The Gophers men’s hockey team held their sixth and last one-hour preseason practice with coaches on Friday. In the three weeks before practices officially start, coaches can work with their players two hours a week, according to NCAA rules.

The puck drops for real at 8 a.m. Saturday. The Gophers will probably work out for about 1-1/2 hours on the ice, and maybe have a team meeting beforehand. That seems to be the routine in recent years. Of course, I was half asleep and it’s all a blur.

My boss doesn’t make me go to the first practice, but I probably will. I like to see who is playing with who on the forward lines and the defensive pairs.

Coach Don Lucia said Thursday that the best three players won’t necessarily be on his top three lines. He is looking for the three with the best chemistry.

In preseason practices, sophomore Jordan Schroeder, who will center the first line, has usually played with Jay Barriball. Those two were together all last season, but Ryan Stoa is gone from that line.

Barriball said several players have been tried at left wing, including Mike Carman and Mike Hoeffel.

As for the defensive pairs, Lucia said he wants a combination of skill and braun on the ice. So look for little guys to be paired with big guys at the start.

In the nets, Alex Kangas, the team’s top goals the last 1-1/2 seasons, still holds that spot. But Lucia said he made a mistake last season not playing Kent Patterson more early as a freshman. When Kangas started struggling, Patterson had very little college game experience when he got his chance to save the sinking ship.

Nice to hear Lucia admit he goofed. It’s also a telltale sign it — Patterson being buried on the bench —  won’t happen again. 

Playing Patterson more actually could help Kangas, too. Maybe he won’t feel he has to do everything in the nets and carry the team like he did as a freshman when he was the Gophers’ MVP.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 2nd, 2009 at 1:10 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.