Minnesota Golden Gopher Season 2018-19: The Motzko Era Begins!

[Bonin21]

This was pretty much out the window from period 1. This has been such a frustrating year. Some hockey disease going through Mpls. Gophers and Wild haven't had a game where everyone is firing at once this year.

MN sports disease

[The Rube]

Re: Minnesota Golden Gopher Season 2018-19: The Motzko Era Begins!

Getting home from work, turn on radio, "that makes it 6-1, let's hope for a 5 goal Gopher rally..." and then turned off radio.

[D2D]

Re: Minnesota Golden Gopher Season 2018-19: The Motzko Era Begins!

Getting home from work, turn on radio, "that makes it 6-1, let's hope for a 5 goal Gopher rally..." and then turned off radio.

I hung in there on the TV broadcast until the 3rd period - that was as much pain as I could endure.

[SteveO]

Re: Minnesota Golden Gopher Season 2018-19: The Motzko Era Begins!

I wish I had a better assessment but as I mentioned in a previous post, Robson has lost his edge. He's now 2-5 in the last 7 games allowing 26 goals (GA/3.71). Good goalies don't consistently look like a sieve. Time to sit...for a while. Actually Schierhorn's numbers weren't that great either, but I would not be surprised to see him in net Sat. night.

Even strength:
SV / GA / SV%
5 / 3 / 0.625 Robson
28 / 3 / 0.903 Schierhorn

There was a spark from Sheehy, but despite burying two there was little celebration and you could see the disappointment on his face. Overall, it seems to me the team is unraveling. I don't expect much as they close out not only a losing season, but most likely the worst W% for a Gopher squad in the last 20 years.

I'm not impressed at all with Motzko and the coaching staff. Based upon their record it's obvious they lost control of this team weeks ago. Fans can blame the players, but Motzko is paid BIG bucks to take what he's got and improve upon it. Good coaches do it all the time. They've unfortunately taken a status quo, soft approach to this team culture and it's been a dismal failure. I also question the leadership of Raboin as a defensive coach. I can't recall the upperclassman D under Lucia and Co. ever playing THIS bad.

Will they win the B1G tourney for an NCAA autobid? IMO not a chance. Give some of the younger guys that show promise more ice time with a view to next season.

[Koho]

Re: Minnesota Golden Gopher Season 2018-19: The Motzko Era Begins!

MN sports disease

Doesn't seem to have infected the other college teams in the state.

[The Rube]

Re: Minnesota Golden Gopher Season 2018-19: The Motzko Era Begins!

Let tBob have some room before judging. I think there's gonna be some changes in the next couple of years, we just have to wait. Rome wasn't built in a day.

[SteveO]

Re: Minnesota Golden Gopher Season 2018-19: The Motzko Era Begins!

There's a lot more to winning in D1 than just recruiting the right players. Look at all the small schools in the top 20 this season with no NHL draft picks, but good coaching.

Motzko never won any NCAA hardware as a head coach and I'm not holding my breath thinking he'll do it here. Partly because he's had a history of not having his teams ready for big games. But it's ok for Gopher fans to give Motzko a pass and slam Don Lucia every other sentence blaming him for this season's demise? BS.

[The Rube]

Re: Minnesota Golden Gopher Season 2018-19: The Motzko Era Begins!

There's a lot more to winning in D1 than just recruiting the right players. Look at all the small schools in the top 20 this season with no NHL draft picks, but good coaching.

Motzko never won any NCAA hardware as a head coach and I'm not holding my breath thinking he'll do it here. Partly because he's had a history of not having his teams ready for big games. But it's ok for Gopher fans to give Motzko a pass and slam Don Lucia every other sentence blaming him for this season's demise? BS.

I definitely am not slamming tDon. However, tDon and tBob have different styles, so give tBob a chance to get "his" guys on the ice, and then let's see what happens.

[trixR4kids]

Re: Minnesota Golden Gopher Season 2018-19: The Motzko Era Begins!

7th round draft picks might as well be “no draft picks” seeing as half of them are being selected on last name basis alone and even some of the higher picks like Phillips are a total bust (selected by my NHL team no less). It’s not all that meaningful, it’s indicative of the fact that NHL GM’s are throwing darts at a board when they’re selecting guys at this age and none of them have a particularly great track record that indicates that they’re doing anything other than guessing (people have done the legwork to show this statistically but I’d have to do some digging). Long story short NHL GM’s aren’t exactly infallible and anything past the first round of a deeper draft is a long shot to even make the NHL.

This team is basically at year zero like Fleck’s team was a year ago. They can’t implement parts of the system because they have zero faith in this same D group that Guentzel couldn’t even coach up. And that’s not to let the forwards off the hook either, the depth guys on the fourth line have pretty much always been worthless and we’re all minus three to four last night. They’re basically there to eat up clock and can’t even do that. It’s a far cry from having Boyd or Matson leading those lines. Also people wanted to act like CM was easily replaceable but I think we can throw that theory out the window.

Last night was a good example of what happens when this team’s goalie has an off night and doesn’t cover everything up and they don’t win the special teams battle. Winning that way wasn’t going to last forever.

[SteveO]

Re: Minnesota Golden Gopher Season 2018-19: The Motzko Era Begins!

I definitely am not slamming tDon. However, tDon and tBob have different styles, so give tBob a chance to get "his" guys on the ice, and then let's see what happens.

So let me get this straight, all season Lucia's guys are on the ice yet stubbornly refusing to change/adapt or be coached by Motzko? Is that your theory? I'm curious to know what the contrasting coaching styles between Lucia and Motzko are that you're assuming "Lucia's guys" find irreconcilable? Please explain. It sounds to me like you're indeed slamming Don Lucia for poor recruiting and this season's current demise, thus giving Motzko a pass.

[The Rube]

Re: Minnesota Golden Gopher Season 2018-19: The Motzko Era Begins!

The older guys seem to not have really adapted to the new style, while the younger ones have, at least to a point. I don't know what to make of Robson at this point, he may very well be in fuggit mode.

tDon's style just got stale. It happens quite often. Sometime a team just needs new blood. I wish tDon still was around, loved him as a coach, but it was time to move on.

That being said, when a coaching change happens, the team most likely won't change overnight. It'll take a year or two, some changes, and then one can start judging the potential/current product on the ice.

[SteveO]

Re: Minnesota Golden Gopher Season 2018-19: The Motzko Era Begins!

The older guys seem to not have really adapted to the new style, while the younger ones have, at least to a point. I don't know what to make of Robson at this point, he may very well be in fuggit mode.

tDon's style just got stale. It happens quite often. Sometime a team just needs new blood. I wish tDon still was around, loved him as a coach, but it was time to move on.

That being said, when a coaching change happens, the team most likely won't change overnight. It'll take a year or two, some changes, and then one can start judging the potential/current product on the ice.

What exactly is this "new style" you speak of? Do you have any examples? So the "older" guys (2-3 years older?) are stubbornly refusing to change/adapt or be coached by Motzko and the younger ones are ok with it? Is that your theory? Does that include Raboin as well? I'm curious to know what the contrasting coaching styles between Lucia and Motzko are that you're assuming "Lucia's guys" find irreconcilable?

[D2D]

Re: Minnesota Golden Gopher Season 2018-19: The Motzko Era Begins!

Give some of the younger guys that show promise more ice time with a view to next season.

The problem with that is there are very few younger guys who have actually shown promise. As a group the freshmen and sophomores are not as talented as the upperclassmen. Who will they have next year to replace the point production of Sheehy and (likely) Pitlick? I would agree that for most of the season Novak and Gates have disappointed, while acknowledging that Novak has picked up his offensive game as of late.

Meanwhile, the few underclassmen who have shown promise (Walker, McManus, Brinkman, McLaughlin) are already getting their share of ice-time. Ranta shows flashes of promise, but that's about it. Which other younger guys do you think belong in the "shows promise" category and deserve more icetime?

Also with respect to the coaching I think it is premature to be so critical. The staff deserves the opportunity to recruit and coach their own guys, so I think it's only fair to wait until the 2021-22 season before reaching any final conclusions.

[Koho]

Re: Minnesota Golden Gopher Season 2018-19: The Motzko Era Begins!

There's a lot more to winning in D1 than just recruiting the right players. Look at all the small schools in the top 20 this season with no NHL draft picks, but good coaching.

Motzko never won any NCAA hardware as a head coach and I'm not holding my breath thinking he'll do it here. Partly because he's had a history of not having his teams ready for big games. But it's ok for Gopher fans to give Motzko a pass and slam Don Lucia every other sentence blaming him for this season's demise? BS.

People look for quick, easy answers. I don't know what the situation was with Lucia the last few years, if he lost his fire. Perhaps. But I agree that the dominant dialogue last year was largely 'Lucia can't get his talented players to play to their ability". This year, it is common to hear that the problem isn't the current coach, but the players that Lucia recruited. Let's keep in mind that Lucia took CC from last to first in one year largely with the players that were already at CC. And we all know what happened shortly after coming to MN. He clearly was a hell of a coach at one time (and I am not sure he definitely ceased being one.)

But doesn't anyone think it is more than a coincidence that coaching ability is being questioned in a similar vein at Wisconsin, UND, BC, BU, UMi? It is unlikely any of these teams, that 15 years ago would all be expected to make it to the NCAA's almost annually, will make the tourney this year unless they pull off a conference tourney win. Do people really think coaching is completely the issue at everyone of these schools (or was the sole issue with MN last year)?

And is it a coincidence that fans questioning their coaches (that had performed well in the past) has seemingly increased during the same period of time in which we've seen a transition from number one seeds in the NCAA having an almost automatic win in the first round, to I believe well over 25% losing, as well as the increase in number of teams winning NCAA games that come in as lower seeds? Could the lack of dominant performances by these blue-blood programs be less a factor of them all having coaching failures in the same period of time, or other factors, and that blaming coaching is just the easy answer? (And it does seem like once the tide of opinion has turned on a coach, just like the highly recruited D that makes some mistakes and can do no right the rest of the year, there is no looking objectively at how they perform.)

So what has changed in this time period that would affect all the blue-blood programs? I would argue that the biggest factor is early age recruiting for these schools combined with all the non-blue bloods likely increasing in mean age. Too many misses with young stars and you have 18 year old freshman who aren't as good as projected playing against 20 year old freshman that accelerated in development in the last couple years. The older kid will typically have learned to be a more consistent player with two more years experience. And when we see how many misses there are with full-time NHL scouts looking at older kids, I don't know how you can lay too much blame on a college coach, with limited views, not being able to tell what a 14 years old's work ethic or ability will be 4 years later. But at the same time, when you are the coach of a program that has a shot at a 15 yr old that cold be the next Mittlestedt or Eichel, are you going to pass and just recruit 19-20 yr olds?

I feel like coaches have been given a disproportionate amount of blame based on the expectation of fans that these programs should be as dominant in this changed recruiting era as they were when kids weren't committing until they were 18. I have a feeling the days of MN dominating most programs is over. That is not to say that some programs, like MN shouldn't still have an edge, but I am guessing the amount of edge won't be the same as in the past. Of course, who knows what the future brings. The rule change for a higher limit on recruiting age, while still allowing pretty young commitments compared to the 90's, should help. And maybe the scene will continue to change where commitments mean less and we continue to see more kids who had committed to a school jump ship and go to a traditional power as their stock rises, and there will be less of a stigma on teams like Mn backing out of commitments. This could also swing the power back to the big programs more. But those things aren't happening over night, so I think we are just in an era of more parity. We might have to accept that our coaches aren't the sole problem. Our kids are young and will be inconsistent at times. And it is going to be more a matter of having some luck with getting enough kids to not plateau and getting the right chemistry to make a run from time to time, but that there will also be more misses than in the past. I know this is not what longtime Gopher fans want to hear, or accept. But I haven't really been convinced that in this trend towards national parity, that I should expect the Gophers to be perennial contenders.


And finally (if you made it this far), I really think there has been a chemistry issue with the players the last couple years. Lucia and Guentzel expressed frustration last year at not getting through to players, no matter what they tried. Motzko talked about something being wrong with their DNA this year. I don't buy that all kids Lucia (or the Gophers) have recruited are soft because they were prima donas. We've all seen teams that have just clicked and showed great effort, and succeeded better than what was expected, and we are familiar with teams that seemed stacked, that never reached their potential. The same coaches often had had both types of teams. There is something to team chemistry. Good coaches generally get better play out of players, but if there are inherent issues with leaders or locker room issues, sometimes the best coach can't overcome those. Both last year's and this year's team have had moments where everyone was clicking and they clearly have talent to compete with anyone, but it has been more common that only certain players or lines stick out for their effort on a given night. I don't know what the answer is, or if there is one (other than hoping things improve as players turn over), but as easy as it is to blame coaching, I don't think that completely explains the last couple seasons.

And believe me, I hope I am wrong as anyone, that the Gophs might not return to being a perennial power. But I really don't think that coaching is the issue at all the traditional powers.

[trixR4kids]

Re: Minnesota Golden Gopher Season 2018-19: The Motzko Era Begins!

At least for a time you had Walker/Burke/McL all forechecking hard and playing fast. The older players have never really done that including GPS. That’s part of why they get outshot every single night at even strength and never have any sustained offensive possession outside the PP.

The biggest change I think is that there playing a slightly more open style of hockey with more of an emphasis on quick transition. It’s a pretty ugly work in progress with the current group to put it nicely.