0:03 This is the GopherPuckLive Podcast, episode number 24, recorded Tuesday, October 16th, 2012. 0:22 Welcome to this week's GPL Podcast, along with Hammy and Vegoe. 0:27 I'm your host, Jupiter. 0:28 Last week, we had some audio problems. 0:31 You know, I changed a few things on my end, so hopefully things go better this week. 0:35 So just keep your fingers crossed. 0:38 Well, the Gophers opened up the 2012-13 season last weekend with a resounding sweep of an old foe, Michigan State. 0:47 After that 5-1 victory on Friday night, I thought for sure it would be a much closer game on Saturday, you know, maybe 3-2, 4-2 type of game. 0:55 That was obviously not the case with the Gophers winning 7-1. 0:59 So Hammy, what did you learn from this past weekend? 1:02 Are the Gophers that good, or is Michigan State that bad, a combo of both? 1:06 I mean, what are your kind of thoughts on the whole weekend? 1:10 Well, I think it's one of those things where it's the first weekend of the year and you really don't entirely know what you're gonna get with some teams at least. 1:18 I mean, the Gophers obviously come back with a lot of depth and talent, so you expect them to be pretty good, but Michigan State had a lot of new players and some new defensemen, and you just kind of expect that there's gonna be some growing pains. 1:31 And yeah, I mean, I don't think you go into any series, especially against a BigTen opponent, and think that you're just gonna walk out of it having pretty much thoroughly beaten them both games and not really having much doubt in either game. 1:43 So from that standpoint, yeah, it's a surprise. 1:46 And the depth kind of came through and it wasn't just one line, wasn't just the top guys. 1:52 And the defense did well and the goaltending, I mean, they weren't tested a great deal, but nonetheless, they came up and won goal on night. 2:01 So yeah, it was all around, it was a very good weekend. 2:04 Yeah, I was a little surprised how dominating Minnesota was the whole weekend. 2:10 The Michigan State coach said, he's breaking in eight new guys. 2:14 I think that was a big problem. 2:16 Their top defensive pair, John Drager and Jake Chelyos really struggled against the Gophers. 2:23 Size, speed, pressure. 2:26 Coach Lutia talked about after both games, Gophers are on the puck every shift. 2:31 And that was really key to their domination in Michigan State. 2:34 That they were on the puck pressuring, they won the puck, they maintained possession. 2:39 It was pretty impressive. 2:41 I thought their breakout was outstanding the whole weekend. 2:43 The whole defensive core, except for a couple little breakdowns that they gave up goals in the third, they were just phenomenal back there, weren't they, Hammeh? 2:53 Yeah, I mean, you can't... 2:55 I know we all kind of got into the discussion on GPL about player performances and people being a little bit sensitive if there was any criticism given the scores of the games. 3:06 But yeah, I mean, it was... 3:09 There's not a lot to complain about. 3:11 I mean, I thought that the new guys looked pretty good. 3:15 There's gonna be mistakes, of course, but overall, I mean, there's not a hell of a lot you could complain about given the two games. 3:23 And certainly the score... 3:25 Yeah, I was pretty surprised at how they came out the second night. 3:30 I mean, the first night you kind of think, okay, they're gonna be charged up. 3:32 It's the first game of the year. 3:34 And you kind of are not too surprised that the Gophers are gonna come out with, really, all systems go. 3:41 But that second night you thought, well, Michigan State, a rebound. 3:46 I mean, you just kind of expect that in college hockey. 3:49 And the way they came out and just stormed all four and nothing lead and blew them, blew their doors off right away. 3:54 I mean, that was pretty surprising to me. 3:56 Now Vegoe, I thought that there was a big weekend for guys who didn't do so well last year. 4:01 We got, Isaacson's on the top line, but you know what? 4:04 He scored. 4:05 After that hat trick the weekend before, he got on the board. 4:09 We got Boyd on the board. 4:11 Some of these guys that didn't really chip in last year chipped in right away. 4:16 And I think that's gonna be pretty key. 4:19 Yeah, I mean, you look at how easily the defensemen for the Gophers were getting to the pucks, retrieving the pucks, starting the breakout. 4:27 That made the job of the Fords way easier. 4:29 On the first three goals, I think it was Howellah, Isaacson and Hull all took the puck, skated, basically from the defensive zone all the way into the offensive zone and created the play. 4:40 And I think, you know, it's a real easy game as a forward when you just get back to the zone, get to your depth and then you get the puck and you're right out of the zone. 4:48 And then you're in the offensive zone the whole game. 4:50 It's an easy game to play. 4:53 Hammey, we talked about it last week about, you know, Lucia playing some guys on defense up at Ford and, you know, Friday night, Parenteau played, Saturday at Hull played. 5:04 How do you think they did? 5:05 Did Lucia do the right thing? 5:07 What are your thoughts on it? 5:09 Well, I mean, I thought that, you know, given that, you know, that's not their full-time situation, that they did pretty well, all things considered. 5:18 I thought that, I liked how Parenteau, you know, he was, I thought a little more physical and I thought he was a little more involved and granted Hull had a couple of assists and so, you know, he can't take anything away from his performance either. 5:31 But I really, it'll be interesting to see how they do. 5:35 I thought that the defense overall, I mean, you can't question how they played this weekend for the most part. 5:40 There really weren't many mistakes. 5:43 I thought that actually the new guys really stepped in and did real well. 5:47 And I, you know, I thought I had seen comments about how, you know, Michigan State didn't forecheck as hard enough or didn't do this or didn't do that. 5:55 But the reality is the Gophers have a very good skating defensive group for the most part. 6:01 And it's hard to get in on players and to forecheck them when they can get to that puck and, you know, if they're good skaters and they can make that quick transition outlet pass, you know, it's hard to get a forecheck going if you have guys that are good at that. 6:14 So, but I thought that the guys that stepped up front did pretty well and hopefully, you know, we'll see more of that as the season goes on. 6:22 Yeah, I think it was easy lineups for them to step into and play, I think, you know, with the defenseman being so aggressive of getting back here in treatment pucks. 6:30 I think Wilcox helped out as well. 6:32 I know LaChia commented after the game, he's a little disappointed that Wilcox maybe cost them a few offensive zone face-offs by playing the puck. 6:41 But at the same point, he's the third defenseman back there and he's helping start that transition right away so that four checkers can't get in on the puck. 6:49 I think with the smaller rank at Tech this weekend, you might see a little bit more four checking that they'll have to deal with. 6:55 One thing, you know, I was shooting in the second period Saturday night when Wilcox was playing and there was one time where Michigan State was pretty tired and they iced the puck and Lucia started yelling, play the puck, play the puck, play the puck. 7:10 You know, to try to catch him up. 7:11 But you know, I noticed Wilcox actually, he didn't hear it that time and he let him ice it. 7:16 But I think that's something they're gonna try. 7:18 You know, we've seen this from Duluth, you know, many years ago, they used to try to do that to us. 7:23 But that's one time I did notice that Lucia wanted him to play the puck up, keep it going instead of stopping the play. 7:31 Well, he's a young guy too. 7:32 I mean, he's gonna have to learn, you know, as I mean, granted, he's been playing goalie for a while, but nonetheless, you kind of have to judge how things are going in that particular game and make some judgment calls on, you know, are you gonna play the puck or not. 7:46 I've always been a guy that doesn't really like the goalie wandering too far off. 7:50 I just, I don't know, that just isn't my deal. 7:53 I'm a little old school. 7:54 Yeah, he was doing it too. 7:57 I grew up watching Rob Stauber too. 7:59 So I enjoyed that on the other end of the spectrum. 8:03 Yeah, I mean, I don't have a problem with it per se. 8:05 It just, I always worry with young guys. 8:08 Are they gonna have the right judgment and making those decisions and skating out there? 8:12 And you just always cringe a little bit when you see a guy skating out towards the circles. 8:17 And I mean, there was one time where I'm like, what are you doing? 8:21 Get back in net, you know? 8:22 And, you know, so those times you get a little bit concerned about, but yeah, hopefully as time goes along, he gets a little bit more confidence and a little more experience. 8:31 He'll have a better feel for when to do it and when not to do it. 8:34 Yeah, he lets in an easy goal. 8:37 Coach will lock him down pretty quick too. 8:39 Yeah. 8:40 All right, well, it was a good weekend. 8:44 I was very surprised with the results, you know? 8:46 Even when, you know, Michigan State has been down, they've always played us close. 8:50 I mean, I don't recall too many blowouts either way, you know, since the College Hockey Showcase started back in the, what was it, the early 90s, you know? 9:00 So we've played them every year and it's maybe just a couple, do you guys recall? 9:05 I mean, I don't, maybe a five one in there somewhere, but. 9:08 Yeah, I don't remember specifics, but. 9:10 Yeah. 9:10 It just seems to me like they've always been pretty competitive games and usually it's- 9:14 Tie games a lot too. 9:15 Yeah, usually, yeah, usually they're like these tie games and, you know, it's pretty competitive. 9:20 So yeah, it was surprising for me, but like I said, I mean, when it's the first series of the year, you just don't know for sure what you're going to get. 9:27 People or certain teams just don't have their, you know, there's either their special teams or whatever it might be completely organized. 9:34 And especially when they've got new players on board, it's just, it's hard to know what you're going to get sometimes. 9:39 Well, we did have a WCHA player of the week and I think some of you might know who it is. 10:06 Raul locked up with Sorensen behind the play and either one could get back down again. 10:29 And of course that audio is courtesy of Fox Sports North and of course it's Nick Buxted who is the WCHA Player of the Week. 10:36 I think it's deserved. 10:38 It's good that he got started scoring right away. 10:41 But what also did we hear back there? 10:43 We heard Doug McLeod back calling games for the Gophers and boy it sounds so much better than Anthony Lopanto. 10:51 Let me tell you. 10:53 Yeah, I mean, I like the way he calls a game. 10:58 Very old school. 10:59 Very old school. 11:00 Yeah, he's entertaining. 11:01 And you could tell that he was still kind of getting a feel for the players and the names and all that stuff because sometimes he maybe gave the guy a wrong first name but it's kind of nitpicky. 11:15 I mean, it's not like he's been following a team closely and calling games for the last few years or whatever. 11:21 So you kind of cut him some slack and I'm sure that he'll be on top of his game after a few weeks back on board. 11:28 Vegoe, what did you think? 11:29 Did you get to hear any of the games this weekend on TV? 11:32 I got to hear the Friday Night Game and it was a familiar voice to hear. 11:37 You know, it was fun. 11:39 I'm not going to dog too much on the play-by-play guys. 11:42 They have a tough job out there, but Doug's doing a great job and I got to talk to him a little bit Saturday after the game. 11:49 He's like, gosh, there's going to be a lot of goals scored by this team this year. 11:54 He's right. 11:54 Looking forward to it, yeah. 11:56 Well, I was very glad to hear him come back. 11:58 You know, obviously the way that Fox got rid of Frank Mazocco did not sit well with the fans and then they went on to Anthony Panta for the last two years and not a fan favorite. 12:11 He's doing the wild now, so it's great to have Doug McCloud back calling the game for the Gophers. 12:17 It's very old school, I'll tell you that, but it's good to hear him back on the air. 12:24 Well, there's only one WCHA series this week, and it's the Gophers-Michigan Tech, but there's a couple other interesting series out there. 12:35 Duluth, the Bulldogs, are heading to Notre Dame for a two-game series Thursday and Friday nights. 12:43 Hammy, what do you think of this matchup? 12:44 I mean, Notre Dame, usually a pretty good team these days. 12:49 Yeah, I mean, it will be interesting. 12:51 You know, I know Duluth split this last weekend, and they're a team, like I said earlier, about you don't know entirely what you're going to get. 13:01 I mean, they have some good players, some good veterans that are coming back, especially on defense, but they have, you know, certainly had to replace some very good players, like Connolly and JT Brown. 13:11 So there's a lot of things that you're not sure about with Duluth yet. 13:14 And I caught a little bit of Notre Dame on TV. 13:17 And yeah, you expect them to be pretty good. 13:20 And, you know, I guess I would probably lean towards Notre Dame probably getting the sweep, but you just don't know when you have these teams that have young players stepping in their roles. 13:34 Maybe they'll rise to the occasion, especially in the first road series and surprise. 13:39 But yeah, it should be a really good series. 13:42 Yeah, Notre Dame got off to a good start with their two wins over Maine and Nebraska-Omaha. 13:48 So that's obviously impressive. 13:49 They're both low-scoring games for them. 13:52 So that's always a good thing as a coach to see your teams playing well defensively and winning close one-goal games. 13:59 Duluth got in a little shootout on Friday and came out ahead and then Saturday lost. 14:03 But they're a young team. 14:05 They have a lot of guys to replace up front. 14:08 So they've got a lot of question marks. 14:10 I think they had the Conference Player of the Week this week. 14:13 But a lot of holes there to fill. 14:15 And it looks like Mario Lucia is just starting to get back on his feet. 14:20 So maybe another month or so till he gets back. 14:23 And you guys know his status? 14:26 From what I remember, it sounded like he was maybe a little bit ahead of schedule. 14:30 So it's going to be maybe around the Thanksgiving timeframe, maybe a little after. 14:35 I don't know. 14:35 It should be before the World Junior stuff, because that's what people were all focused on, whether he'd play in that if he was healthy enough. 14:42 So I think he'll have at least a few weeks to show what he can do on the college level and get an opportunity maybe to be on the World Juniors team. 14:51 Well, I'm looking forward to him coming home and playing against his dad in January. 14:56 It'll be a big matchup. 14:58 Yeah, well, there's no doubt about that. 14:59 They moved that so that they could get it after the Juniors, didn't they? 15:05 Yeah, they moved the game from like a Saturday or Sunday to Tuesday to allow everybody to kind of get their guys back, which I think is a great decision. 15:12 It gives the guys a couple days to get rest, and they play a top team with their top players. 15:19 I think that's going to be great, instead of what we've had to do the last few years. 15:23 Well, I'm glad it's a home game for us. 15:25 I can say that much, because truly, those guys that are going to be on that team, it's basically... 15:34 I don't know off the top of my head who on Notre Dame is a candidate besides Lucia, but nonetheless, it's like you're basically getting back, and then you're turning around and having to go on a plane to go up to Minnesota a day or two later, so it's a lot of mileage. 15:47 The juniors are in Russia this year, so... 15:49 Ooh! 15:50 That's a tough flight home. 15:52 Yeah! 15:54 That's a long way out. 15:57 Well, we've got North Dakota heading up to Fairbanks, Alaska for the Alaska Gold Rush Tournament. 16:07 Obviously, North Dakota is going to be missing a few players due to some suspensions. 16:13 Will that affect them when they head up to Alaska? 16:18 They don't always do well up there. 16:22 Well, that's one of those things. 16:23 We've said this about the Gophers. 16:26 The travel and all that. 16:27 It might be, at least for here, I know it isn't a direct flight up there. 16:33 It's a direct flight to Anchorage, and then probably a little puddle jumper to Fairbanks. 16:38 Even when the Sioux, formerly the Sioux, have played up there recently against Anchorage, I think they've split the last two or three years. 16:51 Let's hope they lose and piss off the Who fans. 16:58 It's like we said, it's early in the season. 17:00 You don't know what to expect. 17:01 You're certainly not going to know what to expect when a healthy chunk of your lineup is suspended. 17:09 Who knows what we're going to see from them? 17:11 I mean, I would imagine that those games will be a lot more competitive simply because of the depth that North Dakota won't have available to it. 17:20 Yeah, and those Alaska teams have both played real tight, low-scoring, tight-checking games. 17:27 If you get into a one-on-one game in the third, anything can happen, especially if a young lineup is out there. 17:32 So we know Crisco is out. 17:34 Who else is going to be out for North Dakota? 17:36 I can't recall off the top of my head. 17:39 I have no idea. 17:40 I don't think Crisco is even traveling up there. 17:44 It's like who's not out. 17:50 Yeah, you probably have a point there. 17:52 Paco is probably the plan. 17:54 He wouldn't get in any trouble. 17:55 Yeah, yeah. 17:58 Hey, we've got a question from an email here. 18:02 Morgan Shepherd is wondering, I really like the play of Isaacson so far this year on the top line, but is there any chance that they put Holla there like, oh, wait, any chance that, oh, he messed up his email here, put Holla there like the power play unit? 18:19 Sorry, just kind of trying to read his email there. 18:23 Well, I know the first power play units, Brutish, Rao, Holla, Buxted and Schmidt right now. 18:31 I know that Lucia said he was going to trim the groups down from 3 to 2 this week, but I'd imagine those 5 stay together. 18:38 Yeah, I don't see why they would mess around with, you know, I suppose maybe if it's a game where, God forbid, you get down by a couple goals and it's late in the game and you're trying to just jam as much offense on the ice as possible, I could see something like that, but I don't see why they would want to mess with that. 18:58 It just to me makes the most sense to keep it as it is. 19:03 And I think that having that depth advantage, the way that I look at the Gophers, it's almost like line 1A and 1B for their top two line. 19:12 Really, I see the second line as being as good as most teams' top line, so I certainly think that you don't want to give up some of that advantage by putting too much on one line. 19:23 I actually like the lineups that Lucia has done so far. 19:29 I mean, you've got the top two lines are darn good, and you've got even, you know, you've got, I mean, the whole thing. 19:36 I really like so far how Lucia has done it. 19:41 Well, yeah, I mean, I think it's been great. 19:44 I mean, usually there's tons of speculation, and oh, you should change this, you should change that, but I don't think anyone's questioning Lucia right now. 19:52 It's going pretty well. 19:54 Well, yeah, it's pretty hard to question anything when you basically blow your one opponent off the ice both nights. 20:00 But yeah, I mean, I thought it was very interesting to move Budishtown to the second line, and so far it's looked pretty good. 20:07 I think that he's been a pretty good compliment to both Warning and Howlick, because I think he eats up space, and he's able to win puck battles around the boards, and that's not necessarily a strength of Warnings, but you have somebody out there with him, and he eats up space and eats up opponents, and suddenly that gives a speedier guy like Warning a lot more opportunities, and Howlick is a really good overall player, so I think that's a very good compliment to that line. 20:32 Exactly, I think that those first two lines kind of mirror each other. 20:36 They got the big guys in Bukestead and Budish, and then you've got the smaller two guys in there to kind of clean everything up, so I think it was a good decision to kind of break up Budish and put them down there with Howlick. 20:50 What do you think, Vaze? 20:51 Well, and I think Isaacson's a pretty decent size kid himself. 20:54 I know he's 6'2, and he's 190 listed. 20:57 He's a pretty big guy. 20:58 I mean, on that Raoul goal, he basically won a puck behind the net, protected it with his size, and found Raoul in front, made a skill play, passing it between his legs. 21:08 So I think there's good size on all those guys. 21:10 I mean, Howlick, he's a well-put-together guy for 5'11. 21:14 So, I mean, those guys are all pretty sturdy. 21:16 So their top six is pretty set. 21:20 What about some of the other freshmen that we saw play this weekend? 21:23 What about Ryan Riley and maybe Michelson? 21:27 Do you guys have any thoughts on the other freshmen this weekend? 21:30 Well, I mean, it wasn't like there was dramatic impact on the score sheet from those guys. 21:37 I like the flashes that I saw from them. 21:39 I mean, unfortunately, Michelson in that line was actually a minus one on the first night, which is kind of an odd score. 21:51 That is pretty weird. 21:53 But I thought that none of the freshmen looked out of place to me, especially the ones up front. 22:01 The defensive guys, obviously, they made an impact on the score sheet. 22:04 I thought that they did a good job, for the most part, transitioning the puck and getting the puck up to the right guys and not making too many mistakes. 22:13 I actually thought that out of the defensemen, I saw more mistakes from a guy like Helgeson, for instance, than I did some of the freshmen. 22:23 I think that that's a good sign moving forward. 22:27 Ryan Reilly, I was a little surprised, but I thought he did pretty well, all things considered. 22:32 I liked his speed and what he brought to the game. 22:34 It will be interesting to see what the lineup will be on the road this week, considering they won't be able to have as much flexibility. 22:43 Who earned their right to go up to Tech to play? 22:45 Yeah, I thought Ryan Reilly was really surprised on Saturday. 22:48 I mean, he showed speed. 22:52 On one of those goals, he just went right around the corner, protected the puck, found the guy. 22:57 Really impressive speed. 22:59 Michelson, I thought, held up his end of the bargain on Friday night. 23:02 Both those guys saw some time on the penalty kill, which is something they will need to do to get in the lineup. 23:09 So it will be interesting to see who goes. 23:11 I think AJ Michelson is probably a better bet to play on the road when he can't control the matchups. 23:17 And I thought Shay and Riley looked really good on the back end. 23:21 Mike Riley maybe made a couple mistakes with turning the puck over, but he's a young kid, probably wanted to impress a little bit. 23:28 First home games at Mariucci, maybe press the play a little bit. 23:32 I think in a tighter game, you don't see those mistakes. 23:36 Indeed, indeed. 23:37 Well, Hammy, you kind of alluded to it. 23:39 They head up to Houghton this weekend to take on Michigan Tech. 23:44 This might be the last trip to Houghton in a long time. 23:48 Lucia is going to have quite a few decisions. 23:50 I mean, he can only bring a couple extra players, I believe. 23:53 Is it two players, I believe? 23:57 It's something. 23:58 They're definitely limited in how many guys. 24:00 I think it's 22 players that he'll bring. 24:03 So he's going to have to make some decisions on who he leaves home. 24:08 I mean, it's possible a Hall gets left home or maybe a Parenteau gets left home. 24:14 You know, one of these extra defensemen, just because he's limited by the numbers. 24:21 Yeah, I agree. 24:22 My guess is that they're going to, you know, it's probably going to mirror, I mean, I don't know about specific players, but I think the lineups are going to kind of mirror what we saw this last weekend, where you'll see them bring an additional defenseman with to play forward, you know, and give them some of that flexibility. 24:38 You know, it worked fine this last weekend, and the question is just going to come down to who's going to be that guy. 24:44 And, you know, I don't know on that one. 24:46 That's, you know, that's really the key thing that right now you almost don't know. 24:51 So I think obviously we'll see both goalies play, and I think that, you know, I think the top three lines are pretty much set, and it's just a matter of, you know, who are you going to plug in on that fourth line with like a, you know, a serratory. 25:03 I think he's pretty much a given right now to be going, you know, playing every night on the fourth line. 25:08 And so who's going to, you know, it's going to be, who's going to jump in with those, with him on that line, you know. 25:14 I'm assuming it'll be one of the defensemen, and then, you know, then all bets are off. 25:19 It'd be interesting to see what happens. 25:22 Yeah, I would echo what Hammy's saying on this. 25:24 I think serratory's got that spot locked down. 25:27 You know, he's a junior, he's an older guy, has looked fine so far. 25:32 They'll probably want some flexibility, so they will probably bring a seventh defenseman, and it's going to be one of those young forwards who might be left home. 25:39 I think Riley and Michelson both look good. 25:41 You know, if they both get a game, I wouldn't be surprised. 25:45 But being on the road, smaller rink, might want to bring a little more size. 25:50 We got a question from JJ Kreitzer on Twitter. 25:54 What are your guys' thoughts on the new hand pass rule in the defensive zone? 25:59 It seems like it could cause problems late in games. 26:03 And I would completely agree. 26:04 I thought, I hated the new hand pass rule. 26:07 It just seemed to slow down the flow even more. 26:10 Are you talking about in terms of being able to legally pass it? 26:13 Yeah, being able to hand pass. 26:14 You know, they took it out of the defensive zone. 26:16 Any time someone just touched it and another teammate touched it, they blew the whistle, you couldn't change. 26:21 It just seems like another thing that could just slow down play and more stoppages that nobody likes to see. 26:28 Yeah, I mean, I can see both sides of the coin, why you would want to have it, why you wouldn't want to have it. 26:33 And maybe it's because of the game I grew up with, but I just thought that, you know, limiting the hand pass altogether was the way to go. 26:42 I, you know, I just feel like, you know, if you're, I don't know, I just think it's you shouldn't give the defense too many advantages. 26:53 And it's like, you know, if they can't get it out of the zone with, you know, their stick, then, you know, it shouldn't be something where they benefit from some other way of doing it. 27:02 So that's my feeling on it. 27:04 I just don't think that passing it to somebody else to get it out of the zone or whatever, with your hand, I don't know, I just don't like it. 27:10 What do you think, Veegs? 27:11 It's all about increasing offense. 27:13 So if you can't play with your hand, you know, it's just one more way to generate goals. 27:19 And probably, you know, it takes away some confusion with the rule. 27:23 So I think players just have to adjust and it'll be fine. 27:27 Well, I kind of like the rule, but that's just me. 27:31 So any other thoughts on this weekend? 27:33 Obviously, it's the last trip to Houghton. 27:35 I don't think either of you are going, are you? 27:38 Nope, I won't be there. 27:40 No, my parents are going, but I'm staying home with my baby boy. 27:43 Well, that's probably the smart thing to do. 27:46 I mean, I'll be curious to see how it, you know, I am not as high on tech this year as I was, you know, last year. 27:54 I mean, but, you know, they had, you know, eight goals in their second game last weekend against, you know, Lake Superior, so, you know, maybe it's going to be something that they're going to be better than I think. 28:06 But I, you know, what are you going to get your first road series of the year? 28:11 You know, if the Gophers want to, you know, win the league title again, I mean, you kind of have to go up there and take more than just two points. 28:16 I mean, we always talk about splitting on the road and that is great. 28:20 But to me, if you want to be that top, you know, one or two teams, you've got to come out with, you know, more than just the two points every weekend on the road. 28:27 So we'll see. 28:28 Yeah, I think it's a disappointment if they don't get three this weekend. 28:32 I mean, the way they dominated on the puck against Michigan State, you hope that they can carry over and maintain that kind of play this weekend. 28:41 I mean, it's going to be a smaller rank, tougher environment. 28:44 They're busting up there on Friday morning. 28:48 You want to see them come out and get at least three. 28:51 Well, I think the other thing that I get, you know, you always get a little bit of concern when you have that first weekend where it's just basically two laffer type of games and you just start to worry that, you know, God, I hope these guys don't start believing, you know, they're press clippings and that, you know, they still continue to work hard. 29:08 I mean, I even thought that after last Friday's game. 29:10 I'm like, oh, boy, you know, I hope that these guys come out and still play hard, you know, and, you know, so I was real happy with how they won on Saturday, but you still have that in the back of your mind. 29:21 You're just like, I hope these guys, you know, keep their heads on straight and it's just one weekend. 29:26 It doesn't mean diddly any longer, especially in non-conference. 29:29 You know, I mean, it does in the sense of the pairwise at the end, but nonetheless, you know, you kind of just want them to move on and keep the same mindset and keeping the pedal to the floor. 29:37 Well, we're still kind of in that mode that we've been for the last three to four years. 29:41 You know, the team has underachieved for the last four years. 29:46 And it's just there's no doubt about that. 29:48 And it's kind of hard to get back into that mentality of, hey, you know, we should be sweeping up at Houghton and we should be sweeping at home and things like that. 29:58 The last few years, it's like, I hope for three points. 30:02 I hope for a split. 30:03 So it's kind of hard, you know, we've got a good team and we need to get back into that mode again. 30:08 I do think last year they achieved a little bit though. 30:12 Well, they did, but I'm just saying, you know, that kind of built throughout the whole year. 30:16 And it's just after so many bad years, it's just we're not as used to it. 30:22 I think the one thing about this year that's probably different than last year is Lucia's got enough depth where if he's sensing that one guy is a passenger, you know, not pulling their own weight, he can play other guys. 30:35 He can play less guys, you know. 30:36 He doesn't need to roll 18 skaters. 30:39 He could, you know, he could weigh down on 12 or 15 and still get by just fine against most teams. 30:48 Well, any other thoughts on the weekend, boys? 30:51 Anything you're looking for? 30:53 You think there'll be any tweaks to the lines or will he just kind of roll with it as what he's got it? 30:59 Yeah, you know what I'll be most interested in is just seeing how the goalies perform. 31:03 I mean, I think that that's the one thing, you know, you didn't see him, especially Wilcox, you didn't see him terribly tested this last weekend. 31:10 And, you know, I thought Chabrowski got, you know, tested a little bit more, but, you know, they had to make some saves, but it wasn't like there was a lot of pressure on, you know, on them. 31:19 And I, you know, I don't know what the, you know, the scores will be, of course, and if one of them is a close game, you know, are these, one of these guys going to come up with a big save when it's, you know, the right moment in the game, and especially if it's a one goal game, you kind of look forward to seeing how your goalies are going to perform when, you know, it's a little closer and there's a little more pressure and seeing, you know, if they rise to the occasion or not. 31:41 So that's definitely one thing I'm looking forward to. 31:43 And plus, and you want to see how the young guys, you know, up front, you know, and on defense, how are they going to, you know, do on the road, you know, and granted, you know, tech's not exactly the most hostile of environments to play in, but nonetheless, it's the road series and you kind of want to see, you know, you know, how are these guys going to do away from the friendly confines of Mariucci. 32:03 Well, tech is definitely not a hostile place, you know, a couple cowbells here and there, but with it being the last trip up there, there are going to be a ton of Gopher fans up there this weekend making a lot of noise. 32:17 You know, Fox is, they're renting a bus and bringing their whole crew up there for the weekend. 32:23 So we get to see it on TV, you know, the last few years has kind of been iffy with the Michigan Tech games. 32:29 So I'm thinking it's going to be a sweep, you know, the only thing I'm looking for is, you know, maybe a little more improvement on the power play. 32:36 But other than that, I think they're going to roll home with four points. 32:41 Yeah, up in the presto on Saturday, you could sense everybody wanted to, you know, talk about the power play and then they got the late goal in the third period when Shade got that nice one timer. 32:51 But I think the power play looked fine. 32:54 They were working three groups. 32:56 They're all working pretty much the same system. 33:00 They had easy breakouts. 33:01 They gained the zone, no problem. 33:03 They moved the puck around. 33:04 They're probably too selective with their shots. 33:07 I think they had probably four or five shots only, despite having the eight opportunities on Saturday. 33:14 But I don't look at that as a problem. 33:16 I think they get in a smaller rank. 33:18 They're going to be putting pucks on net. 33:20 The big question for me is if the game gets a little more physical. 33:23 I can only really remember two pretty good hits on the weekend coming from the Gophers. 33:28 I'm imagining it's going to be a little bit more physical in Houghton. 33:33 So that's something I'm looking for, is to see how they handle that, see if Tech can get a four-check going, and see how the Gophers respond to that. 33:43 Go ahead, go ahead, Hammeh. 33:44 Well, I was going to say that as far as the power play goes, to me it's not so much, are they getting good, are they passing the puck around, are they getting good shots off? 33:54 That's the kind of thing that I look forward to more than anything else. 33:57 I mean, yeah, you want to score naturally, but for me a lot of it's the puck movement, and the guys look like, our play is out there, they're being made, and the other team is just getting some good goalies, performance on that particular power play. 34:14 To me, it goes a little more deep than just saying, okay, they were only one for eight. 34:22 I don't like necessarily, I mean, they were two for ten for the weekend, it's not terrible, and I don't think that, it was really that bad of a performance. 34:33 It was mentioned that they were kind of experimenting a little bit with some of them. 34:37 I don't know that I like the top power play unit being so stacked, and I feel like there is a little bit of a drop off, and sometimes I wonder if maybe they need to spread it out a little bit more, but I'm not the coach, so that's a judgment call for somebody else to make. 34:52 Well, one of the things they did in the third period, at least that I noticed Saturday is, I think there was one minor earlier, and then we had the five minute major on Cellios. 35:02 They didn't run a power play unit. 35:04 They just ran straight up lines for both of those penalties. 35:09 Obviously, that's a little different than working on a power play unit when they're just rolling lines. 35:16 Well, yeah, I think wasn't the fourth line that was out for that? 35:21 Yeah, the fourth line got a power play opportunity later. 35:25 So I think just trying to give them a little carrot. 35:27 Yeah, well, that's the thing. 35:29 I suppose Lucia is looking at it like, let's take the foot off the gas, and I want to put our main power play unit out there. 35:37 At that point, the game is over. 35:39 It's 6 to 1, so I can see why I do it. 35:42 But like I said, I just think that when there's a lot of experimentation going on with the lines, I think it's way too early to get too concerned about any kind of power play stuff. 35:54 So anything else on your guys' minds for this week? 35:59 As far as other performances? 36:00 Well, anything. 36:01 What's on your mind? 36:02 Anything else for this weekend to look at? 36:04 Or anything from the past weekend? 36:08 I was a little surprised that St. 36:10 Cloud went out east and got swept. 36:14 I believe that they were going to be a top maybe four or five team in the league to go out east and get swept. 36:21 It sounded like their defensive unit did not perform particularly well in terms of turning a puck over and whatever. 36:28 That's supposed to be one of their better defensive units under Motsko. 36:32 I was a little surprised by the fact that they got swept. 36:36 I didn't think that that would happen. 36:38 But other than that... 36:40 And of course BC lost, which ended up putting the Gophers in the number one spot in both polls. 36:48 Somehow Union got a vote for first place as well, which is kind of baffling. 36:53 And Wisconsin got swept. 36:57 There was a good cheer in the crowd Saturday night for that. 36:59 I was surprised. 37:03 I think everybody was thinking Wisconsin would be a top half team at least. 37:08 They've returned a lot of players. 37:10 Then to go play Northern Michigan and get swept in Wisconsin, that's surprising. 37:18 We don't need those thinking badgers. 37:27 Yeah, I know. 37:30 I was real surprised. 37:31 I really thought that Wisconsin would at least come out of that with a split, especially against a team that's not one of the better CCHA teams, or at least not in terms of what the coaches or the media were expecting. 37:44 I think that's in the league itself. 37:48 I know that the WCHA had a losing record, I think, this last weekend. 37:54 It wasn't very good overall. 37:57 I think that that's certainly not a good sign. 37:58 We always talk about how important the non-conference schedule is, even though it's not a huge part of the overall schedule. 38:07 But when you get to those pairwise rankings and all that, and the influence of those non-conference and strength of schedules and all that stuff, it's not good to be having to lose a record out of a conference. 38:20 Definitely not good. 38:24 But it's Wisconsin, so who cares? 38:26 They lost. 38:27 It's St. 38:27 Cloud. 38:28 They got swept. 38:28 It's great. 38:30 Time to be a little cocky around here. 38:32 Because we know all the opponent fans just love it when the Gopher arrogance comes out. 38:38 Yep, I've already been hearing that the big sweep by the Gophers is putting a target on the back already. 38:44 I hope the team welcomes it because the more targets on the back, the better it makes the team when you have tougher competition. 38:52 Well, it's one of those things where we're going to see, I think, this year. 38:56 I think this year it's going to be kind of back to how it was years ago in terms of the Gophers are going to. 39:01 I mean, not that we didn't get other teams' best performance before when we were kind of down, but I think it means a lot more when the Gophers are expect, you know, who are one of the top teams. 39:12 And they're a lot of teams' main rival. 39:16 And so you kind of expect that you're going to get A games most weekends and you kind of have to bring it. 39:20 So I think that's going to be a good thing as far as our team this year. 39:23 I think we'll certainly be battle tested by the end of the year. 39:27 Bring it on is what I say. 39:29 I like it. 39:30 Like I said, I think it makes the team better when everyone's gunning for them. 39:34 So that's how you learn and how you get better. 39:36 So well, I think that's about does it unless you guys have anything else? 39:42 No, that's it for me. 39:43 I mean, I'm just looking forward to the weekend and it'll be nice to have these games on because I know that sometimes they weren't going to be broadcasting these games. 39:52 They always skip, so it'll be nice to be seeing. 39:55 Like you mentioned, it's possibly the last time we'll be up there for quite a while. 39:59 So it'll be interesting. 40:01 Well, the television schedule is just tremendous this year. 40:03 I mean, only the two games in Anchorage will not be on TV. 40:07 So we really can't ask for anything more than that. 40:11 Yeah, that's an amazing job by Fox and BigTen to get those schedules figured out. 40:17 And I'm thinking even when we go to the BigTen next year, it's going to be something similar. 40:21 The BigTen is not going to pick up a ton of games, and Fox will pick up the rest. 40:25 So I think things will be smooth when we transition over to the BigTen Network, or BigTen Conference, I should say. 40:36 As some of you may have heard, former GPL writer Ryan Cardinal was on KFAN today, so hopefully he'll still be spewding out Gopher stuff on KFAN, so make sure you listen in to there. 40:49 He's still on GPL once in a while, and we'll definitely have him in on the podcast sometime. 40:54 Also, we'll probably get in a few guests in the next couple weeks or so. 40:59 Mazako doesn't mind being out. 41:00 We'll get Jess Myers on. 41:04 I was speaking with Jeff Dube today, and he said he would like to come on sometime, and I'm all for that if he wants to come on. 41:13 He's getting back into the media, and I think that's a good thing for Jeff. 41:18 Absolutely. 41:19 Yes. 41:20 You can always read what Vegoe does on GopherPuckLive, and you can follow him, at eVegoe on Twitter, and you can always follow Hammy on Twitter, at Hammy Hockey. 41:32 GopherPuckLive now has a Facebook page, if you'd like to check that out, just facebook.com/gopherpucklive, and you can just chat there if you want, post pictures, let's see some videos from the games, whatever you want. 41:45 I just thought I'd throw it up there this year. 41:48 Of course, you can always contact us here at the podcast, just email to podcast.gopherpucklive.com, or if you're listening live during the podcast, just give us a tweet at gopherpucklive on Twitter. 42:02 That's going to do it for this week's podcast. 42:03 Next week, we'll recap the tech series and preview the U18 exhibition as well as the Canisius game, so be sure to tune in then. 42:14 Until then, thanks for listening.