0:09 This is the GPL Podcast from gopherpucklive.com. 0:18 Wait a second, hair game on GPL? 0:33 Oh boy, Juke making mistakes, I love it. 0:37 And so I had to train for this marathon. 0:44 Really surprised what I saw out of Michigan State, because there's so much hype about them going into that series, and oh, they're back, like they're playing really well. 0:53 And then I see them play Minnesota, I'm just like, where's the skill? 0:57 Now, here's Jupiter and Vegoe. 1:05 Good evening and welcome to the GPL Podcast, episode number 235. 1:13 Well, Veegs, after a week off, here we are, ready for some hockey again. 1:18 And please, let's play some hockey again, because I don't like it when the guys are off. 1:25 Well, Bob doesn't like it either. 1:27 That's all he's been talking about for the last, I think, five weeks, as he wishes he could fast forward to the postseason and get these games underway. 1:36 They get here healthy, they get here ready to compete, and well, they had to buy a week, but they're here. 1:44 They're here. 1:46 Obviously, if they lose, they're going to get a couple weeks off. 1:51 And then you've got a situation Sunday, Ohio State playing Penn State, winner plays on, loser is off for almost three weeks. 2:02 Because they're both going to make it. 2:05 Not an ideal situation for the Big Ten. 2:08 You want to be playing it this time of the year. 2:10 You know, a couple years ago, everyone was playing, heading into that selection Sunday, who was in it, and I think it was the best way to prepare everyone for the postseason. 2:20 Now, we've got some leagues who are doing it and helping their teams, like the NCHC, and you can look at the results in the NCAA Tournament. 2:27 That conference has done very well in the postseason. 2:30 Even that year, the Big Ten had a bunch of highly seeded teams. 2:35 They weren't really playing their best come tournament time, and I think it cost them a little bit. 2:40 So that's the big challenge for Minnesota. 2:42 You know, they went down to Rochester and had a little scrimmage, and you know, put some people in the seats to watch them to try to force some competition. 2:51 And I know there are some GPLers who were there watching, but that's not going to be the same as the playoff intensity, especially those elimination games that Ohio State played and Michigan State played last weekend. 3:03 Yeah, definitely. 3:05 Well, let's talk about this past weekend where the Gophers sat at home and watched. 3:09 You know, we had Wisconsin go in to Yost to play Michigan. 3:15 Played them pretty well, actually, Beegs. 3:20 Both games are close, and then they got away from the Badgers. 3:24 Ended up losing two straight. 3:25 Ends up being the end of Granado's career at Wisconsin. 3:32 But I think it still comes back and shows us that Michigan is still a very inconsistent team. 3:39 They can flash, and they can probably beat anybody on any night. 3:43 But to struggle at home in the playoffs, even though they won two against the Badgers, is not where they want to be either. 3:50 Well, Michigan just gives up too many opportunities the other way. 3:54 I mean, some of the mistakes that we saw Michigan players making last weekend was just inexcusable at this time of year. 4:01 You know, I think Gopher fans, when they saw Jackson Lacombe really struggle at the blue line, everyone was on top of that. 4:09 You know, Jackson didn't really find his game until after winter break. 4:13 And we've seen Luke Hughes at times this year just struggle with his decision making and making plays with huge risks and very little reward. 4:23 And he gets burned from time to time. 4:26 He doesn't have that same risk awareness that the elite defensemen seem to have. 4:33 And yes, it's going to result in lots of points and lots of offense. 4:36 But I think it's hard to underestimate the ability of your players to limit chances against at this time of year. 4:44 And you just saw that from Michigan time and time again, where they're making undisciplined plays and feeding Wisconsin offense and getting a series that was close that probably shouldn't have been. 4:55 No, it shouldn't have been at all. 4:56 But really it came down to to the wire. 5:02 Grenada was like, maybe I'll get to play another week. 5:05 Not quite, but why? 5:08 Yeah, like I said, they just just too many mistakes. 5:12 And we know they can play very well. 5:17 We've seen them do it. 5:18 All right, Larry, what did you put up here? 5:20 Michigan play reflected their coach. 5:22 He's not qualified for that job. 5:24 The fact that UM fans think he should be coach of the year, contention is laughable. 5:30 Anyone could coach that talent through a second in the conference. 5:34 You think that's true? 5:36 Not quite anyone because there's so many egos to handle with that kind of program. 5:42 But I don't think that's far from hitting the mark. 5:45 You look at Michigan and they're all about talent and skill and generating chances. 5:50 And I think, you know, for a team to have success in the postseason, they also have to have discipline. 5:55 And that has not been what Michigan has shown this year, either with the puck or defending and taking penalties. 6:01 They've got a lot of guys who have taken major penalties. 6:04 I think they're the most penalized team in the Big Ten. 6:07 Lots of majors in there. 6:09 And that's just a team that's not going to be successful at this time of year. 6:12 And having to play Wisconsin, not a big challenge. 6:15 Maybe it's even worse because they can get away with so many risks. 6:19 I think heading into this weekend and playing Ohio State, a team that is very disciplined, could expose that even more. 6:29 How do you think this Michigan team would be with Red Berenson as the coach? 6:35 Because we've seen what he can do with talent. 6:37 And he's had some good teams, but I mean, they've had their skill, their talent has really gone up these last couple years compared to when Wed was here towards the end of his career. 6:48 I think Michigan would be a real dangerous team with a coach like Red behind the bench. 6:53 Because I look at Michigan and their weakness is the discipline. 6:56 It's not the skill, it's not the talent, it's not the effort, it's not the forechecking. 7:00 It's just the mistakes with the puck that seem to happen every game with them. 7:05 And every team they play against knows that. 7:07 So there's always a chance to get back in the game. 7:12 So Michigan does get by. 7:14 They'll host another semifinal this weekend. 7:19 And they will be hosting Ohio State Veegs, who needed three over Penn State to advance. 7:31 Well, that first game, they looked so good. 7:34 And kind of in Penn State fashion, Penn State has not been that good at the end of the season. 7:39 But they made a series of it and end up, you know, taking out Penn State. 7:48 And Penn State is going to sit home for a while. 7:50 But Ohio State is going to head over to Michigan now, which I think they've actually got a decent chance at US., especially with that undisciplined team compared to how much more disciplined Ohio State is. 8:03 Yeah, I really like Ohio State. 8:06 I saw Dave Starman teasing everybody that he thinks he's got four teams that have the skill, the special teams, the defense, the goaltending to get to a frozen four. 8:17 And he wasn't going to put them out there. 8:19 But I think the three obvious ones are probably Minnesota, Denver, Western Michigan. 8:24 I think Ohio State could be that fourth team because Steve Roelich is a great coach and he's got his team clicking at the right time. 8:34 If Dobesh has the game that he can play and he executed down the stretch and doesn't do that silly stuff that he did that first game against Minnesota last Friday where he's knocking the net off and getting in the way of forwards crossing the crease and is really focused, I think Ohio State's a dangerous team to play. 8:51 And I was a little surprised that Ohio State didn't generate enough offense to just make it a two game series. 8:59 You know, Penn State won that tight one, I think two-one. 9:02 Penn State's had trouble scoring goals down the stretch. 9:05 And if you think it's a low scoring game, you'd probably pick Ohio State to win it. 9:09 And I don't know what Guy Genowski has really done with his team down the stretch. 9:15 Yes, they're probably going to get in the tournament because they're the host and they did well enough in the non-conference and in-conference to get a good pairwise spot. 9:23 But I don't think they're a dangerous team right now. 9:25 And they're going to have a long wait before the tournament. 9:28 Yeah, I actually thought that for both teams, you know, if what Penn State would have gotten through, I think Ohio State, it would have been tough for them as well to be gone and out for so long. 9:39 Because, yes, they played discipline, but like any team, I think it's going to get tough to get the whole motor going again. 9:44 It's going to be for Penn State. 9:46 Especially if you're a favorite and you're playing a lower ranked team. 9:50 You know, that lower ranked team is going to have a little chip on their shoulder. 9:54 And if that's your first game back, it can be a real tough situation. 9:58 I do like your thoughts, though, and Starman or maybe possibly Ohio State making it. 10:02 But the way the seeding is right now, there's a good chance they end up with Minnesota in Minnesota's bracket, likely in Fargo. 10:11 Who knows what's going to happen? 10:13 I saw somebody putting out the doomsday scenario like Minnesota and St. 10:17 Cloud and North Dakota. 10:18 And I don't know who else they were trying to throw into the Fargo Regional. 10:22 But the people are having fun with that. 10:25 We'll see what's going to happen come bracketology Sunday. 10:29 It could be anything. 10:30 I do think Minnesota is going to get that number one overall seed. 10:33 I think Denver is going to get that number two and Quinnipac three. 10:37 So we'll see what happens. 10:39 Well, the interesting thing is that the percentages really didn't change from the overall number one seed this weekend when Wisconsin was eliminated. 10:46 So there's some other math out there that would allow Quinnipac to sneak up ahead of Minnesota. 10:53 Not sure what it is, but there's something else somewhere that's causing those percentages to not change yet. 10:59 Well, I think it's because some of the teams are kind of on that fringe of that quality win bonus right now. 11:06 And so if you drop out of the top 20, all of a sudden that has a bigger impact on the poll or the pairwise. 11:13 Then you just think at first glance, but it's above my pay grade to know that kind of detail. 11:21 I think I did hear that, but there's also the possibility, if someone like North Dakota upsets Omaha this weekend, they might move back in, which might help Minnesota. 11:32 You know what? 11:32 Just win VH, just win. 11:34 Minnesota is going to be a one seed either way. 11:38 It's just are they number one overall or number two overall? 11:40 Yes. 11:41 And both matchups should be favorable this year. 11:45 And the final series of the weekend was Michigan State getting their first Big Ten win. 11:52 Huge thing. 11:54 And getting their first Big Ten series win at Notre Dame. 11:58 And they looked pretty good, Veegs. 11:59 I'm just going to pat myself on the back here. 12:04 I was on Team Sparty for the weekend calling them to come out of that series. 12:10 St. 12:10 Cyr saved them, though. 12:12 I didn't expect it to be as much of a battle for them defensively. 12:17 I don't know how many great chances they gave up to Notre Dame over the weekend, but St. 12:22 Cyr played really, really well for them. 12:24 And they made some nice plays off of face-off situations to get some goals. 12:30 That one face-off goal might have been the best one I've ever seen in my life. 12:35 The one where we went forward? 12:36 Oh yes, the one it just clicked. 12:38 Boom, boom, and all of a sudden it was just in the back of the net. 12:41 I don't think I've ever seen one faster than that. 12:43 Well, a lot of centers try to win the puck forward, but it doesn't quite work out like that. 12:47 And they must have saw something in Notre Dame's strategy about how to handle face-off coverage because it was wide open once that happened. 12:55 And there was a free player right in front of the net. 12:57 Great play for Michigan State. 12:59 And, you know, I think the challenge for Michigan State is how to generate enough offense and not be on their heels as much as they were that series. 13:09 That's a tough formula. 13:11 And they took some bad penalties as well that really put them up against the ropes. 13:16 And I think Notre Dame only got their two goals on Sunday off the power play, and one of them was with an extra attacker. 13:22 So those situations are scary for Michigan State, but Adam Nightingale pulled it off. 13:28 He's in the running for Coach of the Year for the job he did with Michigan State this year. 13:31 I mean, they are out of the basement now. 13:35 And for them to get to the semifinals is a big achievement for them. 13:38 Unfortunately, their reward is coming to Mary G. 13:42 Well, I'm going to change the format here a little bit just to change the screen here. 13:45 And I was going to actually bring up those award nominees here. 13:50 There we go. 13:50 Big Ten Hockey Award Finalist. 13:53 You mentioned Mr. 13:54 Nightingale as one of the three for Coach of the Year over on the far side there, along with Bob and Rolick. 14:05 I think Nightingale's got a good... 14:08 I think he's got a good chance to win that award, Vig, just because of how bad Michigan State has been for so long. 14:15 I think it's between him and him and Moscow. 14:17 What do you think? 14:19 I think sometimes the coach of the number one team in the country with all the recruits they have coming in gets shortchanged in these kinds of awards. 14:30 But the fact that he has these kinds of recruits coming in and the fact that he has all this veteran leadership who chose to come back says a lot about a coach to me. 14:42 There's something that Bob's doing at Minnesota right now that's clicking, and that's the magic of coaching. 14:49 We always talk to him about, well, how do you get this player to do this? 14:52 I was just like, oh, you wish you had a little magic elixir in your vest that you could just pop out and give to them, and they'd find their game again, or the power play would start clicking. 15:00 Well, Bob must have some elixirs around because he's doing the right things with Minnesota right now, and I think fans have noticed that, and they're coming back to the building because of the job he's doing. 15:11 All right, let's go to the other side of the three nominees for Goal Ten of the Year, Mr. 15:16 Close, Bischel and Dobisch. 15:18 A lot of people are maybe liking Bischel just because he's got like 400 more saves or something like that than Close, but look at Close. 15:31 His team won by 19 points in the league. 15:35 For league goalie of the year, why, it's hard to go against Close. 15:40 It is. 15:41 It is hard to go against Closer because he played so well in games where his team didn't perform, and they gave up a lot of high danger chances, and especially down the second half of the season, he got more aggressive with his reads and his play in net, and he's just gotten sharper and sharper down the stretch. 16:00 I think he's up there at the conference for shutouts, and I do think that if you win the league by that much, you probably have a pretty good goalie. 16:10 Now, on pure talent, I like Dobrish, the best of the goalies for skill, but at the same point, Ohio State didn't win the league. 16:18 So it's a difficult decision, I think, at goalie in the Big Ten. 16:23 All right, let's move over to Defensive Player of the Year. 16:26 We got Luke Hughes, Brock Faber, Mason Leroy. 16:32 Nola Komen there. 16:34 I'm a little surprised. 16:35 I do like Leroy from Ohio State. 16:38 I think he's going to be a solid player. 16:40 I think he's going to be a good NHL player, too. 16:41 But none of these lists have Mr. 16:45 LeCombe, even though he's up for the Hobie. 16:48 Yeah, it's crazy. 16:49 It's almost like Minnesota has too much talent on their blue line. 16:54 And some of this stuff is coaches' nominations, and some of it's the media voting. 17:00 But if I was drafting a team, and I had the number one overall pick, Brock Faber might be the choice for me. 17:08 Just because he's such an impactful player on the game, he doesn't make mistakes. 17:13 He's a big time leader. 17:14 When he's out there on the penalty kill, he is a rock back there. 17:17 He makes all the clears he has to make. 17:20 He can close down plays with physical stuff. 17:23 He can close down plays with his four-way skating. 17:27 He is just a really nice player. 17:28 And I think his offense maybe gets a little underappreciated. 17:34 Because he's not out there getting all the points on the power play. 17:37 Because of the ice time sharing that they can do at Minnesota, because they have so much talent. 17:43 He's not out there playing 30 minutes a night, which would include all the power play time. 17:47 They give that to Jackson LeCombe. 17:50 Some would call those easy minutes to play, because you get points and you're always on offense. 17:55 So I think that hurts him in some of these awards and things like the Hobie. 18:00 But in terms of defensive player of the year in the Big Ten, Brock Faber is a pretty easy choice for me. 18:06 Okay, well let's move over to freshman of the year. 18:08 Adam Fantilly, Logan Cooley, Jimmy Snuggerood. 18:11 I think that's, out of all of them, might be the most accurate list of three nominees. 18:18 We love Cooley and Snuggerood. 18:20 I think this goes to Fantilly. 18:21 He's less games and he really does affect the games a lot. 18:28 There are some things about Fantilly's game that frustrate me when I watch. 18:33 If I was the coach for that team, just the way he acts on the ice, the cellies and the penalties he takes, they are kind of stuff that would be difficult to deal with. 18:47 I maybe think if he played with a more experienced coach, that would have been handled better during the year and messages might have been sent to improve that part of his game. 18:58 He is probably one of the most dynamic players and physical players as a freshman, the Big Ten seen in a long time, and his scoring and his offense is very, very impressive. 19:09 I think he'll win the award. 19:11 I would probably rather have Logan Cooley on my team. 19:15 Again, if I was coaching a team, I would probably rather have Cooley, who has figured out how to bring his game to the edge, but not over it for the most part and still contribute. 19:26 So I bet Fantilly wins it. 19:28 One thing I would say is that Cooley has, I think he has learned better over the season. 19:33 He was pretty chippy at the early part of the season, very undisciplined. 19:39 And whereas Fantilly just got a major last weekend, I mean, he's been getting majors a little more recently in his undisciplined play. 19:47 Yeah, it's something that's got to bother an old school guy like me. 19:52 I'm now in that camp where I'm old school. 19:55 I like Gavin Brinley a lot from Michigan as well. 19:58 I think he's probably like the number four freshman for me on this list. 20:02 If you're doing freshman defensive player of the year, maybe Luke Middlestad. 20:10 All right, let's go to player of the year. 20:12 Hughes, Nyes and Bischel? 20:15 Yeah, weird, right? 20:17 That Bischel makes this list. 20:21 Yeah, I honestly was kind of shocked, you know. 20:28 I think, well, I think Fantilly, Cooley, Faber, even Lacombe. 20:35 All of those guys deserve it over Bischel. 20:38 Close. 20:38 Yeah, this one's a weird one for me. 20:41 I don't know how that happened in the media. 20:45 Did Notre Dame get some extra voting or something? 20:48 I don't know. 20:49 But I was also surprised that Faber's not in this trio. 20:53 I think it could easily be Hughes, Nyes and Faber. 20:57 Again, I've already kind of made myself clear on how I feel about Luke Hughes as a player. 21:01 He's got tons of upside. 21:03 If you were doing a prospect rankings about talent and potential, Luke Hughes is at the top of that list. 21:09 But in terms of production and competitiveness and as much as he adds to his team, Matthew Nyes is the straw that stirs the drink on that top line. 21:20 Without him, I think it's a lot harder for Snuggeroot and Cooley. 21:24 They have the seasons they did. 21:25 And I know Toronto is very, very excited to get Nyes to sign with them at the end of the year and go right into the playoffs. 21:33 He is an NHL player playing college hockey. 21:37 As well as Cooley, as we heard just a couple days ago, it looks like he's going to sign right away as well. 21:42 That's not surprising. 21:44 He just kind of seems like a player who wants to be professional. 21:47 I thought he did a great job this year with Minnesota and we'll see how it goes down the stretch. 21:52 I don't think it's a distraction for this team to have guys having their decisions kind of out there. 21:59 It's not surprising and they're pretty on top of it right now. 22:03 Of the list below, besides Bischel, do you think anyone else was kind of left off of any other categories there? 22:11 You mentioned the other Michigan guy, Lauren. 22:17 Burnley. 22:18 Yes, Burnley. 22:19 But do you think anyone else is here, maybe not a Minnesota player? 22:24 It's difficult for me to look at Penn State and think of a player that needs to be on here. 22:31 If their goalie would have continued to keep getting better and better, I think it was a Soleil or whatever. 22:37 What's his name? 22:38 Yeah, Soleil. 22:40 Yeah, I think he could have just because he had a great season last year, but it seems like he didn't really build off of that season from last year like he could have. 22:51 Yeah, I think St. 22:53 Cyr from Michigan State probably has an argument to be in the top three for goalies. 23:00 And again, Bischel would be the player that I would take off of that list if I was voting. 23:06 So kind of a curious. 23:09 I wonder what happened there. 23:12 That is kind of strange. 23:15 I would love to know what the media thought of that because that's it's just goofy to me. 23:21 I was kind of surprised. 23:22 Now, how does voting work on this? 23:24 Do they vote for the till we get these three in each and then they vote again? 23:29 Do we know how all that works? 23:31 I think it all goes in one ballot and you do kind of rate choice voting. 23:36 You pick your number one player, number two player, number three player for these awards. 23:40 You pick your top six for Ford's. 23:42 You pick your top four for defense. 23:45 You pick, I think your top three freshmen. 23:48 You know, OK, so OK, that's how it works. 23:50 I don't think there's a freshman team. 23:52 OK, yeah. 23:56 All right. 23:56 Well, I saw some tweets earlier today, so let's bring. 23:59 I want to bring one of them up from Kyle earlier today. 24:02 Did season ticket holders have to buy this game? 24:04 And if not, will there be more than 1500 people in the building? 24:09 We kind of answered them on Twitter, but I thought it was a good topic to bring up because attendance could be a little tricky this weekend. 24:16 I do believe the students are on spring break or whatever their break is, but is this part of the season ticket package, Figgs? 24:25 It is not part of the season ticket package, which I kind of think could be a good thing for the crowd. 24:32 I think if the season ticket holders have to purchase the ticket to this game, maybe they have a conflict. 24:38 Maybe they go to the state hockey tournament every year and they don't use their tickets. 24:42 The people who are buying tickets for this game are planning, you know, in that two to three weeks ahead of time, yes, I want to go to that game and you have the option to buy those seats. 24:51 And it's hard to know exactly how many seats they've sold based on the picture of the screen, because you don't know how many of those are being saved for season ticket holders to still make their decision if they're going to secondary market. 25:04 I'm not sure. 25:05 I was just looking at the Penn State game last year and the announced attendance was 6,856 and 5,948 people showed up. 25:17 So that's an 87% redemption rate, which is usually pretty good. 25:23 I think anything over 70% for scanned tickets is usually above average. 25:30 And so for the scans that come at 87% scanned means the people who are buying tickets are showing up. 25:36 I think the only one I've seen higher was the Michigan game, where 95% of the people who had tickets showed up, which is almost unheard of in athletics. 25:47 And actually going off of that, you're working on another yearly attendance article, aren't you? 25:53 Putting it together? 25:53 I'm working on it. 25:55 My youth hockey coaching responsibilities wrapped up on Sunday and life, you know, should be calming down. 26:03 So you're going to get some writing from GopherPuckLive heading into the playoffs. 26:07 I look forward to this article every year. 26:09 All right. 26:12 We also have one of our boys, Mr. 26:14 Drew Cove. 26:15 Realistically, do you think Michigan State can finally execute a game plan to beat the Gophers? 26:21 If so, where can they try to get their best advantage? 26:27 I think the advantage for Michigan State is they need to get goaltending from St. 26:31 Cyr like they did against Notre Dame last Sunday. 26:35 He was really outstanding. 26:37 He was aggressive. 26:38 He didn't give up many loose pucks or rebounds. 26:41 So that's key number one. 26:43 Number two, they're going to have to get some face off plays like they did as well. 26:47 They're going to have to dig into the video and try to figure out if there's any weaknesses in the Gophers, D-Zone face off coverage. 26:55 I think especially when they get out there against Cooley, that could be an interesting opportunity for them or maybe against Hougland. 27:03 You know, when it's anybody other than Jackson Nelson in the defensive zone, I think that's an opportunity for Michigan State to maybe run some different plays and try to generate offense that way. 27:14 Because I don't think Michigan State does a great job generating five on five chances. 27:19 They just aren't skilled enough in transition or quick enough in transition to give Minnesota much trouble. 27:25 Then the third thing I think for Michigan State is they've got to stay out of the box. 27:29 The Gophers have one of the most dangerous power plays in college hockey. 27:33 There's so much talent out there and we saw how they struggled against Notre Dame this last weekend. 27:39 That's not something that you want your team to do. 27:41 And if they're defending so much, they have to make sure they're smart. 27:45 So those are my three keys for Sparty. 27:48 You know, I think a big key for them is just coming out as hard as possible because Minnesota is still going to be snoozing a bit. 27:58 Yes, they went down to Rochester last week and they're trying to prevent this type of play since they haven't played in a while. 28:06 That could be the Michigan State's advantage. 28:08 Come out strong, then maybe lock down as much defensively as they can and hang on. 28:15 Yeah, I mean, trying to shock the Gophers with a really hard 10 minutes to get a lead could be good. 28:21 You know, I think getting that first goal would be important for Michigan State, but I don't think if it's a 0-0 period, Michigan State's going to be unhappy with that either. 28:32 Because yeah, because Minnesota will just keep building and building and building throughout the game, no matter what, whoever the opponent is, they're going to probably start slow. 28:41 We hope not, but it's expected. 28:43 And if Michigan State doesn't take advantage of it, it's going to be over for them. 28:48 On the flip side, I think keys for Minnesota coming into the weekend, they have to stay out of the box in the first period. 28:54 Yes, I think in the games where we've seen Minnesota struggle in that first period, it's because they take penalties and then they get their lines out of whack. 29:02 And they've got kind of a top heavy penalty killing group where they don't have a lot of depth yet. 29:10 I know Bob's been trying to build depth all year, but it just hasn't really developed, I think, as much as he would have liked. 29:16 And so when they get those first periods where they get those penalties, they get really out of sync. 29:20 It's hard to get a rhythm going forward. 29:22 They need to prevent Cooley from scoring eight seconds in according to our guy Tim Hapke. 29:29 Well, they did see that on film where Michigan's D would get spread off faceoffs in the neutral zone and Cooley took advantage of that. 29:36 So watch for that on the opening faceoff. 29:38 Make sure that Michigan takes away the middle of the ice. 29:41 I would think something Michigan will try to do is they'll try to make sure they have a defenseman on the strong side, a defenseman down the middle, and then a forward drifting back for the weak side. 29:52 So that's something I think Michigan State will do to try to slow the Gophers down. 29:57 You know, there's a great stat that I was, I believe it's Mike Ottelweiss from Inch tweeted out after the, well, he was trolling Michigan State fans or he was doing something because they were upset with him. 30:09 But it was a great tweet. 30:11 I'm paraphrasing here. 30:13 He said, Michigan State has scored 100 goals in the season for the first time in eight, nine, tens, whatever it was. 30:21 But they've given up 25 to Minnesota in four games. 30:25 And that is true. 30:26 25 to 6 Minnesota's outscored. 30:28 And we got five, nothing, six, three, eight, nothing, six, three. 30:36 If Michigan State wants to hang on, they really better hang on because if Minnesota just keeps building and building here, it could be another ugly game for them. 30:47 Yeah. 30:47 Minnesota's blown the barn doors off of Michigan State in the past. 30:52 So it was a 13 straight. 30:53 I believe it's 13 straight wins. 30:55 It's been a great matchup for Minnesota. 30:59 When the KLH KHL line was still around, that gave Minnesota troubles. 31:04 But since they've gone on to other ranks, Minnesota's been great. 31:12 And I look at the odds for this game and Minnesota's minus 320, Michigan State's plus 250. 31:20 The only other series this weekend that's as bad as Denver is minus 520 against Miami, Ohio, plus 380. 31:27 So that gives you an idea of this matchup in the oddsmakers' eyes. 31:33 Well, let's get more into that in a second. 31:35 But first, I just want to kind of get your thoughts on Ohio State going into Michigan before our game on Saturday. 31:45 It could be if Michigan doesn't play discipline, like you say, Ohio State is going to get them. 31:51 Yeah, I think key for Ohio State is to take advantage of their best players like Lorae and Wise and Domesh and really lean on them heavy in this series or this game against Michigan. 32:04 And, you know, it's final single elimination games. 32:09 That's great for Ohio State. 32:10 They can really just focus in on this one game. 32:13 I think it's going to be a challenge for Michigan to stay disciplined. 32:16 We just haven't seen that really from them all year. 32:18 They've had a lot of weekends where they split and they shouldn't be splitting with this kind of talent that they have. 32:25 And so you never know what you're going to get from them. 32:28 And they could, of course, have a really skilled game where they get lots of chances and they capitalize on them. 32:34 But I don't think Rolex is going to let them have that kind of opportunity. 32:39 It's going to be a real tightly contested, lots of defense from them and looking to get chances with their top players. 32:48 So you pick in Ohio State with that one? 32:50 Oh, you know it. 32:51 I'm picking Ohio State. 32:53 I mean, they're plus 135, Michigan's minus 165. 32:57 I think Ohio State's by far the pick here. 33:01 I think Michigan will get out coached and I think they'll get out played. 33:06 Selfishly, I would like to see Michigan win because I'd love to see them come back for another Big Ten Championship rematch. 33:14 It won't surprise me if Michigan has enough skill to get through this weekend and just outscore. 33:20 We know they can't. 33:22 We know they can. 33:23 We know they can. 33:25 Like you said, but like you said, it's discipline. 33:26 If they play a discipline game, if they can use their brain. 33:31 Sometimes I think it won't be using their brain. 33:33 It's like their brain won't get in the way. 33:35 It's not that they executed discipline. 33:38 It's that, well, they didn't just, it just didn't happen. 33:41 Like they didn't make mistakes. 33:43 It wasn't because they would play discipline. 33:45 It's because their skill took over. 33:47 It's kind of one of those weekends, I think. 33:49 How much can Ohio State's pairwise move right now? 33:55 I'd be interested to say because, you know, winning at Michigan on the road has got to be good for pairwise, but they still, I mean, it's all about comparisons. 34:05 Yeah, I mean, looking at the pairwise, Ohio State's got a huge spread. 34:09 They could be anywhere from 4 to 13 in the pairwise still. 34:13 And that 4 is probably, if they win, go and win out. 34:18 Mm-hmm. 34:19 And the most likely for them is kind of that 8, 9, 10 seed, where we could see them in Fargo with the Gophers. 34:30 And they would probably play, I think people, a lot of them have matched up against maybe a Harvard type of team. 34:34 I think I've seen that. 34:37 Yeah, Harvard or St. 34:39 Cloud are the teams that they would likely play. 34:41 Maybe Western Michigan, you know, maybe. 34:46 It's going to change so much because all those teams are playing each other. 34:51 You know, what St. 34:51 Cloud, Western Michigan and what not. 34:54 And Denver. 34:56 It is strange this year, though, that we do seem to have 10 teams who are already in at 100 percent, according to the pairwise player. 35:07 Usually it's not that high. 35:09 Ten teams being safe is a large number, in my mind, especially considering that I think we're going to see some potential teams outside the top 14 win conference tournaments in the CCHA, maybe Hockey East, maybe ECAC. 35:29 I was just going to mention that. 35:36 I think we could easily see one of those teams hop in there and knock out a team like, you know, that's why a team like Mankato, Minnesota State, needs to kind of get to their final. 35:47 Because if they don't, they're going to be on the bubble there, and they're on the via that chance of getting booted out. 35:54 It's crazy because tech apparently is 100% in, according to the pairwise probability matrix, where Minnesota State is only 78% in right now. 36:04 So if the Mavericks lose and drop down to that 13, they might not make the tournament, which will be really interesting. 36:13 And then maybe Mike Hastings goes to Wisconsin and takes the job there. 36:19 Dan Myers has a midlife crisis. 36:23 I think he does that though. 36:24 I think he's got a good gig down there for retirement. 36:27 He's got a great gig, but there's always looking at what could I do with that? 36:33 You know, Mike Hastings is coached at the World Juniors. 36:36 What could he do with that kind of talent on his team? 36:39 That's why Bob went from St. 36:40 Cloud to Minnesota. 36:42 You're just going to get a different caliber of player with the amount of resources that a Minnesota, a Wisconsin, a Michigan provides. 36:51 And he will never have that at Minnesota State. 36:53 And it might be a good gig. 36:56 And he might enjoy being the mayor of Mankato, but these guys are competitive. 37:04 They want to achieve high things. 37:06 So how much does Granado leaving affect their freshman next year or current players? 37:16 Everyone says he's a very likable guy. 37:18 Everyone loved him as a coach, as a person. 37:20 He just didn't come together as a team. 37:26 People, I haven't heard this really today. 37:27 What about Finn Brink? 37:30 What about Wills Gahan? 37:32 What about Charlie Strammel, who didn't exactly have a great freshman year in college hockey? 37:37 These are talented guys. 37:38 What about Lucius? 37:41 He probably went to Wisconsin because of the offensive philosophy of Tony Granado. 37:49 If someone like Mike Hastings comes into Wisconsin, it's not going to be free-flowing offense. 37:54 It's going to be a tight, checking game like Jeff Jackson would run at Notre Dame. 37:59 So it's going to be interesting to see what happens, and it's going to be interesting to see how long Wisconsin waits. 38:05 You know, Chris McIntosh said, we're not going to be impacted by the portal and commits and rushing to a decision. 38:14 You're going to lose players if that's your philosophy. 38:18 So how does it work if someone signed their national letter of intent already for next season? 38:25 That's one way to get out of it is a coaching change, correct? 38:29 Usually the school still has to agree. 38:32 OK, I wasn't sure if there was something that they had a little more power in that way. 38:38 Yeah, I think the schools have gotten less hard line on letting players out of their commitment because the schools realize, you know, we don't want a player here that doesn't want to be here, or wasting a year that they don't want to waste. 38:57 So I haven't seen any problems with that lately. 39:01 Like for Lucius, leaving Minnesota to go to Wisconsin, there was no problem there, even though it was in conference, which used to be very, very rare, but they let them go pretty easily. 39:13 It has to be Rolex, is our guy, Crisikas. 39:15 It's an obvious choice in my mind. 39:18 You know, I've heard a lot of people like, maybe they need to go away from a Wisconsin guy. 39:25 Yeah, some people say that McIntosh was talking to Dan Muse from the development team, which seems to be the cradle of coaching hires. 39:36 If you coach the development team, it seems like you're a guy in demand, you know, with Nightingale taking the job at Michigan State. 39:44 Maybe Muse goes from the development team to Wisconsin. 39:47 You know, hard to argue with that choice if he can bring some players with him. 39:53 But it's going to be a big decision for Wisconsin. 39:59 It's going to be interesting. 40:00 Big wait and see, folks. 40:02 Big wait and see. 40:03 I think I saw Butch Gruss saying tonight that the three finals come out tomorrow for the Richter Award. 40:09 Hopefully we'll see close on it. 40:11 I think we could. 40:13 I think it's Levi's lose. 40:15 Yeah, it's tough for Levi because Northeastern's, you know, they're the 17th team in the pairwise, and they're not exactly beaten down the door of the ECAC. 40:26 So it's hard to see where he would be. 40:30 But he sure is a talent for them. 40:32 He's the only reason why they're competitive, it seems. 40:35 Yeah, yeah. 40:36 So we'll look for that tomorrow, folks. 40:38 Let's get to the Minnesota Michigan State game, Veegs. 40:42 We're going to pick Minnesota, obviously. 40:44 I think my question is, does St. 40:47 Cyr get pulled? 40:53 I'm not even sure who the backup is for Michigan State, but I only think he gets pulled if Nightingale wants to send a message to his team. 41:01 I don't think he does it willy-nilly. 41:04 It would have to be something like a 3-0, where he's just not engaged in the game kind of thing. 41:09 I think that's why, you know, quick hooks sometimes exist. 41:12 But St. 41:13 Cyr is pretty experienced. 41:14 He's played a lot of college hockey. 41:16 I don't see that happening. 41:18 I think the interesting thing is the over-under is at 6. 41:22 Will there be more than 6 goals? 41:26 For Minnesota? 41:29 For Minnesota? 41:32 I think we at least get Culver's Vegas. 41:36 So it's going to be like probably another one that's like type 6-1, 6-3 type of games. 41:41 We've already had 2, 6, 3 games this year. 41:43 How about another? 41:45 Yeah, I think we see a 5-2 Minnesota win. 41:50 So you're picking the over then? 41:51 I'm picking the over, just squeaking over. 41:53 I think there could be an empty netter in there. 41:55 You know, it is the final game of Big Ten. 42:00 St. 42:01 Cyr going to another place next year. 42:02 How many years of eligibility? 42:04 Is he done yet? 42:05 He's got to be done, I think. 42:06 I don't know for sure, but I think this is his last year. 42:09 And when do COVID years finally end? 42:14 That's got to be soon, isn't it? 42:16 No, once all the players cycle out. 42:18 I mean, you know, Jackson Nelson could come back. 42:22 Justin Klos could come back. 42:23 Bryce Brzezinski could come back. 42:25 And those are some of the names that Gata Matzko was inferring, wasn't he? 42:30 Yep. 42:31 So we'll see. 42:31 It might not be the last weekend for those guys at Mary Chee. 42:34 Even if they lose, they might be back for another year. 42:38 Because obviously Stoddicker was redshirt. 42:41 Yep, so he'll have two more years to play. 42:45 So, all right. 42:47 Well, we're picking the Gophers. 42:50 You're picking Ohio State for the championship. 42:55 I don't really care who comes here. 42:56 I think it would be more fun if Michigan comes here. 42:58 I think it would probably be better. 43:00 Ohio State people are going to be like, Oh, that's really boring. 43:04 So that's just the only reason why I'd like to see Michigan come here. 43:07 Plus the revenge factor of last year. 43:10 That would be nice. 43:12 I think it would get more national attention if it's Minnesota, Michigan. 43:17 It could be good for college hockey for it to happen. 43:19 I'm not saying I don't think Michigan can get through. 43:22 I just think that it's not a minus 165 type situation for them to get through. 43:29 I think it's a pick them game with Ohio State just because of that discipline factor. 43:33 All right. 43:36 Well, what else you got for us this week, Vee? 43:38 Is anything? 43:40 I'm going to the AA tournament all day tomorrow. 43:44 And it is a stacked bracket. 43:47 There are really good teams all throughout the state this year. 43:51 And I'm really looking forward to it. 43:53 It's probably one of those top five hockey days of the year for me. 43:58 It's that Thursday when all the dreams are alive. 44:02 The high schools with their bands and the stands and they're doing the 208 section cheers and stuff. 44:08 I just can't wait for it. 44:10 I'm excited for Jack Ramsey's Minnetonica skippers to take the ice tomorrow. 44:15 I don't know how tough their matchup is in that first round. 44:19 I'm looking forward to seeing Matt Funk's Creighton Durham Hall team play. 44:23 They might be a dark horse for this weekend. 44:26 Diana, of course, is there. 44:27 We got another Nevers on the team. 44:29 He's a big physical player for them, so that'll be fun to watch. 44:34 Jevon Moore for Minnetonica will be fun to watch on that stage. 44:38 I think Jack was kind of hinting he might not be long for high school hockey, so this might be his last chance on this stage. 44:45 So you're always looking forward to that. 44:49 It's tourney time. 44:50 It's always fun. 44:52 It's always the only thing that's depressing now is that the Gophers are always playing on that Saturday. 44:58 We usually do, you know, up at the press box, there's usually at least one of the TVs has the game on. 45:04 So you kind of half watch the game and watch that game up on the TV. 45:11 What can you do? 45:13 But they won't be doing that for the Big Ten Championship game. 45:16 And hopefully we see another great atmosphere for that one. 45:19 I like that the ticket prices are reasonable for this game. 45:23 I haven't seen hardly anyone comment on that on Twitter this week, which is fun to see. 45:29 So we'll see how many fans show up. 45:33 All right. 45:34 Sounds good. 45:35 And be on the lookout in the next couple of weeks, folks. 45:37 Veegs has got a couple of things he's putting together, like I said, writing for GPL. 45:42 So be on the lookout for it. 45:45 Just never know when it's going to come. 45:49 Well, that's going to do it for this episode of the GPL Podcast. 45:53 We'll be back next week to recap the Big Ten semifinals and of course, preview the championship game. 46:00 For those of you watching live, stay tuned for a little bit of overtime. 46:04 For the rest of you, we'll see you next week on The GPL Podcast.