Check out this blog post by the Star Tribune Minnesota Gophers hockey beat writer. I would say that the times have sure changed. In my opinion as an outside observer that this post is very critical of a coach that once walked on water in the eyes of a lot of Gopher fans.
While I am no fan of the Gophers it does seem that there is a lynch mob mentality brewing in the Twin Cities. This is a hockey coach that has won 2 NCAA titles (back to back) and a couple of league titles. This isn't some some hack coach that teams have finished in the bottom of the league standings for five years in a row. Sure the Gophers have all the breaks but you can't win them all. If you want to assign blame, blame the players who are playing with little life. I can't imagine a reason why Lucia would let this reporter interview him? Feel free to chime in with your thoughts on the matter. Are Gopher fans being a little hard on their head coach? Should the Gopher fans blame the players as well? Would it make a difference if Patterson had played more games this season?
The Gophers' chances will be much better if coach Don Lucia changes his tactics and if the players play with desperation.
Lucia has to stop saying that goalie Alex Kangas has done his job if he gives up only two goals. His job -- especially at this time of the year -- is to play better than the other goalie. He might have to get a shutout sometime in the playoffs, or give up only one goal to win a game.
Kangas has played great at times that in the past and he has to go into games with the attitude that the opponent can't beat him. His mindset has to be that he will give up one fewer goal than the other goalie.
Coach Lucia has rarely asked me for advice -- OK never -- but he also has to stop saying this team has to win games 3-2, that it's not good enough to score more than three goals. In playoff hockey, the Gophers have to score as many goal as it takes to win.
If they get in a shootout with somebody, than they have to keep popping goals in. This team is a real mystery that way. It''s got talented offensive players who seem to do little for weeks at a time and then have one good game here and there. It's surprising Lucia has so much hair and it's not all white already. [Goal Gophers]
Goon, Roman is a giant douche. Seriously, if the Gophers won 10 championships in a row, Roman would say it wasn't good enough because they didn't win the previous 20 championships. He's a dork. I bet the majority of Gopher fans are willing to give Lucia one more year. He's got some good talent coming in. If he can build off that talent, you'll see the Gophers in the top half of the standings next year.
ReplyDeleteSo is he from the same mold as your favorite Denver writer? :) I just can't believe he would bite the hand that feeds him.
ReplyDeleteThat guy writing for the Strib demonstrates the near total indifference the Twin City media has for college hockey. He admitted the other day that he doesn't know what a "left wing lock" is. That might be OK if you're a sports writer in Argentina, but if you're the man covering Gopher hockey you should know at least as much about the game as your readers. In this goofy essay he says that Kangas' "mindset" should be to allow one less goal than the other goaltender. Really? I thought it was his role to stop every shot he could. Guess I'm just not as profound as Roman.
ReplyDeleteI made fun of the Strib earlier this year when they hired local college writers in Houghton and Anchorage to do the stories on the Gopher series there so they wouldn't have to pay Roman to visit those remote spots but maybe they felt they could get a better product on site.
Roman is not awful and he is in the business to provide his opinion and analysis. Lucia knows that, everybody knows that.
ReplyDeleteI think the fans that want him out immediately are being hasty.
I think the players need to, as Roman puts it, 'play with more desperation' more often. It goes a long way. Cepis and Lucia play that way a lot, but a lot of the others don't seen to have that fire for 60 minutes.
Charlie I just think it's funny that the Star and Tribunes beat writer is so critical of the team he covers, if I was the coach of the Gophers I would ban him from my locker room. :)
ReplyDeleteLucia has almost as much clout in recruiting as Red Berenson. In other words, he usually gets whoever he wants...especially if he is a top end talent from Minnesota.
ReplyDeleteHe never really suffers offensively. They just are like a dragster. It can go fast and straight pretty quickly, but ask it to turn and it is cumbersome. Ask the Gophers to play in their offensive zone and they'll go to town. Ask them to turn around and play D as a team... ugly.
Lucia is getting criticized for somewhat legitimate lack luster performances over the past few seasons.
However, almost yearly (and even some before he even coached a single game as a head coach), UND fans call for Hakstol's head.
So, I take this with a grain of salt.
The media is an entity so blind that the truth could hit them square in the nuts and all they'd talk about is the hot keywords that surround the topic. Example: The Pittsburgh Penguins won the Stanley Cup but it really was secondary to Sidney Crosby winning the Stanley Cup "at long last." Seriously... You'd think hockey wasn't a team sport.
Anyways, Lucia will be fine if he can find some way to coach the D. I haven't the foggiest who recruits the D and who is in charge of coaching it. If it is Lucia, maybe he should do what Blais often did: Blais was known for allowing his assistant, then Dave Hakstol, recruit and be in charge of the D. Lucia can still preach his system and instruct the assistants as to what his system would look for, but perhaps allow the assistants more leeway to find the best D. Or, if it is the assistants, take the opposite approach.
Another way they could do it would piss off almost every Minnesota fan. That would be to adopt the UW and UND method of recruiting: Get the best guys on the board that fit your system...regardless of where they are from. Lucia has done a little of that (Potulny's, Vanek, Kessel, Irmen, a few Canadians here and there...) but he could do more.