Minnesota Golden Gophers Season Off-Season Thread 2018

[gopher wes]

Re: Minnesota Golden Gophers Season Off-Season Thread 2018

I think the "and" part is the most frustrating part for me. It's the expansion draft, so you have to lose one player. But to protect someone (supposedly Dumba) we end up losing 2 guys. I think the GM deserves a lot of blame there.
Of course, he's gone now, so I guess he took his blame.

I think Flecther deserves blame for the 'and' part as well(shame on Fletch also for not getting guys like Pominville, Koivu, etc to waive their no trade clause because Vegas likely wouldn't have taken them anyway as they seemingly went young). But you gotta give the Vegas GM a little credit in that regard also because he swindled a couple teams IMO, the Wild being one of them. Did I hear that he got Fleury and a pretty high draft pick from Pittsburgh? That's pretty insane as it's playing out.

[SteveO]

Re: Minnesota Golden Gophers Season Off-Season Thread 2018

2018-19 B1G Ten Schedule

[Koho]

Re: Minnesota Golden Gophers Season Off-Season Thread 2018

Had to post a congrats to former Gophers Nate Schmidt and Eric Haula for helping the Vegas Golden Knights reach the Stanley Cup Finals in their inaugural season.

They are the first expansion team to reach the Finals in their debut season in 50 years since the St Louis Blues, who played in a division of nothing but expansion teams after the NHL grew from six to 12 teams prior to the 1967-68 season. Exciting stuff...

Interview with Nate: https://streamable.com/wcg54

So anyone want ti take a shot at which former Gopher they think had the best season this year (individual play, not who experienced teh best season based on team play)? Wheeler?

How about best player from MN?

[state of hockey]

Re: Minnesota Golden Gophers Season Off-Season Thread 2018

Wheeler. Assist machine. Also walks that line of being gritty but not a total d-bag pretty well. Haula was good this year, Vanek also had a renaissance of sorts.

[purpleinnebraska]

Re: Minnesota Golden Gophers Season Off-Season Thread 2018

So anyone want ti take a shot at which former Gopher they think had the best season this year (individual play, not who experienced teh best season based on team play)? Wheeler?

How about best player from MN?

Wheeler's still the best. Schmidt's stock increased the most.

[Koho]

Re: Minnesota Golden Gophers Season Off-Season Thread 2018

Wheeler's still the best. Schmidt's stock increased the most.

For both best former Gopher and for best native Minnesotan?

[SteveO]

Re: Minnesota Golden Gophers Season Off-Season Thread 2018

So anyone want ti take a shot at which former Gopher they think had the best season this year (individual play, not who experienced teh best season based on team play)? Wheeler?

How about best player from MN?

Although he struggled in the postseason, my pick for best regular season for a former Gopher is Phil Kessel. Wheeler is a close second, and had a career best postseason. Third, Erik Haula had his best season at any level (29-26-55). Bjugstad also had a good season with the Panthers (19-30-49).

Best player from the State of MN? For forwards, probably Wheeler and then Anders Lee with the Islanders (40-22-62). On D, Jake Gardiner had a career best season for Toronto (5-47-52). Active All-Time? I'd probably go with Matt Cullen. Although He was not very effective with the Wild this season and may retire.

[joecct]

Re: Minnesota Golden Gophers Season Off-Season Thread 2018

Not Oshie?

[SteveO]

Re: Minnesota Golden Gophers Season Off-Season Thread 2018

Not Oshie?

Guentzel > Oshie

[SteveO]

Re: Minnesota Golden Gophers Season Off-Season Thread 2018

Different start and finish next season. October: No exhibition start, H & A vs. UMD, two exhibitions, then off to Vegas for one game vs UND. Cap the regular season with ASU.

Full 2018-19 Gopher Men's Hockey Schedule

[joecct]

Different start and finish next season. October: No exhibition start, H & A vs. UMD, two exhibitions, then off to Vegas for one game vs UND. Cap the regular season with ASU.

Full 2018-19 Gopher Men's Hockey Schedule

And you blew off your scheduled/contracted trip to Canton/Potsdam in favor of an exhibition game at home vs. Trinity Western. Going to make it in 19/20?

[SteveO]

Re: Minnesota Golden Gophers Season Off-Season Thread 2018

Eastern visits and visiting eastern teams has been slashed compared to the last couple seasons. Last season the Gophers played Union, Clarkson, Harvard, and Army West Point all @ home. In 2016-17 they played @Clarkson, @St. Lawrence, @Northeastern, @Boston College, and UMass (H).

Only St. Lawrence @ home next season. Attendance took a B1G hit last season and this is an obvious budget cut. Gopher fans still lamenting over the loss of WCHA rivalries and the ridiculous increase in single game and season ticket prices seem to be driving factors for the decline.

Doug Woog and his staff were right when they argued that if ticket prices skyrocketed, it would change the traditional clientele at Gopher games. The days when a Pee Wee coach could take his entire team to a Gopher game for $1 ea. are long gone. More corporate season ticket sales has resulted in frequent no-shows. The season ticket holder base has declined 30 percent from 7,765 to 5,474 since 2010-11, with ticketing staff routinely now seeing 30 percent of distributed tickets go unused.

The actual attendance for last season's Oct. 15 game against Penn State was 4,917, the lowest number in the building for any regular-season game in the last four years. The scanned number for Wisconsin on Dec. 2 was 6,407, the lowest it has been for a rivalry game in the last four years. Last season was also the first season since moving into Mariucci that there have been announced attendance numbers under 9,000 (Vegoe, The Athletic).

[joecct]

Re: Minnesota Golden Gophers Season Off-Season Thread 2018

That's nice, but there is (was?) an existing contract in place among the 4 schools that had UMTC & UW travelling to Northern NY in years 1 and 3 and Clarkson and St. Lawrence travelling to St. Paul or Madison in Years 2 and 4.

What happened to it?

[gopher wes]

Re: Minnesota Golden Gophers Season Off-Season Thread 2018

Different start and finish next season. October: No exhibition start, H & A vs. UMD, two exhibitions, then off to Vegas for one game vs UND. Cap the regular season with ASU.

Full 2018-19 Gopher Men's Hockey Schedule

That's going to be weird. Come in hot with the defending champs and then two exhibition games which, to me, are as good as 'off weeks'.

[St. Clown]

Re: Minnesota Golden Gophers Season Off-Season Thread 2018

Doug Woog and his staff were right when they argued that if ticket prices skyrocketed, it would change the traditional clientele at Gopher games. The days when a Pee Wee coach could take his entire team to a Gopher game for $1 ea. are long gone. More corporate season ticket sales has resulted in frequent no-shows. The season ticket holder base has declined 30 percent from 7,765 to 5,474 since 2010-11, with ticketing staff routinely now seeing 30 percent of distributed tickets go unused.

Adding to this, my brother just told me that he and his wife dropped their season tickets that they've held for some 10 years because when they weren't able to attend some 7-8 games, they couldn't even give away the tickets to friends of family. They also spoke to the impact of the changes in tax law and the required Williams Fund donation to keep their seats.