This weekend's hockey slate will have a Big Ten feel to it as the Gophers will host Michigan on Friday night and Michigan State on Saturday.  For those interested Mich and Mich St will be facing off against Wisconsin on the opposite nights. 

Tonight your #1 ranked and one-loss Gophers take on a Michigan team sitting with an 8-6 record.  Since it is well established that I know only little about Gopher hockey I think it should be absolutely clear that I know nothing about Michigan hockey.  So I got a hold of Tim from the House that Yost Built to give us a little color on the Wolverines.  Tim gave us some great info on what we can expect to see tonight.

Michigan has been maddeningly inconsistent this season. Sometimes they look like world-beaters and sometimes they look like they belong in the CHA instead of the CCHA. We're Western Michigan's only win in the conference and we've lost to last-place Northern Michigan as well.

The good news for Gopher-fans is that generally Michigan has sucked on Friday nights and been pretty good on Saturday nights, so you're getting us on the right night (though, with the way you guys have played (last Saturday aside) it probably doesn't matter anyway). They've only scored 10 goals in 6 Friday night games (and 8 of those were in two games: OSU and St. Lawrence). Billy Sauer is 2-5-0 on the year but they've only scored 10 goals in the 6 2/3 games that he's played. For Bryan Hogan, they've scored something like 31 goals in 7 1/3 games. It's been crazy.

Surprisingly the defense has been pretty good, even with Mark Mitera and Steve Kampfer out. Tristin Llewellyn has made a pretty big step forward in his sophomore season and Greg Pateryn has improved throughout the season. Chad Langlais has been great and Summers has been very good too. Our D had major problems with penalties in the early going, but they've gotten better.

The goaltending hasn't been stellar, but they've been pretty darn good. Sauer's numbers look horrible, but his record is bad because they're not scoring any goals for him, and his GAA/Save percentage is shot because of the PPG-fest against BU (without looking it up, I think 5 of BU's seven goals were on the PP and one of the two that wasn't came something like 1 second after a PP was over). Hogan has gotten a lot more support, but he's been really strong for the most part. Hogan has shown a penchant for making huge stops, but a lot of the goals he has allowed have been pretty weak. Sauer's been giving up some softies lately as well, but they've been good enough to keep us in games, even if we haven't scored enough to win a lot of em.

Both special teams units were an absolute disaster at the start of the season. We would've been better off declining penalties against our opponent and our PK couldn't kill anything off. BU slaughtered us via their PP and our two units combined were around 80% in the early going. But the PK has really gotten it together. They were wonderful against Miami's top ranked PP (Miami was 0 for 12 on the weekend, including a 5 minute major and two long 5 on 3s) and for the most part, they look like a Michigan PK again.

The PP has been better as well. They're only at 15% for the season, but being that they were down at 3% for a good long while, 15% is pretty good.

As far as players to watch: Aaron Palushaj and Louie Caporusso have both had breakout seasons. It's strange to say that about Palushaj because he was 2nd in the nation in assists last year, but he's turned into a player you have to pay attention to every time he's on the ice. He's the guy on our team that's most likely to make someone look stupid. The goal he scored against St. Lawrence (splitting the D, then shooting the puck over the goalie's shoulder as he was falling) is an early entry for "Goal of the Year".

Caporusso is shooting the puck more and it's paying off. He's got 12 goals in 14 games and seven of those are with the man advantage. He's been playing with Palushaj lately and they're a very dangerous combo. The problem is we haven't had a whole lot of offense apart from those two. Rust and Hagelin have cooled off after hot starts, though I've heard they'll be reunited this weekend, which should help.

The best of our freshmen has been David Wohlberg. He's not a huge offensive threat (though he did score 4 goals in 5 games) but he's solid as a rock defensively, a great penalty killer and very good on faceoffs. Robbie Czarnik can really skate, but he hasn't put it together offensively yet. I'm sure he'll get it going, because he is a good player, but he's been disappointing thus far.

A year ago we split with Michigan beating them early and geting beat soundly later in the year.  After losing the Jug in football I'd love to see us drop a 5-nil game on the Wolverines.  Assuming they still struggle on Friday night, assuming Kangas plays his usual self and assuming we continue to dominate power play and penalty kills I think we should be just fine.  

Official TDG prediction guess

Mich - 1
Minn - 4

As far as Saturday's Michigan State game, I would not expect to see a preview tomorrow as I'll be focusing on the men's basketball game against NDSU.  Mich St has lost five consecutive games and looks to be very beatable.  A 2-0 weekend for the Gophers over the state of Michigan.

I'm still amazed at how quickly the college hockey seasons goes from no games to vitally important and challenging games.  The Gophers open the season with three away games in their first four games against rivals who will be fighting with each other in the upper half of the WCHA.  The second half of their opening four games are going to be in Madison at what Gopher Puck Live describes as "one of the wildest atmospheres in college hockey."  And if you thought our opening schedule was tough just take a look at who the Badgers have faced (and lost to).

• #4 - Boston College
• #3 - New Hampshire
• #2 - Denver (twice)
  

The Gophers took care of business last weekend sweeping St. Cloud on the strength of their junior class and of course goalie Alex Kangas.  I would assume those two will be the biggest factors to Gopher success for the rest of 2008, until the freshmen can get comfortable and really contribute beginning in January.

This should be a key weekend series as Minnesota and Wisconsin were picked by the WCHA coaches to finish tied for fourth in the conference.  This is an opportunity to bury the 0-4 Badgers and separate themselves as a top tier team again this season.  DWG picked the Badgers to finish third in the league but WCHA blog picked them as seventh so that doesn't really bring any clarity to me.

What do I know about Wisconsin?  Well as I've done some research I find that they finished just ahead of Minnesota last year.  They were a young team who lost their top scorer but returned their next five scorers.  They are deep, have a solid goalie, and are good on defense. 

Offensively they are middle of the WCHA pack and should be at a disadvantage with their best forward Ben Street (SR) out with an injury.  Their real strength is their blueline.  Jamie McBain is potentially first team all-WCHA defenseman.  Ryan McDonagh is a very talented sophomore and freshman Jake Gardiner should also be an impact player on the defense.  All three guys are from Minnesota so one might expect they'll have a little extra pop in their hits this weekend. 

It should be fun to watch for Gopher fans to see how our offense will stack up against one of the best defenses in the WCHA.  Can we score a couple goals on the Badger D and can Kangas withstand the crazy Badger fans this weekend?

With Street injured and Minnesota riding some momentum from the opening weekend sweep I think this will be a successful weekend.  Friday's game will be on FSN and Saturday's will be on The Big Ten Network.

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After sweeping the Huskies, the Gophers had a good week on the recruiting trail as they signed two players.  I'll provide the links and names you can read up on them at your liesure.

Christian Isackson - Forward who plays for St. Thomas Academy.  Will likely make his debut in 2010 and chose the Gophers over Wisconsin and North Dakota.

Max Gardiner - Minnetonka forward, his older brother played for Wisconsin.

(Editor's Note:  What has two thumbs, is a basketball junkie and is trying to write a hockey preview?  That's right, this guy!  Bear with me and help me along as I'm sure this will be a learning process for me.)

 
There is no denying that Gopher Hockey fans are the most passionate fans in the Gopher market.  This passionate fanbase and sustained success has given Joel Maturi one of the few men's hockey programs in the country that is a plus to the athletic department's budget.

I'm jumping with both feet into the frozen pond.  Rather than going with a traditional positional preview I am going to give you a few key themes to this season which will also be keys to making a successful season.

  Alex Kangas

The goalie who saved the season last year and is expected to carry the young team this year.  Most of you know that Kangas decided to "stand on his head" (one of my favorite cliches in all of sports!) during the WCHA playoffs where he allowed 1.5 goals per game and a .959 save percentage.  I'll point out many times that I know little about hockey but even I get how amazing those numbers are.  In his 25 other games played, including the first round NCAA loss to eventual national champ Boston Colloge, he gave up 2.24 gpg with a .921 save %.  Not quite the same awesomeness but great none the less.  

My concern with Kangas is that he will not be able to live up to expectations as he heads into his sophomore season.  People are going to expect the WCHA Kangas and won't be happy with the regular season Kangas.  In spite of the fact that regular season Kangas is still very good and one of the top two or three goalies in the WCHA. 

Even if his numbers do not live up to expectations they will still be very good and he'll be one of (if not the) best goalies in the WCHA.  If he can match his 1.98 goals against and .930 save% from last year he'll help the team to a top five finish.  If he has outstanding games on the right weekends he'll help the team to a top three finish.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

 
What seems to be a yearly theme is the loss of quality players who are being replaced by a group of very good youngsters.  This year coach Lucia brings in a class of 12 freshmen after losing a solid senior class, Blake Wheeler and Stu Bickel.  Inside College Hockey rates this incoming class as the second best group in the country.  F-Jordan Schroeder and D-Aaron Ness (both pictured on right, taken from Star Tribune) are the headliners of the class expected contribute greatly as soon as possible.

This may be the most intriguing development throughout the season.  How quickly can the freshmen mesh with upperclassmen to develop a deep and consistent team?  Unfortunately this isn't like basketball where you get a heavy dose of non-conference games to figure things out.  The Gopher's first regular season game is a WCHA battle with in state rival St. Cloud State who is expected to be in the third through sixth place scrum along wiht Minnesota.

But like I said above this seems to be an annual theme.  The Gophers always have one of the best freshmen classes in the country and always lose guys early to the NHL.  Typically they start slow and really come together for the playoffs.

Scoring

Kangas keeping the puck out of the net is one thing.  But are the Gophers going to be able to score more than the 2.29 goals they averaged last year?  Gone are four of their top five scorers from 2007-08 who accounted for 32% of our total scoring.  Coming in is a highly ranked recruiting class headlined by forward Jordan Schroeder.  Schroeder plus what should be a solid junior class of forwards should make up the bulk of our scoring. 

One would hope this year's Gophers will have more offensive firepower than last year's seventh best scoring WCHA team.  And based on what Coach Lucia was saying, this will be a different style of play when compared to last year.

"We’re trying to play a little more pressure hockey, we want to get up on our toes…last year, we tried to protect our defensemen and play a little bit more conservative...we want to get back to playing what Gopher hockey has been, historically."

According to Gopher Puck Live here is how the scoring broke down by class last season.

SR - 32% (96 pnts)
JR - 19% (57)
SO - 30% (90)
FR - 20% (60)

When you break it down further to see how much we are losing you see how much we will be relying on this year's junior class to step up AND a shot in the arm from the incoming freshmen.

SRs + Wheeler and Bickel = 46% (138 pnts)
JRs = 7% (22)
SOs = 30% (60)
FR = 17% (53)

Everyone is expecting a lot from the incoming freshmen but juniors Jay Barriball and Mike Carman along with sophomors Pat White and Mike Hoeffel need to take their game up a notch and carry the load, especially early as the freshmen get their blades under them.

How does this movie end?

This will not be a WCHA regular season champ.  But come playoff time nobody will want to face the Gophers.  Partly because we get the de facto home ice every year as the WCHA Final Five is held in St. Paul.  But mostly because everyone knows Lucia will have this team playing great come March. 

I believe that Kangas will go down as an all time Gopher great, Jordan Schroeder will be the best freshman in the WCHA and this team will be one of the best in the country just in time for the playoffs.

The official TDG prediction

• WCHA 3rd place
  
• WCHA Final Five runner-up.
• NCAA Frozen Four appearance

Other predictions and previews

Down With Goldy says 5th place and is concerned about the defense
Western College Hockey blog says 3rd place
Star Tribune feature on the team's youthfulness

I Thought i would start out the Gopher Hockey Section of the Blog with a Bang, Breaking Down the Roster Position by Position. Lets Start with the Goalies Shall We.

Sophomore Alex Kangas Should See Most of If Not All the Game Action Between the Pipes this year for the Gophs, He Posted a 12-10-9 Record Last year, Had 861 Saves with .930 Save Percentage (Which is Absolutly Fantastic). Kangas Allowed 65 Goals with an average of 1.98 Goals over the 1966.35 Minutes he played over the span of 31 Games.

Out Go Brent Solei (Graduation) and Jeff Frazee(Left The Program, Thank fricken God)

And in Come Jake Kremer from Eden Prarie MN High School and Kent Patterson from Blake High School in Plymouth MN, Dont Know anything on these two, nor could i find much. Sorry Guys.

Next Article will Break Down the Defensemen.