0:09 This is The GPL Podcast, the production of gopherpucklive.com. 0:22 Now, let's join Cami, Vego and your host, Jupiter. 0:37 Welcome back for another episode of The GPL Podcast. 0:42 Well, boys, it's cold outside, but finally Vegoe's inside this week. 0:47 Vegoe, no more Equinox this week. 0:49 That must be nice for you. 0:52 Yeah, we're getting a lot closer to moving into our house, so nice to be inside, folks. 0:57 And not freezing your mm-hmm off, so. 0:59 Exactly. 0:59 That's always nice. 1:01 How's it going with you, Hammy? 1:02 Everything good? 1:04 Yeah, I'm already tired of winter, man. 1:06 I hate this cold. 1:07 The traffic is just, oh. 1:10 It's brutal. 1:11 Oh, it's really bad, and that's a whole other subject that I wouldn't want to get into because I'd get really pissed and probably piss people off. 1:18 And look how many more months we have left of it. 1:19 You shut up. 1:21 There's always vacations. 1:23 I've got one coming in March, so I'm looking forward to it. 1:28 It'll all be good there. 1:30 Well, boys, we've had a couple series since the last time we had a podcast. 1:33 Obviously, we took last week off because we just couldn't get everything lined up for all of us, so. 1:39 We had a sweep of the BADgers and had a series with Michigan State. 1:44 Let's start off with the BADgers, guys. 1:47 Definitely a good weekend of hockey for the Gophers. 1:50 You know, we struggled with a little bit of offense, but in the end, it was a big weekend for Mr. 1:55 Seth Ambrose, huh, Vegoe? 1:58 Yeah, I mean, that guy has really grown as a player throughout his career. 2:02 You know, as a 15-year-old, you know, a lot of people thought he was going to be a first-round type pick. 2:07 And then in his last year in the USHL, he kind of struggled, came to Minnesota, kind of stepped into that check-in line role. 2:15 And now this year, he's just flipped a switch. 2:17 His skating's improved and he's just figured out how to play. 2:20 He's no longer taking those late hit penalties, those roughs that made you shake your head. 2:26 And now he's delivering. 2:27 He's scoring some big goals for this team and playing a big role. 2:31 Those penalties just used to kill me. 2:33 I used to get so mad at him for those. 2:35 Yeah, it was always like he was one step late. 2:38 And at the wrong times always as well. 2:40 Oh yeah. 2:41 Yeah. 2:41 It was just brutal. 2:42 So he's definitely grown. 2:44 Definitely grown like you've said. 2:46 For sure. 2:47 What do you think, Cammie? 2:49 The emergence of Ambrose. 2:53 Well, I mean, I think that really what it comes down to is he's worked really hard, especially on his skating. 2:59 I mean, that was always a thing that was holding him back. 3:01 He had the physical ability. 3:03 I mean, he was a big guy and he always was kind of a goal scorer and usually had a pretty heavy shot through the years. 3:08 And it was just a matter of, you know, can he pick up and put down the skates fast enough, you know, as the levels of a competition increase. 3:16 So it's nice to see him kind of being rewarded for all that hard work. 3:20 And, you know, he got a goal this last weekend as well. 3:22 And so, yeah, I mean, we kind of need that because some of the other guys, you know, when they're not scoring to the level that we have been accustomed to, like a Raoul, for instance, as far as goal scoring goes, you need other guys to be able to step up and kind of pick up the slack. 3:36 And he certainly has been one of the guys to do that. 3:39 So we had a 4-1 win over Wisconsin and then a nail-biter 4-3 win, which Vegoe, I remember you commenting that it was one of the most exciting games you've ever covered since you started covering the Gophers. 3:53 It was a real back and forth game. 3:55 I mean, one of the things about this year's Gopher team is that they can give up a goal and come back and they've been able to get goals throughout their lineup. 4:04 You're not just counting on three guys that come through with all your scoring, they're getting scoring throughout. 4:10 And especially in that Wisconsin game, they got some of their upperclassmen who've struggled a little bit this year chipping in goals. 4:17 And the crowd was into it as a big rivalry game. 4:20 And people were looking forward to hearing the battle hymn. 4:25 What do you think, Cami? 4:27 Well, it's always nice to sweep Wisconsin on home ice. 4:31 And I think that you wanted to start off the Big Ten season on the right foot. 4:36 And I think that if we want to be winning the Big Ten title, these are the kinds of games against your rivals. 4:41 And I think in the end, we all kind of expect that it's going to be a three horse race with Wisconsin and Michigan and ourselves. 4:48 And so these are the kind of games that you really have to win. 4:50 And I thought that it played pretty well all weekend. 4:54 Well, the Saturday game for Wisconsin, I decided to attend the game as a fan. 5:01 And it had been, you know, I had been to some road games as a fan recently, you know, recently, but had not been to Mariucci as a fan in quite a few years. 5:09 And so it was me and my daughter Samantha who headed down there. 5:13 And boy, it didn't take me long to start hating the refs again and yelling and screaming. 5:17 And I must say it had been a while, but I really enjoyed going to the game in complete Rube mode. 5:26 It was a blast. 5:28 Isn't that how you usually are, though? 5:30 I am not. 5:31 I'm pretty reserved when I'm there. 5:33 I think I see a swear in between the benches and what not. 5:38 Oh, I was swearing at the refs that night because there were some bad calls going on. 5:44 You know, the Gophers get that man advantage in the second period on that Saturday night and a clear trip that should have been, you know, making a five-on-three and the crowd was just all over the refs. 5:56 And I was one of them and I enjoyed it. 5:58 And it had been a long time since I'd sit there and booed and yelled at the refs and said many swear words. 6:04 So it had been a while. 6:06 I must say, I really enjoyed it. 6:08 So I hope to get back there again soon as a fan. 6:12 I'm glad that you were such a good influence on your daughter. 6:15 I know. 6:16 Did she learn a new vocabulary from her father? 6:19 She knows them all already. 6:23 No, she was pretty excited. 6:24 She kept nagging me for the last couple of years. 6:26 I want to get to a Gopher game. 6:27 Bring me to a game. 6:28 Get tickets. 6:30 So that was a fun night for the Cotners, I'll tell you that. 6:35 Anything else about that weekend, guys? 6:36 Obviously, the refing wasn't that great. 6:41 When we had the Ambrose thing, one concern that I've had, that you kind of touched on a little bit there, Hammey, you know, Wisconsin and even, you know, in the Michigan State Series is some of these older guys aren't scoring. 6:54 You know, one guy I've been kind of harping on recently is maybe Condon. 7:00 What happened? 7:01 I haven't seen him do much lately. 7:04 Well, I mean, I don't know. 7:05 I don't really necessarily focus in on any one guy in that case. 7:09 But yeah, I think that or even warning. 7:12 They've been a little quiet. 7:14 Well, here's the thing. 7:14 I think that I was thinking about earlier today, you have to have. 7:18 It's like I mentioned with Ambrose, you're going to have ebbs and flows with everybody's season. 7:23 I don't care if it's even a star player is going to have a few off weekends or whatever. 7:27 And it's really coming down to can the other guys step up and pick up the slack at those times. 7:32 And so I think that we have that kind of team. 7:35 I think we've shown our top two lines are pretty consistent. 7:38 And now that third line is, you know, with Ambrose there, they're starting to kind of connect a little bit more. 7:44 So, you know, I feel pretty comfortable with where we're at offensively. 7:47 And so if one of those upper classmen aren't necessarily clicking, I think that we've shown that we have enough depth there that we can pick up the slack. 7:55 So hopefully that some of these guys that have had success in the past, like Arouw or Condon, they'll pick it up as the season goes along as upper classmen, because we'll need them. 8:04 You need that kind of leadership. 8:07 What do you think, Vegoe? 8:08 Am I too mean to harp on Condon? 8:11 It just seems like he doesn't have the speed that he used to. 8:14 He hasn't had the scoring touch lately. 8:16 What do you think? 8:17 Well, I think a little bit it might be him trying to pick up some defensive responsibilities. 8:22 He's playing with two real young guys, and Camerata and Clues, and their line has been productive. 8:29 The line as a whole is clicking. 8:31 I think their plus minus is all pretty good for them. 8:35 I think that they're giving consistent efforts. 8:37 It's not like their line is on the ice, and they're turning over the puck. 8:41 On the flip side, the good thing is that they're getting balanced scoring. 8:46 They're getting scoring from all four lines. 8:48 I think that's a big key, especially the way Don Lucia rules all four lines out there. 8:53 If he can get production from all of them, they're going to be in good shape. 8:57 I think in some years past, they've been a little reliant on their big guns to score, and the rest of their lines dump the puck in and change. 9:05 So I think that's a little bit different with this year's team. 9:08 Well, we'll have to see. 9:10 Well, it was a great weekend to start off the Big Ten. 9:12 Obviously, we had some TV issues the Friday night. 9:16 I'm not sure if you guys saw the Friday games for Wisconsin, but it was beyond brutal. 9:24 Did any of you catch the ESPNU game? 9:29 I did not. 9:30 Oh. 9:31 I mean, I heard plenty of the complaining after the fact. 9:34 Oh man, I was all over it on Twitter. 9:35 I was having a great night. 9:37 Well, I was gonna say, here's the thing. 9:40 I mean, I don't blame the announcer because let's be honest, hockey is a pretty nuanced game. 9:46 And if you're not a guy who's doing that on a consistent basis, it's not gonna be an easy job. 9:51 If you wanna blame anybody, you gotta blame the network for putting a guy in that position when they probably have other guys that are perfectly capable of calling a game adequately. 10:02 And this poor guy, what does he have? 10:04 Like a tennis announcer normally? 10:06 I mean, it just, I know everybody was ripping on the guy, but the reality is that if you really think about it, if you're, you know, it's like a fish out of water. 10:14 You can't expect the guy to be great, and it's not his fault, because he's probably a guy who's just going to be a good soldier and do what he's told. 10:21 It's really the network that's, you know, dropping the ball. 10:24 So they're the ones that should get the flak. 10:26 It's definitely the network's problem. 10:28 They were just awful. 10:30 It was even, the broadcast was so bad, the Big Ten to Go website decided not to post the video of the game like they had planned to do later in the evening, which I found quite interesting, Vegs. 10:45 No, it's really interesting that ESPN would kind of make a big mistake on the game and send out someone who doesn't know anything about the series. 10:53 And from what I heard, he didn't really prep for it either. 10:56 He didn't get into town early and talk to the coaches and school himself up on what the game was going to be about being that was the first Big Ten conference game for the schools. 11:06 And that's just a lack of experience probably on his part. 11:12 As much as you can say that, the color guy tried to bail him out I think in the second and third period. 11:16 He tried. 11:17 He was trying to almost take over the game and do a one-man show because the tennis guy was going silent for long periods of time. 11:26 It was getting awkward. 11:28 It was getting awkward. 11:29 And I think his Twitter account was getting hammered pretty hard throughout the game. 11:32 And yeah, it was a tough one. 11:35 So it was nice to have our hometown guys back for the Saturday game. 11:40 Oh boy. 11:40 And I even tweeted out that I'd rather listen to the fighting Who radio guys than this guy. 11:47 And somebody from their team actually said, why, thank you, via Twitter. 11:53 That's how bad it was. 11:54 And it wasn't just us. 11:56 It was Wisconsin people, other people around the world were watching it and commenting how bad it was. 12:05 And like you said, it's hard to blame the guy. 12:07 He's just doing his job. 12:10 ESPN, the leader in sports, and boy, isn't that a bunch of crap because that was just, it was so subpar. 12:18 It was very disappointing. 12:20 They should know that when they come into a market like this, that fans have the knowledge and they shouldn't try to pull the wool over on our eyes like that because it's just going to backfire. 12:28 So you know what? 12:29 Don't do the broadcast. 12:31 Don't even try because it's just going to backfire. 12:34 So I was a little bitter about it, but we'll see if they do any better later in the season. 12:38 We've got a couple of us at ESPN News Games towards the end of the season at Ohio State and at Michigan. 12:46 So it may not be over, folks. 12:50 We'll just have to see. 12:53 So anyway, we move on from Wisconsin. 12:55 Great first weekend, full six points. 12:57 And then we head to Michigan State and Hammy, Michigan State Friday night. 13:02 Oh boy. 13:04 We lost Perronto to a broken leg. 13:06 And that is just not a good thing for this defense and their depth right now. 13:11 Yeah. 13:11 I mean, you know, it's, I guess if you're going to pick any time of the year to have that happen, now would be it because we're basically off for quite a month, but you know, close to it. 13:21 So I mean, that takes off, I mean, what is it? 13:24 The eight weeks they're saying, something like that. 13:25 So I mean, at least helps a bit of it. 13:30 And during that time, I mean, I think we have, you know, not a super tough schedule at, you know, so I think that, yeah, according to that dog too. 13:43 So, so, you know, I think that that'll be, yeah, it hurts because we're going to have guys that, you know, we don't have any depth basically after that, you know, we have the six guys, there won't be any line up decisions to make essentially. 13:55 But we'll just have to live with it and I think that, you know, hopefully he'll come back and be able to kind of help out with the stretch run. 14:01 Well, it wasn't a good situation Vegoe. 14:03 You know, the arena was pretty quiet when it happened and you could, even through the broadcast, you could hear him kind of yelling and kind of screaming in pain. 14:13 So it just wasn't a good situation for the poor kid. 14:17 Yeah, it's too bad, you know, all seven defensemen have been playing really well this year. 14:21 It's made it really hard for Lucia to make decisions on who to sit. 14:25 Marshall finally set a game and, you know, he's one of the more skilled guys back there and that just speaks to how well the other six have been playing. 14:34 And it's going to be easy for those six guys, at least through the Ohio State game probably, because you look at the schedule and it's, you know, the Mary Chee Classic, Penn State and Ohio State. 14:44 So not the toughest game on the schedule. 14:47 So when they get back, you know, almost the end of January and the game start mattering a little bit more again, they'll have seven to choose from hopefully. 14:57 Well, when it comes to the game, it was a two-two tie that the Gophers lost an extra point in the first Big Ten shootout in history. 15:09 Let's hear it guys. 15:10 Thoughts on the shootout, Hammey? 15:13 Don't care, good, bad? 15:15 Well, I mean, honestly, I have mixed feelings on it. 15:19 I've never had a huge problem with the whole shootout concept. 15:24 At the same time, though, I can see why, for some fans, it gets frustrating because either way, it's going to go down as a tie. 15:32 So I mean, I think that people have to remember that. 15:34 It's not going to hurt us in the NCAAs and that standpoint. 15:38 It just hurts you in the standings of the Big Ten. 15:40 Well, that, but I think the other thing is, I think for a lot of people, including, I think Luci even mentioned this a little bit earlier in the year, it almost feels like, I think it was against BC. 15:47 It almost feels like we did lose, you know what I mean? 15:50 And so I can see why there would be mixed feelings about the whole shootout concept. 15:57 Yeah, so there's times where I'm like, yeah, I like it, or maybe I don't, you know. 16:01 So I'm kind of back and forth on it, but I can understand both sides of the argument. 16:06 Veegs, the Gophers have not done very well in the two shootouts so far. 16:10 No, it's kind of curious. 16:12 There's a lot of skill on the teams, but it looks like the players are just kind of coming in and trying to fire one past the goalie. 16:18 They're not really putting a lot into it. 16:20 So I think as they get into maybe a series with Michigan or Wisconsin, maybe they'll do a little bit more practice other than just the Thursday end of the practice shootout drill. 16:31 And they've got some guys with some good mitts. 16:33 I mean, they've got guys like Camerata and Isaacson even. 16:37 They've been lauded as good shootout type guys. 16:41 I remember last year, guys are hearing about the shootout, and everybody's like, yeah, Isaacson usually wins those things when we do them as a team. 16:48 So it'll be interesting to see if a guy like that maybe sticks in the lineup in those big games where a shootout point might matter or not. 16:58 And as long as NHL is doing it to end ties, and at least have somebody go home a winner, I think it's smart for the Big Ten to do it. 17:05 It's just one more thing that prepares those guys as they move up the ladder. 17:10 Well, I think they should put Isaac in the shootout. 17:12 I mean, there's no defender or forward there to take the puck off his stick. 17:17 Yeah, I mean, the biggest thing on him is skating in battle, and it's just a one on oh for him, so it should be his go-to thing. 17:25 I should be nice to the kid, but I just can't help it. 17:28 It seems like he just wants to hold the puck a little too long quite often. 17:32 So who knows? 17:34 Well, there was a 2-2 tie officially, the extra point for Michigan State in the first shootout, and then the next night, the Gophers come out with basically a 3-1 victory. 17:42 Michigan State scored at the very last possible moment to get it to 3-2, but we've always said in the past, do well at home, split on the road, so it's really hard to complain about the end result, huh, Hammeh? 17:59 Yeah, I mean, at least we're leading that way. 18:02 Yeah, I think you're going into a series and you're kind of like thinking, okay, well, you know, we should, you want to sweep, of course, when you're playing an opponent that you know that you're better than, even if it is on the road, but in hindsight, I mean, certainly you can't complain a tremendous amount. 18:19 You do kind of wonder, you know, because everything is so new, you don't know which series are going to cost you or which series are going to cost somebody else because you just don't know who's going to ride. 18:29 And like I said earlier, you really have three teams this year that are the most likely ones to be, you know, competing for that number one spot. 18:37 And we know that those series are going to be important, but it's sort of like, how are you going to do against those bottom three teams? 18:46 You know, that's probably going to make some of the difference. 18:48 So it'll be interesting to see how, you know, like Michigan and Wisconsin do on the road against some of these other kind of lower rung opponents in the conference. 18:59 Any other thoughts on the Michigan State Series, Veegs? 19:01 Well just that it's hard to, you know, sweep a team on the road, I think. 19:05 You know, it's just, it's really difficult to put together, you know, 120 plus minutes of hockey in those situations. 19:11 And I thought the Gophers did a good job of controlling the game. 19:14 One thing that I think they need to still be working on is their power play. 19:19 You know, they're not getting a lot of movement. 19:21 It almost looks like all the Gophers have been told to go to their station and work the power play from those stations. 19:28 You want to see a little bit more dynamic work with the puck and positioning and creating those two-on-one opportunities. 19:34 And then the other thing I think they need to do is they need to figure out how to get shots and traffic at the opposing goaltender where there are rebound opportunities. 19:44 I think you saw that on Friday night. 19:45 There are a lot of pucks that just went into the goalie and could freeze them or direct them in the corner. 19:51 I think on Saturday you saw more of an effort to try to get some traffic and pucks to the goalie and that looking for those rebounds. 19:58 I think they're going to need to do that in those games where the other team really collapses well like Michigan State was doing. 20:05 What did you think about the power play and the penalty kill? 20:07 I mean it looks like the power play is still around the same area. 20:09 They're at number 42. 20:11 Penalty kill moved up a little bit to number 36. 20:14 What were your thoughts overall in the last couple of weeks? 20:18 Well I think they're gaining the zone well and they're getting in positions where they should be creating more and they're just not. 20:25 I've been talking to a few people and they think one of the issues is, at Mariucci at least, is that the guys on the half wall are back up against the boards. 20:33 When you do that, you just take away a lot of space that's there for you. 20:37 If you start 10 or 15 feet off the boards more towards the net and you get the puck and you have an opportunity to take it to the net, you are able to do that better than if you're 10 or 15 feet back. 20:49 You also, if you get a lot of pressure, you've got that space to escape from the penalty killer. 20:54 I think that's something to look at as the Gophers play on the big sheet is whether or not they bring those guys closer than that from the walls and maybe that speeds up their decision making a little bit and maybe makes their power play click a little bit more. 21:08 Any thoughts on the power play and penalty kill there, Hammeh? 21:12 No, I think Vegoe touched on a lot of it. 21:15 I think that it's improved in recent weeks. 21:17 You can't really look at, in my opinion, the national stuff because they started off so slow that it's going to take a lot and a pretty consistent level of success to really make any kind of significant jump. 21:29 So I'm not really concerned about where they fit into that realm. 21:33 It's more just what kind of progress are they making week to week? 21:37 I think that especially on the power play in the last handful of weeks, it's been a lot better. 21:42 Is it where it needs to be? 21:43 No. 21:44 I mean, they still hopefully over the break, they'll work on things and kind of continue to improve that chemistry and they'll do better as we move along in the season. 21:54 But I think it's getting better and I think it's heading in the right direction and hopefully that's a good thing for the future. 22:00 All right. 22:01 Let's hit up some Twitter questions. 22:04 I hit out for people to hit up the Twitter earlier today and too bad some of them are watching the Victoria's Secret Show instead. 22:09 So they're a little busy right now. 22:13 Especially James Rees. 22:14 I would say he's too busy with the bra and panty show right now. 22:19 And why aren't you watching the fashion show? 22:24 Apparently, they're just too busy watching the chicks right now, which I really don't blame them. 22:29 But we got Todd Johnson. 22:30 He's a hammie. 22:32 Should we be worried about our D situation? 22:34 Obviously, now we're a little short for all of January at least. 22:41 Well, I mean, I don't know if that's anything to worry about. 22:43 I mean, what can you really do at this point? 22:45 I mean, I suppose if they were really desperate, they could bring in somebody at the semester break. 22:50 But I don't see them doing something like that. 22:52 I think that that would be kind of a panic button type of thing. 22:54 They would most likely move somebody back. 22:56 Yeah, that would be my guess. 22:57 I mean, I don't, off the top of my head, I'm not sure exactly who would be the best to fit the bill. 23:02 But I think that they'll just kind of ride it out with the six guys that they have. 23:06 And it's not like Parenteau is out till March or something like that. 23:11 I mean, he should be back in a decent amount of time. 23:14 And like I said, if we're going to pick a time for this to happen, this is exactly the right time, right before the winter break where you have a number of weeks off. 23:22 And so we'll see how it goes. 23:23 But at this point, unless something unforeseen happens, I think we'll be all right. 23:29 Any thoughts on the D situation, Vego? 23:32 Well, we got a tweet from Christina that said they're only going to have five because Shae will be with the World Juniors in Sweden. 23:38 So I think that'll be a little bit of an issue. 23:41 Whether things is, it'll be at the Classic. 23:44 I think they'll probably have last change for both those series. 23:47 So if they're worried about any of that. 23:49 But in the flip side, they've got all great skating D. 23:54 All of them can skate and move. 23:55 I don't think there'll be fatigue issues from that because they're just playing two games a week. 24:01 If it was someone with a team like the Wild, where they're playing four or five games a week, it would be an issue. 24:07 But I think it will be just fine for the Gophers. 24:09 There are plenty of other teams that just play 5D. 24:12 And all of them can move to the puck. 24:14 So I don't think there's any issues there. 24:15 Well, and you can cover for a weekend. 24:18 That's not a huge deal. 24:20 That's something that you can cover for. 24:21 If it was several weeks on end, that would be a different story. 24:25 But for one weekend during whatever it's called, now the Classic or whatever, that should be fine. 24:31 Martin was wondering, does a weak Big Ten help or hurt the Gophers for the postseason? 24:38 Hammeh? 24:40 Well, I mean, it's hard to say. 24:44 I mean, it depends to me. 24:46 I'm not gonna talk about necessarily how it stacks up in a pair-wise perspective. 24:51 But I think that the games will be competitive enough where the guys will stay sharp. 24:56 I mean, it's not like these are gonna be a bunch of pushover games. 24:59 Certainly, they'll be competitive. 25:01 So I'm not really overly concerned with that. 25:04 I mean, the one thing you have to remember, this first half of the season, I mean, it's not quite half, but they've got almost a top five as far as strength of schedule goes. 25:13 They've had a very strong schedule. 25:16 So it's not like they've gotten fat on a bunch of weak teams or mediocre teams. 25:21 They're not 25th in strength of schedule or 32nd or whatever. 25:25 They've been doing it against some pretty quality competition. 25:27 So I don't think that that's going to be a huge issue. 25:31 And we've got some, especially the last couple of weekends, I think we're, or I should say in February, we have games like at Wisconsin and home at Michigan, you know, with Michigan. 25:40 So I think that we'll have enough there that it won't be some big, easy thing. 25:46 And the last weekend's at Michigan, so. 25:49 Any thoughts, Figs? 25:50 Well, I just think, you know, the way they've built their schedule, I don't think it's going to hurt them in a pair wise type perspective. 25:57 I think their schedule strength is one of the top ten. 26:00 And when you play teams like Boston College, UNH, Notre Dame, you know, and they did well in those games, I think it's going to help them. 26:09 And I think they're going to be at the top of the Big Ten at the end of the year. 26:12 So they should be in good shape for the tournament. 26:16 Well, we move on to the Mary G Classic. 26:18 And really the only game that I see as possibly interesting is a possible Ferris State matchup on the Saturday game. 26:26 Obviously, Ferris State is, you know, they came off frozen for a couple of years ago. 26:30 And they've started off pretty strong this year. 26:33 And I don't think they've lost in the WCHA yet. 26:36 So you know, that's one thing we could talk about. 26:39 Another thing, you know, you know, Zwok has a question via the phone message line. 26:44 And let's hear what he has to say. 26:47 Hey guys, Zwok here. 26:49 Say, I have a question for you with Coach Lucia gonna be gone for a couple of games in January. 26:55 I was wondering if we expect to see the Gophers play any differently with Denzel as head coach as opposed to Lucia. 27:01 And granted, I know we'll be out listening to a couple of our players in the comments. 27:10 You get cut off? 27:11 I just stopped for some reason. 27:12 I'm not really sure why. 27:14 Operator error. 27:15 Yeah, that's weird. 27:16 Zlack, what the hell? 27:17 Yeah, no, it's the file. 27:19 It was just kind of messed up. 27:20 But you get the basic gist of it. 27:22 Do you think that, a hammy that will be a little different coaching style, or what do you think Gensl will bring to it? 27:29 Now that Lucia will be off in Sweden. 27:32 Well, it's tough to say. 27:34 I think that certainly Gensl is a fiery guy, so maybe you might see a little bit more emotion behind the bench. 27:41 It's hard to say, because we really haven't seen Gensl as a head coach on a consistent basis for a while. 27:47 I mean, the last time he was a head coach was in Des Moines a few years back for the USHL. 27:53 And then the Vulcans and the Lancers many, many years ago, 20 years ago. 27:57 So it's kind of hard to really be able to say what we're going to see from him. 28:02 I'm sure that I think there's a lot of respect throughout all of the Gopher Kingdom, so to speak, for Coach Gensel. 28:11 And certainly he's a fiery guy and very good defensive coach. 28:15 And maybe on some level we'll get a glimpse of what might be the next head coach after Lucia decides he's done. 28:23 That would be interesting. 28:25 I believe Gensel does have credit for two Gopher wins. 28:28 Yeah, I think Wug was like... 28:30 Wug was suspended, I think. 28:32 I think that was for the hat incident, wasn't it? 28:36 It may have been. 28:38 The $500 in the hat for whoever it was. 28:42 Oh, was it McHugh or... 28:45 I don't remember. 28:46 McAlpine? 28:47 McAlpine, yeah, maybe that was it. 28:49 Well, what do you think about Gensel getting behind the bench there, Vego? 28:53 Well, I'll just be interested to see how he handles all the matchups, if he just takes the defenseman and let's put Tony run the forwards, and just how animated he'll get, because I think Lucia is much more subdued on the bench. 29:05 I think he'll get after the officials every once in a while, but he's very calm with his team, and sometimes the team takes on the personality of the coach. 29:14 So if we see Gensel get fired up, how does it translate to the players? 29:18 It'll be interesting. 29:20 Unfortunately, the games aren't going to be the highest of quality in terms of opponent, but Ferris State is ranked very highly right now and could be a good matchup. 29:30 Well, let's talk about Ferris State. 29:32 They're undefeated in the WCHA. 29:34 They're 22 points already in the WCHA with Mankato behind them with 14. 29:40 Then in the overall pairwise area in RPI, they're a top five team. 29:46 So Ferris is looking pretty good. 29:51 Well, certainly you can't argue. 29:53 I mean, they're doing well against the teams they've played. 29:55 The one thing I would point out is their strength of schedule is kind of middle of the pack for college hockey. 30:00 So, you know, that's the one thing that I think people kind of lose sight of. 30:04 You kind of have to look at that. 30:05 They're, I think, at 29 the last I looked. 30:08 And so they're, you know, they're not playing the killer schedule. 30:13 So you kind of have to put that perspective. 30:16 But certainly that helps build confidence. 30:18 You know, they're winning a lot of games, you know, no matter who the competition is. 30:22 So I'm sure it's building some momentum and confidence for those guys. 30:25 And I don't know what their schedule is, if they have the long break. 30:29 I'm assuming they have several weeks off as well, you know, after probably this coming weekend. 30:34 So we'll see. 30:35 We'll see how it goes. 30:36 I'm wondering if this will be maybe the last year of the Mariucci Classic. 30:42 I don't know. 30:42 You know, I've heard some rumblings of that. 30:46 You know, a couple years ago, I think it was during last year's Mariucci Classic, I heard Gensl saying, you know, we may do it one more year or we might quit it after that. 30:54 And it'll be interesting to see, you know, if we continue to do that because it is getting tougher and tougher to bring in good teams for this. 31:04 So who knows? 31:07 Vegoe, any thoughts on Ferris or the Mariucci Classic coming up in forever? 31:12 Because we're not coming back for a while. 31:14 Just that it will be interesting to see the coaches, you know, in new roles behind the bench. 31:19 You know, Minnesota could be missing up to two players for the World Junior. 31:23 And after the long break, you know, it can be tough to get up for a Colgate game. 31:27 And, you know, historically the Classic hasn't had the best attendance. 31:32 So it's going to be a challenge for this team to get their game up for it. 31:38 And, you know, speaking, you know, it has always been low on attendance, but to make it even worse this year, the championship game will not be on TV at all. 31:47 So if you want to see the game, you'll have to get it on the radio. 31:51 Come down and see it, folks. 31:53 Maybe that will help attendance. 31:54 Maybe it will. 31:55 Who knows? 31:55 Because, you know, they follow that up, but they head out to Penn State for their first trip to, or first time ever playing Penn State, which will be interesting, but I really don't see Penn State putting up all much of a fight for Minnesota. 32:11 I think they could play the more defensive teams, but I don't think they'll be able to stop the offense of Minnesota. 32:15 So. 32:17 Well, let's hope the players don't take that attitude, though. 32:19 Take everybody seriously. 32:20 No. 32:21 Take that attitude. 32:22 We're superior to them. 32:23 We should kill them. 32:24 I want that attitude. 32:25 So. 32:27 Who knows? 32:28 Anything else going on, guys? 32:32 Got the long holiday break coming up? 32:34 Yeah, not too much. 32:36 The Gophers had all the letters of intent signed, and they kind of snuck in a Swedish kid. 32:42 Yes. 32:42 Yeah, also kind of came off of the radar for a lot of people. 32:46 I forgot about that. 32:47 Yeah, so that's kind of interesting. 32:49 He sounds like he's a pretty talented kid. 32:51 I got a little bit of a scouting report from somebody that's seen him quite a few times, I guess, and he was very positive about it, and he thought that the kid, he wasn't comparing him to this player in a sense, but he was saying he's sort of like a poor man's Zach Parisi in the sense that he is a hardworking kid. 33:15 He's got a lot of skill. 33:17 He's got a high compete level. 33:19 So those are all qualities that people associate with Zach Parisi. 33:23 And so they're not saying he's going to be like him, OK? 33:26 Make sure people understand that. 33:28 And I'm not saying that. 33:29 I'm just saying it's in that kind of a vein in terms of how he plays. 33:33 Now, what's his name again? 33:36 It's Leon. 33:37 I think it's Brimstead. 33:38 I don't know if that's how you pronounce the last name or not. 33:42 Because obviously, it's not like I've seen him a hell of a lot. 33:44 Or Bristead, I'm sorry. 33:46 OK. 33:47 So I don't know. 33:50 He's a smaller kid that's kind of solidly built. 33:53 So he's like 5'8, range 5'9, and 180-some-odd pounds. 33:58 So why wasn't he on a lot of people's radar? 34:00 Was it just kind of a sneaky thing going on? 34:02 Well, I think he was on the radar, just not for the casual fan who are used to... 34:08 I mean, let's face it. 34:09 It's not like Europeans are highly recruited types because they usually go a different route than the college hockey team. 34:15 I mean, you had somebody like Vanec who was actually over here playing as well. 34:19 And the same thing with Howla. 34:21 They were over here playing, weren't they? 34:23 Correct. 34:24 Howla was at Shattuck. 34:26 And this kid's naughty. 34:28 He's still playing over there. 34:29 So it is quite a bit of a different route. 34:32 I mean, we've had Howla and we had the Vanecs and whatever, but this is... 34:37 I think this is why it's more of a surprise because really nobody knows about him. 34:41 Yeah. 34:42 So it'll be interesting to see how he transitions over here. 34:45 I think college hockey is probably an easier transition for a Euro player in a sense that you're playing on Olympic sized ranks and they do a lot of that over there. 34:53 It's not like he's going from a European style to like that minor league or pro style. 34:59 That's more physical or whatever. 35:01 So it's probably in that sense, won't hurt him too much in the transition. 35:05 And it sounds like he is the kind of guy that mixes it up though, because they look like he had some penalty minutes. 35:11 So I think that it sounds like he'll be a good fit. 35:15 And I'm kind of excited to see him, because I saw a little bit of a video of him that I think somebody put on GPL. 35:20 And it looks like he's got a pretty hell of a shot. 35:23 So we'll see how it goes. 35:24 So will he be playing for Sweden in the tournament coming up, the juniors? 35:30 You know, that I'm not too aware. 35:32 I'm not too sure. 35:33 I don't know. 35:33 I was just kidding for his name on the rosters and he's not on it. 35:36 I'm not exactly sure how old he is, if he might be too old for the tournament. 35:41 Really? 35:41 Because I know he played in the U-18s two years ago and scored some goals against Canada and the US., but he didn't make the roster for Sweden. 35:53 He's still 18 years old, so I mean, he'll turn 19 in March, so. 35:57 Now is the plan for him to come in next year? 36:00 Yes. 36:01 Okay. 36:02 Yep. 36:03 Yeah, that's why it was kind of a, I mean, I think we are all talking about, you know, we knew we were going to have to add another like forward or so. 36:09 It was just a matter of, you know, what kind of a player was it going to be? 36:13 You know, a lot of people were throwing out some of the local guys that were more offensive players, you know, like, oh, Sheehee, for instance, you know, some people were throwing that name out there, whatever. 36:27 So this, you know, I actually thought they might go with somebody who's more of kind of a role player type, because we were kind of trying to replace a nanny type of a player. 36:35 And but this kid sounds like he's pretty skilled. 36:38 And so that's that's a good sign. 36:40 And I'm excited to see how he does over here. 36:43 Well, speaking of nanny, I do believe he signed on to play this week, didn't he? 36:47 I think he picked RPI. 36:50 I want to say he did because I think Leteria was congratulating him on Twitter or something along those lines. 36:58 So so we I don't know if we'll ever see him. 37:01 But you know, he picked a school out east and you all good for him. 37:05 So yeah, I think that that's the right fit for him. 37:07 I mean, I just didn't I mean, an excellent school. 37:10 So yeah, I mean, he's going to go out, get a good education. 37:13 And I think he's going to be far enough away from the shadows of other family members here that, you know, he'll be able to kind of forge his own identity. 37:22 And I think that that's a really, you know, a good fit for a kid like that. 37:26 All right, boys, anything else for this week? 37:30 Ah, not too much. 37:31 Looking forward to the break. 37:35 Yeah, looking forward to those World Junior Games. 37:37 It'll be fun to see, you know, with the camp in town. 37:39 I know they play an exhibition down at Mankato, and they'll have the camp here. 37:45 And I think it's open to the public, so it'll be a good chance to get down and see that top U-20 talent. 37:50 Yes, definitely, you know. 37:52 Coach Lucia has taken the club over to Sweden this year, and I believe if they were to get to the gold medal game, it'd be like a January 5th thing. 38:01 So, it's not something where any players, if they're gone, will be back. 38:06 So, he will be gone, no matter what, so. 38:11 Well, I think we're good this week, boys. 38:14 Remember, you can always follow Hammy at Hammy Hockey on Twitter, and Vego at eVego. 38:19 You could leave a voicemail for us for questions or topics, like Zwhack did earlier at 320-321-9584. 38:28 Obviously, we're always taking your questions on Twitter during the show as well. 38:33 Well, that's it for this week. 38:35 We will be back probably after the Penn State Series. 38:40 You know, it's, you know, Marriott's Classic and Penn State, it's a little slow and we like kind of the break. 38:45 So we'll be back in at least about a month or so, probably right before the Hockey City Classic. 38:53 You must be before Penn State. 38:55 You think so? 38:56 Why not? 38:57 It's the first time we're going out there. 38:59 All right. 39:00 Well, it's a month away. 39:01 Don't be a baby. 39:04 Oh, wow. 39:06 Hammy's already in this post-game show already. 39:09 All right. 39:10 We'll try to get back before Penn State. 39:12 All right. 39:13 Until then, we'll see you next time.