0:15 This is The GPL Podcast from gopherpucklive.com. 0:37 This podcast is sponsored by Jerry Peters and First Class Mortgage. 0:41 Our expertise, your peace of mind. 0:43 Visit us at firstclassmortgage.com. 0:49 Now, here's Joop and Vego. 0:51 Here we go. 1:04 Good evening, and welcome to The GPL Podcast, episode number 226. 1:13 Well, Veegs, just like you called it, a very successful weekend for the Gophers. 1:19 Yeah, just back to business for them. 1:21 I thought it was a really complete series until maybe that third period on Saturday, but that's the Gopher team that we expect to see on the ice. 1:30 And I know they're college kids, so it's a bit of a roller coaster at times, but especially on Friday, that's the team that Minnesota can be, and it was pretty fun to watch. 1:40 Well, we'll get more into that in a bit, but it's Badger Week, Veegs, and we know what that means. 1:47 We don't need no stinking Badgers, but we need Todd Milewski. 1:50 We do need Todd Milewski. 1:52 Let's bring him on. 1:53 Todd, how's it going, man? 1:56 Great. 1:57 I'm glad to be here again, because that means it's a good week. 2:00 It's always a good week when I see you guys on here. 2:03 It's always a good week when you have you on. 2:05 Let's bring him up, folks. 2:06 Look at him wearing this old WCHA pullover. 2:10 Put that in the camera, yeah. 2:11 Look at that. 2:12 That's for all the people listening live or listening later. 2:16 Sorry, I can't help you, but he's got this great little pullover with the old WCHA logo on it. 2:21 You were telling us before the show started, you got that from voting on the 50 Greatest Players or something like that. 2:27 They did something in the last season where for all seven decades, they had a team for each of those decades. 2:36 And yeah, that was a lot of difficult decisions on those people. 2:44 There was a lot of good players in that time. 2:47 Those lists were great, though. 2:48 They really were. 2:49 I mean, obviously a lot of tough decisions and you've got so many different eras that, you know, we're not as old as some of those other guys. 2:59 We don't know the 60s, the 50s, the 40s, even the 70s and 80s. 3:06 Very thin for our knowledge. 3:09 So, I mean... 3:10 Yeah, it was cool having people like John Gilbert, Greg Wong, those guys that weren't as far back as the start of the league, obviously, but had so much of that institutional knowledge of kind of that midsection of the WCHA history to pass along. 3:31 Well, the Badgers finally got off the Schneid in the Big Ten this past weekend and they split with a Michigan team that, you know what, honestly, even all these bad down years, they've kind of had Michigan's number, haven't they? 3:48 To a degree. 3:49 I mean, there have been some pretty awful series, too, for the Badgers that I've seen over the years against Michigan. 3:58 But yeah, I mean, they've gotten a decent amount of wins. 4:00 And in seasons that you wouldn't normally, I mean, when you see them in the standings at the end, you wouldn't have expected Wisconsin to get points out of those. 4:11 But yeah, they've done decent. 4:14 Their one road win in the regular season in Big Ten play last year was at Michigan. 4:21 So yeah, it's kind of uncanny where they find something against Michigan. 4:28 And I mean, going into it, you know that Michigan's obviously got talent to go up, but they also will give you chances to score. 4:38 And the Badgers team of four weeks ago, three weeks ago, probably wouldn't have scored all that much, but they found a little bit of something clicking offensively, at least compared to earlier in the season where there was zilch. 4:54 And Veegs, we've talked about it, you know, all last couple weeks, especially, thinking that the Badgers were 0-6 in the league, and there was a potential of going 0-10. 5:05 At least that's not going to happen now, Veegs. 5:08 Yeah, I really thought it was going to happen. 5:10 When I was looking at the schedule and the way Wisconsin was playing. 5:13 So I'm glad that they got at least one win before they come to Minnesota, because you never know, you know, it's college athletes up and down. 5:22 You never know what's going to happen. 5:23 But I do think that sometimes Michigan just pumps the other team's offense. 5:28 And if you've got some talent, like a school like Wisconsin has in their roster, they can take advantage of those opportunities, which they obviously did this past weekend. 5:39 Well, they definitely did. 5:40 But yeah, and I mentioned this one, I think it was your Friday night broadcast after the game. 5:45 It does seem like Portillo is just not quite the same as he used to be. 5:51 And obviously, there's multiple factors there is maybe his defense, the team defensive front is not as good, but there just seems to be something there that Portillo is just, you look at it as averages, they're not what they used to be, Todd. 6:06 Yeah, the consistency doesn't seem like it's there for him. 6:10 I mean, yeah, he makes some good saves, but he lets in some clunkers, too. 6:15 And he's I mean, I think what I said on that broadcast, I appreciate you calling it a broadcast because that's it's a broadcast. 6:22 It's a little bit more than it really is. 6:23 But I think I said on there that we've seen kind of some of the same things out of Wisconsin, where their defensemen are really more interested in going forward as opposed to coming back and playing in their own end. 6:38 A lot of them that not all of them, but some of them. 6:42 And so that that leads to some pretty quality chances against. 6:47 And that seems like is what you're seeing out of Michigan a lot of times is that. 6:54 Yeah, a lot of good scoring chances for a lot of good scoring chances against. 7:00 On the flip side, Veegs, what we saw from the Gophers this past weekend, at least for five and a half or five periods, was Minnesota playing smart. 7:12 I mean, they were doing everything you talked about playing smart defensively, connecting shifts offensively and defensively. 7:20 I noticed even when they were getting pressured at times, you know, during those first five periods, they never panicked. 7:27 They just kept them to the outside. 7:29 No bad shots. 7:30 They just like waited for their opportunity to get control of the puck and went up the ice. 7:35 That's something they hadn't quite done all together for such a stretch of period like they did last weekend. 7:40 Yeah, I think the biggest things I noticed about their defensive zone structure is that they were keeping everything to the outside. 7:48 And I felt like Michigan State didn't have the talent, maybe, to break them down and create any two on one opportunities. 7:57 Like they never seemed like they were able to outman Minnesota and get grade A scoring chances until late in the weekend. 8:04 And I think that just shows you how good Minnesota can be when their forwards commit to playing in their own end and not jumping for chances. 8:14 Because we'll see that sometimes with the centers Minnesota has. 8:17 They get a little too high in the zone trying to leave and they get stretched out or they get caught in the offensive zone, you know, expecting their teammate to win a battle and then getting beat back in transition. 8:29 And so when they can clean that up and make the game easy for themselves, they look really, really good. 8:36 And the funny thing is, is that by playing, I would say even more structured defensively, it actually helped up their offense. 8:45 They didn't, they weren't setting up, they weren't setting up the other team's offense. 8:49 The one thing you were talking about against Arizona State, they literally would set up their offense. 8:55 There was just none of that. 8:57 And even in the third period on Saturday night, they gave up some goals. 9:01 It's like Minnesota just kind of came back, OK, we're going to put our foot on your throat again and not make this a close game. 9:08 And I do think with the Gopher goaltending situation with Justin Close, they need to play that style so that their goalie can be aggressive and calm because I think they get into trouble when he starts to move laterally or he has to get across and try to play two shot, two shooters. 9:25 You know, I think that's not going to be his strength. 9:28 He's a good goalie when he knows what's coming. 9:31 He can be aggressive, get on the top of his paint and just swallow things up and play calm. 9:36 I think when when things get a little more chaotic and there's traffic in front of them, that's when the Gopher goaltending can get exposed a little bit. 9:44 So if Minnesota can play that style, it could be a good run for them. 9:50 I got to tell you, Todd, I was I was literally concerned about Granado's job. 9:56 If if he would have had he they struggled, they didn't struggle. 10:01 They got successful against some of the their non-conference games, which was good for them, maybe just psychologically to win. 10:08 But I think without that Michigan win, there was the potential of going 0-10. 10:15 And I remember, you know, following one of your broadcasts, I go, is he in trouble? 10:19 No, no. 10:20 And then later on, you're like, maybe something's here. 10:25 But I think they've kind of helped themselves out. 10:28 Yeah, so I mean, if it depends on whether you want to look at it in the micro or the macro. 10:36 In the I don't think anything's happening before the end of the season. 10:40 That's just my my thought on it, because the athletic director here, Chris McIntosh, just went through a process where he fired a football coach midseason and then apologized to the players for putting them through it. 10:57 And so I think he's got that fresh in his mind, and I don't think he's going to do that again to the hockey team. 11:03 Plus, you don't have 10 assistant coaches in hockey like you do in football, where you can have just kind of everyone bump up a little bit. 11:10 Changes a lot in hockey if you're going to do that. 11:15 I remember one midseason coaching change, and that was Michigan Tech. 11:20 Maybe you guys remember others besides that. 11:23 Jamie Russell got pushed out and Mike Serge came in. 11:28 I can't remember anything besides that. 11:31 It's just rare. 11:33 But the thing is, how much did it happen even in college football? 11:38 Right. 11:39 After the last 15 or 20 years, it's really become such a more media-driven type of thing. 11:46 Where the media is calling for it. 11:48 People are calling for it. 11:50 It wasn't like it was back in the 90s. 11:54 And with football, you've got the early signing day. 11:56 So, when people are putting NLI's together in December 21st or whatever it is, it matters more who you have as your coach. 12:06 And if you wait until after that day, half the recruits are already signed, if not more. 12:12 Hockey, November 15th or whatever is the NLI day. 12:16 Right. 12:17 But then you get into the end of the season and you are getting into transfer portal window. 12:24 Where if you are going to do something, you do need to do it fast after the season. 12:27 I think that is something we are kind of going to see here is that if change is going to happen, it is going to happen fast after the season is over. 12:37 Not only outgoing but incoming. 12:41 I think you have got to have something in place to make the most of that portal when it opens. 12:49 What is the status of Granado's current deal? 12:52 He has the same five years. 12:54 So he has four more years after this season. 12:57 If I recall, it just kind of ups the five year. 13:00 Right. 13:00 They roll it over every year. 13:01 That was a point of contention last year is that it had not always been the way that it was. 13:09 It is not a guaranteed rollover, but it is on the recommendation of the athletic director and has to be approved by the athletic board. 13:19 And that was done last season, which was kind of like a, okay, if you have a season like that and you extend the coach, that doesn't look great, but you've got to have the context of how they work it. 13:32 But they also in that process reworked his contract to take the buyout from everything he was owed, which would be the 600 times 4 to, I believe, after this season or before July 1st, it is a million dollars and then it goes up again to 1.33 and 1.66 the year after. 14:02 So it made it pretty obvious that, okay, this is the show me year that you've got to prove it this year. 14:09 Otherwise, it's as easy as it's going to get for them to make the decision to move on. 14:17 Because that's what Mark Coyle did with Richard Pitino with the basketball job at Minnesota. 14:22 He would give him that paper extension so that the contract runs through another year, but the buyout didn't reset. 14:31 So, you know, as the contract went on, those buyout numbers kind of started to disappear. 14:36 And eventually when he left Minnesota, there was no money paid out with a buyout. 14:42 And so I think that's kind of when you have an athletic director who's maybe pinching the pocketbook a little bit. 14:49 You know, they kind of hedge their bets by reducing that buyout. 14:52 So it's an easier decision the longer it goes on. 14:56 Yeah. 14:56 And that's the I think you when you get someone in, obviously, there's a new athletic director at Wisconsin in the last couple of years, too. 15:06 And he's changed around some of the ways that they've structured those contracts in terms of buyouts and how they want to work those. 15:16 So, you know, different people have different philosophies on what's important and how they're going to work it. 15:22 And you kind of have to wait and see how they shake out. 15:26 So how are you feeling after that? 15:29 Actually, pretty good split with Michigan. 15:32 I mean, I mean, I obviously those non-conference games probably help build confidence for them. 15:37 But how is it or maybe how does the team feeling? 15:43 Well, I was feeling like they should have they should have swept that series. 15:47 I mean, after they won that Friday game and have the lead twice on Saturday, get a power play in a 2-2 game with seven minutes to go on Saturday. 15:59 That's the game you should win. 16:00 I mean, that was Michigan kept kind of giving them the opportunity. 16:04 Six power plays like here, take it, do something. 16:06 And they just didn't do it. 16:08 So I feel like they've the players from the players I've talked to, they understand now that, you know, yeah, we had our rough patch early in the season. 16:22 We didn't get off to a good start and it snowballed for a while. 16:27 But, you know, winning two games each against Long Island and Lyndon Wood, you know, not great. 16:34 I think everyone recognizes that. 16:35 But you won the games. 16:37 You had to do it and you won it. 16:40 Then you take that in. 16:41 A lot worse than a tie or a loss could have done to their psyche. 16:45 Absolutely. 16:45 You honestly could have. 16:46 Absolutely. 16:47 I mean, if you let, if you give Lyndon Wood their first win over a Big Ten team or something like that, that's your, that's a killer, right? 16:58 If, but then carrying through to playing Michigan, you know, a team that's obviously much, much better and beating them and probably should have swept them. 17:11 I think that does have them feeling like, look, we can, you know, we're good enough to play with all these teams. 17:17 You know, you don't know, you're not going to win them all, obviously, but you know, we're going to be in a lot of these games and it's those critical moments that are going to, you know, one or two a game that are going to make the difference between winning and losing. 17:29 And so if we can, if we can be good on those, we got ourselves a pretty good chance. 17:37 One thing that Todd mentioned there, Veegs, are, you know, a lot of power plays and stuff that happened the weekend with Wisconsin and Michigan. 17:46 I cannot recall ever a full two game series, not having a single penalty on either team for the entire weekend. 17:56 I texted Frank Mazzocco. 17:58 He said he couldn't remember it either. 18:00 And he's, that was an oddity. 18:03 Did the refs even get paid this week? 18:07 Well, we know that Bob's teams are traditionally very disciplined. 18:12 He emphasizes not taking penalties. 18:15 If you take a penalty in the offensive zone for Bob Mazzocco, you might not see the ice for a little bit. 18:22 And you might think about what you've done. 18:25 And I didn't see a lot of penalties in the series anyway. 18:29 I saw a few. 18:31 In college hockey, there's a little bit more that that stick work and stuff that just isn't called. 18:36 And that's happening in every college game. 18:39 It's kind of different when you watch the NHL and you watch college game because the games are called a little bit differently. 18:45 But there was nothing obviously callable. 18:48 I didn't think there were any really dangerous hits. 18:51 There were no scoring chances taken away. 18:53 And when you have two teams that play like that, you're not going to see any penalties. 18:57 And the one nervous thing I think a Minnesota fan would have coming to this weekend is they have not had that special teams time. 19:06 And Minnesota has struggled on the penalty kill this year a little bit. 19:09 So I think that makes you a little nervous if they come into a series with Wisconsin. 19:13 You know, maybe tempers get a little heated. 19:15 You know, they do know some of the players on the other team. 19:18 And that could happen. 19:19 There could be some special teams time. 19:21 And I think that's going to make Bob a little nervous not to have his PK group sharp. 19:27 Todd, have you ever heard of a full weekend going without a single penalty? 19:31 No, that had to be a dare against the referees, right? 19:36 I mean, at some point in every game, I shouldn't say that, but I feel like there's always something they can call it. 20:00 Both teams go for two games. 20:02 Could there have been a protocol violation? 20:05 Could there have been a too many men? 20:08 Like they say in football, if they want to call holding on every play, they probably could because someone is doing something that's close enough to being textbook holding on every play. 20:18 There's probably a few things they could have called, but good on them for not. 20:22 I didn't get to see much of that series. 20:24 I saw a couple of minutes, but I'm guessing that was a much better for flow series than it would have been if you broke it up with a bunch of problems. 20:34 It was. 20:35 There were a couple of things here and there, both sides that could have been called. 20:40 They let them play. 20:40 It wasn't a big deal. 20:41 I noticed, I think it might have been, I'm not sure which night, Beegs, Snuggeroo just turned around and, you know, as if he was going to go after the puck, turn around, slash the guy, stick broke. 20:52 I'm surprised it wasn't called. 20:53 And then Nye's literally scored a second later. 20:57 That was about the only one where I'm like, ooh. 21:01 Yeah. 21:02 Well, you know, if you're going to win the bet, you can't call probably on that one. 21:05 So you can let it go. 21:06 I just found it fascinating. 21:12 And now the last penalty to be called on Minnesota was against Mr. 21:17 Close himself at Arizona State for tripping. 21:23 Maybe a questionable call as well. 21:25 So, you know, you can argue they didn't want that one either. 21:28 You know, Bob doesn't like any calls against his team. 21:34 They're all wrong. 21:35 Of course, they don't get enough. 21:37 He's always campaigning for a little bit more help from the officials, which they haven't gotten lately. 21:42 All right. 21:43 Well, let's get into this weekend series against Madison. 21:48 Madison against the Badgers, I should say. 21:50 But before we do that, we need to hear from our sponsor. 21:55 Jerry Peters here with First Class Mortgage. 21:57 Inflation and the tightening economy have taken a significant bite out of our monthly budgets, and many of us have become reliant on credit cards to pay our bills. 22:06 According to the Federal Reserve of New York, Americans now owe $887 billion on credit cards. 22:13 That's a 13% increase in just the past 12 months alone. 22:17 And with interest rates on credit cards in the high teens to over 20%, it's time to look for a better alternative, a cash out refinance from first class mortgage. 22:27 Fortunately, we have record amounts of equity in our homes. 22:31 Use that equity to combine high interest rate credit card debt, car loans and replenish your savings account. 22:38 Even if it means giving up that super low interest rate you refinanced at a couple years ago. 22:44 Late payments crush your credit scores, and once you get on that merry-go-round, it's hard to get off. 22:50 To find out if a cash out refinance is for you, give me a call at 612-940-3291. 22:57 You can email me at jerry at firstclasscorp.com or go to mnmortgage.com and fill out a free online application. 23:05 Mention you heard about me on The GPL Podcast and receive a $500 closing cost credit. 23:10 Some restrictions apply. 23:12 My NMLS number is 480200. 23:15 First class mortgage is 322842. 23:18 This is not an agreement to lock into an interest rate under Minnesota law. 23:22 First class mortgage is an equal housing lender. 23:27 All right. 23:28 Thank you, Jerry, for sponsoring The GPL Podcast. 23:33 Well, here we go, boys. 23:35 Another Badger Gopher series. 23:39 I always look forward to this every year, home or away. 23:42 In fact, this year I'm actually heading to Madison in February and February as a fan. 23:51 I haven't been there in 16 years. 23:56 Looking forward to it. 23:58 I look at your photo every time you take a game. 24:01 I could tell where I'm going to sit. 24:02 So I'll be able to find myself, hopefully. 24:04 There are plenty of open seats. 24:06 Actually, it's filled up pretty nicely, but I did get some decent seats. 24:12 But it's just going to be nice to go on the road for the first time in a long time and just enjoy a weekend. 24:17 But this weekend is at Mariucci Friday Night Games at 8 p.m., folks. 24:23 It's a gold out. 24:24 Wear your gold. 24:25 It just seems like Minnesota, they always have the hardest time getting either the word out or people to get into these gold out, white outs, maroon outs at Mariucci. 24:36 They do make kind of a late call on some of these, I feel like. 24:40 But at football, they've been able to do it pretty successfully. 24:43 They did a stripe out this year for go for football, and that turned out to be way better than I expected. 24:49 The fans got the message. 24:51 So we'll see what will happen this weekend with the fans wearing gold. 24:56 On Saturday, this is a ceramic mug giveaway as well. 25:00 So I hope we don't have like a Michigan, Minnesota officiating situation like last year when we have mugs coming out of the ice. 25:09 They'll be busting and breaking everywhere. 25:11 Nobody's getting any ideas there. 25:13 Keep your mug. 25:14 But I think they're going to be good crowds this weekend from what I can tell from the ticket sales for Mariucci. 25:20 So that'll be good. 25:21 You know, the Gophers have been on the road now here for three weekends in a row. 25:25 So I think the fans should show up for this one before everybody gets on their winter break. 25:33 The Gophers are relatively healthy. 25:34 They had a couple forwards missing today at practice for a little bit. 25:38 But I think they should be fine, according to Bob, for the weekend. 25:42 So it should be good hockey. 25:46 I hope so. 25:47 That would be good, Todd. 25:49 Just decent hockey. 25:53 Yes. 25:55 I mean, it was, what was it, 11 to nothing last time over the weekend when... 26:00 13. 26:02 You missed a couple. 26:04 Well, it was bad for the Badgers. 26:08 It was bad. 26:09 Yeah. 26:09 Although you look back at them and they weren't... 26:15 So the first game was 1-0 with 30 seconds to go in the second period. 26:20 And then it got out of hand and then 5-0. 26:23 Myers scores 3 in the third. 26:26 And the second game, they scored 5 in the third to win 8-0. 26:34 I have an avalanche both times. 26:36 Yeah. 26:37 And the Badgers thought they had the first goal Saturday night, but it got taken away on goalie interference. 26:44 And that's one of those what-ifs. 26:47 I don't know that it changes the result of the game, but maybe it is closer for longer if that goal stands. 26:58 But that weekend was the epitome of everything that went wrong for Wisconsin last year in the scoring wise. 27:05 Just, you know, they had that goal taken off. 27:07 They couldn't bear down on chances when they had chances. 27:13 They had Pucks go wide, get blocked, all this kind of stuff. 27:17 A lot of that stuff that carried into the first few weeks of this season, too, and I'm pretty sure got them thinking, oh no, here we go again. 27:27 But the series against Long Island and Lyndenwood got them a little bit of confidence, like we talked about before, and got some scoring going, and they carried that into last weekend against Michigan. 27:40 And they're in a better, a lot better place than they were both at the end of last regular season, because like I was talking about, they were on a, well, they've lost 14 road Big Ten games, regular season Big Ten games in a row, dating to last season. 27:58 Yeah, that is the correct facial expression of that. 28:02 It's the, ooh, yeah. 28:06 So yeah, they need to figure that out. 28:11 Don't know if it happens this weekend, but they need to figure it out at some point. 28:15 Well, I think the Badgers should have some motivation, because it was an embarrassment, you know, at the end of last season when, you know, Minnesota ends up winning the Big Ten regular season championship that weekend. 28:30 They shut out the Badgers for the weekend. 28:32 The Badgers should be pretty hungry. 28:38 Yeah, you'd think so with, you know, Cruz Lucius being a Badger, Jared Moe being a Badger. 28:45 I think there would be some sort of tenacity there with those players. 28:49 You know, Straml was a player that very distinctly wanted to be a Badger and not a Gopher. 28:56 You know, he had strong ties there for Lickie. 28:59 You know, another player who, you know, had strong desire to go to Wisconsin. 29:04 So you've got these players that have these connections back to Minnesota that makes this weekend, I think, a little extra special for them sometimes. 29:13 And with Minnesota, you know, they might be coasting in this series a little bit and could put themselves at risk. 29:22 I've seen this with Minnesota this year where they'll have a really strong weekend. 29:26 The next weekend, maybe the attention to detail is not there. 29:30 If they have a weekend where they do have strong attention to detail, sometimes it's disappeared the following week. 29:36 So you're never quite sure what you're going to get with Minnesota right now. 29:41 I haven't seen them get on a long stretch of solid, solid play from weekend to weekend. 29:48 So I'm interested to see how that goes. 29:51 Todd, have you seen like the recipe for the road game Wisconsin? 29:57 Why it's been such a struggle? 29:59 Because, you know, when you have a stretch like that, there's usually a couple things that pop up. 30:05 I know for Minnesota, when they're not playing well, it's because of shift discipline. 30:10 It's because of just giving away pucks, feeding the other team's offense, and it's getting stretched out on the breakout. 30:18 If they're doing those three things, it's going to be tough for them to win. 30:21 I think a lot of it has gone back to the scoring issues. 30:26 They just didn't have anyone who was finishing early in the season and going back to last season. 30:34 It kind of came to a head when they played at Michigan State and got, I think, 91 shots on goal and scored once. 30:40 I mean, that was the... 30:45 At that point, that made them 0-6 in Big Ten. 30:47 You're like, this might not be happening for them this season. 30:53 But I think there's a... 30:57 When things aren't going well for the Badgers, we saw this a little bit against Michigan last week. 31:02 They are slow in transition. 31:05 They're slow to cover or pick up in the neutral zone. 31:10 Their forwards are disinterested in playing in the defensive zone. 31:17 Those are the things that kind of pop up a lot when they're really struggling, in addition to the questions of who's going to actually score some goals and can the power play do anything, which is a flip of a coin sometimes. 31:37 I think those are things that they've become better at. 31:42 They got an earful at practice last week about being lazy in the neutral zone and coming back in transition. 31:54 You can't be lax in that against Michigan because they go from top of the circle to the top of the circle in about two and a half seconds. 32:07 Do that against Minnesota, too, you're going to have problems. 32:10 If you're not aware of that. 32:13 I think that's something you've got to keep an eye on with Wisconsin is how much do they coast, how much do they really track back? 32:23 And these if if the Badgers play anything like that, Minnesota will make them pay because that's exactly what you do not do against Minnesota. 32:37 Yeah, I think I've seen some of the bad Wisconsin teams where they don't block shots. 32:42 They don't compete on second chances. 32:45 And if you don't do those things against Minnesota, you're going to be in for a long night because Minnesota wins pucks back at a high rate, especially that nice, coolly, stungaroo line. 32:57 When they're humming, they will get four or five scoring chances a shift. 33:02 And you're starting to see that now with the Nelson line with Nelson, Nevers, Brzezinski. 33:09 They'll get three or four chances a shift. 33:11 Pitlick is starting to get going. 33:12 Hugelin is starting to find his game, even though Hugelin is still kind of coming back from that sickness. 33:18 They generate multiple scoring chances a shift. 33:21 And when Minnesota starts connecting shifts together, that's when they get a lot of momentum. 33:26 That's that's really hard to overcome. 33:32 Oh, I just I don't have a feel for this weekend at all. 33:40 And maybe it's because of the inconsistency beings. 33:43 You know, you talked about how they played a bad weekend. 33:46 They play a really good weekend. 33:49 Are we expecting a bad weekend? 33:51 And but a bad weekend for Minnesota now is even a bad weekend is a split. 33:58 I mean, it's not like a terrible weekend where they're getting swept and they're completely outplayed. 34:04 It's like it's more like disappointing play. 34:06 They should have had a sweep or they should have had five out of six points and they get three, but it's not a zero weekend. 34:15 That's where I have a hard time. 34:17 Yeah, I mean, we point back at that Arizona State weekend and we're just like, boy, the Gophers played so terrible that weekend. 34:25 Well, they won a game and they lost an OT. 34:27 You know, in the big picture, that's not that bad of a weekend. 34:31 But the expectation that Minnesota has set forth with what they've shown to be able to do just sets the bar so high for them. 34:39 And if they play a team that's struggling to score goals, I don't think Minnesota is going to go through too many weekends where they don't put up, you know, three goals a game. 34:48 I just I just don't see that. 34:50 They've got so much offense right now and their defense gets in the play so much. 34:54 And they're all managing their minutes pretty well. 34:57 So it's a deep, different team right now for Minnesota. 35:02 Another weird topic I thought I'd just kind of bring up real quickly. 35:05 We'll start with you, Todd. 35:09 Should the polls go away? 35:13 I mean, you look at except for the except for the pararoids. 35:17 I mean, you look this past weekend, Minnesota went to Michigan State, swept them. 35:23 I think in the USCHO poll, they went up a spot. 35:28 And Schlossman sent me a message these other days like, you know what? 35:34 I think come Thanksgiving, we just need to look at the pairwise starting then. 35:38 Because that's really when it starts to become somewhat relevant. 35:42 And honestly, that's all that matters. 35:45 When it comes to the end of the season, these polls were, let's say Minnesota was one in one poll and four in another poll. 35:50 It really all that matters is the pairwise. 35:52 Should we even have these other polls now? 35:56 Well, it's up to your own consumption, really. 36:01 I mean, they're there as a marketing purpose. 36:05 I've been with USCHO for 20 whatever years, and it's about getting your name with some teams and media and having that be a promotional vehicle. 36:20 I mean, let's just be real honest with it. 36:23 And to me, it's helpful to see how teams are perceived from a non-numerical standpoint, from the eyes of coaches, people who watch a lot of hockey, that group of people. 36:43 It's hard to judge every team based on every game they play because we don't get to see every game. 36:51 It's not like football where a lot of these games are spread out. 36:57 If you're not covering a specific team, you can watch six or eight of the best teams every weekend. 37:04 It's a little harder when you're covering hockey. 37:08 I don't think they should go away. 37:12 Do they take on less significance? 37:14 Absolutely, as the season goes on, and the pairwise becomes more important. 37:18 But they are what you want them to be. 37:22 I don't know if anyone... 37:24 Let me put it this way. 37:27 Anyone that takes them incredibly seriously, you're doing that at your own peril. 37:32 Because it's a poll. 37:36 It's just people's thoughts and opinions on things. 37:38 And we see what happens with opinions on the web now, is that they get made out to be more than they probably should. 37:52 But that's the world we live in, I guess. 37:54 Okay, Veegs, maybe we don't get rid of those polls, but is pairwise more of a December 1st thing than a January 1st thing now? 38:02 Is it more relevant now, earlier? 38:05 Well, games are supposed to be fun and polls are supposed to be fun too. 38:10 I kind of like a preseason poll and then maybe let teams play for a month and then restart the polls again or something like that. 38:18 I don't know. 38:19 Polls are fun. 38:20 Pairwise, I do think starts to matter December 1 now. 38:24 I mean, looking back at NCAA tournament fields the last decade, usually 12 of the teams in the top 14 on December 1 are still there in the top 12 come tournament time. 38:39 So I think it's very relevant for teams to start looking at that pairwise after they get out of their non-conference schedule and start conference play. 38:47 If you're not in that top 12, you're in for a dog fight the rest of the year. 38:52 That's time for coaches to start saying, okay, who's our number one goalie? 38:56 We're going to ride them to March. 38:59 Who are top three defensemen? 39:01 Okay, they're going to start getting more ice time. 39:03 If you're on that bubble, you're going to start being more top heavy because you need to have weekends where you're sweeping at home, splitting on the road. 39:13 You can't afford to ever get swept and you're looking for as many sweeps as you can if you're on that bubble. 39:19 If you're a team like Minnesota, top of the pairwise, you can still roll four lines, you know, 70. 39:27 You could still probably play your number two goalie. 39:29 I think that's kind of the realization for coaches now. 39:33 If you're in that bubble, things got a lot harder, but if you're at the top, you're in good shape. 39:40 If you're at the bottom, maybe you guys start looking at that conference tournament as like, we got to get home ice and we got to make some magic happen at the end of the year. 39:49 I think polls are fun. 39:51 Can I just throw in one more thing on that? 39:54 You mentioned the Michigan State bumping up after losing twice. 39:57 And the thing that I always try and tell people when they complain about that is that nothing in this happens in a vacuum. 40:03 You know, no one team's result is... 40:10 I guess nothing... 40:12 How do I say this? 40:14 You can't just move one team and not move anyone else. 40:18 If you want to move a team down from 12 to 14, you've got to find someone else that bumps up to 12. 40:24 And a lot of weeks, there's a lot of teams losing that are right in the same band. 40:31 So the way I do a poll is I take the last ballot that I had from last week. 40:37 I write out how everyone did. 40:38 And then I start to try and re-rank factoring in other teams that may be deserving of coming into the top 20. 40:49 So some weeks, there's four or five teams in a row that I had in the last week's ballot that lost once or lost twice. 40:56 And how do you then sort out that without bumping someone up from 17, say, to 12, who just beat the last place team in ECAC twice? 41:15 Is that really worthy of bumping up that far for that? 41:19 Those are the kind of things that I have trouble with, and I probably put way too much thought into something that really doesn't matter in the end. 41:28 But that's my MO in a lot of ways. 41:31 And really, who in college hockey was expecting Michigan State to sweep Minnesota or even split with Minnesota? 41:40 I think they leave it there. 41:42 I mean, honestly, I didn't see a lot different of a team, Veegs, than we thought. 41:52 Maybe they just had a good start. 41:54 Maybe Minnesota just had such a great weekend. 41:56 I think Minnesota had a great weekend. 42:00 I don't think they gave Michigan State a lot of breathing. 42:02 11 in a row against Michigan State, they've won. 42:05 I think someone did it in the first 10 games, they'd given up 14 goals in those 10 games when they had a streak. 42:18 I'm like, that's pretty consistent. 42:22 And Michigan State was kind of riding high. 42:25 And maybe it was just time for them to get knocked down and maybe they'll use it to improve because, God forbid, they need to at least win one playoff game this year. 42:36 Or it's just all for naught. 42:39 But I don't know, it was just kind of one of those weird things that just kind of came to my head there. 42:47 All right, guys. 42:50 What happens this weekend, Todd? 42:53 You heading over tomorrow or Friday? 42:55 I am. 42:55 I'm coming Thursday. 43:00 I'm possibly going up to Blaine to go see one of the players that's committed to the Badgers play tomorrow night. 43:14 You know, the smart money is on the Gophers winning twice. 43:19 And I think if I was putting money, which I don't do because I'm smarter than that, I would do that. 43:29 But I don't want to get suckered into this. 43:38 Jared Mowell was in the media room after last Saturday's game talking to me. 43:43 And he actually, I was talking to someone else and he followed up with and jumped in and volunteered that everyone remembers what happened there. 43:52 Everyone that's back from the team last season remembers what happened. 43:56 It was embarrassing and personally embarrassing to him. 44:00 So there are a lot of guys who have that chip on their shoulder. 44:03 And I think we saw that last year with the Gophers having a little bit of chip on their shoulder from having been beaten 4-1, 8-1 by the Badgers the year before at Mariucci. 44:14 I mean, that was, you know, the year before there was no crowd there. 44:18 You know, it was friends and family or whatever it was because it was the COVID year, but I feel like that meant something and obviously there was a Big Ten title to play for last year, all those kind of things wrapped into it, but I don't want to overplay that, but I think there's something there that makes me want to say the Badgers get something out of this weekend. 44:39 I don't know if it's an overtime result or something. 44:45 I just feel like anything more than that is a stretch. 44:52 You know, you speak of MOA, Eric Brewer was posting this earlier, he says the guys like Jared at least, a lot of smiles and laughing last year back and forth with him at least. 45:02 And I recall distinctly after that series, even while the Gophers were getting ready to do their salute, a lot of them were still, it was being delayed because a lot of them were embracing MOA and congratulating him. 45:18 There seems to be a lot of, they really like him, Veegs. 45:22 I mean, he's kind of still one of their guys. 45:25 Yeah, I don't think Jared really got a fair shake at Minnesota. 45:30 And you know, if LaFontaine didn't come back, maybe, you know, he stayed in Minnesota. 45:37 And who knows exactly, I don't think he saw an eye with Bob very much. 45:44 So challenging situation there. 45:46 Good kid from all that I can tell and every time I've interacted with him. 45:50 So tough deal. 45:52 And I know the players like him. 45:54 I think there's still a little bit of frustration with LaFontaine and him leaving the team last year. 46:00 And that just kind of jades everything. 46:02 And, you know, what a cuda probably comes into a couple of these guys' heads. 46:08 So there's definitely that. 46:10 And Jared's a good goalie. 46:11 Like I've seen a couple of Wisconsin clips here and there and watch periods here and there. 46:15 He's a big, athletic, technical goalie who's got some athleticism. 46:21 And if he's on his game, he could maybe steal one. 46:26 I think this weekend that would be a tall task for Wisconsin. 46:30 I just don't think they have the depth or the consistency with the way Minnesota is playing right now. 46:37 And I think with this just being that last game before break, we're probably going to see a business like Minnesota, just the way they're playing right now and being healthy. 46:46 I see two wins for Minnesota. 46:53 I'm with you. 46:53 Could be one in OT though. 46:54 Could be one in OT. 46:58 I think the games are going to be close. 47:02 I don't. 47:10 I think Mo gets polled one of the games. 47:13 Oh my goodness. 47:14 Who are you? 47:15 He got polled last year. 47:17 He didn't play the second game. 47:23 He didn't let in the last couple of goals. 47:24 They polled him for mercy. 47:26 No, he played though, I thought he played all the Friday game, he just didn't play it all in the Saturday game. 47:32 Really? 47:33 Well, I'll go back and look, but I'm pretty sure that's what it was. 47:36 Todd's right. 47:37 I remember thinking, I think Jared should get back to the game, so he didn't. 47:42 Somebody was replaced in the third. 47:44 Yes, in the second game, they took out Cam Rowe and brought in Ben Garrity and that, yeah, that felt bad for Ben Garrity at that point too. 47:53 Oh, it was that, cause yeah, he may give it up in front of him. 47:56 It was, those goalies that was, it was just a joke cause like the players just didn't play very well. 48:03 So getting back to Jared Moe, that after the Friday game, I was there waiting to talk to him. 48:09 And he just had a line of Gopher players coming out that, cause we're standing in the hallway that leads to the elevator or the stairs. 48:18 And the Gopher players coming out were, just stopping, hugging them, shaking hands with them. 48:24 And so it's like, I was just waiting and waiting and waiting. 48:27 And yeah, but I mean, you could, you could tell in him how much he hated that situation, but he really liked, you know, being back with some of those guys. 48:39 You know, he, he did not want to be there talking with them after losing five nothing, but yeah, he was, he was happy to, to reacquaint with some of them anyway. 48:52 What are you working on this week, Todd? 48:56 What's coming out tomorrow or Friday? 48:58 Tomorrow's story on the, a little bit on that, how Jared Moe was talking that the, they remember what happened. 49:09 He specifically wants, wants a different result. 49:14 A little bit in there about Cruz Lucius and his background with the Gophers, obviously. 49:23 Talked to him today. 49:24 He, you know, he wasn't going to go into anything too juicy. 49:30 He's excited about playing there. 49:32 Have a lot of family there, obviously. 49:36 And we will see how the reaction is. 49:41 I don't know that he will be start, in the starting lineup. 49:43 Well, he, maybe he will be. 49:45 Tony might do that. 49:46 I mean, because he plays, he's on the line with Stramel. 49:49 Stramel should get a, get introduced there as a Twin Cities kid too. 49:53 If I was Tony, I would start all my Minnesota guys. 49:57 I would just put all six Minnesota guys like, hey, this is a big series for you. 50:03 If you want to make this a memory, I would just put it on them to start the game and set the tone. 50:09 And yeah, I mean, what are you gonna do? 50:11 Your team is not having a great year. 50:14 This last game going into break, I would do that if I was him, but we'll see. 50:21 Treat it like senior night kind of, you know. 50:25 Have fun, keep them loose. 50:27 That's all you can do. 50:30 I can see that, yeah. 50:32 But I'm looking forward to reading that. 50:33 It's gonna be great. 50:37 I don't know if it'll be great, but it... 50:42 I can't guarantee that. 50:44 Well, we enjoyed those tires. 50:46 And like I said, I must say, there are quite a few Gopher fans who tune in to your Facebook videos. 50:53 I very much appreciate that because I need all the help I can get. 50:57 Because, you know, I know the Rube's always in our chat here. 51:00 I've seen the Ruby. 51:01 He'll post in your videos. 51:04 Sometimes I try to watch it when I can. 51:06 It's just... 51:09 It's fun. 51:12 And people watch him. 51:13 He'll respond to your questions or as best as he can. 51:16 I think I threw one in right at the last second the other day. 51:18 But, you know, that's how it goes. 51:20 Yeah, and I saw that right after I hit the end button. 51:25 What was it? 51:26 I was meaning to get back to you. 51:28 Wherever it was. 51:32 But, you know, I like it because it's similar to this. 51:36 You know, we've got people chatting here. 51:37 We can see what they're saying. 51:38 We can live comment. 51:39 I mean, you must like that live interactivity. 51:42 You can kind of see it go by. 51:44 People asking you questions. 51:45 It's not like you're just reporting things. 51:47 You're kind of, yeah, it's that live interaction, which is, which I think is really great. 51:52 And that's why I watch you because it's good stuff. 51:55 I start with that and start with what I know and what I can share and stuff that maybe didn't get into what I write. 52:01 And yeah, it goes from there. 52:04 People throw questions in and I ask, you know, answer what I can. 52:07 Some of them are, you know, some comments are just, you know, people blowing off steam sometimes. 52:11 But, and you know, what's, what's, what's it going to be good for me to, you know, weigh in on any of that sometimes. 52:20 But yeah, if, if I can answer some questions, I'm more than happy to do that. 52:26 Pay attention. 52:26 He's on Facebook. 52:27 You want to use about half hour, 45 minutes after the game. 52:30 You know, you're obviously, you're getting your notes together, getting stuff done. 52:33 But yeah, I've got a earlier deadline now. 52:35 So that's actually helped bump things up in terms of when I get on the Facebook video. 52:40 So we'll get a six o'clock game on Saturday. 52:43 So, but eight o'clock on Friday. 52:47 That's not helpful. 52:48 Not helpful for a print deadline. 52:51 Me and Rob are coming down normal time. 52:52 I'm going to go get some food before the game. 52:56 Give it a try. 52:57 It's going to be fun. 52:58 Well, thanks for joining us again, Todd. 53:00 You are the record holder now. 53:01 You've been on the podcast more than anyone else. 53:04 I've got a lot to live up to, I guess. 53:07 I don't know if that's fair. 53:10 No, I love doing this. 53:12 It's great talking to you guys. 53:14 Thanks always for having me on. 53:17 Could there be a better weekend? 53:18 Maybe there is for when you guys play North Dakota. 53:22 For in conference, love doing this. 53:24 I love talking Badgers, Gophers. 53:27 Well, it's always fun to have you on. 53:29 Veeze, you got anything going on right now? 53:31 I know you finally recovered to your illness. 53:34 You finally got to availability this week. 53:36 I know I've had the crud for a long, long time and I'm starting to get my head above water. 53:42 So I'm hopefully going to get something up over break. 53:46 So when we come back for the second half, there'll be a couple things on GPL once we get on our new server. 53:54 I might do it next week instead of waiting. 53:57 But yeah, there's a couple of things I have in the hopper. 53:59 So we'll talk about it when we come back from break. 54:03 Well, as Veegs mentioned, we are about to go on our holiday break now because the team's going to be taking a half an hour. 54:10 We'll be back in early January. 54:12 I think it's January 4th. 54:13 Obviously, thank Todd for coming on the podcast once again. 54:18 But we'll see you back in 2023. 54:22 It'll be fun until then. 54:25 We'll have a little bit of overtime coming up, but for the rest of you, thanks for watching.