MHM 2018 Oct-digital

COLLEGE HOCKEY PREVIEW
SEASON’S STUNNING FINISH, NEW LEADER MOTIVATE GOPHERS
Continued from previous page
What happened was Minnesota was on the verge
of making its second straight, and 37th overall
NCAA tournament berth official, needing just one
of six conference tournament finals to go its way to
clinch the coveted spot.
One by one, against all odds as Sheehy said, it
happened.
Six games, fittingly concluding with Notre
Dame’s 3-2 overtime win over Ohio State in the Big
Ten final, conspired to leave the Gophers on the
outside looking in. The win by then-coach Don
Lucia’s alma mater meant Minnesota finished .001
of a point in the Pairwise rankings (the system used
to select the at-large NCAA Tournament teams)
behind Minnesota Duluth for the 16th and final
NCAA at-large bid.
The Bulldogs made the most of their good
fortune by making a historic run to an NCAA title
and celebrating it’s Frozen Four win less than eight
miles from Mariucci Arena.
“Just one more point here or there could have
changed our season,” senior assistant captain
Darian Romanko said. “Thinking back to some of
the games that we had leads and we blew, we didn’t
know that could turn around and bite us. We just
need to take every game seriously like it was our
last game.”
Within three days, Gopher players witnessed the
resignation of Lucia, who had guided the program
to two NCAA titles (2003 and 2004) in five Frozen
Four appearances, 11 regular-season conference
titles, four league playoff titles and a 457-248-73
record in 19 seasons.
A week later, they welcomed Bob Motzko as
the 15th men’s hockey coach in Gopher history.
Motzko, who was an assistant coach under Lucia at
Minnesota from 2001 to 2005, had spent the past
13 seasons compiling a career record of 276-192-
49 at St. Cloud State and led the Huskies to NCAA
tournament berths in eight of the past eleven
seasons, including the 2013 Frozen Four.
A 1987 graduate of St. Cloud State, Motzko
served as an assistant under Herb Brooks at his alma
mater for Brooks’ one season behind the Huskies’
bench. The Austin, Minn. native takes over a Gopher
program led exclusively by Minnesotans since
Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan’s Glen Sonmor resigned
eight games into the 1971-72 season to take over
the World Hockey Association’s Minnesota Fighting
Saints.
“How fortunate do I feel at this stage that I’ve
gotten to be an assistant coach at two of the (state’s
D-I) programs and a head coach at two of the
programs?” Motzko asked, rhetorically. “Somehow
the footprints that I followed have led me right
back to the same program where a coach like Herb
Brooks and Doug Woog and Don Lucia … it’s pretty
humbling, I can tell you that.”
“We just need
to take every
game seriously
like it was our
last game.”
— Darian Romanko
Motzko brought assistant, and St. Cloud State
alum, Garrett Raboin with him from St. Cloud and
filled out his staff days before the season opener
at Duluth by adding former Gopher Ben Gordon
to the mix. In addition, two more former Gophers,
Stu Bickel and Ryan Potulny, came aboard as
undergraduate assistants for the 2018-19 season
as they complete their degrees at the University of
Minnesota.
“The experience of our alumni is one of our
program’s greatest strengths,” Motzko said. “All
three of these guys know what it means to be part
of this program and what it takes in order to be
successful here.”
Like with any coaching change, the challenge
early on for both coaches and players is to get
familiar with one another and be on the same page.
“You’ve kind of got two camps,” Motzko said.
“You’ve got coaches getting to know players and
players getting to know coaches and it’s that feeling
out period with the limited time that we have on
the ice right now.
“I’m not real familiar with a lot of the players; we
were in two different conferences, though we did
play the last couple years.”
From a player perspective, Sheehy says the
feeling out period has gone pretty well.
“Anytime you get together with a new group or
a new coaching staff it’s a little different,” Sheehy
said. “They’ve taken the time to get to know us this
past summer and then, obviously, got to see us on
the ice here a little bit so far. Just getting to know
their system, getting to know what they like to see
and what they want us to do out there.”
Sheehy enters his senior season with 108
career points (44 goals,
64 assists) which ties
him for second among
active NCAA skaters.
He and fellow captain
Brent Gates Jr. lead an
experienced group of
forwards which includes
six seniors among eight
upperclassmen overall.
Motzko singled out
Sheehy and junior Rem
Pitlick as players who
“really jumped out of the
blocks” early on in terms
of leadership and effort in
preseason practices.
“You follow it up with
Brent Gates and Scott
Reedy and (Brannon)
McManus, guys that are
excited right now to
take on bigger roles on the team and they’re really
showing that,” Motzko said. “And then you’ve
got the two workhorses in Romanko and (fellow
assist captain Jack) Ramsey who bring that work
ethic every day and that’s something that I think is
starting to bleed into our team right now.”
Youth is not an issue for Minnesota in goal either
as Motzko inherits a senior in Eric Schierhorn (12-
12-1, 2.69 GAA, .901 save percentage) who started
Minnesota’s first 20 games a year ago and enters the
season with 101 NCAA games under his belt. Also
returning is Junior Mat Robson (7-5-1, 2.11 GAA, .933
save percentage), who emerged as the team’s No.
1 goalie in the second half of his sophomore year
when he started 14 of the Gophers’ final 19 games.
The blue line is a different story with five
Minnesota’s Darian Romanko drives the net.
Photo by Jonny Watkins
underclassmen combining for 25 games of D-I
experience among eight defensemen overall. Lone
senior Jack Sadek and juniors Ryan Zuhlsdorf and
Tyler Nanne combined for six goals and 28 points
among them a year ago and will be tasked with
mentoring freshmen Robbie Stucker, Ben Brinkman
and Matt Denman.
“It’s going to take a while for our defense to sort
itself through,” Motzko said. “That’s going to take a
little bit more time but what we’re encouraged by
is we think it’s going to be
there.”
Romanko stressed that
the forwards must share
the load when it comes to
getting the young defensive
corps acclimated to Big Ten
hockey, particularly in the
defensive zone.
“We need to be stronger
in our systems, especially
on the back end,” Romanko
said. “Centers will have an
important role. Everyone
will have to help out in the
defensive zone and just try
and help the younger guys.”
“This freshman class
has just got great energy,”
Motzko raved. “They don’t
know anything from the
past; they come in wideeyed.
(Forwards) Sammy Walker and Sampo Ranta
really are off to a great start right now.”
Motzko’s words proved prophetic as Ranta, a
Naantali, Finland native, scored his team’s lone
goal in his collegiate debut giving Minnesota a
season-opening 1-1 tie against defending national
champion MInnesota Duluth at Amsoil Arena.
It will be up to Minnesota’s seniors to impress
upon its rookies the urgency with which they need
to play on a nightly basis. With the Big Ten sending
three teams Notre Dame, Ohio State and Michigan)
to the 2018 Frozen Four, there’s no such thing as a
throwaway game.
As Sheehy says, “You can tell when the Pairwise
comes down to it at the end of the year, every game
is extremely important.” 6
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