0:03 This is The GPL Podcast, sponsored by Jerry Peters and First Class Mortgage. 0:08 Our expertise, your peace of mind. 0:10 Visit us at firstclassmortgage.com. 0:24 Now, here's Jupe and Vego. 0:37 Good evening, and welcome to The GPL Podcast, episode number 171. 0:44 Well, we've got two of our favorite guests back on the show tonight. 0:47 Haven't had either of them on all season, mostly because I've been lazy, and we had a ton of guests earlier this year. 0:54 But we've got Drew Cove, and we got Nate Wells from way out on the East Coast. 0:59 We never see him anymore, but he's definitely on Twitter. 1:03 Drew, how are you doing first? 1:05 Doing pretty good, a great Wednesday night. 1:08 It is, it's a big night in high school hockey as well. 1:11 Oh yeah. 1:12 And then Nate, you were in Penn State last weekend. 1:16 I was, oh, it's good to hear your voices, everyone. 1:18 It's good to hear it. 1:19 Well, it's good to have you on. 1:20 We'll have plenty of bantering back and forth, but you know, well, Veegs, I know you're there. 1:28 One point on the weekend, I think they deserved a little better than that, but if anything is encouraging, they didn't get killed each night. 1:38 Well, in college hockey, you definitely get what you deserve every weekend. 1:42 True. 1:42 And I don't know if they deserved more than a point. 1:45 They played well enough where they could have gotten more. 1:48 And I thought actually they played better on Saturday than they did on Friday. 1:53 And that's just the way things work out sometimes. 1:55 You know, you got to play well at the right times and you got to get scoring at the right times. 2:00 And I think that was a tough weekend for Gopher fans' stomach because they've had so many whores in Happy Valley. 2:06 But one point is what they ended up with. 2:08 And it might be enough for them down the stretch here, but we'll see. 2:14 Well, Nate, you were there. 2:15 You made the trip across Pennsylvania. 2:17 Was it a bus trip or drive? 2:20 We drove. 2:21 There you go. 2:23 How was Happy Valley? 2:25 How was? 2:25 Wait, what? 2:26 Go ahead, Veegs. 2:27 You were about to ask him something. 2:28 I was about to say, no Megabus stories from this trip. 2:30 No, no, I did take the Greyhound up to Albany a couple weeks ago, though. 2:34 The Greyhound. 2:35 Because it was easier. 2:36 It was easier and it ended up being cheaper than driving. 2:39 We only have one car here, so. 2:41 Every time a Megabus story comes up, my wife goes, do you think Nate Wells was on that bus? 2:51 Oh, the mega bus. 2:54 Well, tell us about the, how was the weekend there, Nate? 2:56 You were there? 2:58 I mean, I enjoyed the weekend. 3:00 It was great to see Minnesota live in person for the first time this year. 3:03 It feels really weird. 3:05 Good to see a good friend, Frank Wally, Jess Myers, Brian Deutsch. 3:10 By the way, none of you guys told me Brian Deutsch has been growing a beard all season. 3:13 What the heck? 3:15 We try to avoid avoid Deutsch because he's mean to us. 3:20 Yeah, that's fair. 3:25 I should say he's mean to me. 3:26 He's mean to me. 3:28 Bingo. 3:29 There you go. 3:33 I mean, he's your best listener. 3:34 So I'm sure we'll all hear something about this. 3:38 But it was good to see Minnesota. 3:41 I was really curious. 3:42 Obviously, I've been following along as the entire season watching the games, listening to you guys, following up, catching up with Bob's coach and show and media availability. 3:58 And it's been certainly like a roller coaster ride to follow this team. 4:02 And part of it just felt like even watching them this week and was kind of a bit of in a small little version of what the season was. 4:11 They started really horribly Friday. 4:14 I didn't know it by the end of the period where I was like, Tyler Nanny got a shot on goal. 4:18 And at this point, that's an accomplishment. 4:21 They're out shot 215. 4:23 It was like 16-3 with about two minutes left. 4:28 And then they slowly worked their way. 4:29 They got better. 4:30 They got better towards the second and the third. 4:32 I thought they played their best two periods in Saturday for the first two periods before they were able to hold on. 4:39 And kind of seems like one of the themes of the Gophers playing Penn State is over the last few years, either at Pagula or at Mariucci, is just when they give up one goal, it's very easy for them to give up a second or third and just kind of get themselves in the hole after working themselves to get to that point for so long. 5:01 And that was the case both times this weekend, and where Saturday they lost, they gave up two goals on the same shift in 30 seconds. 5:10 Friday they gave up one goal, they almost gave up a second. 5:14 Penn State celebrated it, it didn't happen. 5:16 And then they gave up the tying goal like two, two and a half minutes after getting ahead. 5:24 And because of all this, Drew, Minnesota ends up with one point, and now they no longer control their own destiny when it comes to the regular season title in the Big Ten. 5:34 Yeah, I mean, if we were in this situation two months ago, everyone would have been saying, what? 5:39 It just didn't make any sense then, and it's kind of been an amazing run. 5:43 But yeah, I was saying a few weeks ago that I just felt like this past weekend was going to be their toughest test of the season just because Michigan State had kind of faltered a little bit, especially down the stretch of Minnesota was getting good, same with Notre Dame, and Penn State is kind of continuing that offensive penchant that they've been known for the last few years. 6:05 And the Gophers have always struggled with Penn State for some reason, and who knows if that can just be that Penn State's really good or a combination of Penn State's really good and the fans, or I don't know, they ruined college hockey, something like that. 6:16 But it was kind of tough to see, especially when they played, like, Veegs, I totally agree with you, that they played way better Saturday than they did, and especially when they, than the way they came out on Friday. 6:30 But getting out to that lead and then just not being able to get, and it was that minute and a half stretch where they gave up those two goals and they couldn't really recover. 6:36 It was just disappointing to see after they had really turned things around, at least I think in the first period and a half or so on Saturday, to kind of maybe go in and steal more than just a point. 6:46 And yeah, the point is really disappointing, especially coming in to this weekend where home ice kind of is on the line at this point, where I'm looking like projecting them to finish third in the end. 6:57 But I don't know, it's still home ice, but it's nothing close to what we could have thought a couple weeks ago. 7:04 Well, the Achilles heel of this team, Veegs, is continuing to be the power play and to another point, the penalty kill. 7:10 But one of the strangest things that I have seen recently, an entire game through overtime and even a bonus three on three, not a single penalty called on either team Friday night. 7:24 That has got to be very rare for Minnesota at least. 7:29 Well, I think that's just a symptom of the problem with Minnesota's game on Friday, is they just didn't possess the puck very long. 7:38 And when you don't control the puck and you don't have a lot of time in the offensive zone, you're not going to draw penalties. 7:47 And it seemed like a lot of the times on Friday night, Minnesota is just happy to sit back and go back on defense. 7:53 And it wasn't kind of one of those weekends where they got completely dominated in their own end. 7:59 It's just they spent a lot of time in there and they didn't take advantage of opportunities when they did have the puck. 8:05 And it was a little surprising to me. 8:07 I don't think they gave up a lot of grade A type chances on Friday night. 8:12 And that's why they kind of hung in there until the end and had a chance to win the game. 8:16 But the fact that they didn't have the puck on their stick for most of the night is probably what killed them in the end and probably killed them on Saturday too. 8:23 Because when you're chasing the puck all weekend, you're going to get tired, you're going to get fatigued. 8:28 And that looked like a team that just didn't have enough steam in the tank and didn't have enough depth to pull out those wins when they had leads in the third period. 8:37 Now, I know, Nate, in the past when Minnesota has gone to Penn State that the shot stats are a little skeptical. 8:46 I would honestly say that the stats are probably a little more accurate this time than it has been in the past. 8:50 They're getting better at their job there. 8:53 But even, what was it, close to 60 shots or whatever it may have been, you don't count the stats of the three on three, but there was a lot of rubber thrown on Lafontaine Friday night. 9:05 There was, and it kind of felt like a little bit, I agree with you that they're getting better with the shots. 9:13 And even if you look at the difference between home and away, it's a couple shots. 9:16 It's pretty much within the normal range. 9:20 But yeah, especially on Friday, it felt like Minnesota told themselves, we're not going to get beat, we're not going to get beat long. 9:29 We're not going to get beat with these cross-size passes that killed the Gophers in the November Series of Mariucci. 9:38 And they put all the effort into and not into just making sure that they were going to get these grade A chances. 9:42 And they did a fantastic job with that. 9:45 But yeah, kind of there wasn't too much out of that after. 9:53 But it just pretty much ended up being kind of a little bit old school Penn State where a lot of those opportunities that they're trying to do, they're just throwing pucks from everywhere. 10:01 Look at the shot charts, a lot of them from the outside, a lot of blocked shots from Minnesota. 10:04 They did a great job blocking Saturday in the first two periods. 10:09 And the few chances that Penn State got in the Friday game, and it was pretty much all created by one line, Nate Soucy, Brandon Biro and Arne Talvati, they were able to convert on them. 10:26 Well it was just disappointing for me. 10:29 I thought they had a little better chance, especially after so many shots Friday night, and they made it to overtime, Drew. 10:35 I thought maybe they could catch a break here. 10:38 See, they got through both over times, and they lost the extra point. 10:44 But it's disappointing, but geez, Drew, it's not as bad as I thought it would be. 10:51 I mean, it's just been such a house of horrors. 10:55 And even though they didn't do as well as we wanted to this past weekend, geez, they didn't get their ass kicked at least. 11:02 Yeah, no, and it's kind of weird that they're kind of the fan base is kind of getting used to regularly winning again after those few drubbings in the first half. 11:11 I don't know, it's been quite a run, obviously. 11:13 Like, I know Nate talked about it in his bracketology this week, two of the oddest teams in college hockey are both Minnesota and Bemidji State. 11:20 But yeah, with the Gophers this weekend, it just Friday really sunk them. 11:24 I thought they were really trying to make too many fancy plays to get around that aggressive forecheck. 11:29 And just the simple plays that they needed to make weren't, they were there, but they just didn't take them. 11:34 And I think I just noticed it a lot with Jackson McCombs' game that he would try and do, obviously, he's a very more offensively and kind of he's got the hands to do it most of the time. 11:44 But he just seemed like he was trying to do too much and it wasn't really working. 11:49 And they didn't really revert to going to those simpler plays that could just just dink and dunk the puck down the down the rink. 11:57 And get it and just kind of try to do your best to just eat away at their possession and just try and get a little bit to where you could get it. 12:05 And I don't think that that really worked on Friday, Saturday, it worked a little bit better. 12:08 But yeah, just a disappointing night from being able to, I guess, try and come back on Penn State's really, really aggressive board check that just was that worked to a tee and they did a great job at it. 12:22 And that's something that Minnesota doesn't really want to run into them again in the rest of the season, especially Big Ten tournament wise, because that's, I don't know how much they can get around that, because I feel like they did play better Saturday, but it still didn't end the way that they wanted. 12:39 And all the while now Minnesota is tied with Ohio State, and now we need help yet again from Wisconsin this weekend, Veegs. 12:47 And it turns out the way that the tiebreakers go, it's not head to head first, it's total wins. 12:54 And if Minnesota and Ohio State end up tied this weekend, even if it's first or second, Ohio State will go above Minnesota for the playoffs. 13:05 Yeah, and it kind of pays off to win in regulation, the Big Ten. 13:09 And Minnesota has had a hard time doing that. 13:12 Sometimes when they've been off, they've been able to pull off these extra points or to put them in position to win the conference title. 13:19 But that luck has run out after only getting one point in Penn State. 13:23 And it's not the tiebreaker I would pick, but I guess in a 17 league, it's probably the way to do it. 13:31 How do you two feel about it, Nate? 13:32 I mean, I kind of like head to head. 13:34 I think that should always be the first one. 13:36 But the league went a different direction. 13:39 I'm okay with being in regulation wins. 13:42 I think Vig's kind of hit the nail on the head just with the 17 league. 13:45 I mean, everyone plays one another. 13:46 So you don't have the issue where you only play each other twice, and maybe in one barn. 13:53 But I mean, I'm okay with it. 13:54 I think at the end of the day, Minnesota has been taking advantage of it in the past. 14:01 They probably, especially after just kind of seen the last few weekends, you know what the Gophers are. 14:08 It's probably the most fair way to kind of come up with it, and come up with a tiebreaker for the Gophers, especially just after seeing them against Penn State, Notre Dame on the road. 14:19 And Drew, this makes Minnesota fans of Wisconsin for the third weekend in a row. 14:26 Yeah, I mean, in my projections, no offense to Wisconsin, but I don't see them winning one game in the end. 14:35 So I don't know. 14:37 Yeah, if you're a Gopher fan, sure. 14:39 Do your best to root for the Red, if that's even possible with your bloodlines. 14:43 I don't know, but yeah, I think it is pretty tough. 14:48 And the regulation wins, I think, yeah, I agree with Nate, it makes a lot of sense. 14:51 I think if you can be more dominant and win without having to go to extra time, I think it just makes kind of indicative that you're probably a better team than most of your opponents. 15:02 And I think that would make sense for the bulk of Ohio State's season, is that they had a more consistent season than Minnesota did, even though they got hot at the end. 15:12 But yeah, they can finish anywhere. 15:14 Yeah, it looks like if the Gophers, if it goes Ohio State twice, twice over Wisconsin and then Michigan State and Notre Dame split, and then Minnesota somehow sweeps Michigan, that's when they can finish second. 15:27 But if the Gophers split in that same scenario, it'll be a third place finish, but still home ice. 15:33 So not a lot, I don't think the top of the very top of the conference is really within too much, I guess, realistic reach, but I think home ice is a very likely possibility. 15:48 All right, well, we've got some, I want to talk about this, the specialty teams, and I know Vig wants to get into next season's ticket prices. 15:55 But before we get into all that, let's hear from our sponsor. 15:59 There has never been a better time to buy or refinance. 16:02 So call Jerry Peters, a first class mortgage in Maple Grove for all your mortgage needs. 16:08 Interest rates are at a near all time lows and property values are on the rise. 16:13 Lower your interest rate and remove monthly PMI at the same time to save thousands of dollars. 16:18 Or you could use the equity in your home for debt consolidation or home improvements. 16:23 The spring housing market is going to be hot, so make sure you're prepared by getting a pre-approved letter from Jerry Peters before you start shopping. 16:32 Mention you heard about him on the GPL Podcast and receive a $300 closing credit. 16:37 Some restrictions do apply. 16:39 Call Jerry at 612-940-3291 or visit firstclassmortgage.com to fill out a free application. 16:48 Jerry's NMLS number is 480200. 16:52 First Class Mortgage's NMLS number is 322842. 16:56 This is not an offer to lock in an interest rate agreement under Minnesota law. 17:00 First Class Mortgage is an equal housing lender. 17:03 All right, well, thanks Jerry. 17:05 And of course, now it's time for our, well, Pitbull Count. 17:24 Okay, Nate, I can never remember, how did that start? 17:29 Oh, it started, I want to say it was 2011. 17:36 The Wild had like a, both played it a lot during their games, and then there was a Bud Light ad where they do like two 15 second ones. 17:44 So it would just keep showing up over and over and over. 17:47 And this is like, this is the Wild kind of like pre-prezy suitor. 17:52 So there really wasn't much to go on. 17:54 I just kind of made it as a running gag of up the pit, here's the pit bull count, because you kept seeing them. 17:59 They kept playing the song. 18:00 And Timbers, Timbers would get to like, yeah, Timber was a lot over something crazy. 18:05 Yeah. 18:07 And yeah, it's one of those, it was one of those things where a lot of people just gets played at college rings kind of during that same time. 18:13 So I just kind of continue that as well. 18:15 And it keeps going. 18:17 By the way, I have to say this, though, on a relating note, I've been to a lot of rinks out east this year. 18:23 I have not seen Little Chippers in person once either. 18:25 Oh, boy. 18:27 So I know. 18:28 At least people are tweeting you, man. 18:30 Yes, I do appreciate that. 18:31 That's awesome. 18:32 By the way, that one, that one, you guys, you guys are all in on kind of that creation too. 18:37 Yeah, the Little Chippers thing is great. 18:39 You know, you get tweeted at from all over the country now, it seems like, and obviously the pit bull count, I think, is starting to go away. 18:46 But, you know, I also don't think it helped when a certain person at Mary Ichi named Devin would queue it up just for you. 18:57 It probably didn't. 19:00 So right before we went on the air, I kind of went through a couple stats of the Power Play Vegues. 19:05 And, well, let's just start with overall, the Power Play is at 15.5% overall for the season, 11.6% in the Big Ten, and overall they are ranked 45th in the country. 19:22 And then you look at total special teams, you know, penalty kill and Power Play, they're 50th out of 60 in the country. 19:30 Veegs, I think, you know, with this resurgence of the team has been great, but this Power Play is still killing us. 19:40 Yeah, and I'm kind of shocked to see what the product is on the ice. 19:46 Bob Matsko, known as a guy who creates offense, he's an innovator offensively, he's had a history of a lot of good Power Plays. 19:56 Last year, when he moved Tommy Novak to the point, the Power Play just took off. 20:01 He unleashed Tyler Sheehy on that off wing. 20:04 They created some things for Rem Pitlick, Brandon McManus took advantage of all the traffic around the net to put back the trash for easy goals. 20:13 And this year, that first unit, which gets the first chance to the majority of nights, just does not consistently get Pucks to the net. 20:21 And they've tried a couple different things at the point. 20:24 And Robbie Stuckers probably done the best job of all the point men they've tried with that unit at getting Pucks to the net and creating that chaos. 20:32 But that group just does not play very dynamic hockey. 20:37 It's pretty easy for the other teams, I think, to defend it with their penalty kill. 20:42 And then on top of it, when you put them out there against a veteran team like Penn State, they made it really hard for Minnesota to gain the zone. 20:49 Those are probably the worst entries we've seen now to go for power plays this season. 20:54 I think the only team that defended it better was probably North Dakota. 20:58 And North Dakota is a very aggressive kill and that gave them lots of problems. 21:02 I think Penn State was also very aggressive in the neutral zone and that created a lot of problems for the Gophers. 21:07 Not sure what the answer is with so little time left in the season, but it's definitely been a disappointing piece of this program. 21:14 Drew, we got Frozen 4 champs in the Mixler chat saying, I need to move Ranta up to the first unit. 21:20 He's a good puck controller. 21:21 Do you think that's a good move? 21:24 I mean, yeah, I'd be interested to see how that would work because his game is such a solely I have the puck, focus on me type of game. 21:34 And I think it would be, it might work if he's trying to draw people off the guys, I guess, probably right at the net. 21:39 But I don't know how much that movement would really go with kind of keeping the points set. 21:45 But I don't know. 21:47 I think the zone entry, like Vig said, is just, yeah, the zone entries were just abysmal. 21:51 And just getting past that neutral zone presence for Penn State was really tough, especially when they did a lot of drop back passes and it just didn't really work to get in. 21:59 And it just, it really needs to make sense simply to get in and to have to, I guess, possess it right from the point down to the half wall, but just to keep it in the zone for a little bit and get set. 22:13 And I think then they can do some damage because they've been able to move and they've been able to get some pucks in. 22:19 But it's just a matter of getting it established. 22:20 And I think, and who knows, Ranta could be the solution to that because he is just a possession monster. 22:25 He's the, I think he's the, he's probably the most individually offensively skilled person on the team, maybe with Sammy Walker as kind of a co-counterpart there. 22:36 But he's just so dominant when he has the puck at even strength. 22:40 And he makes all his line mates better. 22:41 And it's amazing too, that they found a freshman that can make him better in Penn Myers. 22:44 But I think that could be a potential solution. 22:49 But I guess we'll see if he gets moved up at all. 22:53 And for how offensively skilled he is, even strength, I think it would be worth a shot. 22:58 And Nate, you actually witnessed this thing called a power play goal this past weekend by the Gophers. 23:05 Power play? 23:09 I almost forgot what it was after Friday's game. 23:14 I do believe that isn't... 23:16 Didn't McLaughlin kind of clean up a rebound and get an actual power play goal? 23:20 My brain's a little fuzzy. 23:22 I'm not used to seeing that. 23:23 No, no, they didn't get one. 23:26 Really? 23:26 They went up for three on Saturday. 23:28 We're like, gosh, why did I think that McLaughlin glows? 23:32 I did think something. 23:33 Yeah, it looked like just thinking about trying to tinker and figure out the lines. 23:37 One of the things that reminded me though was something Bob mentioned after Saturday's game and like we noticed right away was he basically split up the top six into three lines and kind of was trying to get away from and trying to even out his line just because Penn State scored all three of their goals on Friday against the bottom six. 24:04 So he ended up splitting up Brodsinski up with McLaughlin and Walker. 24:09 Ranta was with Reedy and Jack Perbeck. 24:13 Ben Myers was with Nathan Burke and McManus. 24:16 I was actually surprised to kind of see that Nathan Burke struggling for so long this season. 24:22 Actually, I thought he was pretty rewarded with a good weekend. 24:25 Yeah. 24:27 Burke did play well. 24:28 And Jessus reminded me, yeah, that was against Notre Dame because I mixed up my weekends. 24:33 Yeah. 24:34 I'm mixed up. 24:35 But Veegs, McLaughlin did almost get the Gophers first short handed goal of the season if it wasn't for a nice little slash. 24:42 Yeah. 24:42 I think McLaughlin's having a nice second half of the Gophers. 24:46 He's been engaged most nights and I think that's when he plays his best hockey. 24:51 He can be an intense forechecker. 24:53 I think he gets energized by trash talking and chirping the other team a little bit. 24:57 He does. 24:58 He gets engaged in those battles. 25:00 It really makes him a better player. 25:02 I think when you pair him with a player like Sammy Walker, those two can feed off each other. 25:07 I think on the power play, Bob wants to keep those two together as much as he can out there. 25:13 They play on the same line. 25:15 He'd like to get them on the power play. 25:17 Walker is usually pretty good as the drop pass guy because he's got so much speed. 25:22 If they can keep the penalty kill flat-footed, he should be able to gain the offensive zone. 25:28 He just wasn't able to against Penn State. 25:31 And then the second unit, they rely heavily on Sample Ranta to gain the blue line as the drop pass guy because he's such a strong skater. 25:39 If he's got room to gain the blue line, he's gonna deliver. 25:44 It's just what's the next option? 25:46 What are the escape options for those guys once they gain the offensive zone? 25:51 But I just think when they get going, that unit needs to be a little bit more dynamic and create some chaos to get teams out of their structure. 25:59 And we just haven't seen that very consistently. 26:02 I know in junior, Sampo Ranta was that off-wing player and scored a ton of goals with his shot. 26:08 One-timers coming free is that late guy. 26:12 And he just has not gotten that opportunity at Minnesota. 26:16 Maybe if he stays another year, that's something he can add to his game. 26:19 They seem pretty intent on keeping him by the net. 26:23 And maybe not the best fit, but we'll see. 26:25 They haven't done a lot of variety this year. 26:28 Now, Veece, one thing that Nate brought up was Mr. 26:30 Burke, who you and I had been kind of down on for about the past month and a half. 26:36 He had been struggling, but he had a good weekend last weekend. 26:39 Yeah, I thought his game Friday night was really impressive. 26:42 I thought he played as well as anybody among the forward group. 26:45 He was engaged. 26:46 He was making good decisions. 26:48 And he was being physical. 26:50 And I think that's kind of an element he needs to bring to the rink every night to be effective. 26:56 You know, last year he got the luxury of playing with Walker McLaughlin. 27:00 Well, when you're not playing with those two, you gotta try to create some other space. 27:03 And I think he did that on Friday night. 27:05 I think he got a little bit more ice time on Saturday. 27:08 And if that's the player they're gonna get going forward, it's gonna be a benefit to the program. 27:13 Definitely. 27:14 So I've got a couple questions on Twitter people sent in. 27:19 Let me see here. 27:20 Well, the one most recently, aside from PSU, who is our worst match up in the Big Ten tourney? 27:26 And that's Josh. 27:28 Drew, I'll throw that one at you. 27:29 Who's the worst match up in the Big Ten tourney for Minnesota? 27:33 Yeah, see, there are a few that I feel would be in the same kind of tier, but I definitely feel like Penn State would be the far and away kind of toughest test. 27:42 But I think Ohio State would probably be it for me because they got Tommy Napier on a bad weekend coming off of the injury there. 27:53 I think he'll be back to that form that he was at the start of the season if the Gophers faced him again, especially because he was playing since then. 27:59 But they're just probably the more complete team around besides Penn State because Gophers were able to kind of make some good out of playing Notre Dame lately. 28:14 But I think Ohio State would probably be that next toughest test. 28:18 Another question on Twitter from Gopher Hockey fan. 28:20 We'll throw this one at you, Nate. 28:23 Looking at the pair wise right now, it looks like the Gophers would make the NCAA Tournament. 28:28 Do you think they need to run the table and win the Big Ten Tournament to get in? 28:34 Because they're right on the border right now. 28:36 I mean, that's just not a good place to be. 28:39 They are, but also the fact that they're on the border is nothing sort of amazing. 28:43 They were 37th entering the Mariucci Classic. 28:47 And if they end up making the tournament isn't at large, there's really only, I can only come up with about one other example of a team that's done that in the last about 10 years or so. 29:01 They need to keep winning. 29:02 The good news is that unless they face Wisconsin, pretty much every team that they're going to face will at least kind of help cushion the fall. 29:13 But they probably need to, this weekend is a really interesting series because Michigan's 19th or 20th, 19th or 20th in the pair wise. 29:20 And if they sweep and they did it two years ago to get into, develop themselves in the contention, if either team sweeps, they're putting themselves in a really good position to be at large. 29:34 I think Minnesota though, I don't think they need to win. 29:38 But if they don't win, if they don't sweep this weekend, they're going to need to at least win the first round series. 29:46 Oh boy. 29:50 And even then, even then, you're still kind of, you're hoping on other people to help you out. 29:55 And I mean, yeah, Minnesota has had a lot of luck with that lately. 30:02 Looking at college hockey ranked, if they split this weekend, they're most likely going to fall the 16th in their pairwise. 30:09 That's not a good spot to be going in the tournament. 30:14 Yeah. 30:16 So they would have to win out probably then when they beat. 30:21 If they split this weekend? 30:22 Yeah. 30:23 Yeah. 30:24 They're going to have to win out to put themselves in a safe spot. 30:27 Just because, you know, the first round, I don't think would help them too much in a loss in the semis would probably still hurt them. 30:34 So, and even that first round, if they went two or three, that would probably hurt them as well. 30:39 Yeah. 30:40 I'm with you. 30:40 I think it's sort of me if they lose one of them this weekend, it's pretty much have to make the championship game. 30:47 Yeah. 30:47 I think Bob's focus is on making sure they win the series with Michigan this weekend so that they can finish as high as they can and get home ice in the Big Ten playoffs. 30:58 I think that's the best focus for him. 31:00 He had an interesting quote this week where he's had a lot of teams that they get caught up in regular season championships. 31:07 They get caught up in senior night. 31:09 They get caught up in the pairwise and it really hurts them down the stretch and they don't focus on what's the end goal. 31:16 Maybe it's an NCAA championship. 31:19 That's what you want your players focused on and if you start celebrating all these smaller victories leading up to that, you can limit your future. 31:27 There's one good thing about that though. 31:29 They don't have too many seniors on the team to really get distracted about senior night. 31:32 So, that's one thing, hopefully, that they don't take too seriously. 31:38 I think the one thing he intentionally left unsaid was players thinking about pro futures. 31:44 Who knows what's going on with this team right now. 31:47 There probably aren't a lot of flight risks. 31:49 I know Dave Starman was talking about Sample Ranta and the need for him to stay another year in college to continue to develop. 31:57 I don't think he's a flight risk, but you never know with these guys because sometimes their end goal is very focused on the NHL. 32:05 We had another question. 32:06 Let me see. 32:07 Well, John Candels, he was kind of talking about pairwise as well. 32:12 Boy, I saw something earlier, but how do you guys think Masco is doing so far into his tenure compared to Don's early years? 32:21 That's from Suffering Soda Fan. 32:22 We'll throw that at you, Drew. 32:25 I might have to sit this one out. 32:28 Well, yeah, okay, I was barely. 32:33 Yeah. 32:34 Okay, I'll go to Vig's with that one because we witnessed it, and I would say that the Wugger left the program in better shape than Lucia did. 32:44 Well, it's interesting because you look at the way the program is right now, is they were so focused for that last season and then the year after, and they had so many seniors on the team last year and so many pro-type players on the roster still, that he's almost starting over again this year. 33:04 And it's the way college hockey recruiting is right now, is it takes a long time to get your players as a coach. 33:10 I think you look around the country when there's a coaching change, it's not like these coaches can go out and fill their next recruiting class with all their own guys, because a lot of these times players are committed two, three years ahead of time. 33:24 And you have coaches who are recruiting to fill spots for players who aren't even on campus yet. 33:28 So I think it takes a long time to make your impact as a coach. 33:33 Now that said, I think Bob in this second half of the year, just like last year, has got the team playing the way he wants them to play. 33:41 It's just they were so young that it took a while for them to take their lumps and get some good teaching points on video. 33:48 Because I know with modern players today, until you show them doing it, making mistakes, until you show them doing it and getting it right, they don't believe you all the time. 33:59 And so I think that message is finally sinking in. 34:01 I think they've been playing pretty well. 34:04 Even against Penn State, they played pretty decent hockey and they played the way they want to be playing. 34:11 So there is progress there. 34:12 It's not like some of the past weekends in Penn State where they just got throttled in their own end and couldn't break out. 34:18 They broke the puck out. 34:19 They just didn't do anything once they got out of the zone. 34:22 So I think Bob's got this program in a right spot and I think he's also making an impact with the way he's recruiting. 34:29 He's getting some older players into that pipeline who are going to be coming to campus at age 20, which has always been a struggle at Minnesota. 34:37 So I think we're starting to see what he wants to do here. 34:43 Not only that, but again, some high end players who are taking that extra year in juniors. 34:49 You have a few players who maybe in past seasons would already be on campus. 34:55 And I know we've had, especially during the end of Lucia's run, where you always look at sometimes where a senior is kind of breaking out and you're wishing that, man, maybe I wish that they had had that extra year juniors so that you get one more season out of them. 35:12 Maybe it just includes is the exception or compared to the rule where he got that senior year out of him, compared to like a Travis Boyd or Vinny Letari or some guys come to mind. 35:25 I've watched a lot of Eastern teams. 35:28 I watched a lot of teams live this season kind of being more on the national beat. 35:32 And it was really interesting to be able to compare Minnesota to some of the other young, talented teams that I've been able to watch live. 35:41 Quinnipiac, Harvard, Providence, these teams all share a lot of similarities with Minnesota. 35:49 You have some talent. 35:50 You have young underclassmen or juniors kind of taking on new roles. 35:56 Harvard lost their top, is a very talented underclassman, but they lost their top to Senior D late. 36:09 And just kind of comparing Minnesota to them, I think it's just a team. 36:14 Vegoe kind of hit the nail on the head that Bob has been able to get this team to play the way that he wants them to in the second half. 36:20 And you may be having that first, especially compared to just some of these other teams. 36:25 I think Minnesota is in that right, going in that right direction. 36:29 Getting to that first half of the season, it's almost a team that they kind of need to learn to experience, to have the confidence to win, and just know what that is and what it felt like. 36:40 You saw it happen slowly but surely in November and December that OT lost to Ohio State. 36:46 And just they're able to turn that corner with the win against Bemidji State. 36:49 And while it's still a work in progress, I think that you have to, if you're looking at the Gophers, right now, the glass is certainly more than half full and have a positive outlook. 37:02 So Drew, we can't obviously throw the Don Luchia thing at you because I always forget how young you are. 37:09 But you're so mature, so you're good. 37:12 I appreciate that. 37:14 And even Drew probably remembers Don Luchia's third year, right, Drew? 37:19 What year was his third year? 37:21 Do you remember what happened in 2002? 37:23 OK, I wasn't sure if it was like 98 or 99 was his first year. 37:27 But yeah, I am familiar with that. 37:31 I believe they won, I think, like the top prize or whatever. 37:34 And it was like right in their backyard, something like that. 37:37 Yeah, something like that. 37:39 How old were you? 37:39 You were about seven? 37:41 No, I was 2002. 37:43 I was for the tournament. 37:46 I would have been just turned four. 37:48 Oh, Jesus. 37:50 I guess I was off by a few years. 37:52 Oh, boy. 37:54 I just got more gray hair after thinking about that. 37:58 Not possible to... 38:00 I had a full mullet, though. 38:02 The hair was apparent. 38:05 It was... 38:05 Oh, boy. 38:07 I was a pretty fresh human. 38:10 Well, maybe they could sneak in to the tournament this year, but really, Veegs, I think next year is kind of the big year. 38:20 You know, he's got his guys back. 38:23 He won't lose so many guys that we think, it's year 100. 38:28 Let's bring it home. 38:30 Yeah, because as Matzko was talking about today, guys like Walker and McLaughlin are just scratching the surface of the players that they can become. 38:40 And you look at Walker's scoring since the holiday break, and he's second in the Big Ten in scoring. 38:45 And it's not like he's being matched up against worst players because of his first half. 38:50 He's seen top lines and top defensemen. 38:53 And even when they were at Penn State and getting a checking line that was basically shut him down, he still managed to get on the scoreboard. 39:00 You know, if those guys can stick around another year with Cal Deets and grow their bodies, and not get bigger, but get stronger and faster, you know, those guys are going to be great college hockey players. 39:12 And that's always been the problem at Minnesota since those national titles, is that guys always seemed in a rush to leave and get to that next level. 39:21 And there have been some great players that have worn the DM, but they just haven't stuck around long enough. 39:27 I think if this roster gets another year under their belt and a couple more players to fill in, there's a lot of talent on this roster. 39:34 You watch Ryan Johnson and Jackson LeCombe on the back end. 39:38 You think of those guys as a little bit sturdier. 39:41 It's going to be something to watch. 39:43 It's going to be like old time Gopher Hockey like a lot of fans are talking about back when they had Paul Martin and Jordan Leopold. 39:50 These are those kinds of players. 39:52 They can make that kind of an impact in the game. 39:55 They just need to continue to develop and grow. 39:57 And it's a special season next week, or next year, Veegs. 40:00 It's season 100. 40:03 That's a big deal. 40:03 A lot of excitement. 40:04 That's a big deal. 40:06 And I think the university understands the importance of next season and what the potential is. 40:12 I don't know when we were going to get into this, but we'll get into it now. 40:15 Yeah, I was going to go right to it after this. 40:19 I've heard that the season ticket drive is going to start for next season tomorrow. 40:24 And what you're going to see is Minnesota makes some dramatic changes for them to their scholarship seating fees. 40:32 And I think you're going to see them reduced in about 75% of the building. 40:36 So that means that the people on the ends who don't currently pay scholarship seating, they're not going to be affected. 40:42 But the rest of the building, they're going to pay less than that donation. 40:46 And so in real dollars, people are going to have these cuts to their season ticket prices. 40:51 And I think it's a real intentional move by the university to respond to the fans who say ticket prices are too high. 41:00 They're going to cut them down and see if the people respond. 41:03 You know, people talk about the things they don't like. 41:05 They don't like Don. 41:07 Well, Don's no longer here. 41:09 They want alcohol in the building. 41:11 You can buy a beer now there. 41:13 They want a good hockey team. 41:15 I think they're going to have a good hockey team next year. 41:17 And now tickets are going to be cheaper. 41:20 And so you're going to have opportunities to get that fan base to grow back. 41:24 I think it's a smart move by Mark Coyle. 41:27 He understands what's going on. 41:29 Right now, at the University of Minnesota. 41:31 And I'll be interested to see the response by the public. 41:35 It's hard to move 5,000 seats tonight, but it won't be as hard to move 3,000. 41:41 And Drew, one thing that happened this year is they lower the ticket price, but then they kind of bumped up the donation for certain seats. 41:49 So it really came out being the same. 41:53 So I'm thinking this year or next season, that will be a welcome change. 41:59 Yeah. 41:59 And from the one thing that I've noticed at least this year is that I kind of got on to the beat, at least I've been going to games for a long time, but I kind of got on to the beat right at the kind of the low, probably the lowest point in terms of attendance when, I mean, it was the that North Dakota game even just this year that was more green than maroon. 42:18 And I never thought from all my all my time, at least come into the games, I never thought that was possible. 42:23 But going and kind of seeing the bottom of the bottom and it going up, I think now that the fans do have some of those things that they were asking for. 42:33 But generally, even just if this season is a trend, they want to see good hockey. 42:39 And as the team has gotten better, there have been a ton, a lot more people showing up. 42:43 The Michigan State Series was, I mean, the team obviously knew it was important and they definitely made some specials and they've been doing that all year as well. 42:53 But kind of promoting it out there that, hey, this team is poised to potentially do some damage and have time controlling their own destiny in terms of what they were going to do in the postseason. 43:02 But now more fans showed up. 43:06 And I think that's just the key to it all. 43:08 And no matter how much they can do in terms of things around the product, the product is what's going to get butts in seats. 43:15 And I think that's it's definitely trending in the right direction. 43:19 I think we've seen even in the second half, it's a lot better than it was in the first half. 43:22 And the building is a lot more alive. 43:23 And it's just it's, I don't think there's really any substitute to good hockey for people to show up. 43:30 And Nate, you moved away at the right time because you missed the Michigan series last season and you missed the North Dakota home games that were at Mariucci. 43:43 So you're saying it's my fault that no one's from around. 43:47 We're just saying you missed it. 43:49 You missed all the excitement. 43:54 I mean, I saw it working out. 43:56 It wasn't like it just one day everyone decided not to show up. 43:59 I mean, it's kind of been, Vigo's been covering it. 44:02 It's been about a four or five year trend. 44:08 I keep seeing just the goalpost move. 44:10 People say that, hey, this happens, we'll go. 44:12 This happens, we'll go. 44:13 And that happens. 44:15 And the situation just continues to stay. 44:18 I'd like to think that the product, that it's just a just win. 44:23 Minnesota has a good showing in an NCAA tournament, and people show up the next year. 44:30 We're seeing with this year's team that maybe, they're turning things around the second half. 44:36 Maybe that their ceiling is kind of that, they're able to beat a lot of teams. 44:40 They can't maybe compete against that top ten, the Minnesota Lewis, the Penn States of the world. 44:47 But you gotta think that, at least right now, that things are still trending up. 44:51 And hopefully, that will trend up with the tendons, and they're making some right moves on and off the ice. 45:00 Honestly, though, at this point, I'm still kind of waiting to see if it pays off. 45:05 I hope it does, though. 45:06 The building, the Mariucci, is just, when it's full, when it's going crazy, we've all been there, there's nothing better than college hockey. 45:16 So, Veges, it sounds like the donation prices are coming down in quite a few spots in the arena. 45:21 Do you think they're gonna touch the ticket prices? 45:24 I mean, 100th year, maybe they drop it down 10 bucks a year, or something, do you have any insight on that? 45:31 Well, I think once you drop the season ticket prices, it gives you the flexibility to charge lower prices for games, so you're not impacting the season ticket holder. 45:41 And I think these will be the lowest prices ticket holders have seen since about 2000. 45:46 And so, they have the opportunity, even this year, there are a lot of games where you could have got in for 10 or 15 bucks. 45:53 I know even this Michigan game, group sales, you could get tickets for 15 bucks a seat. 45:59 And a lot of those tickets are sold for Saturday, at least. 46:01 There's still some available for Friday. 46:04 But the U is trying. 46:05 I think when they lower the overall season ticket price for a lot of sections, it gives them the flexibility to move prices around. 46:13 Well, let's get into that Michigan series for this week. 46:15 And I'll throw it out to you first, Drew. 46:18 Minnesota does control its own destiny in some ways. 46:20 They can get, if they win all their games, they're gonna be at least second place. 46:25 They need a little help, you know, with, you know, Ohio State getting some, or losing some points to Wisconsin. 46:33 But overall, Minnesota is in good shape for, you know, home ice and, you know, and control some of their destiny here. 46:41 Yeah, and Michigan's had a very up and down season, at least in following with some of, kind of following from a distance. 46:48 What they've been doing is that they've had some struggles early on and then they've kind of managed to get themselves back into contention here. 46:55 But I think this could be a very realistic first round series as well for the Gophers. 47:01 So it could be another, almost like Penn State, but in reverse where Michigan's here, and then, oh, they're here again the next week. 47:08 But I think this is a really, really important series for not only judging what they could do after the Big Ten tournament, but it could be a good benchmarker if they have to face this team again in two weeks. 47:23 Nate, what are your thoughts on the series coming up? 47:27 It's a series between two very similar teams. 47:29 Michigan's only lost three times since the new year. 47:36 They're coming off with something to prove. 47:38 They got swept by Notre Dame. 47:41 They're only able to score one goal on Cale Morris. 47:46 They're able to do the exact opposite of when they played Michigan State a couple of weekends ago. 47:52 They had a lot of tinkering around with their lines. 47:55 They've had some injuries. 47:58 It seems like Mel Pearson has made a few moves where he's able to find just the combinations that click. 48:07 The defense and the freshmen are definitely showing why they're so high talented. 48:14 It's going to be at the end of the day. 48:17 It's two completely different teams. 48:18 He played what, the first or second weekend of Big Ten Conference play? 48:23 Yep, second weekend. 48:25 Yeah. 48:27 These teams are just two completely different than where they were at the beginning of November. 48:34 It's going to be interesting to see Minnesota facing the team that in many ways is itself. 48:42 Well, VX, we saw Michigan been coming on strong recently. 48:47 Obviously, a road bump last weekend against Notre Dame. 48:52 But I got to say, I always love the style of hockey when Michigan comes into town. 48:57 Yeah, it should be a loose game. 48:59 It should allow both teams to show their skill. 49:02 I think one thing about Michigan is they've got some veteran talent up front with Slaker and Lockwood. 49:08 Those are two senior forwards. 49:10 They've got Pass Job as well, who's a senior. 49:13 And so I think that's important for a team like Michigan to have. 49:17 I think they've had some growing pains with their youth. 49:22 They like Beecher to look a little bit better. 49:24 I think Cam Yorks are working in progress as well. 49:28 But they've got talent in there. 49:29 They're going to try to score goals, which is a lot of fun for fans to see. 49:33 I know when the Gophers used to play them in the Thanksgiving Classic, I always looked forward to that. 49:39 And I'm looking forward to this weekend as well. 49:41 I'm a little curious to see how Michigan's goal-tending is, because I think when they've been successful, Strassman's been on top of his game. 49:50 Minnesota seems to have his number the last couple of years. 49:53 They've done very well, I think, in their last eight matchups. 49:55 They have like five wins and a couple ties. 49:58 So it's a good matchup for Minnesota fans and it's an important weekend. 50:02 We'll see what happens. 50:05 I think Minnesota is going to change their lines a little bit from even what we saw last Saturday. 50:10 They do want to create some depth to their team. 50:13 I think we'll see those lines be altered from what they were a couple weeks ago to try to alleviate some of that and take away some of those matchup concerns that Moscow was seeing against Penn State. 50:25 Okay, here's a question for any of you here. 50:28 Michigan and Ohio State or Minnesota and Ohio State, they win, let's say Friday night, both win. 50:36 Where does the trophy go? 50:39 Grant Petani's minivan. 50:41 I mean, I mean, where, where do you, where's the trophy going to go? 50:50 Because both teams, I mean, you know, we could have an instance, you know, Saturday night where the game is over and we have to wait two hours until we find out what's going on with the league championship. 51:05 I'd assume that Ohio State would just keep it because they, they want to last year. 51:09 So, and even, even if they both sweep and they both end up the same number of points, as long as it's five or, five or six, that they'd be, they'd be co-champs. 51:20 But isn't, isn't it a new trophy each year, Veegs? 51:25 I think it's probably a new trophy each year, but I kind of think the Big Ten's got enough money where they could make, you know, two of them and send one to each rink. 51:33 Of course this year, you know, anybody could finish one through five. 51:36 So maybe they need like four trophies. 51:39 Maybe they get a deal buying in bulk. 51:42 I don't know, it's just a strange situation, you know. 51:44 In times past, we're kind of new at the end of the game. 51:46 And, you know, we have had other times in the long past where, you know, the crowd has hung around for about a half hour. 51:53 And to see, you know, they'll put another game up on the screen or something like that and see what happens. 51:57 But, you know, with the early time Saturday, we're going to be done much long before the Ohio State game, Drew. 52:06 Yeah, and maybe, you know, maybe Deutch just, each SID gets one and Deutch just got it in the back of his car, kind of the wraps, and he's saying to himself two hours after the game, saying, oh boy, Ohio State's losing, all right, we got to go get the trophy. 52:22 Who knows, but yeah, it'll be kind of interesting in that the going back to ticket stuff, you know, I know that's one of the reasons they moved up some of the games is to get more families in again and get some younger kids in the crowd, and that's one thing that some people wanted, and now that's why they're having some earlier games on the weekends. 52:43 But yeah, that five o'clock is certainly not too bad for everybody either. 52:47 Now we're getting done with the game, 8.30, and on we go. 52:52 Unfortunately, Veegs, we end up staying out just as late. 52:56 Usually, I'm going to be out with my Mini Mites and Mites on Saturday night as a fan and as a coach, so I probably will not be out as late as you guys are that evening, but my kids are looking forward to it, and they're hoping to see a Big Ten title on the line. 53:10 Well, you can always take the kids home because we'll probably be out late and come out whenever you want. 53:14 That is probably true. 53:16 Because I remember one year, it was probably like 2006 or 2007, where Minnesota, I think it was probably 2006, where Minnesota was on the line on the last day of the regular season to win the title. 53:32 Which title was it, Figgs? 53:34 That was in the WCHA. 53:35 Oh, really? 53:36 There were probably about 10 around that. 53:39 But I remember that the players stuck around and they were playing football on the ice and stuff and they had the game on the radio and everybody stuck around or not everybody but a significant number of fans stuck around for the game to be official then a little be known the Gophers had the trophy and they skated around the ice. 53:56 And the thing is, you know, if the Gophers sweep this weekend, they get at least a share of the title so that they'd be at least regular season champs. 54:04 It just all depends on where the seeding goes for the tournament. 54:08 That's true and it might be even good for this team not to have a buy. 54:12 You know, being a young group of players, it might be a good situation for them to play against another team at home that next week. 54:21 I certainly know that Frank and Wally, they don't want to buy because then they don't get paid. 54:26 They don't get games to call. 54:29 So they don't want to really see a buy. 54:31 But I think for ticket sales, I think it might be good for them to get a buy, Veegs. 54:38 Yeah, I think selling a one-game semifinal is a lot easier. 54:43 It would be a lot easier. 54:44 But I do know that they gave the season ticket holders a $95 package for all the games. 54:50 True. 54:50 And when you can see five games for under $20 a ticket, that's a pretty good bargain. 54:56 That is. 54:57 Did Minnesota eat some money on that? 55:00 No, they worked with the Big Ten to get that price. 55:04 This is a situation where the revenue is going to go to the conference and get split up. 55:09 It's not something where all the revenue goes to Minnesota. 55:11 So this is something they have to negotiate with the conference and get approved ahead of time. 55:16 And they were able to get it done. 55:18 So this one's for both Drew and Nate. 55:21 Jessica's asking earlier, will the Gopher Hockey Podcast be resurrected? 55:30 Not sure. 55:31 I mean, I would love to do it at some point. 55:33 I kind of feel, I mean, this is pretty much it. 55:39 Like, I really miss, I mean, I miss talking Gopher Hockey on a weekly basis with Drew and Tom and just all you guys when we have you on. 55:47 We weren't able to make it kind of happen this year just schedule-wise. 55:52 It just wasn't able to happen. 55:55 Drew's out of college and just we all had different schedules. 55:59 But I mean, I'd love to still do more podcasting when we're talking about college hockey. 56:05 Oh, yeah. 56:05 I definitely agree. 56:07 100 percent agree with what Nate said. 56:09 You guys also had the use of a studio as well, didn't you? 56:15 It was a pretty cramped studio at the time. 56:17 We switched studios a lot at the time. 56:19 We switched a lot of studios. 56:21 Yeah. 56:21 But they all worked. 56:23 You got to get on the Skype thing. 56:24 It works pretty well. 56:26 It sure does. 56:27 It works pretty well. 56:28 Just a little software, a little recording, except tonight it did stop recording in the middle again, so I've got that issue. 56:34 Damn complex. 56:35 Really? 56:36 Luckily, you're a pro, Jupe. 56:38 I can fix it. 56:38 I just take the live broadcast out of Mixler and we do okay. 56:43 Okay, Drew, final thoughts on this weekend. 56:47 You were hinting earlier you think Minnesota is going to end in third place, but just give it to us. 56:52 Yeah, with what Nate was saying too is I think Michigan is definitely a different team than they were when the Gophers faced them before. 56:59 I think it will be real physical. 57:00 That's at least what I think it's been in the past. 57:03 But if the Gophers end up sweeping, or sorry, the Gophers end up splitting, and then Michigan State and Notre Dame split as well, and then Ohio State does its damage against Wisconsin, it looks like they'll finish in third, right behind Penn State and Ohio State. 57:20 But I think it will be a real tough challenge for the Gophers overall, just because coming into the last weekend of the season with some of the nerves on the line, they didn't obviously have the weekend that they wanted to last weekend. 57:39 And it will be up to those top line guys to really get it all done. 57:46 Okay, Nate, let's hear your thoughts. 57:50 I think Minnesota has been at their best when they have something to prove. 57:55 And the Gophers do have something to prove this weekend. 57:59 They really are showing themselves to be improving week to week. 58:05 And whether or not that's going to pay off down the line with either Big Ten, a conference tournament or an NCAA birth remains to be seen. 58:14 But this should be a really good challenge in a team that has a lot of similarities to themselves. 58:20 I don't think they sweep. 58:21 I think they're going to be two really close contests in the games. 58:24 I could see it being a win in a tie or something to that extent. 58:29 I actually wouldn't even be shocked to see Minnesota and Michigan be back at Mary Ute next weekend. 58:36 But it should be a good battle and it should be a good final week in the Big Ten player, which I don't know we would have said that when we watched these two teams playing back in November. 58:55 Okay, Veegs, are you going to be miscapositivity or not? 59:02 You know, this is a tough weekend to predict. 59:06 I really like the job Motsko has done this season with this team, and they've done a tremendous job responding after they've had adversity. 59:17 I think we're gonna see a sweep this weekend. 59:21 Ooh, I like that. 59:25 I'm going with you, Veegs. 59:26 I'm going sweep because I need to be positive. 59:29 Of course, you know what's gonna happen, guys. 59:31 It's gonna be a five-point weekend for Minnesota. 59:33 It's gonna be a five-point weekend for Ohio State, and it's gonna be a three-way tie for the regular season championship. 59:41 And then let them decide. 59:43 I know Minnesota will probably still be the third seed with all that, but let them figure out all the tiebreakers after that, because that would be a little crazy. 59:51 I don't remember a three-way tie ever in the leagues, at least in recent memory. 59:55 Do you, Veegs? 59:57 Can't think I've seen one. 59:58 I mean, we've seen them share. 59:59 I'm really interested to see if they get a situation on Saturday where the Gophers need to get a win to get home ice or something like that and see what Bob does. 1:00:08 Because I know today they're practicing all kinds of crazy situations, you know, lots of three on three, four on three, extra attacker stuff, just so they had a chance to kind of go over all the different scenarios that could happen. 1:00:23 Interesting. 1:00:24 Interesting. 1:00:27 Well, Nate and Drew, I appreciate you guys joining the conversation again. 1:00:34 Yeah, thanks for having us on. 1:00:35 Drew, what have you been up to ever since you graduated? 1:00:39 Let us know where we can follow you. 1:00:41 Yeah, you can follow me at CoveDrew on Twitter. 1:00:44 Hopefully soon to be at Drew Cove on Twitter because there's some inactive guy that still hold it over. 1:00:51 I check every once in a while just to see if he's still active. 1:00:55 Yeah, you can follow me there. 1:00:56 Yeah, I've just been working, trying to find my way post-graduation. 1:00:59 It's pretty weird, but not being in school for the first time since 2002. 1:01:07 Yeah, it's kind of fun to still be connected to Gopher Hockey and to do a lot of that stuff and be here around the team and covering it still. 1:01:17 And that was probably my favorite thing I did in college. 1:01:19 So glad to still do it. 1:01:21 But one thing I do want to shout out, though, GPL-er Ian, he found me. 1:01:27 He ran into me and he's listening to this. 1:01:30 I wanted to give him a shout out because he ran into me. 1:01:32 He wanted to talk some Gopher Hockey. 1:01:34 Really cool to meet a GPL-er who knew me from GPL. 1:01:38 And Ian is the best dresser at Mariucci. 1:01:43 He is. 1:01:44 He was wearing a tuxedo a couple of weekends ago. 1:01:47 He was celebrating. 1:01:48 Oh yeah, he was great. 1:01:50 A lot of times he's got the cowboy hat going, but he had the tuxedo and he was all serious. 1:01:54 It was great. 1:01:56 Nate, obviously, I still see you blogging a lot, but you're doing a lot of national coverage for NCAA, aren't you? 1:02:05 I am. 1:02:07 I've been doing a lot of stuff for ncaa.com, whether it's bracket, you're just breaking down the national picture. 1:02:15 I've been doing a lot of traveling. 1:02:16 When I went up to Connecticut last month for their version of the North Star College Cup, getting that off the ground. 1:02:24 It was really interesting to watch that because I'm pretty sure I'm the only person there who had done both. 1:02:31 I've been around knocking some new rinks and everything off my bucket list. 1:02:36 I have a couple of other things. 1:02:37 I went up to RPI three, four weeks ago and went behind the scenes for their Big Red Freakout, which is the big event of the hockey calendar. 1:02:49 Other alumni come back, all the students go crazy. 1:02:56 Right now, it's the one event that they sell out the rink. 1:03:01 I should have that coming out. 1:03:03 It took me a bit to find a place for that, but I should have that coming out, I'm going to say next week. 1:03:10 Okay. 1:03:11 I'll be able to look out for that. 1:03:14 I've been doing a lot of things like that, so follow along with the Gophers while I can. 1:03:18 You still can read my hockey tweets at Gopher State. 1:03:23 I appreciate everyone who still follows me for that. 1:03:26 It was really nice to have people be very appreciative when I was back at Penn State covering Minnesota Penn State last weekend. 1:03:35 Will you be back there if the Gophers end up there in the Big Ten tournament? 1:03:40 I will if it's not the championship game because I'm going to go up to Boston for the women's world before. 1:03:46 Well, yeah, that's not a bad thing to do. 1:03:50 Yeah. 1:03:52 Veegs, I know you've been working hard on quite a few things for the Athletic. 1:03:55 Is anything coming out soon? 1:03:57 We will see. 1:03:59 Uh-oh. 1:04:01 Don't you love it when it's not in your control? 1:04:04 It's out of my control a little bit. 1:04:05 We'll understaff in the editing side in the Athletic this year, but we're growing, growing pains. 1:04:14 All right. 1:04:14 Well, it's going to be sweet this weekend, guys. 1:04:16 We're just going with it. 1:04:17 We're ignoring Drew and Nate. 1:04:20 It's going to be sweet. 1:04:21 Champions. 1:04:22 I'm on a go-to arm race, so it's okay. 1:04:27 Well, that's going to do it for this episode of The GPL Podcast. 1:04:30 And as always, we want to thank Nate and Drew for joining us. 1:04:33 That's always great having you guys on the podcast. 1:04:37 Next week, we'll be kind of moving to Thursday, do a little conflict on Wednesday. 1:04:40 So we'll move it up to Thursday. 1:04:42 You know, we'll recap the Michigan series and preview the Big Ten playoffs, because then we'll know what's going to be happening. 1:04:49 For those of you listening live, we'll have a little bit of overtime going here. 1:04:54 It's always fun to have some fun in overtime, I'll tell you that. 1:04:59 But for the rest of you, we'll be back next week. 1:05:02 Thanks for listening.