Senior forward Tom Pohl had a rare chance to speak with the media last Sunday and he made the most of it.

Pohl, whose older brother John was a Gophers’ All-America forward, is a fourth line wing who rarely scores. But against Air Force he scored his first goal in two seasons and talked about that and the Gophers’ disappointing first half.

On his goal, early in the third period:”It’s kind of like in baseball, it’s a seeing-eye single. It’s a seeing-eye goal, I guess. It felt good. I was frustrated with myoffensive production this year. Even though you play the fourth line, you don’t know if you will play six minutes or 10 minutes a night, or whatever it may be. But you still want to contribute offensively.”

With the 2-2 overtime tie with the Air Force Academy, the Gophers dropped to 9-9-1.

“We have relied so heavily on our top-line guys,” Pohl said. “When they have had nights when they have been shut down, our two to four lines have not been able to get the job done and that’s unfortunate. We all have to shoulder the load a little bit more the second half of the year.

“The truth of it is, you look at our lineup right now and you have that first line and then four through 13 [among forwards], any given night, any guy can be four and any guy can be 13 in the lineup on our team.

“So you know, the second half of the year, everybody has to compete anddifferent guys are going to have to step up.”

In the second game this season, first line wing Ryan Stoa suffered a season-ending knee injury. And more recently Kyle Okposo, the center of that first line, signed with the New York Islanders.

“With Kyle gone, there will be more ice time for other guys,” Pohl said. “You just move forward. You can’t use that as a crutch. You have to move forward, wish him the best and carry on with your work here. Nothing changes.Come here, work hard and try to get better.

“I’m looking for a couple power-play shifts,” Pohl said. He paused for the laughter and then continued: “Whatever my role is, I’ll accept it. I just wantto play every night, and play hard for our program. I look in our locker room and Ilook at allthe other seniors in our locker room, and I know they have always put the program ahead of their own personal careers. And they care an awful lot about this program and I am proud to be a member of that class, withthose guys.

“AndI do know we need to change and we are going to try to make this the best season it can be. Whenwe leave here, we wantto make sure the program is on the right path.”

Kind of odd to say that, considering the Gophers have won two MacNaughton Cups the past two years and one Final Five title. That’s pretty impressive.

But obviously Pohl does not want to be part of a team which starts a downslide.

“It’s a deal whereyou rely so heavily on certain guys and we don’t have to do that,” Pohl said. “And we are starting to see that. Other guys have to step up because in the past there has always been Ryan Potolny,there has always been Alex Goligoski, there has always been Danny Irmen.

“And the truth of it is, that is no way to — you have to look yourself in the mirror and try to bring it yourself and contribute to the team. Because this team there is not much difference in the lineupone through 13. No one is set in place. Our top line is our top line, but besides that… everybody has to contribute on any given night.”

The top line these days has junior Blake Wheeler centering Ben Gordan and Jay Barriball. It had three of the five goals last weekend.

“Nothing is going to come easy.” Pohl said. “Our troubles have been — when you look at it –for a lot of guys, they have been real successful in their careers up to this point. And, when it never has been really hard for you, when it gets hard, that’s mental toughness.

“It’s something you can talk about. But once you actually experience it, face adversity, then you gain that. The first half of the year we had a lot of eye-opening for the whole team on how to learn when it’s not easy. When things get hard, we have to dig in instead of feeling sorry for ourselves.

“Everybody in there is looking forward to a good second half of the year, and we are looking forward to competing every night and making this the best season it can be and hopefully making it to the NCAA tournament. And once you are in it, anything can happen. Who was talking about Michigan State at this time last year?”

MSU, of course, went on to win the NCAA title.

“If you look at this team the last couple years,” Pohl said, “we have gotten off to great starts, but then beside the Final Five last year, other people have caught up. Now we are that team that did not get off to a great start, we have to progress.”

Well said, Tom. Glad to be able to share your words with everyone who reads this blog.

Pohl, who is majoring in political science and marketing, was on the 2006-07 all-WCHA academic team last season and was a U of M scholar-athlete. He has four career goals in four seasons. … During the break last month, coach Don Lucia said he predicted he would scorea goal thesecond half of this season and he did in the second game.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 3rd, 2008 at 6:41 pm and is filed under Gophers men's hockey. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.