0:04 This is The GPL Podcast, part of the Pulltab Sports family. 0:10 Oh, boy, Jup makin mistakes, I love it. 0:29 Ready, let's go to Cabela's. 0:33 Leo, how was your recruiting? 0:35 I mean, you, I mean. 0:36 My recruiting, I probably had 76 D1 offers. 0:45 Now, here's Jupiter and Vegoe. 0:52 Jûpe Good evening, and welcome to The GPL Podcast, episode number 296. 1:01 Jûpe Not a bad weekend, Veegs, not a bad weekend at all. 1:04 Jûpe Couple close games, a win and a loss against Penn State. 1:08 Vegoe I think if you're wanting to be on the positive side, they played well for most of the weekend. 1:13 Vegoe You know, this was a Gopher team that looked pretty good five on five. 1:17 Vegoe Their power play looked very solid. 1:19 Vegoe They got good goaltending. 1:21 Vegoe You know, at this point of the season with this younger roster, I think that's very encouraging against a Penn State team. 1:26 Vegoe That's been a handful for a lot of teams this season. 1:30 Jûpe Well, we know someone who's been texting us off and on during the season. 1:34 Jûpe That's been a little concerned. 1:35 Jûpe So let's just bring them on right now. 1:38 Jûpe John King back on the GPL Podcast. 1:41 Jûpe How's it going, Ganger? 1:43 John I'm doing good. 1:44 John Sorry about my roller coaster ride. 1:47 John I've been on with this team this year. 1:49 Jûpe But well, the team has been on a roller coaster too. 1:53 John Yeah, I don't know, man. 1:54 John We're either beating North Dakota 5-0 or we're losing to Long Island. 1:59 John Whatever that was. 2:00 John Yeah, it's been all kinds of things. 2:05 Jûpe He's not wrong, Veegs. 2:06 Jûpe It has been a roller coaster. 2:08 Vegoe Well, and I think unfortunately for Minnesota, that's the situation they put themselves into. 2:13 Vegoe We've talked about this a lot in the podcast that, you know, Bob Osco very intentionally stuck with recruits, didn't dip in the CHL. 2:20 Vegoe He did grab some guys out of the portal who have been big additions, but then they had to deal with their injuries. 2:27 Vegoe And, you know, if the silver lining of this is that guys like Jacob Rombach and Mason Moe can really emerge, Tate Pritchard can really emerge through this process of getting this opportunity. 2:39 Vegoe It makes Minnesota a dangerous team heading into the second half, and they just need to string some wins together. 2:45 Vegoe This is a program that should make the NCAA tournament. 2:48 Vegoe They've put themselves in a bit of a hole this season and have a lot of work ahead of themselves in the second half. 2:55 Jûpe Right before we came on, Veegs, Kinger sent us a bingo card. 2:59 Jûpe And one of the items on that bingo card was 174 CHL players, 34% of the freshmen. 3:07 Jûpe Kinger, how do you feel about CHL players right now? 3:11 John I think it's horrible. 3:15 John I mean, my whole fantasy hockey team is American-born players and I lose every week. 3:21 John I should have drafted Logan Cooley, as a matter of fact, but I missed him. 3:25 John No, I don't like it because it's changing everything. 3:32 John It's pushing everything down into the junior levels. 3:37 John They're not expanding College Hockey because all the money's going to football. 3:44 John I think it's terrifying. 3:45 John I think it's really bad for US hockey players. 3:49 John I think the Blue Blood programs, Minnesota included, Boston College, my alma mater, they're trying to figure out how do I live in this new world? 4:04 John Do I grab the lever and start doing this, or do I stay true to what we've already always been, and I'm kind of interested in what Bob's trying to do. 4:15 John I like that he's stuck with his guys. 4:18 John He clearly has some talent here. 4:22 John Yeah, I'm not a fan. 4:23 John Unless we can get like 10 more teams, give me Stanford Hockey, give me North Carolina. 4:31 John If that happens, let's party. 4:33 John But if we're going to stay the same, and we added 174 Canadian freshmen, that's no good for the red, white, and blue. 4:41 Jûpe That's a pretty good point, Veegs. 4:42 Jûpe You know, we're adding all these players, some players are getting pushed out, some graduated, whatever, but there is no sign of any real expansion. 4:50 Jûpe What was it? 4:50 Jûpe Maybe Tennessee State or something like that coming, but really no signs of three or four teams that really would need to be done. 4:59 Vegoe Yeah, I think opening the borders to the CHL players and the revenue share happening at the same time really clamps down any possibility of adding teams to College Hockey. 5:11 Vegoe It's just going to be a challenge for any athletic director. 5:14 Vegoe The only ones that really I think could step into that are programs that don't have big football or big basketball programs, you know, or just one of them. 5:25 Vegoe Imagine Gonzaga. 5:26 Vegoe You know, they could add a D1 hockey team to, you know, maybe compete with their basketball team for tickets, but it wouldn't compete for revenue share. 5:33 Vegoe They'd be able to have something there that would work. 5:35 Vegoe You know, if you think of other institutions like that across the country that don't have big football, but do have athletic departments that could maybe have D1 hockey, you know, that's a future for expansion, but it just got really tough if you're an American hockey player who is 16, 17, 18, to make junior rosters and to get D1 scholarships. 5:55 Vegoe It's an uphill climb. 5:58 Jûpe Well, before we get too deep into that, Veegs, 3-2 win after getting down 2-0 Friday night, 2-1 loss after going up 1-0. 6:07 Jûpe It was a fun weekend, I thought, of hockey. 6:09 Vegoe Yeah, fun weekend. 6:10 Vegoe I especially like the way they played on Friday, sticking with the game. 6:16 Vegoe We've seen this team have things that go poorly against them, and Bob says, the dapper goes down, and the guys start complaining about the refs or things that are happening with the other players. 6:29 Vegoe And I think on Friday, they just kept sticking to their game plan. 6:33 Vegoe And I saw a couple key penalty kills where guys kept their sticks in lane to break up passes going across the seams. 6:39 Vegoe I saw guys back checking all the way to the net on the power play. 6:43 Vegoe It wasn't easy for them to gain the zone. 6:46 Vegoe They had to have their exits, and they had to have support to keep possession of the puck, and they were able to do that and get a goal. 6:54 Vegoe Early in the year, they just wouldn't work that hard enough in continuity to make that play possible. 7:01 Vegoe But they pulled it off on Friday, and I thought that was very encouraging for Minnesota. 7:05 Jûpe And LJ Mooney was very feisty at the end of the game, and he's one of your favorites, isn't he, John? 7:12 John I can't stop watching this kid. 7:16 John The fact that LJ stands for little John, and his dad's name is John, I mean, I was pulling up, I wanted to show you this. 7:25 John I don't know why the U doesn't do this. 7:27 John This, you know, little John the rapper, right? 7:31 John He's all about these sounds, right? 7:34 John So why don't we get some of this kind of... 7:37 Jûpe Uh-oh, what do we got? 7:38 John Yeah! 7:43 John I mean, that should happen every time this kid scores. 7:48 John He's absolutely electric. 7:51 John He's a water bug. 7:53 John He looks like a score player fighting big guys at the end of the game on Friday. 7:59 John I mean, I think he's worth paying money just to see this kid. 8:04 John I love it. 8:04 John I can't wait for World Juniors. 8:07 John He has been an absolute delight even in an uneven season. 8:12 John Just fun to watch. 8:14 Jûpe Veegs, he's been doing a lot of assists, not scoring as much, but I think that's just bound to come pretty soon here. 8:20 Vegoe Well, as I was watching the game on Saturday, I found myself comparing LJ to McKenna, and just seeing the work rate that LJ Mooney puts in out there, he puts in a shift and he still is able to find space to make plays for his teammates. 8:36 Vegoe He hasn't quite found the shooting element yet that McKenna has shown this year, but just his playmaking ability to run a power play, it's such a strength for LJ and I think it's going to be fun to watch that kind of battle go into the World Juniors as we expect LJ to be there and we expect Gavin to be there and it should be fun to kind of watch those two players because I think they both get really involved offensively, but just the work rate of LJ is impressive to watch. 9:03 Jûpe What did you think about McKenna Veegs? 9:06 Vegoe You know, there's just so much missing to his game that could be there. 9:10 Vegoe I just see so many shifts that are nothing shifts. 9:15 Vegoe Danny Hype Project Hockey is an Instagram guy and he likes to post shifts of top players and kind of, you know, check out this brain, check out this hockey IQ play, check out this you know, shooting lane that he creates. 9:28 Vegoe He did a shift of McKenna and it's just floating all the way around and then getting off. 9:34 Vegoe I remember one opportunity, he had a shift at the end of the period this weekend where his linemates got an opportunity to have like a two on two rush and if he would have busted his butt he could have made a three on two and maybe got a chance at the end of the period and said he goes off the ice with seven seconds left. 9:50 Vegoe I mean those are just things that top top talent guys don't do because they know there's only seven seconds left. 9:57 Vegoe I'm gonna bust my butt and maybe get a point and and he just does not have that part of his game to round out the talent because he's certainly talented. 10:06 Vegoe You watch him on the power play, you watch him handle a puck on the perimeter in space, it's very very impressive and he's got a good shot on top of it. 10:15 Jûpe And funny you said floating around, I was speaking to one of the linesmen after the game Friday night and I asked, what did you think of McKenney? 10:22 Jûpe He goes, I like him but he does float. 10:25 Jûpe He tends to circle around a lot. 10:27 Jûpe He doesn't want to get as involved but we both still think it's just he's still kind of learning. 10:33 Jûpe Maybe after the juniors will kind of inspire him a bit to actually get involved a little more instead of doing all that floating and circling. 10:41 Jûpe What do you think of him, John? 10:43 John Well, he's super young, right? 10:45 Jûpe Yes, he is. 10:46 Jûpe And that's something to be looking for it. 10:47 Jûpe He's 17. 10:48 Jûpe Calm down. 10:49 John Yeah. 10:51 John I mean, I guess if I had gone to the rink to just see him, I would have probably been disappointed because I have watched Macklin Celebrini come into the league. 11:02 John I've watched Jack Eichel come into the league. 11:05 John I've watched Adam Fantelli come into the league as underagers. 11:10 John And I didn't think he was even in the same class as those players. 11:15 John So I'm sure he'll end up being a stud, but I liked it because I'm a college hockey guy. 11:22 John And I think people think it's easy or they think they can just come here and take our jobs and take our women. 11:30 John And the fact that it's hard, I like that. 11:34 John You know, hey, they're older than you. 11:36 John They're stronger than you. 11:38 John And but yeah, I didn't notice him all that much. 11:40 John He seems like a power play guy right now. 11:42 Vegoe Yeah, he's definitely a perimeter power play guy. 11:45 Vegoe Even if you compare him to like a Logan Cooley, you know, Cooley had some struggles, but I think throughout the year, Cooley chose to impact the game so much more. 11:55 Vegoe You know, he would drive, play, carry the puck up the ice, use his speed. 11:59 Vegoe You know, he has a one man power play breakout that could just evade everybody and gain the zone pretty much every time. 12:06 Vegoe You know, you don't see that yet from McKenna. 12:09 Vegoe And I just wonder, you know, how he's going to round out his game. 12:12 Vegoe But it's good that College Hockey gets this because it shows to everyone else, hey, this is a pretty good game. 12:18 Vegoe It's a good step for guys to have these holes in their game exposed and they hopefully can solve them as they develop in college hockey. 12:28 Jûpe So we've got a 3-2 win Friday night, a 2-1 loss Saturday Veegs. 12:32 Jûpe Overall thoughts in the weekend? 12:34 Jûpe I know you talked to Bob today and John Middle said we've got audio out. 12:37 Jûpe If you guys haven't seen that on our YouTube page. 12:40 Jûpe What did he think? 12:42 Vegoe You know, he says guys are developing. 12:45 Vegoe He really likes the way Mason Moe and Jacob Rombach are playing right now. 12:50 Vegoe They've taken advantage of the opportunity to play big roles this year. 12:55 Vegoe And, you know, they're probably going to get more chances as this season goes on. 12:59 Vegoe You know, the biggest issue so far for this team is the penalty kill. 13:04 Vegoe It is something that is really not working for them. 13:09 Vegoe You watch the goals they're giving up. 13:13 Vegoe You know, they're giving away the ability ice. 13:14 Vegoe They're giving away scene passes. 13:16 Vegoe They're not reading shooters very well. 13:18 Vegoe They're sometimes committing two players to one guy. 13:22 Vegoe It's just not a strength of this program. 13:24 Vegoe And I think it's going to have to be. 13:26 Vegoe You can't afford to give up two, three penalty kill goals against a weekend. 13:31 Vegoe It's just not going to work for you. 13:33 Jûpe King, I don't remember this team being ever so bad on the, I mean, there's 60 second out of 63 teams in the NCAA. 13:40 Jûpe And the other team is a team that's like 0-10 Mercyhurst. 13:44 John You know, I've heard you talking about tossing the other middle stead on the PK. 13:49 John Have they done that yet? 13:51 Vegoe They haven't done that yet. 13:52 Vegoe You know, Motsko went to it without me even prompting them on Saturdays. 13:56 Vegoe Like, maybe it's time to change personnel. 13:58 Vegoe And I kind of pressed them today. 14:00 Vegoe It's like, you know, there's three games left in the season. 14:02 Vegoe When's the time to do that? 14:04 Vegoe And it's kind of hard if you get the sense of, you know, let's just finish out these three games and come back the second half with some personnel changes. 14:12 Vegoe But I think it's just something that the coaching staff is tired of coaching. 14:16 Vegoe If they've tried for four or five weekends in a row to correct some things and they're not seeing results on the ice consistently, you know, personnel is the next change to make. 14:26 Vegoe Because I think the systems are sound. 14:28 Vegoe Steve Miller is a pretty good coach. 14:30 Vegoe You know, Bob Motzko is a pretty good coach. 14:31 Vegoe They've done well at the World Junior level putting in penalty kills. 14:36 Vegoe Sometimes the players have to execute this. 14:38 Jûpe And consistency is the key there, Veegs. 14:40 Jûpe We saw against, you know, LIU, they give up, what, four power play goals in a game. 14:45 Jûpe The second night, they come back and they shut them out. 14:48 Jûpe And then same thing against Penn State. 14:49 Jûpe They do do really pretty good one game. 14:51 Jûpe They come back the next game and they don't. 14:55 Vegoe North Dakota, they held them without a power play goal. 14:59 Vegoe Notre Dame, different talent level, but they held them without a power play goal. 15:02 Vegoe So they've had some moments where it's been good, but you can't have that. 15:07 Vegoe It's got to be consistent. 15:10 Jûpe I'm looking at your list here, your bingo list. 15:14 John I got all kinds of stuff. 15:15 Jûpe Oh my goodness. 15:16 Jûpe Well, let's talk about the goaltending. 15:17 Jûpe You know, we look at Arian and Luca's numbers. 15:21 Jûpe Very similar, Kanger. 15:23 John Yeah, and I kind of thought we had a goaltending problem, I guess I was trying to kind of process, but it wouldn't seem to be. 15:33 John It should seem that we could score three goals and they're both over 900 on the save percentage. 15:40 John So I guess my question to you is, how is this thing going to play out? 15:46 John Is someone going to take the reins? 15:49 John How do you think the goalies have been? 15:51 John Because the hardest thing for me this season is we've played well at times and then we've really had tough weekends, but then the teams that beat us ended up beating everybody else. 16:03 John So College Hockey is weird. 16:06 John It's almost like everyone's going to be 500 at the end of the year and we're going to, I don't know, flip a coin or something. 16:12 John But what do you make of the goalies? 16:14 John I don't know who the guy is and who the guy isn't, I guess. 16:18 Jûpe Before you answer, Veegs, I want to kind of bring up a tweet you did today. 16:22 Jûpe You're talking about how, was it Penn State Gadowski? 16:26 Vegoe Yeah, Guy Gadowski. 16:28 Jûpe You cannot win without really good goaltending. 16:30 Jûpe It's become a really big deal in College Hockey. 16:34 Jûpe You can't cover it up anymore. 16:36 Jûpe So I kind of wanted to get your thoughts on that. 16:39 Vegoe Well, I think 900 goaltending isn't good enough anymore. 16:42 Vegoe You know, you need to have like a 930 goalie, 940 goalie to have a run. 16:49 Vegoe You look at the wild right now. 16:50 Vegoe They're getting great goaltending and obviously they're winning games. 16:54 Vegoe In college, if your goalie has an off night, it's going to be hard for you to overcome that. 16:58 Vegoe And especially in Minnesota right now, with so many young players and goals coming in and lower offensive struggles to the offensive, you know, usually Minnesota when they're struggling, they're able to outscore their mistakes. 17:11 Vegoe And they just don't have the horses right now to do that. 17:15 Vegoe And I don't think it's going to be that way at the end of the year. 17:18 Vegoe I look at the goaltending, you know, there's positives with both guys. 17:22 Vegoe Aerie is the bigger, more technical goalie. 17:25 Vegoe I thought he struggled a lot around the traffic in front of the crease and gave away the net quite a bit. 17:32 Vegoe He's been better at that. 17:34 Vegoe I do think he's lost sight of pucks a couple of times and almost given up on them because he can't see them. 17:41 Vegoe And he's got to find a way to battle through that as well. 17:44 Vegoe Like battling through traffic and screens. 17:46 Vegoe I think that's the next level for him to hit. 17:48 Vegoe Luca, a very dynamic, active goalie, smaller, more of a game reader. 17:55 Vegoe On the games he's been on, he's been really on. 17:58 Vegoe But he's also had nights when he's been off too. 18:00 Vegoe And being a smaller goalie and dealing with traffic, that can be a challenge for him. 18:05 Vegoe So I don't think either guy has really stepped forward and made a case to be number one yet. 18:09 Vegoe I think Aries may be slightly ahead. 18:12 Vegoe But again, like you can't have those soft goals. 18:15 Vegoe You got to be able to fight and see through traffic. 18:18 Jûpe And you got to be able to steal a game. 18:21 Jûpe You know, that game against Penn State was stealable to get the sweep last week at Veegs. 18:26 Jûpe I thought it was. 18:27 Vegoe Yeah, it's not against the rules for a goalie to T push across and stop a one-timer. 18:31 Vegoe You know, especially when you know that that's what Penn State wants to do. 18:35 Vegoe And Aries big enough. 18:37 Vegoe Sometimes you kind of wonder, you know, is he being too aggressive with his depth and he's too far out from his crease? 18:43 Vegoe Because when the puck moves across, if you can't get across and get on your angle, you got to play deeper in the net and hope that you can get there and just buy yourself that extra split second to get across. 18:54 Vegoe So, you know, he's a big goalie. 18:56 Vegoe I know they've been working on some of those things about pushing across and getting big and staying square because sometimes when they slide across and they go down, you know, they lose their angle. 19:05 Vegoe So it's just things they got to refine and get better at. 19:10 John Has that been a change, Vegoe, the 920, 930, the top goalies in college hockey? 19:16 John I remember Don used to just be like, give me a 900. 19:20 John I got horses. 19:22 John We'll take our chances. 19:23 John But is that what's happening if you looked around the league at the top teams? 19:27 John Are their goalies clipping at 915, 925? 19:31 Vegoe Yep, it's kind of been the trend. 19:32 Vegoe You know, goal scoring has been, I think, dropping a little bit across college hockey. 19:37 Vegoe And I think one thing we're seeing this year, we saw a lot of CHL goalies come into college hockey as well. 19:43 Vegoe And it just elevates the position. 19:45 Vegoe And, you know, the other thing with college hockey, it's usually quite a bit more structured than junior hockey. 19:51 Vegoe And so I think players have to overcome that as well and find ways to create better scoring chances or create scoring chances off of chaos. 20:00 Vegoe And I think that takes time with players as well. 20:03 Vegoe So you see the goalies dominate when they can see all the shots. 20:07 Vegoe Because when you get to D1 starting goalie, if they see the puck, most of the time, they should be able to stop it. 20:13 Vegoe That's kind of the rule. 20:15 Jûpe So if things don't change in the goaltending area, if they kind of keep back and forth, good games, bad games, whatever, is this something where Bob does bring in Carter Casey next fall? 20:27 Vegoe Potentially. 20:28 Vegoe You know, Carter Casey is having a great year for Medicine Hat in the CHL and he's going to get a ton of games. 20:34 Vegoe And if you don't have someone step forward by the end of the season, you might throw another guy in the mix and let the two returning guys say, hey, there's another goalie competing for the net. 20:45 Vegoe Just so you know. 20:47 Jûpe That would be interesting. 20:48 Jûpe That would be very interesting because we, Kanger, we know we've got a spot there. 20:52 Jûpe Weiss is graduating. 20:53 Jûpe Yes, he's just kind of a practice goalie, third goalie, but there will be an automatic spot there for another goalie. 21:00 John And I know Casey's hyped. 21:01 John He's a Minnesota kid. 21:02 John Is he a big body? 21:03 Vegoe Is he a what? 21:04 John Yes. 21:05 John How tall is he? 21:06 Vegoe I think he's 6'4, but he's young. 21:08 Vegoe He's a draft eligible this year, so he could still be growing. 21:11 Vegoe But he's a big guy. 21:13 John That's awesome. 21:14 Jûpe Penn State goalie was 6'6, this weekend. 21:16 Jûpe My gosh, that's 6'9, on escape. 21:18 Jûpe I noticed when he kind of back into the net, he even had a hard time just getting his butt underneath the bar. 21:24 Jûpe He was so big. 21:26 Jûpe Biggs is looking up the guy's name. 21:27 Jûpe I cannot remember his name. 21:28 Vegoe Kevin Reitler, the Swede. 21:30 Jûpe Reitler, yeah. 21:31 Jûpe Fleming played first night, I believe. 21:35 Jûpe Just a monster out there. 21:36 Jûpe Just a monster. 21:38 Jûpe And he needed it because he came up with some big saves, Biggs, to keep Minnesota from tying that game. 21:46 Vegoe By the way, I haven't seen 6'2, on Casey, but I think I've seen 6'3, 6'4, mentioned. 21:50 Vegoe I don't know what's going to be accurate. 21:51 Jûpe Over 6 foot, I think is good. 21:52 Jûpe He's big. 21:53 Jûpe Over 6 foot, so. 21:54 John We're going to go with 6'4. 21:58 Vegoe When he gets here. 21:59 John In a flannel shirt with an ax. 22:02 Jûpe Oh, boy. 22:04 John Bring them home. 22:05 John Bring them home. 22:06 John We need them. 22:09 Jûpe I'm thinking they should, but to be determined. 22:14 Jûpe To be determined. 22:15 Jûpe All right, Biggs, well, before we move forward and get to your top 20 this week, we need to talk about Gateway Fiber on the north side. 22:23 Jûpe Give them to everybody. 22:24 Jûpe Fiber, Biggs. 22:25 Vegoe Yeah, in Minnesota, where the state of hockey and a bad air net connection is like a bad line change. 22:31 Vegoe Slows everything down, causes chaos, might even lose you the game. 22:34 Vegoe We know that we're on The GPL Podcast. 22:36 Vegoe We got to have fast air now. 22:37 Vegoe We both had fiber and, you know, it's a great thing to have when you're on camera. 22:43 Vegoe So Gateway Fiber isn't just another provider. 22:45 Vegoe They're on your team. 22:46 Vegoe Visit gatewayfiber.com or call 1-888-201-4339 to see if Gateway Fiber is available in your area because life's too short for bad air net. 22:58 Jûpe All right. 22:59 Jûpe We thank Gateway Fiber for sponsoring The GPL Podcast. 23:03 Jûpe Let's go with Veegso's Top 20 this week. 23:06 Jûpe And you put the Badgers up top. 23:08 Jûpe And I think you're right on, Veegs. 23:11 Vegoe I was in the minority opinion. 23:14 Jûpe I think you were. 23:16 Jûpe Not many people voted for Wisconsin, but you did. 23:20 Jûpe And I think you're right on, even if it is the Badgers. 23:24 Vegoe Well, I think you go on the road and you sweep Michigan State. 23:27 Vegoe That's a pretty impressive thing to do. 23:29 Vegoe We saw Wisconsin play Minnesota. 23:31 Vegoe They look like a very solid group. 23:33 Vegoe Some of their transfers from Minnesota State, Tassie and Fitzgerald had off years last year. 23:39 Vegoe They dealt with a lot of injuries. 23:41 Vegoe They're playing much, much better this year. 23:43 Vegoe Mike Hastings has a bit of a formula with how he runs a program. 23:48 Vegoe They're starting to figure it out there and they're going to be a dangerous team. 23:52 Vegoe Brad Schlossman had Wisconsin as one of his top teams in his preseason poll. 23:56 Vegoe So credit to the godfather of college hockey. 23:59 Vegoe Schloss, once again, was right on something. 24:02 Jûpe Hard to believe. 24:04 Jûpe Hard to believe, yeah. 24:06 Jûpe Then there's Denver there. 24:07 Jûpe You have number two, I believe they're number four overall in the US-Tro poll, but they're still looking good too. 24:15 Vegoe Yeah, they've got the bad loss on their scheduled Lindenwood that Cappy was quick to point out when we were talking rankings. 24:21 Vegoe But I think a lot of teams in college hockey have bad losses if you look at it that way right now. 24:26 Vegoe Denver is getting a lot of offense from their back end. 24:29 Vegoe They've got a great coach, a little bit of a question mark and goal, but they played very well. 24:34 Vegoe I don't give them too many negative points for going to overtime against Arizona State this last weekend, like some people seem to. 24:42 Jûpe King, that comes back to what you were saying earlier. 24:45 Jûpe This season is just weird. 24:47 Jûpe There's a lot of weird losses, teams winning and then losing to weird games. 24:51 Jûpe It's just an odd season. 24:53 John Well, do you think there's some go for hate too? 24:57 John If you look at us, we've beat North Dakota, we've beat Penn State, you know, we and no, not even a vote. 25:05 John I always look in the others receiving vote, like looking for a little road kill on the side or something. 25:12 John Nothing. 25:13 John So people are just, I think people enjoy it when we're down. 25:18 Jûpe There's some 500. 25:20 Jûpe There's three games below 500. 25:22 John You can't tell me that the Gophers can't beat some of these teams on the bottom of this list, come on. 25:30 Jûpe Maybe, but there are also 41st in the NPI ratings. 25:35 John Yeah, I don't know. 25:36 John I just think they just got to string some together. 25:40 Jûpe That is true. 25:42 Vegoe I think that's the biggest thing for Minnesota to show back up in the polls is to get some wins, increase their NPI rating, give them more than just moral victories. 25:52 Vegoe If they would have swept Penn State this last weekend, it would have helped a ton, I think. 25:56 John So the schedule they play is insane though. 25:59 John I mean, if you look at the Wisconsin, Duluth, North Dakota, the Big Ten is awesome. 26:05 John Right. 26:05 John I mean, it is a gauntlet. 26:07 John So if you're trying to cook it in the crockpot like Bob is, it's going to be a little scary from time to time. 26:15 Jûpe But you got the Michigan schools there, Veegs. 26:18 Jûpe They face each other this weekend. 26:20 Jûpe I know Michigan State just beat, who did they beat tonight? 26:27 Jûpe I can't remember. 26:27 Jûpe They beat one of the C teams. 26:28 Jûpe I can't remember. 26:31 Jûpe They beat them 5-2, I believe. 26:32 Jûpe I can't remember. 26:33 Jûpe It was just Colgate and one of the C teams. 26:36 Jûpe One of the C teams. 26:37 Jûpe Yeah. 26:37 Jûpe One of the C teams. 26:38 Jûpe So obviously, they're up there. 26:40 Jûpe Another Western Michigan team, Western Michigan. 26:44 Jûpe It's all West Veegs. 26:45 Jûpe It's all Big Ten, NCHC, all the way until you get to Quinnipiac, which squeaked out a win over Holy Cross tonight. 26:54 Vegoe Yeah. 26:54 Vegoe They swept Clarkson and St. 26:58 Vegoe Lawrence last weekend. 27:00 Vegoe They had that bad loss to Yale that was surprising to me. 27:04 Vegoe Quinnipiac was quoted as playing with absolutely zero confidence by Rand Pecknold after that game. 27:11 Vegoe He really went after his guys in the media, which you just don't see very often. 27:16 Vegoe Quinnipiac, they're the favorite ECAC for the last five years. 27:22 Vegoe They will be decent, but Rand has his hands full right now. 27:28 Jûpe Anything else stand out for you on that poll? 27:30 Jûpe You got Dartmouth slowly creeping up. 27:34 Jûpe I guess we'll see if they play some more games. 27:36 Vegoe Yeah. 27:36 Vegoe It's just hard. 27:37 Vegoe You know, the Eastern teams are super inconsistent, and they have not done well. 27:41 Vegoe They don't do very well in our MPI, you know, BCBU, very talented teams, a lot of draft picks, but they just haven't been able to really be consistent. 27:51 Vegoe They're very similar to Minnesota, I think, but just they're above 500 and under. 27:56 Vegoe So I think that just kind of changes the perception of everybody. 28:00 Vegoe I do wonder what we're going to see at Bemidji State. 28:02 Vegoe You know, they've had some nice wins. 28:03 Vegoe They're definitely a really older team in College Hockey this year. 28:07 Vegoe And you know, Sertori always does well when he recruits guys to Bemidji. 28:13 Jûpe All right. 28:15 Jûpe Any teams to look out for? 28:17 Vegoe You know, Minnesota, you know, they're right there. 28:19 Vegoe If they have a good showing here with Denver this next weekend, they could pop back up. 28:25 Vegoe You know, it's kind of interesting. 28:26 Vegoe Massachusetts, Miami, CC, St. 28:28 Vegoe Cloud State, they all had bad weekends last weekend, you know, because they started all so well too. 28:33 Vegoe Yeah, they all started well and kind of tanked. 28:36 Vegoe So it's a weird year College Hockey. 28:39 Vegoe You know, we look at the NHL standings. 28:41 Vegoe They're very compressed this year compared to the last couple of years. 28:44 Vegoe I think College Hockey is the same. 28:46 Vegoe Like you're just seeing, you know, teams that are going to be battling close to 500 for a lot of the year, I think. 28:53 Jûpe Okay. 28:54 Jûpe Okay. 28:55 Jûpe Well, the news, Spittin Chicklets kind of did a podcast recently, Veegs, where old Mason West said he wasn't even contacted by Minnesota. 29:08 Jûpe How do you feel about that? 29:11 Vegoe Well, it's certainly an interesting way to go viral. 29:15 Vegoe I think it's one of the more talked about, Spittin Chicklets, College Hockey things in quite a while here. 29:23 Vegoe Mason West is a great story, you know, he died in a kid, you know, a little town on the west side with a dream, winning championships, you know, calling his shot in football, calling his shot in hockey, and, you know, first round pick of the Blackhawks, kind of a late bloomer for hockey, though. 29:39 Vegoe I think, you know, if you look back two years ago, people were still thinking, is he going to get a P4, P5 offer to play quarterback? 29:48 Vegoe And it seems like that's what he wants to do. 29:51 Vegoe So if you look at him through that lens, I don't know if he fit Minnesota. 29:57 Vegoe You know, you look at the recruits the Gophers have coming in the next couple of years, it's pretty stacked with committed hockey players who have, you know, shown that they're kind of at the top of the recruiting class for a while here. 30:09 Vegoe And, you know, Mason West, he's a big player. 30:13 Vegoe Those guys typically take some time to develop. 30:16 Vegoe You know, you look at Charlie Strammel, you know, kind of flamed out in his years at Wisconsin. 30:22 Vegoe Now, three years later, he's doing really well at Michigan State. 30:25 Vegoe You look at Beckett Hendrickson, kind of struggled a little bit last year, starting to find his footing this year, but I wouldn't say he's a dominant player yet. 30:34 Vegoe You look at Javon Moore, another big physical player, you know, still kind of figuring things out in college. 30:40 Vegoe And you can't have a whole pipeline of guys like that. 30:44 Vegoe It makes it hard to be successful. 30:46 Vegoe So I can see why Mason West wasn't a top target for Minnesota a couple of years ago. 30:53 Jûpe As an Edina guy, Kinger, how do you feel about Mason West going to Michigan State? 30:59 John Well you know, I mean, Edina is known as a football school. 31:05 Jûpe Come on, with the first title in like 45 years? 31:09 John Hey, I was all conference honorable mention. 31:14 John I basically played for the Crimson Tide at this point. 31:18 John No, here's my insight on the, and I'm surprised people forget this context. 31:24 John The Gophers have like 70 Dina guys on the team when Bob took over. 31:28 John This was right when things were not good, and Bob comes in from St. 31:35 John Cloud. 31:35 John He's a blue collar guy. 31:38 John We got Jimmy Clark, nice player, big fan of Jimmy. 31:41 John But I think all that stuff's connected. 31:44 John I mean, when he got into the program, I think we had six or seven hornets on the team at one time. 31:52 John Remember all those guys? 31:53 John It was just, you know, Edina Metro, right? 31:57 John And so, but I think he's an awesome player. 32:01 John When I watched him in the tournament last year, and he almost single-handedly, you know, got to that Moorhead team with the hat trick, and that was a special team. 32:13 John I hope Mason comes back. 32:16 John I, you were looking at what's happened in Moorhead, all these kids splitting from the CHL and Detroit, and they're coming home to play. 32:27 John St. 32:27 John Thomas is stacked. 32:28 John Hill Murray is stacked. 32:30 John I would love nothing more than Mason West just goes, you know what, bill at home, Fargo, soggy subs. 32:38 John No, I'm Mr. 32:39 John West. 32:41 John Cut this and put it on the internet. 32:42 John Hey Mason, you were a big man on campus. 32:45 John You were living a television show. 32:49 John Come home and play another year of high school hockey. 32:52 John What are you doing? 32:53 John You're still going to be there. 32:54 John Michigan State is still going to be there. 32:56 John I don't know. 32:56 John That's what I would do if I were him. 32:59 Jûpe Well, he just won a football championship, Veegs. 33:02 Jûpe The Chicklets were talking about that too when he wasn't even on. 33:05 Jûpe How they love the Minnesota setup, kids playing for their schools, for their towns, multiple sports. 33:13 Jûpe What a great example Mason West is of that. 33:17 John He's won a hockey championship. 33:18 John He lost the state championship in football, going to that same running back, I believe, that had the 350 yards and six touchdowns. 33:27 John Scataboo. 33:28 Vegoe Who's the goalie on the hockey team as well. 33:31 John By the way, when does a goalie look like Cam Scataboo? 33:34 John This guy was unbelievable. 33:36 Vegoe He's also one of the top baseball players in the state. 33:39 John Let's go. 33:40 John It's amazing. 33:41 John USA Hockey. 33:43 John Get them playing everything. 33:44 John I love it. 33:44 John Yeah. 33:45 John No, I mean, whatever. 33:46 John We missed them. 33:47 John You know, let's get the young Cullen. 33:49 John Let's get these other guys. 33:51 John And there's lots of good hockey players, but I wish them nothing but the best to come from a community that's cobbling it together like Edina and, you know, trying to get through. 34:03 Jûpe Those poor Edina cake eaters. 34:06 John Now, big fan. 34:07 John Congrats on the state title. 34:09 John All of my buddies, we were all watching it. 34:11 John It was awesome. 34:12 Vegoe But one more thing on West. 34:14 Vegoe When he went to the USHL for his after part of last season, I think there were a lot of NHL scouts who were really curious to see how he'd look at that level. 34:24 Vegoe You know, we look at sports, you know, when you're 6'6, 220, I kind of expect you to go to the state high school tournament and score two, three goals in the championship game. 34:34 Vegoe You know, if you're that big, that athletic, that talented, you know, as you go up, you know, everybody else gets better too. 34:41 Vegoe And so just seeing how players perform and get challenged at stages like that, I was very impressed with how he played at Fargo. 34:48 Vegoe I thought he looked good. 34:49 Vegoe I just think that he's a player. 34:51 Vegoe You know, if he does come back to high school, you know, he might need to play another year in the USHL before he goes to Michigan State or it's going to be really hard because it's quite the jump. 35:01 Vegoe There have been very rare cases of kids who go right from high school to college and do well. 35:07 Jûpe It's been a while. 35:08 Jûpe It has been a while. 35:10 Jûpe And that's when teams were younger, back in the woog years, back in the 90s, it was more common. 35:15 Jûpe Now not so much. 35:18 Vegoe It's okay to be patient. 35:19 Vegoe You don't have to rush. 35:22 Jûpe Well, maybe they want them for the football team at Michigan State too. 35:25 Vegoe He joked on the show that, you know, if they need a scout team quarterback, if Nightingale lets him, he definitely wanted to do it. 35:33 Jûpe Wow. 35:33 John I agree. 35:37 Jûpe I'd love to see it. 35:38 Jûpe I would love to see him. 35:39 Jûpe If he could play multiple sports, college, which is less common these days, I would love to see it. 35:47 Jûpe Just love to see it. 35:51 Jûpe Veegs, have you been working on your Thanksgiving? 35:54 Jûpe You probably have done most of your shopping. 35:56 Jûpe You probably have it all done now. 35:57 Jûpe You're ready for tomorrow? 35:58 Vegoe I would hope I have it all done. 35:59 Jûpe Well, you never know. 36:01 Jûpe Sometimes you can get late, but I'm kind of moving in to talking about Cub here, and I'm kind of curious. 36:07 Jûpe What was on your list this year with Cub foods? 36:10 Vegoe I mean, the biggest thing for Cub foods is when I'm shopping for Thanksgiving, there's certain ingredients that you don't want to be hunting around for. 36:19 Vegoe When you go to Cub, you know they've got you covered. 36:22 Vegoe I got the fresh thyme, the fresh rosemary, the fresh, all the herbs that you want. 36:30 Vegoe You want to get that bundle of spices. 36:32 Vegoe I know they were on sale, two for five at Cub. 36:35 Vegoe I wanted to get a nice little appetizer tray. 36:37 Vegoe I wanted to get some of those Jimmy's dips. 36:39 Vegoe I wanted to get some celery, some carrots, some cherry tomatoes, all right there, great produce section. 36:45 Vegoe We're going to be entertaining this weekend at my house, and I went to the Quarry Cub and stocked up because they're local. 36:52 Vegoe They're one of us. 36:53 Vegoe They support us. 36:54 Vegoe They support U of M Athletics, and nothing says fall in Minnesota like comfort food from Cub. 37:00 Vegoe Shop happy. 37:03 Jûpe Hopefully, it's going to be big on Instagram tomorrow. 37:05 Jûpe Let's see some of that stuff you've been making up. 37:07 Vegoe Yeah, it should be a big day. 37:09 Vegoe I've got the Google Doc now where I have the timing of everything I do for the meal. 37:15 Jûpe Oh, wow. 37:16 Vegoe You know, I had my my 830. 37:18 Vegoe I take out the the Parker's Roads rolls or whatever the night before. 37:22 Vegoe So they rise and I get all, you know, those are so good. 37:26 Vegoe They're so good. 37:27 Vegoe Like you get 44 of them. 37:29 Vegoe And it might not be enough for eight people. 37:31 Vegoe You know, you have to make an extra batch. 37:34 John Do you wear an apron or do you put any gear on? 37:37 Vegoe Yeah, I'll put I'll throw on the apron. 37:39 Vegoe I've got my nice craftsman apron thing that I've got going with the leather straps. 37:45 Vegoe It's it's good. 37:45 Vegoe It's got lots of pockets. 37:47 John I like that. 37:50 Jûpe Yeah. 37:50 Jûpe Well, what do you make in this year? 37:53 Jûpe I probably get the turkey. 37:54 Jûpe But what's what's coming together at the Veegso house? 37:58 Vegoe I mean, classics turkey stuffing with sausage. 38:02 Vegoe I know that's controversial, but I don't like it. 38:03 Jûpe No, I like it with sausage. 38:04 Jûpe I like it. 38:05 Jûpe Yeah. 38:06 Vegoe Meal mashed potatoes with the confit garlic in there. 38:11 Vegoe A must. 38:13 Vegoe I got the rolls. 38:14 Vegoe I got the brussels sprouts with the shallots and a little bit of bacon, a little bit of maple. 38:19 Vegoe It's roasted. 38:20 Vegoe They don't even taste like brussels. 38:21 Vegoe They're just like vegetable candy. 38:24 Jûpe Yeah, I know. 38:24 Jûpe But it's a it's a psychological thing. 38:27 Jûpe You know, brussels sprouts tasted different in the 80s. 38:30 Vegoe They did stuffing on the side. 38:32 Vegoe It's a totally separate dish. 38:33 Vegoe It's just it's going in the big dutch oven. 38:36 Vegoe It's cooking separate. 38:37 Vegoe I've got the pumpkin pie going. 38:40 Vegoe I've got the good appetizers with the jimmies, the celery, the carrots, the tomatoes. 38:46 Vegoe And then I've got the Norwegian smoked salmon with a couple different kinds of mustard going. 38:52 Vegoe I've got some red table salami going with some Land O'Lakes cheese, keeping it local there. 38:59 Vegoe Of course, we'll have some great beverages throughout the day. 39:02 Vegoe I'm looking forward to it. 39:03 Vegoe It's one of my favorite days of the year. 39:05 John You should put yourself in the top 20 after listening. 39:10 John Top 10, maybe. 39:11 John That, invite me over. 39:13 John That sounds outstanding. 39:14 Jûpe We had people messaging us during the show last week. 39:18 Jûpe They want to know what VEGES is making for Thanksgiving. 39:20 Jûpe They want to know. 39:21 Jûpe They actually wanted a list for, they could take the cub so they can go get the same stuff. 39:26 Vegoe I've got a Google Doc. 39:27 Vegoe Maybe I'm going to have to start putting it together. 39:29 Vegoe The VEGO Thanksgiving. 39:34 Jûpe Oh, boy, that would be trouble. 39:36 Jûpe What's your Thanksgiving looking like tomorrow, there, Kinger? 39:40 John Going to my brother's. 39:42 John My wife has been chipping in for my sister-in-law, so she spent a lot of time cooking. 39:49 John There will be deviled eggs. 39:50 John I'm gluten-free, which is a hazard. 39:54 John As I understand it, she made a pie crust out of chocolate chip gluten-free cookies, and I'm going to have a little key lime, gluten-free pie. 40:03 John We got the stuffing, the gravy. 40:06 Jûpe Lofty lime. 40:07 John I'm a big gravy guy, turkey. 40:10 John I think I'm going to try to bring Manhattan's as the signature cocktail. 40:15 John I've got to pick up a couple of ingredients. 40:17 John But yeah, he's hosting 130 Start. 40:21 John I like to start early. 40:23 John I would even start earlier than that if I could. 40:25 John But yeah, it's my favorite holiday. 40:28 John It's the best. 40:30 John It's so great. 40:32 Vegoe I'm a little later because of all the cooking involved. 40:35 Vegoe But I also have a good gravy that I do from the turkey drippings because you get the roasting pan, you throw in the white wine, you get the roux going, you thicken it up. 40:44 Vegoe Just it's a must. 40:44 Vegoe You got to have gravy on everything. 40:46 John And amazing football games tomorrow. 40:48 John Usually they're bad. 40:49 John All right, we got Eagles, Bears, we got Joe Burrow coming back against the Ravens. 40:53 John You got Chiefs, Cowboys, it is a slate, man. 40:57 Jûpe Well, it's always been bad because Detroit's been bad for centuries. 41:02 John But it's going to be great. 41:03 John All three games are good tomorrow. 41:04 John It's going to be a blast. 41:07 Vegoe Motor City kiddies are roaring this year. 41:10 Jûpe Not as good as last year, but they've been better the last couple of years. 41:15 Jûpe So that's good for them and good for Thursday football, I'll tell you that. 41:20 Vegoe So, Kinger, I just got to ask one question on the Manhattans. 41:24 Vegoe Are you okay with a Manhattan spritzer? 41:26 Vegoe Because it's a long day, you know. 41:29 Vegoe So you take your Manhattan mix and add a little soda water to them every once in a while, just to keep the day in rounds? 41:36 John Well, I'm not a communist. 41:38 John I don't think that I would do that. 41:40 John Oh my God. 41:41 John It's an American. 41:43 John No, I would taper. 41:45 John I like to get out of the gates quick, like a first-time LASIK course, right? 41:50 John Like just flying. 41:52 John Then I'll just taper. 41:53 John I'll just go into the long drinks, go into the seltzers and just ride the wave. 42:02 John But I like coming out. 42:03 John I like to get all warm and cozy. 42:07 John Manhattan just tastes like bourbon, let's be honest. 42:11 John I like bourbon, right? 42:12 John So get the good ice. 42:16 John I love it, man. 42:17 John I like Woodford is my bourbon. 42:19 John I like there's lots of good ones, but there's a new Knob Creek Maple that you should try, that is outstanding as well. 42:26 John But hey, can I ask you a hockey thing on the CHL deal? 42:31 John So where does this go, right? 42:34 John So I was looking at the top 10 scorers in the country. 42:39 John Plant, Minnesotan, Hughes is from Canada, the other plant, Minnesota, Corrado, whatever, from Penn State, American player, Horcoff, American player, Flamary, Minnesotan, Hague is a Canadian. 42:53 John But all these Canadians, they were USHL guys coming up the normal path. 42:59 John Gaffney, American, Schimek is a Minnesotan, Peer is a Canadian. 43:05 John I don't see a single CHL player dominating the stat sheet in the entire NCAA. 43:12 John I mean, what am I missing? 43:14 Jûpe Well, they're mostly all freshmen too. 43:17 John I know, but like... 43:18 Jûpe I mean, and you look at that list, what a lot of them are sophomores, aren't they? 43:23 Jûpe A lot of them are. 43:24 John Yes, yes. 43:25 John But I'm just trying to figure out, does this settle down, right? 43:31 John Because you start to feel like Doug Woog with the pride on ice, we're only going to take Minnesotans, right? 43:36 John Like how do you look at Clemson, right? 43:38 John So Dabo didn't play in the portal and he's had a rough goal, and it's a very similar narrative to what Bob's been saying, like, hey, I'm going to stick with my guys. 43:49 John I'm a good coach. 43:50 John It's a good program. 43:51 John But I just wonder, what does this look like? 43:54 John Because it used to be, you knew the path, high school, juniors, college. 44:00 John If you wanted to see the Olympians, the great American players are typically playing college hockey onto the NHL. 44:07 John Is it going to be just thrown in a blender and everyone's going to Canada to play juniors and coming back down or what do you think happens? 44:15 Vegoe Well, I think players are going to play for the program that's the best fit for them. 44:19 Vegoe They're going to have more options now. 44:21 Vegoe They can go play for CHL team. 44:25 Vegoe Not a lot of people want Badmouth, Omaha and the USHL, but that's been a very challenging franchise for players to go to the last couple of years. 44:32 Vegoe They've had so much turnover with their coaching staff and their management, their owner, if that was your only choice, you just kind of work your way through it. 44:42 Vegoe Now, maybe you can go up to Medicine Hat and play there instead, so you have options. 44:48 Vegoe Now, I think all the junior teams have to be more about providing a good experience for their players. 44:55 Vegoe I've seen a lot of USHL teams be like, oh yeah, now we have team meals all the time. 45:00 Vegoe You're going to get nutrition. 45:02 Vegoe We're going to bring in a skills coach or a video coach. 45:06 Vegoe I think the same thing is happening in the CHL is they're trying to provide a better experience for their players so that players after high school or midget or whatever are going to go somewhere to play junior. 45:18 Vegoe Because I think the biggest impact of this, it's going to be really hard to play College Hockey as an 18-year-old. 45:25 Vegoe You're going to have to be like a Gavin McKenna or Keaton Verhoff. 45:30 Vegoe You're going to have to be like a top 15 type talent to make it and make an impact. 45:36 Vegoe Otherwise, that school is just bringing you in early and developing you and taking the lumps for the year. 45:42 Vegoe I think it just extends the timeline for so many players that makes it more competitive for roster spots everywhere. 45:49 Jûpe Veegs, we've talked about it already this season that these CHL players have come down, all new experiences for them, they're going to be like, whoa, we are getting all the bells and whistles here. 45:59 Jûpe We are playing at much nicer arenas. 46:01 Jûpe We're getting more practice, more great food, more attention than riding a bus all over Canada. 46:11 Jûpe These guys are going to go back and talk to their buddies and say, hey, give this a second thought instead of staying up there. 46:16 Vegoe Well, I'm sure like Casey up in medicine had is telling guys about college hockey. 46:20 Vegoe I'm sure Kwasnicka is in Penticton in the WHL. 46:24 Vegoe I'm sure he's talking about college hockey and all that stuff. 46:27 Vegoe But guys like that, they got to pick their spots where they were going to go. 46:32 Vegoe It was a good opportunity for them to play. 46:34 Vegoe I think a lot of these Canadian guys, they can maybe, if they wanted to go to college or out, they could play for a local CHL team rather than going with a billet team 10 hours away just because that was the only way they could get to college hockey. 46:48 Vegoe Now, they get to stay closer to home, which I think most parents would agree is better for the kid. 46:56 Vegoe Sometimes maybe kid needs to be sent away and live with a billet and toughen up and get more responsibility. 47:02 Vegoe But I think being close to your family is something that's priceless and now players are able to do that. 47:12 Jûpe It's still going to be a big wait and see. 47:14 Jûpe It really is, especially with Bob Biggs. 47:18 Vegoe Well, I think when you're a program like Minnesota, it allows you to recruit differently in down years for local talent. 47:27 Vegoe If the CHL Gates had opened up two or three years ago, I don't know if you'd see as many holes in the Minnesota lineup right now as they've had to plug into, because they would have been able to establish relationships and figured it out. 47:42 Vegoe Because they grabbed Leo Gruber from another school. 47:46 Vegoe They grabbed Finn McLaughlin from another school. 47:48 Vegoe They grabbed DePasquale from another school. 47:51 Vegoe They grabbed Tanner Ludke. 47:54 Vegoe That's how they chose to do things differently. 47:58 Vegoe If you could plan that out earlier, maybe you wouldn't have to do those kinds of things. 48:04 Jûpe All right. 48:04 Jûpe Well, let's get into this weekend. 48:05 Jûpe Heading out to Denver for the Hall of Fame game, VEGS. 48:10 Jûpe We found out earlier this week that this game is going to be on Fox 9+. 48:14 Jûpe They're picking up probably altitude or whatever network is covering out there. 48:19 Jûpe Stream will still be on NCHETV, so you pretty much need to either do that or watch it locally here. 48:25 Jûpe But that's definitely a positive. 48:27 Jûpe That wasn't originally on the schedule either. 48:30 Vegoe Yeah. 48:30 Vegoe Great that Fox 9 has stepped up in carrying these games. 48:34 Vegoe They're carrying other programs feeds, but that's great that they can get them on the airways. 48:40 Vegoe Denver is a team that's been on pretty much a roll. 48:43 Vegoe Other than this overtime loss to Arizona State, they have quite the streak in regulation going. 48:48 Vegoe They've won a bunch of games and they're getting great production from their blue line. 48:53 Vegoe Eric Polkamp was a kid who went to Bemidji and transferred to Denver. 48:57 Vegoe He's their leading scorer as a defenseman. 49:00 Vegoe He is a guy, I think he's Bemidji's first player ever to play in the World Juniors that was American. 49:06 Vegoe He was the top player in the CCHA as a D and he got the opportunity to go to Denver. 49:12 Vegoe He took it and he is just running with it right now. 49:15 Vegoe I mean, it's not very often you see a team that's ranked highly where their top two scores are both D. 49:22 Vegoe I think they've got 15 goals from their defenseman. 49:25 Vegoe That's probably one of the reasons why Finn McLaughlin was available to Minnesota is because Denver has the stack blue line core that they didn't have room for one more player. 49:34 Vegoe So they had to delay him and Minnesota took him. 49:37 Vegoe So it'll be interesting. 49:38 Vegoe There's a lot of Minnesota connections on the Denver roster. 49:42 Vegoe Hagen Burroughs is on there, Jake Fisher, the other Whipple brothers on the roster there. 49:49 Vegoe So a lot of connections there. 49:52 Jûpe I'm just looking forward to seeing Denver play Minnesota, the Kinger, because we haven't played them since they left the WCHA. 50:01 John Oh, I think it's gonna be great. 50:02 John You get a little Zeev Boo-yum vibes kind of going through, and I think Carl's a stud. 50:08 John I think he's just a... 50:10 John I've heard him on some podcasts, and I'm like, this is a leader of men. 50:14 John I mean, this guy is running a program in Denver. 50:18 John And I think it's great. 50:20 John It's got that staggered start. 50:21 John So you got the wild game against... 50:23 John Wait, Denver? 50:24 John Yeah, sorry, you got the wild game against Buffalo at seven. 50:26 John You get the Denver Minnesota game at eight, I think. 50:30 John I love the little double screen kind of switch. 50:35 Jûpe I think they could have done it better, though. 50:37 Jûpe If they would have done it Friday, I think Minnesota is at Denver on Friday. 50:41 Jûpe Aren't the wild at Denver on Friday? 50:43 John No, it's at home against Avalanche 245. 50:45 John Oh, yeah. 50:48 Jûpe Maybe they should have put it on the road. 50:51 Jûpe Well, then it's on a doubleheader. 50:52 John But one question, just a macro. 50:58 John So say we beat Denver. 51:00 John I don't know exactly how good Ohio State is. 51:02 John We start cooking a little bit here. 51:05 John I'm just staring at this Frozen 4 in Las Vegas for God's sake. 51:08 John Oh, boy. 51:09 John I've been going to all these other ones, and now it's finally in Vegas, and this is going to be the year that we don't go. 51:17 John I know the Frozen 4 is a long ways away because you got to get to the tournament first, but is it possible with the Big Ten being as good as it is that you start... 51:28 John I mean, you're going to have to just sweep people, right? 51:31 John You can't go... 51:32 John You can't get splits, right? 51:33 John You got to sweep. 51:35 Vegoe I think you're going to be able to split in the Big Ten. 51:38 Vegoe You need some sweeps, I think, but Minnesota could be that team that doesn't get above 500 and could still make the tournament. 51:47 Vegoe The key for them is they have to get wins against teams like Denver. 51:50 Vegoe They have to get wins against teams like Michigan State, Wisconsin, you know, in the second half, Michigan, they're going to have to play well against them. 51:57 Vegoe But if they get wins against those teams, it's going to help. 52:01 Vegoe And Minnesota has already got great strength of schedule. 52:04 Vegoe I think it was number two last time I looked. 52:06 Vegoe Very impressive. 52:07 Vegoe And the Big Ten did very well in auto conference games. 52:12 Vegoe So the league has a decent chance to get four, possibly five player teams into the NCAA tournament. 52:19 John That would be great. 52:20 John I don't want to have to win the tournament. 52:22 John That's no good. 52:23 John That is not. 52:24 Jûpe They got to get to 500 first. 52:26 Jûpe So, you know, these next three games are pretty key at getting to 500 leagues. 52:30 Jûpe If they can win all those games. 52:32 Vegoe Yeah, if they could have pulled off Saturday against Penn State, you know, it's a very different picture. 52:36 Vegoe You know, it gets them closer. 52:38 Vegoe And, you know, to lose that one was really tough, especially the way they lost it. 52:42 Vegoe You know, the too many men on the ice penalty. 52:45 Vegoe Really, you just can't have that happen. 52:50 Jûpe Yeah, that wasn't good. 52:53 Vegoe I wouldn't watched it back. 52:55 Vegoe And you just see the Pritchard heading to the bench with his hand up. 53:00 Vegoe And he sees like something where that he might have to go back and play defense. 53:04 Vegoe But the Gophers actually get possession of the puck and Zimmer just jumps on and joins the rush. 53:10 Vegoe And that's an obvious call. 53:12 Jûpe And yeah, I was right there in the photo box when it happened. 53:15 Jûpe And I was like, why have your hand up? 53:18 Jûpe Like, oh, no. 53:23 Jûpe It was not good. 53:24 Vegoe It was had to do a great finish that weekend. 53:25 Vegoe But oh, well, on to Denver, a hundred ever. 53:30 Jûpe You know, they're not playing at Denver. 53:32 Jûpe They're playing at a ball arena now. 53:34 John Veegs. 53:35 Vegoe Yep. 53:35 Vegoe It's where the abs play. 53:36 Vegoe So it gets the big, big show building. 53:38 Vegoe So it should be fun. 53:40 John I'm calling for a win. 53:42 John I think we have to make a prediction here, right? 53:44 John Not because I think we will necessarily, but we need to. 53:48 John And hearing a team described as having all their scoring come from their back end, that sounds like I'm writing left-handed. 53:59 John That doesn't sound like what you say when things are going wrong, but you're still winning. 54:04 John So I'm hoping that we'll get this one against Denver. 54:08 John What do you guys got? 54:11 Jûpe Go ahead, Veegs. 54:11 Jûpe Go ahead. 54:12 Jûpe Let's go. 54:13 Vegoe You know, talking to Tanner Ludke after the weekend, this guy has got it. 54:21 Vegoe He's going to be a coach someday, I think, after he's done playing hockey. 54:24 Vegoe He just understands the game really well. 54:27 Vegoe And he was telling me, you know, how the team has started to evolve this season and how guys are getting it. 54:34 Vegoe And they're being intentional with their play and their positive nature. 54:38 Vegoe And I just think the last couple of weekends, it's been bad bounces that have been hurting Minnesota a little bit and putting them behind. 54:47 Vegoe And they haven't been able to consistently come out on top. 54:51 Vegoe They just need a night where they don't have a bad bounce and they can just play hockey free. 54:57 Vegoe And I feel like that's coming this weekend with the big game in Denver. 55:02 Vegoe And I think this is a game the Gophers can win. 55:05 Vegoe It's just one game. 55:06 Vegoe They can just focus on one game. 55:10 Vegoe Three, two, win. 55:11 Jûpe You got me all excited now. 55:13 Jûpe I don't know. 55:14 Jûpe I'm going to say overtime win. 55:20 Jûpe So it'll go down 60% or whatever it is. 55:23 Jûpe I don't know what neutral side is. 55:25 Vegoe I've heard Denver's D can't play 3 on 3 OT, so that should be good for the Gophers. 55:30 John Oh, especially with Mooney running around, man. 55:33 John Let's go. 55:34 Vegoe Yeah, that would be fun. 55:36 Jûpe I'm saying overtime win, which is whatever in the NPI. 55:44 Jûpe Yeah, I like it. 55:46 Jûpe I like it. 55:48 Jûpe So what are the beverages of choice coming up for overtime? 55:51 Jûpe This is our Thanksgiving episode. 55:53 Jûpe I've got some beverage for myself here. 55:57 Jûpe Veegs, you'll show yours off in a bit. 55:59 Jûpe What are you going to tease us with, King? 56:01 Jûpe Or what have you got going? 56:03 John God, I should go. 56:04 Jûpe He's looking. 56:05 Jûpe He's looking. 56:07 John Well, yeah, I do. 56:08 John This Veegsgoe will appreciate this. 56:10 John All right. 56:11 Jûpe Let's see what you got here. 56:13 Jûpe He's probably going to knock over something. 56:15 Jûpe No, don't do that. 56:16 Jûpe Oh boy. 56:18 Jûpe What is that? 56:18 Jûpe Buffalo Trace? 56:22 Jûpe Oh boy. 56:24 John I had dinner with Booker Noe in Claremont, Kentucky. 56:28 John He's dead now, but he was Jim Beam's grandson. 56:32 John In Jim Beam's house, this is a signed bottle of Beam. 56:35 John Oh my gosh. 56:37 John Booker is the big boy down here. 56:40 John He made me some Cornish game when I was a young advertising guy. 56:44 John So I think I'm going to have a, we got to beat Denver. 56:46 John So I think I'm going to sip on some of this seven-year Beam with Booker's John Hancock. 56:52 Jûpe Oh my goodness. 56:53 Jûpe That's definitely worthy of overtime. 56:55 Jûpe That's more than worthy of overtime. 56:56 John Overtime is going to be great. 56:57 John We got a three to three wild game. 57:00 Jûpe Oh really? 57:01 John Faber's on the score sheet. 57:02 John Rinzel's on the score sheet. 57:04 Jûpe Oh, good Minnesota day. 57:06 John Yeah. 57:06 John So if you want to settle in, let's go. 57:11 Jûpe Well thanks for coming on the show again. 57:13 Jûpe It's your fifth time. 57:15 John Let's go. 57:15 John I'm like Alec Baldwin. 57:16 Vegoe You get a jacket for this, I think. 57:19 John You guys do a hell of a job. 57:20 John I love listening. 57:22 John You make me smarter about College Hockey. 57:24 John You do such a good job. 57:25 John So I know that I'm speaking for all the listeners, but really happy to be working with you guys. 57:31 John So thank you. 57:32 Jûpe Well, we are definitely happy about it too. 57:34 Jûpe I mean, like I said, this is our 15th season Veegs. 57:37 Jûpe I don't, we're longer than any other College Hockey podcast. 57:40 Jûpe Most of them come or gone. 57:42 Vegoe We're just keep continuing to put in the work. 57:45 Vegoe We're just a hard working team. 57:46 Jûpe And it's still fun. 57:49 Jûpe That's important. 57:49 Jûpe It's got to still be fun. 57:51 John So if I don't say so myself, hard working team. 57:57 John By the way, two fights in this wild game too. 57:59 John It's like the Norris. 58:01 Jûpe So the Norris. 58:05 Jûpe Well, we appreciate having you on. 58:07 Jûpe It's always great to be part of your team. 58:09 Jûpe And that's going to do it for this episode of The GPL Podcast. 58:14 Jûpe We'll be back next week with Dan Woog is going to join us. 58:17 Jûpe We're going to kind of celebrate the Wooger. 58:19 Jûpe How about six years after he's left this world. 58:23 Jûpe For those of you watching live on YouTube and Twitter, stay tuned for overtime. 58:28 Jûpe For the rest of you, we'll catch you next week on The GPL Podcast. 58:43 Jûpe If you are watching on YouTube, hit that subscribe button and get notified each time we go live or post a video. 58:50 Jûpe If you listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, please rate our show and leave a review. 59:00 Jûpe For those of you watching live, you know what's next. 59:04 Jûpe It's Vegoe's Beverage of the Week. 59:08 Jûpe It's time for overtime.