0:05 This is The GPL Podcast, part of the Pulltab Sports family. 0:11 Oh, boy. 0:13 Jup making mistakes. 0:14 I love it. 0:29 That's more than your buddy Ramsey now. 0:31 He's been on only twice now, hasn't he? 0:32 So as long as I stay ahead of him, my ego can be maintained. 0:37 If he gets ahead of me in that, we're gonna have a problem. 0:40 So right away, my confidence is doing really, really, really well before that. 0:46 Now, here's Jupiter and Vegoe. 0:54 Jûpe Good evening. 0:54 Jûpe Welcome to The GPL Podcast, episode number 289. 1:02 Jûpe Veegs, how are you doing tonight? 1:05 Vegoe Doing well. 1:05 Vegoe We are back in hockey season. 1:07 Vegoe Now that we got some results to assess, we've seen the team on the ice. 1:12 Vegoe We saw some good. 1:13 Vegoe We saw some bad. 1:14 Vegoe We saw some unknowns and we saw a little bit of a, you know, injury issue stuff pop up. 1:20 Jûpe So yeah, that wasn't great. 1:24 Jûpe So in the intro there, Mr. 1:26 Jûpe Shearhorn's kind of poking at Mr. 1:28 Jûpe Ramsey about he wants to stay ahead of him on shows. 1:32 Jûpe Well, as of this appearance now, Jack Ramsey will be ahead of Mr. 1:38 Jûpe Eric Shearhorn by one. 1:40 Jûpe This is your fifth appearance, Jack to Eric's fourth. 1:47 Jack How do you feel about that? 1:49 Jack Feels good. 1:49 Jack It feels right. 1:51 Jûpe Feels good. 1:52 Jack Everything's right in the world. 1:53 Jack No, let's keep that way. 1:54 Jack We said the same exact thing, but let's keep it that way. 1:57 Jack So next time you guys have one, I'll shoot you a text and volunteer for emergency podcast or something. 2:06 Jûpe Well, thanks for being on the show again, Jack. 2:09 Jûpe I know you guys will be sharing radio duties again this year, so we're just going to keep you guys in the rotation just because, well, it's fun too to have you on. 2:19 Jûpe And even if you haven't seen the Michigan Tech games, which I don't think you saw this weekend, I only saw kind of half of one. 2:29 Jack I was battling around. 2:31 Jack I don't have the YouTube TV. 2:33 Jack I need to go get bunny ears and do that. 2:39 Jûpe Yeah, I do have the YouTube TV, which helps me for BigTen Network and Fox 9 and Fox 9 Plus. 2:49 Jûpe So that's good. 2:51 Jûpe Veegs, what do you have for TV? 2:53 Vegoe I've got the FUBU because I want to be able to watch The Twins. 2:57 Vegoe I don't know why. 2:59 Vegoe Oh, that sucker for torture and punishment. 3:03 Vegoe My kid likes baseball, so we watched some games together. 3:06 Vegoe We didn't watch many down the stretch, but I like the FUBU. 3:10 Vegoe It's a pretty good interface. 3:12 Vegoe I can go back and watch the games. 3:13 Vegoe I also have the BigTen plus subscription to be able to watch the Condense games, which is really nice for me as a college hockey fan. 3:20 Vegoe I can watch a lot of the other games just like the 20-minute Condense, and then the ESPN Plus. 3:26 Vegoe I can watch other games that way too. 3:29 Vegoe You can flow hockey, flow hockey. 3:31 Vegoe I got a little flow hockey action too to watch. 3:33 Jûpe You're missing the NCHC? 3:35 Vegoe Missing the NCHC. 3:36 Vegoe I'll probably have to get it for the North Dakota series. 3:40 Vegoe I'll have it for the month. 3:42 Jûpe You will not have to get it for the North Dakota series. 3:46 Jûpe It will be on Fox 9 Plus, both games. 3:50 Vegoe News to me, saving some money. 3:55 Jûpe Somebody tweeted at me over the weekend. 3:58 Jûpe They looked ahead two weeks on the schedule. 4:01 Jûpe I saw it Friday and I'm like, oh, we'll wait till the 24 hours get to Saturday. 4:05 Jûpe Sure enough, both games will be on Fox 9 Plus against North Dakota, which makes fans happy, of course. 4:13 Jûpe It will be a little different. 4:14 Jûpe They're just picking up the feed. 4:16 Jûpe You won't be able to stream it on BTN Plus. 4:20 Jûpe You could only stream on nchd.tv, which was what Vegoe was going to do. 4:26 Jûpe There was always kind of a secret with that vote, Vegoe. 4:28 Jûpe If you signed up for a day pass right before, you know, that 7 o'clock game, you know, since the 6 o'clock game the second night, you were grandfathered in and got to watch both games. 4:39 Jûpe So there's that opportunity for people who can't get Fox 9 Plus. 4:44 Jûpe Oh, that was a lot. 4:46 Jûpe Vegoe, this past weekend, Michigan Tech split. 4:53 Jûpe Possible Gruba injury didn't look good at first. 4:56 Jûpe Maybe doesn't look so bad now. 4:58 Jûpe Townsend and Mo didn't play. 4:59 Jûpe So all these things. 5:02 Jûpe What's going on with the team? 5:04 Vegoe Yeah, you know, Gruba got boarded pretty early into the game. 5:08 Vegoe I think he only had like three shifts in the game. 5:11 Vegoe We got to see how they were going to deploy the D. 5:14 Vegoe It kind of would be like they'd run through their pairs and then they'd give Thomas and Middlestadt some extra ice time and then they'd get back to their pairs. 5:23 Vegoe But when Gruba got hurt, that kind of threw everything in for a loop. 5:28 Vegoe And we found out on the Saturday night radio pregame that Motsko said, you know, it's just a minor thing. 5:36 Vegoe You know, if it was a playoff game, he could have played Saturday and he's probably going to be back this weekend. 5:42 Vegoe But they held him out just for precautionary reasons. 5:46 Vegoe So, I think we saw how important Leo Gruba is to the defensive group by when they lose him. 5:53 Vegoe It got a little dicey there for them for a little bit. 5:56 Vegoe We saw that team kind of slip a little bit during the second period. 6:00 Vegoe You know, after a power play where I thought they had kind of a long shift, it took them a while to get their legs back and they fell behind. 6:08 Vegoe And Motsko after the game said, you know, we learned a lot. 6:12 Vegoe And luckily we came away with a win. 6:14 Vegoe Because I think there were a lot of things with their game that he wasn't quite happy with. 6:19 Vegoe But the offense was there, I think, a little bit because Michigan Tech didn't back check hard enough on transition plays. 6:26 Vegoe And that's Minnesota's bread and butter. 6:28 Vegoe If there's a quick transition play, those Fords are beating their check down the rink. 6:33 Vegoe And the Gophers made plays and made the Huskies pay quite a bit there on Friday. 6:38 Jûpe Now, Jack, when it comes to the player itself, you know, he's coming into his sophomore season, a little more expectations. 6:46 Jûpe He got three minutes of playtime, I think. 6:48 Jûpe I think you saw there, Veegs. 6:51 Jûpe What does that kind of do to your psyche? 6:52 Jûpe I mean, oh, geez, I'm already out at the end of a first period. 6:57 Jack Yeah, it's not ideal either because he was splitting back and forth between forward and defense last year quite a bit, if I recall that correctly, with all the injuries. 7:06 Jack I think he jumped up or he was listed on the fourth line. 7:09 Jack For a bunch of games I called, I feel like he was taking some forward shifts or maybe one of the other guys. 7:14 Jack But yeah, it's your sophomore campaign. 7:16 Jack You're kind of jumping in. 7:17 Jack You're like, all right, this is the year. 7:19 Jack He's, oddly enough, like kind of one of the veteran guys, I guess, on the back end, how it seems. 7:25 Jack And yeah, so that's a kick, a kick in the nuts. 7:29 Jack But it sounds like he's going to be okay, right? 7:31 Jack Jump back out there, get back on the horse. 7:33 Jack Hopefully it's nothing that's a lingering thing. 7:37 Jack I know some guys had lingering injuries last year where every two weeks they would kind of pop out of a game because of it. 7:42 Jack So let's hope it's not a lingering injury. 7:45 Jûpe Now, Veegs, so a 6-3 win Friday night. 7:50 Jûpe Down, they got down, had a kind of a rough second period there. 7:53 Jûpe Then they came back and, you know, dispose of Michigan Tech. 7:56 Jûpe It seemed pretty solid. 7:59 Jûpe As Luke Middlestead said, they kind of just kind of lift their game back in the defense because they were short back there and they had a lot of ice time. 8:08 Jûpe So at least, you know, that's part of the learning, I guess, you know, for Bob. 8:13 Vegoe Yeah, and they lost a lot of draws on Friday night. 8:16 Vegoe So I think that forced them to defend quite a bit more. 8:19 Vegoe I think Middlestead and Thomas were both approaching 30 minutes of ice time. 8:24 Vegoe There's a little bit of a ice time calculation drama out there because sports logic is the one that provides data to college hockey news. 8:33 Vegoe I also got some instat data. 8:35 Vegoe They differ quite a bit. 8:37 Vegoe So the stuff that you see on CHN probably doesn't reflect what actually happened in the game because I talked to some people and yeah, Thomas and Middlestead were playing upwards of 30 minutes, both games. 8:47 Vegoe So they leaned really heavy on them, but they got the other young guys out there a little bit more. 8:54 Vegoe You know, like Gruber going out, he's the only right shot D on the roster. 8:59 Vegoe And so it forces guys to play on their off hands and I think that was something that Michigan Tech saw during Friday night and took advantage of a little bit more on Saturday. 9:09 Vegoe But it's something that Minnesota really had to battle through. 9:13 Jûpe Now, Jack, you know, 30 minutes or pushing 30 minutes your first game of the season. 9:18 Jûpe You know, later in the year, doable. 9:21 Jûpe That's got to be tough first game of the season. 9:23 Jûpe No matter what people say, you are not in game shape yet. 9:26 Jack No, you're definitely going to be feeling it. 9:28 Jack I mean, it's kind of hard to get in the game shape. 9:33 Jack Game shape in college is just different than game shape in the pros anyway. 9:36 Jack The amount of games that you're playing, practices are so much harder. 9:40 Jack So I think you're probably more prepared for the season than you are walking into a pro season and playing like that. 9:46 Jack But that's a lot on your legs. 9:48 Jack And it's going to be interesting. 9:49 Jack I think those guys are going to be eating 28 minutes every single weekend this year. 9:53 Jack You know, wouldn't be shocked until all those guys kind of get caught up. 9:57 Jack And it might be a revolving door of, hey, which young gun is going and which one can you give 15 minutes to every night? 10:03 Jack But those guys, you're going to have to depend on for a lot of minutes. 10:07 Jûpe And now we move to the second night, Veegs, a 5-2 loss. 10:12 Jûpe Game started not so bad. 10:15 Jûpe Then Michigan Tech just kind of shut Minnesota down. 10:19 Jûpe I think they had like three shots in the second period, which included that long time where the Pascoe stick was way in the corner. 10:27 Jûpe It was four or five minutes of gameplay where he was using another stick. 10:32 Jûpe So it was just chaos for them and it showed on the scoreboard. 10:37 Vegoe Yeah, I mean, the first period, Minnesota gets four shots and they score on three of them. 10:43 Vegoe You know, Bob said after the game, he's like, you know, we thought this was going to be an easy game. 10:47 Vegoe And in college hockey, when you win the first game of a series, you know, the other team's going to be coming back hard the next night. 10:54 Vegoe And Minnesota took the foot off the gas a little bit. 10:58 Vegoe They had a hard time breaking out pucks. 11:00 Vegoe Now, I don't know if it's because they had all left shot D back there, but it kind of looked like Michigan Tech was trying to take away that left side and really force Minnesota up the right side. 11:10 Vegoe And Minnesota got a little disconnected there at times. 11:14 Vegoe They had a hard time getting out of their zone. 11:15 Vegoe And then when they got in the neutral zone, they had a hard time getting the puck even in the Michigan Tech zone. 11:20 Vegoe I can't remember the last time Minnesota only had 13 shots on goal. 11:25 Vegoe You know, a tough night for the Gophers. 11:27 Vegoe And Michigan Tech has got a lot of players, a lot of experience. 11:31 Vegoe And they're not going to be an easy out. 11:34 Jûpe Big's kind of going off of that. 11:36 Jûpe I remember you saying, I don't know if it was in person or on the podcast last week, that kind of a key this year for defensemen is, you know, to break that puck out and making that first pass is key. 11:48 Jûpe You kind of made a big deal out of it. 11:51 Jûpe And you also said that, you know, if you can't do that, you're not going to play as much. 11:56 Vegoe Especially when you get behind. 11:58 Vegoe If you get behind and the other team is setting up structure and you're not able to get out of your zone clean, you are basically not having very much possession. 12:07 Vegoe And it's hard to create offense in those situations because you're going to have to get out under pressure. 12:12 Vegoe You're going to make a bad dump, probably, where you're not going to have an advantage with pace and an established forecheck. 12:19 Vegoe You're going to have teams that get tired and you might have skilled players who start chasing offense. 12:25 Vegoe So it's just a really bad recipe if you can't break out pucks quickly with speed. 12:30 Vegoe And that was kind of one of the differences between Friday and Saturday, is Minnesota is able to show their speed on Friday. 12:36 Vegoe Saturday, they did not look like a very fast team. 12:39 Vegoe And that's something I know already this week in practice they're getting to work on. 12:44 Vegoe How do we get north faster? 12:45 Vegoe How do we get out of our zone with speed? 12:48 Vegoe And sometimes that ends up being the forwards have to be deeper. 12:51 Vegoe And so they're going to have to work harder to get out. 12:54 Vegoe But it's something they might have to work on as they try to figure this out. 12:58 Jûpe Jack, one thing I thought was fun this weekend was the fact that it was an old WCHA fold. 13:03 Jûpe And some of us older guys love to see coming back in. 13:08 Jûpe They're one of the last teams that Minnesota hasn't played from the old WCHA. 13:13 Jûpe And they're making a return trip next year, which is what I love. 13:18 Jûpe I don't think you ever had the chance to play Michigan Tech, did you? 13:21 Jûpe It was you were all Big Ten, weren't you? 13:23 Jack Yeah, yeah, all Big Ten never got Michigan Tech. 13:26 Jack I'm trying to think back through. 13:27 Jack I'd have to I'd have to go through the old WCHA list and figure out who I who I didn't play. 13:32 Jack I don't think I got got them. 13:36 Jack There's probably others, but no, it's always it was always one you got up for, too. 13:41 Jack And I don't know, we're getting the guys are getting younger and younger. 13:43 Jack So in, you know, less less and less Minnesota guys, too. 13:47 Jack So you're probably seeing like the final few waves of guys that probably watched WCHA hockey, even, you know, as they were kids growing up. 13:54 Jack So it's going to be interesting. 13:57 Jack Think like five years down the road. 13:59 Jack These kids are really going to get up for the Big Ten rivalries because it's all they've known, which that's kind of cool in its own right. 14:05 Jûpe Yes, I would agree with that. 14:06 Jûpe But then on top of the nostalgia, we had Frank Mazzocco call in games, Veegs, which was just fun. 14:12 Jûpe Yeah. 14:13 Jûpe His voice was a little ragged. 14:14 Jûpe It was something a little better on on Saturday. 14:16 Jûpe And you could tell it's been 15 years since he's called the game. 14:20 Jûpe But boy, the first thing I saw, he's like, you know, Jim Rich is on assignment and he was just like, it just seems like the boys might not have been there exactly. 14:29 Jûpe But the bicycle did kind of kick in for him fairly well. 14:35 Vegoe Frank is a pro. 14:36 Vegoe I would say pros know how to get back to their game. 14:39 Vegoe Even if it's not their A game, they've always got a B game to go to. 14:42 Vegoe You know, and he and Pat were going back and forth on this year's team. 14:46 Vegoe You know, a lot of new players for anyone to get used to out there for the Gophers. 14:50 Vegoe So I think it was, you know, a challenge in that way. 14:52 Vegoe But it was fun to hear him calling goals, especially on the Friday game. 14:57 Jûpe And he did tell, sorry, Jack, that, you know, it took, you know, four or five guys to replace me on radio last year. 15:04 Jûpe So, and I think David showed, they showed a shot of Wally calling the game, who was Tanner. 15:10 Jûpe Tanner was in there last weekend. 15:12 Jûpe So that was fun. 15:15 Jûpe You spent a year off and on calling games. 15:18 Jûpe How are you feeling about this year? 15:20 Jûpe It's kind of sounds like the same kind of setup. 15:22 Jack Yeah. 15:22 Jack Yeah. 15:23 Jack Same, same setup. 15:25 Jack Each guy is going to get Sam, Eric, Tanner, myself, or, you know, we're all going to get two or three games. 15:31 Jack So, worked pretty well last year. 15:36 Jack So, I'm excited for it again. 15:38 Jack Not going to be going for another few weeks here until Notre Dame. 15:42 Jack It's like, how many times am I going to call Notre Dame? 15:46 Jack I'm only doing three series a year, but I got into the playoffs, got them in the regular season last year. 15:50 Jack So, I don't have good luck with them, but it'll be good. 15:55 Jack It'll be the same, I'm sure, nerves of when I walked in the doors for the first time going, I don't really know what the hell I'm doing here. 16:01 Jack And we'll figure it out after the first period. 16:03 Jack And, you know, Frank's a pro and Wally's a pro too. 16:07 Jack So, lean on him as my crutch and, you know, make him talk, you know, middle step minutes. 16:15 Jack He can do 45 minutes on the mic and I'll get about, you know, 15 in there. 16:20 Jûpe Yeah, it's time for a commercial read. 16:22 Jûpe Yeah, you do this right now. 16:23 Jûpe You got to do this right now. 16:26 Jûpe That's kind of how it is. 16:27 Jûpe So, well, it's fun to have, you know, all four of you back this year, kind of filling in for Frank, which is quite the deal. 16:36 Jûpe I've got a couple of notes here. 16:37 Jûpe So, Veegs Gruba, he'll be back. 16:41 Jûpe Do we know anything about Mo and Townsend yet, the two others who have not played a game yet? 16:47 Vegoe We don't officially know the media availability this year is a day after our live podcast. 16:52 Vegoe So we don't get the official update. 16:54 Vegoe Mason Mo was back skating today though, and Leo Gruba was back skating. 16:59 Vegoe I don't have any idea on their availability yet. 17:02 Vegoe If it's a week to week thing, if it's more than that. 17:06 Vegoe But those are the guys that were keeping an eye on Townsend, still not back yet. 17:12 Jûpe You were really impressed with Mo at the summer showcase, weren't you? 17:15 Vegoe Yeah, I think he adds a lot as a player to the lineup. 17:19 Vegoe I wasn't expecting as much when he committed. 17:22 Vegoe I seemed like maybe a lower profile guy that could take longer to get to campus. 17:28 Vegoe But he had a great end of the year last year in the USCHL. 17:33 Vegoe And then with the World Junior Summer Showcase, even talking with him, he's like, I don't know if I expected to be in this camp, but I'm just trying to take everything in that I can. 17:42 Vegoe He said he hadn't played a lot of PK. 17:44 Vegoe But when he got to the camp, the coaches are like, hey, if you're going to be on this team, you got to pick up the PK role. 17:49 Vegoe I thought he did that well during the showcase. 17:53 Vegoe And I think he adds some flexibility. 17:54 Vegoe I think if Minnesota needs someone to play center, as injuries happen or little nicks and bruises, he's a guy who can step in and do that. 18:02 Vegoe And I think he's put on good size the last couple of years to prepare himself for college hockey. 18:07 Jûpe And Jack, really, every player is different. 18:10 Jûpe Some guys just all of a sudden get to that level right away. 18:14 Jûpe Sometimes, you know, like we had, you know, we've got Moe. 18:18 Jûpe We have Nyes just a couple of years ago. 18:20 Jûpe Who really, you know, not a lot of news. 18:22 Jûpe And then they kind of pop for the games. 18:24 Jûpe And then you've got guys who you got like a nature who popped long after, you know, he got after to Minnesota. 18:32 Jûpe So it's just you just never know. 18:34 Jûpe So that makes you kind of scouting these guys difficult. 18:38 Jack Yeah, 100 percent. 18:39 Jack It's kind of all about opportunity, too. 18:41 Jack I mean, I remember my first two weeks of the season, my freshman year, like I knew who I was going in, I was a penalty kill type guy. 18:50 Jack And then second week of the year when we played Duluth, I was playing with Camerata and Cluse on the first line because coaches told me I was practicing, you know, really well. 19:00 Jack I was like, OK, I wasn't expecting this. 19:02 Jack Second period, I was back on fourth line. 19:04 Jack But I got the opportunity, you know, and I wasn't I wasn't expecting that. 19:08 Jack So some of these guys can come in, they can they can do really, really well in practice. 19:13 Jack They can, you know, they're playing with the best players that they've ever played with in their life. 19:17 Jack And for a lot of guys, that can that can unlock whole other, you know, abilities that they might have not known about. 19:23 Jack So it's really fun to see which freshman will pop off like that. 19:27 Jack Sometimes you're going to have a star freshman. 19:29 Jack Doesn't turn out the way you expect it. 19:31 Jack But now you have a guy that you didn't expect to be good is. 19:33 Jack And same thing with juniors and seniors, like they might pop off all of a sudden this year. 19:38 Jack So it's exciting to see who it might be. 19:40 Vegoe Well, and I think one thing about Bob Moscoe rosters, he just has 14 forwards on this roster. 19:46 Vegoe So there's opportunity for guys to pop in the lineup when injuries happen. 19:51 Vegoe The other thing with the 14 forward roster is Moscoe often encourages one of the star players to take that extra shift with that last group of forwards. 20:01 Vegoe So they get double practice time and the players at the bottom line up get to work with a really skilled player who's got really good habits, who's good with the puck. 20:10 Vegoe Puts the puck in places for them to have success in practice and give them a little bit more confidence. 20:16 Vegoe So I think that's one of the philosophies with this roster. 20:19 Vegoe And Moscoe, you know, as he showed this weekend, he wants to play everybody early and give them some opportunity to show what they can do and also put their game on film so they can look, hey, these are things you need to work on or these are the things you're doing well. 20:35 Vegoe And I think it's just one thing with Minnesota for the fans. 20:38 Vegoe Be a little patient as these opportunities come and go for these players. 20:43 Jûpe Veegs, how do you think the freshmen did in this past weekend? 20:48 Vegoe Well, I think the Fords played pretty well on Friday. 20:52 Vegoe I thought they got in the transition pretty well. 20:54 Vegoe I thought they made a lot of smart plays with the puck. 20:57 Vegoe I thought they got pucks deep and got in on the four-check and they played fast. 21:02 Vegoe So that was really impressive to see on Friday. 21:05 Vegoe Saturday, a little bit of a step back. 21:07 Vegoe You know, they were playing with maybe a foot off the gas in the second and couldn't get it back. 21:13 Vegoe And it just takes that, you know, sometimes you got to go to your B game. 21:16 Vegoe We talked about it with announcers. 21:18 Vegoe It happens for players too. 21:20 Vegoe You know, when things aren't going right, you got to find a way to make it a little bit more simple and give yourself a chance to get back into it. 21:26 Vegoe And I think they struggled with that Saturday. 21:29 Vegoe And you know, with Minnesota, it's a learning lesson. 21:32 Vegoe And you can't learn all the time and win all the time. 21:35 Vegoe Sometimes you have to take it out too. 21:38 Jûpe Got Greg on Facebook. 21:40 Jûpe Have you talked about the Mooney kid yet? 21:42 Jûpe No, we haven't. 21:45 Jûpe What do you think, Vase? 21:47 Jûpe He did Flash. 21:48 Jûpe You know, he did a lot of great passing. 21:50 Jûpe Maybe the guys couldn't connect on some of those passes. 21:52 Jûpe But I think he did fairly well. 21:55 Vegoe Yeah, I thought he flashed his skill and he flashed his, you know, acceleration, you know, from, you know, 50-50 starts. 22:03 Vegoe You know, he showed that he can pull away from guys and make plays. 22:06 Vegoe I think maybe he was maybe getting too fancy at times rather than making some more direct plays. 22:12 Vegoe You heard some of the players talk about this week. 22:15 Vegoe You know, just calm him down and let him find his game. 22:19 Vegoe You know, it's not going to come easy in college hockey. 22:21 Vegoe He got, you know, on the scorebook. 22:23 Vegoe But I don't think he quite flashed like he wanted to. 22:26 Vegoe Like, heck, even Gavin McKenna, you know, I think just had a goal and two assists. 22:30 Vegoe You know, it's not like he took over college hockey right from day one. 22:34 Vegoe It takes a little bit of time, I think, you know, with the size, the speed and the structure that you see in college hockey. 22:40 Jûpe Speaking of Gavin McKenna, Jack, what do you think about this craziness about him so far? 22:46 Jûpe I mean, the NHL network picked up two games they would have never picked up ever. 22:52 Jack Right, right. 22:54 Jack I mean, on one side of the coin, it's great for the visibility and the fandom of college hockey. 23:02 Jack I have no issue, and we talked about this last year too, and it was kind of more clouded and mystery and stuff. 23:10 Jack And I like the idea of the CHL guys coming over. 23:13 Jack I have no problem with that. 23:14 Jack I think it makes sense. 23:16 Jack I don't like the idea of all these guys that were on PTO or ECHL. 23:21 Jack Now, it's not 20 of them, but guys that were playing HL and ECHL games, that's mind-boggling to me that these guys are allowed back in college hockey. 23:31 Jûpe I recall getting a Twitter message from you. 23:35 Jûpe You're like, what is this? 23:38 Jûpe And it's... 23:40 Jûpe How do you feel about a VH? 23:42 Jûpe I mean, boy, it's tough. 23:46 Vegoe It doesn't make any sense to me. 23:48 Jûpe The NCAA is just kind of bending to almost everything right now. 23:52 Vegoe I think they're so worried about a lawsuit that would come their way, and they'd have no control over it that they're quicker just to say, oh, it's okay. 24:00 Vegoe But I definitely agree with Jack. 24:01 Vegoe I think once you sign a professional contract and play professional games, that's not just like a tryout, especially in the AHL and the ECHL, like American pro hockey, I feel like that's a line. 24:16 Vegoe That's like the Rubicon line that you can't cross for amateur athletics. 24:21 Jûpe It's, it's, it is what it is. 24:25 Jûpe Something we're gonna have to live with. 24:26 Jûpe You know, we already had people complaining, Vs. 24:29 Jûpe The Scover team is going nowhere. 24:31 Jûpe They didn't get any CHL players hardly. 24:33 Jûpe I mean, they could have got way more in the, in the portal, blah, blah, blah. 24:39 Jûpe I think Bob's just doing the wait and see, isn't he, Vs? 24:43 Vegoe Well, they do have that 26th spot open this year. 24:47 Vegoe So if there were to be something more serious, you know, Gruber is going to be back. 24:51 Vegoe But if there was like a serious injury, it opens the door for Minnesota to add someone mid-season. 24:58 Vegoe Not a lot of other teams kept an open spot to do that with. 25:01 Vegoe So it's kind of a unique thing that the Minnesota coaching staff did for this year. 25:05 Vegoe I think it makes sense. 25:06 Vegoe You know, some of the guys who are on bubble may be coming to campus or playing that extra year junior like Maceo Phillips and Jacob Kwasnicka. 25:16 Vegoe They get to play lots of games. 25:18 Vegoe They had to play high roles. 25:20 Vegoe If they came early, not an option for them. 25:23 Vegoe They would have to sit and bide their time and wait. 25:26 Vegoe So I think we see if you play, that's better. 25:29 Vegoe Now, if there are major injuries, are those the two guys that they would pull? 25:33 Vegoe I don't know for sure. 25:35 Vegoe It depends on everything going on. 25:37 Vegoe Is it someone we're not even thinking of? 25:40 Vegoe That could be an option too. 25:41 Jûpe Oh, that's a good one. 25:42 Jûpe I was just going to ask what the Matthew Deitz, how is Minnesota limited to 26 spots, but Michigan Tech had 31 on their roster. 25:49 Jûpe Isn't there some grandfathering going on, Veegs? 25:53 Vegoe There's a grandfathering rule. 25:55 Vegoe So if you had guys who are coming back, the NCAA didn't want to kick them off the roster. 26:01 Vegoe This was probably more common in cross-country and track and field. 26:05 Vegoe So the rules are very fuzzy for teams like that, with guys staying on the roster versus guys who already signed their national letters of intent. 26:14 Vegoe With Minnesota, they don't have extra guys really committed, so they didn't go over. 26:20 Jûpe All right. 26:21 Jûpe Well, it makes sense. 26:22 Jûpe Just kind of curious about it. 26:24 Jack Could it be also like if what I thought I read and what I'm kind of looking at here, if a team doesn't opt into NIL, then they can also have the additional roster spots? 26:39 Vegoe Yeah, it's kind of fuzzy like that as well. 26:43 Vegoe There's different ways to go over the limit. 26:46 Vegoe There's grandfathering rules and there's that. 26:49 Vegoe A school like Minnesota is an option because they're in the power four, so they have to be opted in. 26:54 Vegoe Schools that don't have D1 football like Michigan Tech, they're also in the fringe there. 26:59 Vegoe North Dakota, Denver, they have kind of the same thing going. 27:04 Vegoe It's complicated. 27:09 Jûpe It's goofy. 27:10 Jûpe I'm still surprised. 27:10 Jûpe Maybe they didn't go to 26, but we'll have to wait and see. 27:15 Vegoe But you don't know who you need. 27:17 Vegoe If you're going to lose a forward, you don't want to have 13 if someone's out for the season. 27:22 Vegoe If you lose one of your top two goalies, it's kind of a lot of eggs in one basket just to have one. 27:28 Vegoe You'd want to have the option to bring in another. 27:30 Vegoe So I think it was kind of unique for Minnesota to do it that. 27:35 Jack Is the door open to picking up a random CHL guide who's not committed to a college team mid-year? 27:41 Jack Yep. 27:42 Vegoe Yep. 27:42 Vegoe They have total flexibility with who they could add. 27:45 Vegoe They could come back from World Juniors and someone who maybe didn't want to go to the NCAA because they thought it would hurt their chance on the World Junior team. 27:52 Vegoe Now they could come play Minnesota the second half. 27:55 Vegoe It's wide open. 27:57 Jûpe Just crazy. 27:59 Jûpe It just boggles my mind out crazy. 28:01 Vegoe Come to St. 28:01 Vegoe Paul for the World Juniors. 28:03 Vegoe Stay for college. 28:06 Jack Could the Gophers go pick up Michael Brodzinski or something halfway through the year if they want to? 28:13 Vegoe He might have exceeded the number of games that are okay. 28:16 Vegoe But someone brought up like Connor Kurth could probably come back if he plays a few enough games. 28:23 Vegoe But I don't know if we'll see that happen. 28:26 Jûpe Well, we talked about Kurth. 28:28 Jûpe He did graduate. 28:30 Jûpe It's, you know, maybe he could have played another year and got more schooling. 28:34 Jûpe But he'll have fun in the HL or wherever he ends up. 28:38 Jûpe So what do you do, Veegs? 28:41 Jûpe What do you do? 28:42 Jûpe All right, Veegs, we need to talk about one of our sponsors and gateway, Fiber Northside. 28:48 Jûpe Something you should be looking at. 28:50 Vegoe Yeah, I mean, we rely on Fiber Internet for our podcasts. 28:53 Vegoe You should, too, because in Minnesota, we're the state of hockey and a bad Internet connection. 28:58 Vegoe It's like a bad line change. 28:59 Vegoe It slows everything down, causes chaos, might even lose you the game. 29:04 Vegoe So don't be that guy. 29:05 Vegoe Make sure you got full speed Internet, a gateway fiber. 29:08 Vegoe And, you know, it's not just a provider. 29:11 Vegoe They're on your team. 29:12 Vegoe Visit gatewayfiber.com or call 1-800-201-4339 to see if Gateway Fiber is available in your area because life's too short for bad Internet. 29:24 Jûpe Definitely too short for bad Internet. 29:26 Jûpe We don't like that. 29:27 Jûpe All right. 29:28 Jûpe Vegoe's top 20 for this week. 29:32 Jûpe Not a lot of change among the top eight. 29:35 Jûpe We expect zero change. 29:38 Vegoe You know, this is the top eight I went with at the start of the year. 29:41 Vegoe You know, Penn State was the one team in this group that played significant games. 29:45 Vegoe They looked pretty good. 29:46 Vegoe Did they look better than teams I had ahead of them? 29:50 Vegoe Hard to know. 29:51 Vegoe You know, I thought Penn State showed a lot of depth and skill against Arizona State. 29:55 Vegoe Impressive win for their MPI standing to start the year. 30:00 Vegoe And good for the Big Ten. 30:03 Jûpe Kodapiak with a jump after they had some luck against Boston College, Michigan jumping up, Minnesota obviously, Boston College dropping down. 30:13 Jûpe On interesting note, the Gopher Game Notes saw that this is the first time in like forever Minnesota and BC and one will not be in the top 10 leagues. 30:24 Vegoe Yeah, I think both teams have a lot of draft picks, a lot of young players, a lot of question marks. 30:29 Vegoe You know, BC lost their goalie that they leaned down very heavily. 30:33 Vegoe They lost some high end talents as well. 30:36 Vegoe And they played a tough game. 30:38 Vegoe You know, Quinnipiac is one of those schools that brought in one of those ex-professionals and he scored a goal and that's that game. 30:46 Vegoe Leave it to the Bobcats at Quinnipiac to take advantage of that rule. 30:51 Jûpe And everyone just kind of jumped up a little bit. 30:54 Jûpe Figs, obviously, Arizona State went down. 30:55 Jûpe You like you kept your sacred heart in there and then you added Michigan Tech. 30:59 Vegoe And Michigan Tech, I think I would have heard from the Misfits had I not include them in the top 20. 31:05 Vegoe Michigan Tech looked very good on Saturday again, as we said early in the podcast, holding the Gophers to 13 shots is quite the achievement. 31:12 Vegoe I think some of it was self-inflicted by Minnesota. 31:16 Vegoe But good showing for Bill McCalton, his first series behind the bench with them. 31:21 Jûpe All right. 31:24 Vegoe One thing I thought of that was interested by top 20 that someone pointed out to me, where's Minnesota Duluth and St. 31:29 Vegoe Cloud State? 31:37 Jûpe I don't see them, do you, Jack? 31:38 Vegoe I don't see them. 31:40 Jack Wait. 31:42 Jack No, they're not under there. 31:47 Vegoe So we saw Minnesota teams. 31:49 Jack I found them. 31:49 Vegoe Oh, jeez. 31:50 Jûpe Oh. 31:55 Jûpe Wow, I love that. 32:01 Vegoe So I think it will be interesting because St. 32:02 Vegoe Thomas looks like they could be pretty good this year. 32:04 Vegoe You know, they're a team on the rise. 32:06 Vegoe Minnesota to lose St. 32:07 Vegoe Cloud rebuilding. 32:08 Vegoe Minnesota State, you know, they look okay. 32:11 Vegoe One team to watch, I think on my top 20, that's not on there right now, probably Wisconsin. 32:17 Vegoe They had a really good week at Lindenwood. 32:19 Vegoe I know it's still Lindenwood, new coach, lot of turnover, but if Tassie and Fitzgerald can rebound from kind of subpar seasons last year, team to watch. 32:30 Jûpe Well, didn't Schlossman put them up quite high in the Big Ten? 32:35 Vegoe He has them quite high nationally. 32:37 Vegoe So maybe Schloss has heard something. 32:41 Vegoe They didn't look very good last year, but as Penn State showed, you can rebound after midseason. 32:48 Jûpe All right, let's get to some questions here. 32:50 Jûpe I saw this one earlier from our guy, Steve Larson. 32:53 Jûpe Thoughts on the goaltending this past weekend? 32:58 Vegoe Not a strength, not really a strength for Minnesota. 33:01 Vegoe I didn't think either goalie played particularly well. 33:04 Vegoe They didn't look bad. 33:07 Vegoe I thought Airy had the bad rebound that he gave up a goal on. 33:13 Vegoe Luca is so, so, so team team can improve there. 33:19 Vegoe I think they'll be fine, but not a great weekend. 33:25 Jûpe Yeah, not at all. 33:28 Jûpe I'm a little concerned about that. 33:30 Jûpe Jack, did you have any terrible goalies? 33:32 Jûpe I mean, how bad was Shearhorn really? 33:36 Jack Eric always tells me he wasn't as good as I remember him as, but I was like, no, Eric was the best goalie ever. 33:43 Jûpe He was pretty good. 33:46 Jack I don't know. 33:46 Jack It'll be, hey, that extra roster spot too, who knows? 33:50 Jack That's probably the easiest position to fill. 33:54 Jack I'm really messing things up as a goalie. 33:57 Jack Not that, you know, who knows? 34:00 Jack But I feel like that's the biggest or the easiest way to get goalies now is probably to dip your hand into the CHL pond. 34:09 Jack I can't recall who it was, but somebody went like 50-4 last year in the CHL. 34:15 Jack If you recall what team he's playing, he had a shutout first night this weekend. 34:23 Vegoe I remember the storyline of the goalie, but I can't remember. 34:25 Vegoe Boston University added a goalie mid-season last year. 34:28 Vegoe He got him into the frozen four. 34:31 Vegoe That shows that you can get a player like that. 34:34 Jack Yeah. 34:35 Jûpe So Mariucci Maniacs, he's saving a spot for Cooley when he comes back. 34:42 Jûpe I mean, he didn't want the 8, 9 million that he turned down at Utah. 34:50 Jack Can't sign it. 34:50 Jack He's going to make more on the NIL next year. 34:55 Jûpe There's no NIL in Minnesota. 34:57 Jûpe It's just, they're trying. 35:01 Jûpe They're definitely trying. 35:04 Jûpe A lot of weird stuff going on with the collectives right now that, it's just going to take a while for them to figure out. 35:14 Jûpe Yeah, it's just a little change late in the year. 35:18 Jûpe It's kind of out of their hands, you know, with the Golden Helmet Collective right now. 35:23 Vegoe Yeah, we'll see. 35:24 Vegoe It will come at some point in Minnesota. 35:26 Vegoe I think as an institution, the university has the budget deficit they have to figure out this year, and they've got some debts they got to pay. 35:33 Vegoe So it's probably not the top priority on Mark Coyle's desk. 35:38 Vegoe If you look at the recruiting class that Moxico has coming down the line, it obviously isn't hurting them that much. 35:46 Jack I think you have to give Lacoma a call. 35:51 Jack Start writing some checks. 35:52 Jack Now these guys are all cashing in. 35:54 Jack Nize, how are you guys doing? 35:58 Vegoe I was joking that instead of saying how many Gophers made opening night rosters in the NHL, they should say how much Gophers are getting paid in the NHL. 36:07 Vegoe Based on some of the deals that Nize and Faber and Lacombe are signing, it's pretty impressive to see. 36:17 Jûpe It's tough. 36:17 Jûpe And they all live together here in the summer, it seems like. 36:20 Jûpe Nize is with Lacombe and Snuggeroo during the summer, they train together. 36:26 Jûpe She gets them down to you practicing. 36:28 Jûpe Do pros still do that or are they still... 36:31 Jûpe Back in my day, they used to all hang out in the Bloomington Ice Garden years ago. 36:35 Vegoe Yeah, a lot of them still skate at the U and a lot of them still work out with Caldites too in the off season. 36:40 Vegoe It's big for some of those guys. 36:41 Vegoe They built up the trust and seen the results and they keep going. 36:47 Vegoe I'm pretty sure Nize does that. 36:49 Jûpe Moate, isn't the TV money going to solve that issue? 36:54 Jûpe This is where it's tricky though, Veegs, and it wears a troublesome for the Big Ten because they have to play that 20, 21 million, don't they? 37:03 Vegoe Yeah, eventually... 37:04 Jûpe That's coming out of kind of the TV. 37:06 Vegoe Yeah, eventually the TV money is going to continue to increase and the used budget should zero out and be okay again. 37:13 Vegoe It's just a little ahead of the curve. 37:16 Vegoe It's kind of like the wild paying CapraSoft. 37:19 Vegoe The cap is going up, but they're committed now to that AAV. 37:23 Vegoe So it's kind of like that for Gophers and... 37:26 Jûpe Didn't McDavid take a smaller paycheck? 37:29 Jack 12.5 a year. 37:32 Jûpe Yeah. 37:33 Jack Gave him three years. 37:35 Jack Which, it'd be interesting to be in that position, you know, hey, I've already made, I don't know what he's probably made by now, 60, 70 million or something like that, probably. 37:46 Jack You know, what's an extra two and a half or what's an extra seven over two years? 37:52 Jack It's a shit ton of money, don't get me wrong. 37:55 Jack But to somebody that already has 70 or 80 million dollars and really wants a cup, there's guys that obviously want that eight million dollars. 38:01 Jack There's more. 38:02 Jack And I'm not saying that they don't want to win if they take that money. 38:04 Jack But man, why would you cross me? 38:07 Jack Well, there's so many examples that you can look back on in different sports. 38:13 Jack Brady, Florida has a bunch of guys, I think, on team friendly deals, but they have the tax advantage. 38:21 Jûpe But the thing is, do they really? 38:25 Jûpe You start paying those property taxes and those insurance costs down there. 38:29 Jûpe That's true. 38:30 Jûpe For us more common people, you lose it all there. 38:34 Jûpe So, what do you do? 38:37 Jûpe Matthew Dietz, another quick question here. 38:41 Jûpe The possibility of adding that equity partner, I think that might just kill everything but football leagues. 38:51 Vegoe Well, I think it would take away some of what makes the Big Ten, the Big Ten doing it. 38:56 Vegoe I know that's been brought up, but I almost think I've heard that the, the Big Ten has taken some of those ideas and be like, we don't need the money to do that. 39:03 Vegoe You know, we've got donors who can help us get over the top there. 39:07 Vegoe So I think private equity would be a iffy thing for college athletics to get into. 39:14 Vegoe They, they rely so much on donors. 39:18 Jûpe So I hope they don't go that direction. 39:20 Jûpe It's just, it's already gotten bad enough as it is, Veegs. 39:24 Jûpe What do you do? 39:25 Jûpe But one thing we're going to do is we're talking about CUB now, Veegs, we drove right by your CUB foods twice this week. 39:33 Jûpe You know, once heading up north, once coming back down and, and Barbie upstairs, she goes, there's Veegs, CUB foods. 39:40 Vegoe That is my CUB foods. 39:42 Vegoe It's fall, CUB's got you covered. 39:44 Vegoe If you're looking for the apples, CUB's got all of them. 39:47 Vegoe If you're looking for pumpkin spice, check it out. 39:50 Vegoe The bakery's got all kinds of stuff from muffins to breads to cakes to donuts. 39:54 Vegoe They got everything pumpkin. 39:56 Vegoe If you're baking, if you're hosting game day, we've got homecoming this weekend for the University of Minnesota. 40:02 Vegoe Get some tailgate stuff there. 40:04 Vegoe It's going to feel like fall finally. 40:05 Vegoe So swing by your local CUB, stock up with all your seasonal favorites because nothing says fall in Minnesota, more like comfort food from CUB. 40:13 Vegoe Shop happy. 40:15 Jûpe All right, guys. 40:17 Jûpe Boston College coming into Mariucci this Thursday, Friday because of homecoming gigs. 40:25 Jûpe Do we know, is there a trip heading out there next year or within the next couple of years? 40:31 Vegoe I believe that's the intention to get back out there. 40:34 Vegoe I don't have the contract yet. 40:36 Vegoe The year has been a little slow on some of the stuff. 40:39 Vegoe Sometimes, these contracts get signed kind of late in the process. 40:43 Jûpe Yes, like last year. 40:45 Vegoe Yeah, last year, there were still contracts being signed in September. 40:48 Vegoe So I wouldn't doubt that there's an issue there. 40:51 Vegoe But I think that they're making a return trip out there, just like they're going back to Houghton next year. 40:57 Vegoe I just don't know the dates. 40:58 Vegoe But exciting game to have on the schedule. 41:00 Vegoe I think I've heard from all of GPL that they want to play teams like Boston College. 41:05 Vegoe They want to play teams like BU. 41:07 Vegoe They want to play Denver. 41:08 Vegoe Well, here you go. 41:10 Vegoe Big series coming up. 41:11 Vegoe A lot of players that are competing for World Junior Spots will be in town with BC. 41:16 Vegoe And O'Brody Zehmer is looking forward to this one. 41:18 Vegoe He's got a lot of buddies that he's got text threads with leading into this weekend. 41:23 Vegoe So they've got it circled on the calendar. 41:27 Jûpe Which of those series did you get? 41:28 Jûpe Did you get any of those big East Coast schools coming out to play, Jack? 41:33 Jack We went out. 41:34 Jack We did Northeastern, I think Friday night, and then we did Boston College Saturday night. 41:39 Jûpe I remember. 41:40 Jûpe Yeah. 41:40 Jûpe Okay. 41:41 Jack Little road trip. 41:42 Jack I think it was over Thanksgiving. 41:45 Jack That's really the only East Coast trip that I kind of recall, I think, that we ever did. 41:52 Jack Otherwise, maybe people coming in. 41:54 Jack We never played BC otherwise. 41:56 Jack Trying to think back, we really didn't have any great non-conference games, you know, North Dakota. 42:05 Jack You throw those guys in the mix and stuff like that. 42:07 Jack But outside of the old WCHA, there wasn't really any of those fun East Coast ones. 42:12 Jack But this one will be really fun. 42:14 Jack You know, just a couple of blue bloods going at each other. 42:16 Jack And I mean, the non-conference schedule, like you said, Veeg's really, really fun this year. 42:20 Jack And I think with the new ranking system, the way I understood it at least is that strength of schedule matters a lot. 42:30 Jack So even if the Gophers don't do well in this non-conference schedule against really tough opponents, it's not going to kill them. 42:39 Jack So I think it's really going to help the team towards the end of the year. 42:43 Vegoe Yeah, I feel like in the old pairwise, these inter-conference games were important more for your conference almost than for you because it impacted so many pairwise comparisons. 42:54 Vegoe I wonder if MPI is going to reflect an individual school's non-conference schedule more than just the conference. 43:01 Vegoe So that would be something interesting to shake out. 43:03 Vegoe But I think, Jack, when you were playing, the coaching staff was so concerned with playing the local schools, you know, after the breakup of the WCHA, they wanted to play Minnesota Duluth, wanted to play St. 43:14 Vegoe Cloud, wanted to play Minnesota State, wanted to play Bemidji, wanted to play North Dakota. 43:18 Vegoe You only get so many non-conference games. 43:20 Vegoe You get 10 or 11. 43:21 Vegoe So, kind of a challenging transition I think in scheduling when you signed on. 43:27 Jûpe Well, Veegs, there was a very quiet period in the late 90s and early 2000s where I remember Cardinal did an article years ago on GPL, how Minnesota never goes east. 43:40 Jûpe At the time, for a span of seven, eight years, maybe even more, the furthest east they went was to Ohio State and that was before they were even in the conference. 43:52 Jûpe You had that one series where they closed BU's arena and opened up their new arena, but other than that, they hadn't really done anything. 44:01 Jûpe So I would love to see them go to, you know, for two to BC next year, maybe over Thanksgiving or something like that. 44:10 Jûpe I think a lot of fans would be interesting in making that trip. 44:13 Vegoe Yeah, when I've talked to Bob about some of the scheduling philosophy, he wants someone who plays three years to have one trip out east, one trip out west. 44:23 Vegoe And if you stay four years, maybe get a trip to Alaska. 44:26 Vegoe You know, those are kind of some of his philosophies with scheduling. 44:30 Vegoe So you get that East team that you go out to play in one year, the next year, you get home one year, you go out west the next year, you get them home and then you mix in that Alaska because of the bonus games. 44:40 Jûpe So what are you looking forward to this week with these games, Jack? 44:44 Jûpe You know, like I said, a big names coming in. 44:47 Jûpe I love CBC here. 44:49 Jûpe They'll be on Big Ten Network as a part of a doubleheader Thursday night. 44:53 Jûpe So a lot of the country can see these games. 44:56 Jack Yeah, there's just kind of a special buzz in the air when you play these these historic teams and I can call it a historic rivalry, but a lot of games in the past. 45:05 Jack So when you do play these ones, it's easy to get up for. 45:09 Jack I think it's easy to get up for the for the fans. 45:11 Jack But every year, the first month of the season is so fun, especially with a team like this, that's very, very young and bring a lot of guys in, is you're just going to find out so much each game is like a little gift wrap package that you just don't know what you're going to get. 45:28 Jack Is this going to be the Mooney breakout game? 45:30 Jack Is he going to be stud? 45:32 Jack Is Morgan going to pop a few tonight? 45:34 Jack So it's just kind of fun and a mystery each week. 45:37 Jack And this will be a good test. 45:39 Jack I think people are going to have to be probably patient with a young team here. 45:44 Jack But I think we're going to be pretty happy with what we have down the road. 45:48 Jûpe Well, you know, Big Ten Network is taking advantage of this week because obviously they don't have a lot of proud programming on Thursday nights. 45:55 Jûpe The volleyball is more Wednesdays and Fridays. 45:58 Jûpe And so they're doing a double header. 46:01 Jûpe That's why Minnesota's game is moving to 8 p.m. 46:04 Jûpe It's going to be I believe it's Clarkson and Penn State. 46:07 Jûpe They're going to do a 30 minute pregame for that. 46:09 Jûpe Rick Pizzo is going to be in Hockey Valley for that. 46:14 Jûpe And our guy Cappy will be in the studio with I believe it's Mike Hall. 46:20 Jûpe You've got I believe Dan Kelly and we've got Dan Kelly's calling the game here. 46:27 Jûpe So early in the season, kind of similar to last year, Big Ten Network picked up a game early. 46:33 Jûpe They're trying to get some excitement built. 46:36 Jûpe Yeah. 46:36 Vegoe And I think this is a good series. 46:38 Vegoe You know, anytime you get a lot of guys from Boston, Minnesota playing against each other brings brings back that miracle vibe. 46:44 Vegoe Jack, I'm sure in your household, that's that's something you cherish a little bit. 46:48 Vegoe So I think it'll be fun hockey with Stiga and Hagens having their relationship with Zimmer. 46:54 Vegoe I think that'll be interesting to watch. 46:56 Vegoe You know, those three probably are aligned for the World Juniors. 47:00 Vegoe You know, they're probably the best line in all the camp this summer. 47:03 Vegoe They've got a lot of chemistry together, so that'll be fun to watch. 47:06 Vegoe And I just think both teams are working through their new rosters for this year. 47:11 Vegoe So it's a good matchup from that standpoint. 47:14 Vegoe You know, you sometimes have these older teams at Minnesota Plays that are well established and they don't have as many question marks. 47:20 Vegoe They're not developing as many young players. 47:23 Vegoe Both these teams are developing still. 47:25 Vegoe So they're both going to make mistakes. 47:27 Vegoe You're going to see a lot of transition, a lot of College Hockey fun stuff to see with goal scoring. 47:34 Vegoe And that's what makes this series so great to see. 47:37 Jûpe Well, Jack, that's what makes College Hockey fun to say. 47:39 Jûpe It's because there are the mistakes. 47:41 Jûpe There are these just huge shifts. 47:43 Jûpe And that's probably why I love the College Hockey better than the program, just because of how crazy it is. 47:51 Jack Yeah, no, that's 100%. 47:53 Jack You don't know which one of these guys could be, you know, Tyler Chihihi could be an All-American next year or they could pop off this year. 48:01 Jack It's just so exciting. 48:02 Jack That's why, same thing, all college sports, college football, college hockey, college baseball, everything. 48:07 Jack All the storylines is all, the rivalries mean more, you know, you only get a certain amount of games and everything just means more. 48:14 Vegoe And I think the coaching for BC, you know, Greg Brown, he's on Bob's staff for the World Juniors. 48:21 Vegoe They see the game in a similar way. 48:23 Vegoe You know, Greg Brown's one of those coaches that really promotes those transition defensemen. 48:28 Vegoe That's modern hockey. 48:29 Vegoe That's stuff you want to watch. 48:30 Vegoe See those D join the rush and get in on the offense. 48:34 Vegoe We should see a lot about this weekend. 48:36 Jûpe So what are your predictions, Veegs? 48:38 Jûpe How are you feeling about this series? 48:41 Vegoe Well, last week I got some flack for my Michigan Tech acquaintances because I said 75% chance to go for a sweep. 48:50 Vegoe And I thought that because I thought Minnesota was essentially a lock to win on Friday because it was their home opener, a lot of juice, a lot of question marks for Michigan Tech. 48:59 Vegoe But then I worried that next game was a 50-51 because it's always hard to sweep in college hockey. 49:05 Vegoe We saw that with CC and UConn this last weekend. 49:08 Vegoe CC had a great night the first night, not so good the next. 49:11 Vegoe So I think, unfortunately, this looks like a split for me. 49:15 Vegoe I think both teams are even. 49:17 Vegoe I don't think Minnesota really is on a roll right now. 49:19 Vegoe I think there's question marks. 49:22 Vegoe I think Gruba is going to be back for the weekend. 49:25 Vegoe I saw him doing some conditioning skating today, looked fine through that. 49:29 Vegoe So I think Minnesota is going to be healthy. 49:31 Vegoe I think we do see the lines get shuffled up a little bit for Minnesota this weekend based on what I saw today. 49:37 Vegoe So expect some changes there, some new combinations. 49:40 Vegoe I think they're trying to spread things out maybe a little bit more. 49:43 Vegoe Coming into the season, it seemed like there was definitely a checking line in the line chart. 49:48 Vegoe I think this weekend, they want to spread it out and get some different guys going. 49:53 Jûpe Jack, I'd like to see a checking line too, a punishing line. 49:57 Jûpe Get out there and let them know you're there. 50:00 Jack I understand you can't have four lines of skilled players. 50:04 Jack I mean, we do have a bit of a skilled drop-off, I will say, more compared to last year, dropping down that line chart. 50:13 Jack So guys are going to have to fill in roles. 50:16 Jack You're talking about Moe figuring out the penalty kill. 50:20 Jack That's maybe how he's going to get in the roster and stay there. 50:22 Jack Some of these guys are going to have to throw their bodies around block shots and kill penalties, and coach is going to like that. 50:27 Jack You know, there's not a lot of forwards, so you could be in the line up or out the line up the next night, so everybody's going to be vying kind of for that fourth line, that line spot. 50:37 Jack So yeah, give me a checking line. 50:39 Jack We got to punish people a little bit. 50:41 Jack You know, can't have everybody stay handily. 50:44 Jûpe I agree. 50:45 Jûpe You know, let them know you're there, Biggs, but put a little muscle in it. 50:49 Jûpe You know, it gets them thinking when they're coming up the ice, it's not so smooth if I'm getting my butt plastered into the boards. 50:59 Vegoe You know, I think that was one of the things I noticed about LJ. 51:01 Vegoe Mooney on Friday was he was throwing his body around a couple of times. 51:05 Vegoe I think just to kind of get in the game, you know, he threw the body thinking, OK, I want to get into this and show that I can hit too. 51:13 Vegoe So I think that's good for some of the young guys. 51:15 Vegoe I think we saw Javon Moore do that a little bit. 51:18 Vegoe I think there's more to his game than he showed this last weekend. 51:23 Vegoe I thought he was maybe a little cautious at times. 51:25 Vegoe So I think, you know, showing his physicality in the right way, this would be a good weekend to do it. 51:32 Jûpe All right, guys, anything else? 51:38 Jûpe He's already thinking about Taco Bell. 51:40 Vegoe Look at that. 51:46 Jûpe Any final thoughts then, Veegs? 51:49 Vegoe Big weekend ahead. 51:49 Vegoe I think we see Mo in the lineup, assuming everything goes well with him in his week back from injury. 51:56 Vegoe It was a short term thing. 51:58 Vegoe He did skate last week quite a bit, but just had get held out down the stretch. 52:04 Vegoe So I think we see him in the lineup soon. 52:06 Jûpe All right. 52:07 Jûpe Thanks for joining us again, Jack. 52:08 Jûpe You're up to number five now. 52:09 Jûpe You're ahead of Sheerhorn and that's all that matters. 52:12 Jack That's all that matters at the end of the day. 52:13 Jack But who's keeping track? 52:15 Jack I have a whiteboard right there that tallies it. 52:21 Jûpe Well, of course, yes. 52:22 Jûpe Thank you for coming on and we're going to keep coming back. 52:24 Jûpe You're ready for some overtime, aren't you? 52:26 Jack Yes, sir. 52:26 Jûpe Right. 52:27 Jack Oh, yeah. 52:28 Jack That's this. 52:29 Jack I'm not even here for the first part. 52:34 Jûpe All right. 52:35 Jûpe Well, that is going to do it for this episode of The GPL Podcast. 52:38 Jûpe We'll be back next week when Brad Schlossman of the Grand Forks Herald joins the show as we preview the Gophers heading up to Grand Forks for a fun series. 52:49 Jûpe For those of you watching live on YouTube or X, stay tuned for overtime. 52:54 Jûpe For the rest of you, we'll catch you next week on The GPL Podcast. 53:10 Jûpe If you are watching on YouTube, hit that subscribe button and get notified each time we go live or post a video. 53:16 Jûpe If you listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, please rate our show and leave a review. 53:27 Jûpe For those of you watching live, you know what's next. 53:30 Jûpe It's Vegoe's Beverage of the Week. 53:35 Jûpe It's time for Overtime.