like they did on Saturday both nights, it wouldn't be so disappointing. 46:48 I think the Friday performance made Saturday look worse than it was. 46:52 I don't think the score really was indicative of the game on Saturday. 46:56 I thought it was much closer. 46:58 The shots were pretty close. 47:00 The big disappointment Saturday obviously was Gophers going 0-5 on the power play, including a couple long ones. 47:10 So that was disappointing. 47:12 But this weekend is a big chance for them. 47:14 And even if they do keep playing here, it's only single elimination games in the next two rounds. 47:20 So it's not like they have three weekends, a three-game series coming up. 47:24 So I don't think the rest for any one team is that significant. 47:28 You just have to rest up for one game each week. 47:30 So I think it's important to keep playing. 47:33 Yeah, I definitely think it's important to keep playing. 47:35 But hopefully the players feel the same. 47:38 They don't want three weeks off. 47:39 And plus, you know, it does take your future out of your own hands. 47:44 Because if they do lose two this weekend, it's going to put, it will push them more towards the bubble, towards that 1% chance that, you know, you know, you get a weird team knocking other teams out, it could knock them right out of the tournament. 47:55 So if anything, you know, not winning this weekend takes it out of your own hands getting into the tournament. 48:01 So, Hammy, thanks for joining us from California. 48:05 We appreciate you calling in while you're having fun out in the fun sun. 48:10 I am out here for work, just so you know. 48:13 I just happen to make a couple pictures and whatever here or there. 48:17 But yeah, no problem. 48:18 Usually when I'm on my trips, I don't call in. 48:21 Or I did, I guess I was twittering on that one time. 48:25 Yeah, I think you were tweeting at us once. 48:29 No, I was sober. 48:31 I was just being a smart ass. 48:34 In some people's view, like North Dakota fans, they probably say dumb ass, but whatever. 48:41 Well, we thank you for calling in on your business trip. 48:45 We appreciate that. 48:47 We're going to be back next week, and we're going to recap whatever happens here. 48:51 We're just going to keep podcasting for many weeks on, whether it's complaining or not. 48:59 Thanks for listening. 49:00 Remember, you can always follow Hammy at Hammy Hockey on Twitter and EVGo on Twitter. 49:04 We'll be back next week. 49:32 Well, you know, we earn where we're going, and I'm kind of personally excited that we're going back, because it doesn't have a very good case in my mouth how we played last weekend, especially on Friday night. 49:46 And I thought Saturday, we came out, had a really good start, and I think we had first half a dozen shots, and then we do a toe pick in fall, and they score, no, you're down one nothing. 49:56 But we played the game the right way on Saturday, but you can't play the right way one night a weekend and expect to win. 50:03 And so hopefully this weekend, we'll rebound and play the right way all weekend long for whatever it takes. 50:10 Their style puts a lot of pressure on your retrieval game. 50:12 What do you guys have to do to improve that? 50:14 Well, you gotta hold up. 50:16 The first touch becomes really important. 50:18 Puck support becomes really important. 50:22 I think that's a couple of things, I think when we've worked on it this week, our goalie can help us with some of that retrieval game and handling the puck and setting it up for our defenseman. 50:32 I think that's an important part of it, too. 50:33 Just play a little bit smarter in some areas, whether it's some face-offs, whether it's our neutral zone D so they don't have so much speed coming through their neutral zone. 50:41 Because you know that the puck's gonna go to the goal line. 50:44 What was lacking for a day? 50:48 Uh, the list is long. 50:49 Let's put it that way. 50:54 Well, they're gonna have to help out. 50:56 I mean, we've got to make sure that whoever our first forward and back is has to be in a good position. 51:02 We have to make sure that, you know, in the D zone that we do a good job shrinking and outnumbering. 51:08 I thought at times last weekend that we were slow to outnumber. 51:12 And that's the game of hockey. 51:13 Whether it's two on one, three on two, you gotta outnumber your opponent. 51:17 How important is intensity this weekend, especially from a lot of leaders? 51:20 Well, if you don't have it now, I mean, it's too late to hook up the paddles to somebody, you know, and get them shocked. 51:27 I mean, it's the playoffs, it's begun, and this is, if you're an athlete, this is the best time of the year. 51:33 And what you've trained for and what you've worked for, and, you know, I've always say that this is the time of year that, you know, it's for the men to come out and play. 51:41 And your best players have to be the best players. 51:43 It's the bottom line is that, you know, this time of the year, you need a big goal from maybe somebody that doesn't score a lot, but at the same time, you know, for us, and we can't go in there and get out specialty team and expect to win by two, five on five. 52:00 We have to put pucks on that and we get a chance too many times last weekend. 52:05 You know, we're coming in with odd man rushes and we have a chance to deliver a puck and it ends up in the corner because we're always playing cute. 52:11 And the time for cute is over and the time for playing a little bit more and getting pucks on a goaltender and crashing the net and, you know, take a page from Penn State. 52:21 That's their game and they're really good at it. 52:23 Tyler mentioned puck placement on dumps for the power play is really important. 52:26 Is that just, you know, going to the NHL size rink against a team like Penn State that's hard to do? 52:32 Well, no, I mean, we've had plenty of other games. 52:35 It's, you know, your entries, your puck recovery, you win in face-offs and then making good decisions with the puck. 52:42 I thought last weekend after watching the video, we were really, again, really slow to, you know, get outnumbered on a loose puck. 52:48 And, you know, they would get two or three guys to our two and they just outnumber us in ice and puck. 52:54 A big part, whether it was our power play, I thought their scrums, they would win a scrum and same thing with our penalty kill and their power play. 53:01 I thought they won a lot of scrums along the wall and that's an area that we have to be a whole lot better at this weekend, our wall play, all over the ice. 53:08 You mentioned Pavlochad was tough for Novak and Milstead to play against. 53:12 What do they need to do better to be effective? 53:14 Well, pace, you know, they had some opportunities. 53:16 I mean, we had opportunities to score, whether it's, you know, Rem coming in in a breakaway, the first night we had a two on O. 53:23 We had some odd man rushes. 53:24 But again, we have guys that want to be cute all the time instead of, you know, playing some good old fashioned, you know, make sure you take your shot. 53:34 Don't have that odd man rush and end up with nothing. 53:37 And we had too many of those last weekend, but they have the line last change. 53:41 And that's one of the things with, I think that a strength of their team is their depth. 53:45 I mean, they have four lines or what their fourth line has 17 goals on the season. 53:49 They scored two against us on Friday night. 53:51 They're very comfortable playing threes and fours against somebody else's ones and twos. 53:55 And so that's the privilege of playing at home is you get to dictate matchups. 54:00 So you're going to have to fight through it. 54:01 Do you anticipate tweaking your lineup a little bit? 54:03 We've moved some guys around, but this weekend, there's nothing to say that five minutes into the game, you don't move some people around because the experimenting is over. 54:13 If certain guys aren't going, take a seat and we'll go with the guys that are going. 54:17 Everyone healthy entering the weekend? 54:18 Yeah. 54:19 For the most part, Tyler got a shot. 54:22 So we're hopeful he'll be back and practicing tomorrow. 54:27 Tyler, how did you respond from last weekend's losses? 54:30 Well, that's it exactly. 54:31 We just need to have a response and we need to come out next this weekend and be a lot harder to play against. 54:38 Friday night was just not go for hockey. 54:41 We were very hard to play against. 54:42 And just a completely different team than we've been the last month. 54:45 So we weren't happy with that result at all. 54:48 And I thought Saturday we actually played a pretty decent game. 54:51 Just didn't get some bounces, things like that. 54:52 But this weekend got to be hard to play against. 54:54 Got to go in there with a lot of energy. 54:56 You take out anger into those disease games? 54:58 Yeah, I think so, especially after last weekend. 55:01 There's a pretty big gap from the first time we played them earlier in the year. 55:04 So you may not have those feelings, but going back to back like this, there's definitely some emotion that's going into it. 55:10 In hindsight, was there any indication that you're going to get the result that you did on Friday going into that? 55:16 Was there any indication in hindsight of how you got the result on Friday? 55:21 I'm not really sure. 55:22 I thought overall we had a pretty good week of practice. 55:24 There wasn't any really key signs that we were going to have the weekend that we did. 55:29 And both are kind of flat. 55:31 There was really no signs of that. 55:32 I thought we had, like I said, a good week of practice. 55:34 And just not really sure what happened. 55:38 They may be thinking they set you up for a kill this weekend. 55:43 How would you react to that? 55:44 I think we just have a lot more to give. 55:47 Like I said, this last month, we've been playing some really good hockey. 55:50 And I think even with that, we have more to give. 55:52 We understand our power play could be better. 55:56 Our offense could be better. 55:58 And this past weekend, we gave up a lot of goals, which is uncharacteristic of us this season. 56:02 So yeah, they might think that. 56:05 But I think we just have a lot more to give. 56:06 Does Penn State take their level higher than other teams at home in the conference? 56:10 I think maybe. 56:11 I think they're a pretty good team at home. 56:13 I see their crowd is pretty good. 56:14 Their student section is kind of right on top of you. 56:18 And so it gets pretty loud in there. 56:19 So I think they kind of feed off that energy. 56:21 And their ring kind of fits the way that they play. 56:24 They like to get a lot of shots on goal and like to get pucks in. 56:27 And there's kind of tight corners. 56:29 The walls are kind of a little bit bouncy. 56:32 So a little bit, I think. 56:35 I think they're a pretty good team at home. 56:37 On the power play, there are a lot of battles along the wall. 56:39 What are the keys to avoiding those situations and then winning them when you do get into a board battle? 56:44 Well, I think the first thing is just entries, whether we have possession going in. 56:50 We have to keep the puck. 56:52 And if we don't have possession, we have to dump it in. 56:54 We have to have smart dumps and not get the puck on their defenseman sticks. 57:00 And also outnumbering their guys on the walls. 57:03 There's a couple battles that we saw today in video that we just lost just due to outnumbers and bad dumps, things like that. 57:12 So those are kind of some key things to look at when there's battles on the wall. 57:16 Because again, that's kind of the strength of their game is battles and the grit that they're pretty good at. 57:22 Is it that attention and detail on an HL size rink for where to put the puck on the dump? 57:26 Yeah, yeah, for sure. 57:27 You just got to be a lot more simple, play the right way. 57:30 And this week we've kind of been preaching, get pucks behind them, play behind their D, kind of take a note out of their game a little bit with what they do and getting pucks in deep all the time. 57:39 So we've got to make sure we're doing that. 57:40 You and Casey's line saw a lot of Pavlichev last weekend. 57:44 What makes him tough to play against? 57:46 Well, he's effective because he's so big. 57:50 He gets pretty good position. 57:51 And for such a big guy, he can skate pretty well. 57:54 So I think he's got almost eight inches on me. 57:59 So in the reach and things like that, it makes him kind of dynamic forward with being able to skate and having that size. 58:05 It's kind of tough to defend. 58:07 But yeah, his line had a good weekend. 58:08 That's something that we have to look into. 58:10 We have to stop this next weekend. 58:12 For how passionate Ryan Lindgren usually gets in the games, what do you think this series means for him and just how he'll able to, I guess, his MO, how he plays? 58:22 Yeah, it's going to be pretty fun to watch, obviously. 58:26 He has a ton of emotion, whatever game it is, and especially after this past weekend. 58:29 And he kind of got into it with one of their guys. 58:31 So we'll see what happens. 58:33 Obviously, he needs to stay composed. 58:35 He's a leader. 58:35 So he can't be taking penalties that are going to hurt the team. 58:39 He knows that. 58:40 But yeah, it'll be fun to see him going out there with his passion and his emotion. 58:45 No one today has talked about goaltending. 58:47 Reflect a little bit on what you saw from Robson and the few minutes you got from Sherwin. 58:51 Yeah, well, Matt was unbelievable, really, both nights. 58:54 And obviously, Friday night, we didn't help him out much, but he gave us a chance. 59:00 Going into the third, it was a close game. 59:01 And it was really just because of Matt. 59:03 And like I said, we didn't give him a whole lot. 59:08 And then when Eric came in there, again, we didn't really give him a chance. 59:11 We kind of let that one slip out front with nobody covering that guy. 59:15 So both goalies, I thought, played really well. 59:19 Both have been really good all year. 59:20 So don't really expect anything less at this point. 59:22 And yeah, they definitely give us a chance to win every night. 59:28 What do you think needs to be different this weekend? 59:30 You were in the middle of a lot of things last weekend. 59:32 What do you think needs to be different this weekend? 59:34 I think everything needs to be better. 59:36 You know, right from the start, Friday night, we just didn't show up. 59:40 You know, we got to play harder, got to play a lot faster. 59:43 You know, Penn State's a team that's going to chip pucks in and come at us hard. 59:47 So we got to do the same thing to them. 59:48 We got to make sure we're getting a lot more pucks on that. 59:50 But yeah, I think everything, just our mindset needs to be better. 59:53 And I think this week of practice has been really good. 59:55 We're really excited to get back out there and get some revenge on them. 59:58 But yeah, so I think it'll be a good weekend for us and we're ready to go. 1:00:02 The one thing you know is they'll play, you know how they're going to play because they had success with it, so you know what they're going to do. 1:00:06 Yeah, for sure. 1:00:07 That's the kind of team Penn State always been. 1:00:09 Other team that's going to shoot the puck a lot. 1:00:11 They're going to just get over that red line, chip pucks in and come at us as defensemen. 1:00:15 So we got to be ready for that. 1:00:16 And they got a good power play as well. 1:00:18 So our penalty field's got to be better. 1:00:20 But yeah, we know what kind of team Penn State is and we're ready for the challenge again. 1:00:24 What does it mean for the D-Card when you say you got to be ready for them? 1:00:27 What kinds of things you have to watch out for? 1:00:30 I mean, they just come at us so quickly. 1:00:32 So we got to make sure we have really good talk between our D partners and let our defense partner know what to do with the puck. 1:00:40 And just shutting down their team as a whole. 1:00:43 They got four lines that can put the puck in the net and they crashed the net really good. 1:00:48 So we got to be boxing out and blocking shots and just doing whatever it takes to win. 1:00:53 And we got to make sure we get up in the play as well and get the pucks on this goalie too. 1:01:00 So as a defensive core, we need to be better in all areas, I think. 1:01:04 Would it help to be a little bit PO'd, have a little chip on your shoulder going into this one? 1:01:08 I think so, yeah. 1:01:09 I think as a team, we're very pissed off about how last weekend went. 1:01:15 And so we're ready to get back in there. 1:01:17 And it's a tough environment there. 1:01:18 They got a good student section, good crowd. 1:01:20 And it'll be a fun couple of games. 1:01:22 But yeah, we're going to come in there with an edge to us and show them that last weekend was not cool for hockey. 1:01:30 Does familiarity breed content with you guys? 1:01:33 What? 1:01:33 Does familiarity breed content? 1:01:35 Yeah, for sure. 1:01:37 You know, playing teams back to back weekends is going to be nice for us. 1:01:41 But we're going to know what kind of team they are and know what they bring. 1:01:45 So we'll be ready for that. 1:01:47 And yeah, there's some bad blood between us. 1:01:50 So that'll make the games a lot more fun. 1:01:53 So yeah, we'll be ready for it and excited. 1:01:55 Is there any way to sense when you might be a little bit off going into a game and the team's not quite up to the standards of the energy? 1:02:02 Yeah, I mean, we got to bring more energy than we did last weekend. 1:02:06 I don't know what the problem was with us last weekend with the energy. 1:02:10 But we'll be ready to go. 1:02:11 We're ready for the playoffs. 1:02:12 You know, this is a very fun month. 1:02:14 This is where you hang banners. 1:02:16 So we're ready for it. 1:02:17 And I know the guys in the locker room right now are really excited to kick off the playoffs here. 1:02:21 And it's going to be a lot of fun. 1:02:22 What are the keys for you on your puck retrieval game? 1:02:24 Both five-on-five and on the kill. 1:02:27 I mean, I just think the communication is so big. 1:02:29 You know, as the puck gets chipped in, you're going to have your back turned to the Penn State forwards, and they're going to be coming at us fast. 1:02:36 So you got to make sure people are talking on our team and letting you know what to do with the puck. 1:02:41 And we got to make sure we get back there fast as well. 1:02:44 We got to be first to the pucks. 1:02:46 We have a good first touch with the puck and get pucks out of our zone. 1:02:49 So that's going to be key for us. 1:02:51 But yeah, I think communication is a big thing and it's something we need to do better. 1:02:54 Have you done much video on last weekend this week? 1:02:58 Yeah, we did video today on the PK. 1:03:00 And yesterday, we did some more video on Saturday night's game. 1:03:03 So we're ready for them. 1:03:05 We know what they bring. 1:03:07 And so we're excited. 1:03:09 And yeah, we're definitely ready to see them again. 1:03:11 What's the tone of the sessions? 1:03:12 Is it more showing you what you need to do right? 1:03:14 Or is it more showing you the mistakes? 1:03:18 I think it's more so what we need to do right. 1:03:20 Last weekend obviously wasn't the way we play, it wasn't go for hockey. 1:03:23 So you learn from what we did last weekend, but we're moving on. 1:03:28 We're going to be a different team this weekend. 1:03:30 And so yeah, you just kind of see what they do and learn from that. 1:03:33 But yeah, we're not going to dwell too much on last weekend and the mistakes we made. 1:03:37 We're going to be a new team this weekend and it's going to be a lot different and a lot more fun. 1:03:43 During NHL rights were traded over the weekend, how did you find that out? 1:03:47 I found out Sunday morning. 1:03:49 My family advisor was the one who told me. 1:03:52 And then the GM of the Bruins ended up calling me and letting me know that I got traded. 1:03:56 And then I talked to the Rangers GM and assistant GM. 1:04:00 So yeah, obviously a very exciting day. 1:04:03 And I'm very excited to be part of the Rangers organization. 1:04:07 And I mean, obviously I can't thank the Bruins enough for drafting me a couple of years ago and believing me and giving me that chance. 1:04:13 But yeah, I'm excited to be a Ranger and be part of such a first class organization and such a historic organization as well. 1:04:22 So yeah, I'm very excited and ready to kick things off in New York when I get there this summer. 1:04:27 What's it like being part of a trade? 1:04:28 It's gonna go through your head when you find out. 1:04:30 Yeah, there's definitely a lot of motions going on. 1:04:34 You kind of sit there and think, is it because the Bruins didn't want me or is it because the Rangers really wanted me? 1:04:41 And listening to them, I think it was a lot more of the case that the Rangers really wanted me to come there. 1:04:46 And I think they fought hard for me. 1:04:49 And I talked to the GM of the Bruins and he said, it was a tough call for them to trade me away. 1:04:53 But yeah, I just think it's exciting and you got to look at it as something that's good for me. 1:04:59 And my family is very excited. 1:05:01 And the players that I talk to on the team think it's a really good situation, whether I talk to Brady Shea or Vinny. 1:05:08 They say that it's the best organization in the league. 1:05:12 So I've heard nothing but good things and I'm really excited.