The U of M hockey office at Mariucci has to be a happy place these days.

Three more talented metro area players have committed to play for the U recently.

Gophers coach Don Lucia got a 2-for-1 from Holy Angels when the Reilly twins picked the U. Ryan and Connor, both seniors-to-be at the Catholic school in Richfield, are talented left-handed shooters. Highly sought, too.

But the U got two players for the same recruiting effort it would take to get one. They wanted to play together in college.

“They are oldtime guys, on the rink every night,” Stars coach Greg Trebil said. “They are really talented, really creative, really hard workers. They make hockey a lot of fun to watch.

Ryan plays either wing on his brother’s line. Connor is a center. They live in Chaska. Neither are imposing physical brutes.

“At the academy, we don’t measure height and weight, we measure the size of a player’s heart,” Trebil said. “They have a lot of heart.”

They also had a lot of points last season when the Stars finished 21-5-1, losing in the Class 2A, Section 5 semifinals to Edina.

Connor had 29 goals and 32 assists, Ryan 15 goals and 24 assists.

Trebil estimated Connor is 6-0, 160, Ryan 5-9, 155, but he was not sure. “They’ve both grown a lot since last season,” he said.

Both were at Lucia’s Model camp in June at the U of M. There Connor was listed at 5-10 1/2, 152 and Ryan at 5-7, 137.

They joined the Holy Angels varsity as sophomores and have usually played on the same line. “They have an affinity for playing together, why screw it up?” Trebil said. “They are creative, unselfish, good passers with skilled hands.”

They visited schools in the East and also UMD.

Their father, Mike, played for the Gophers and that was their college of choice, too.

HOPKINS CENTER PICKS EARLY

The other recent commitment to the U came from sophomore-to-be Travis Boyd. In his second season on the Hopkins varsity, he had 27 goals and 23 assists for 50 points. That’s a two-points a game pace for the Royals (15-10-1).

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Wish I was in the Chicago area on Aug. 17-18. The U.S. Olympic men’s ice hockey orientation camp will start those days at the Seven Bridges Ice Arnea in Woodridge, Ill., and anyone can go watch for free. There will also be a third closed day.

Thirty-four candidates for the 2010 U.S. Olympic team will be there. The XXI Olympics will be from Feb. 12-28 in Vancouver, B.C.

The final roster for the 2010 Olympics will be named in late December.

The 34 players represent 22 NHL teams. Five have played in previous Olympics:

* Mike Modano, Dallas (former North Star), 1998, 2002, 2006

* Chris Drury, New York Rangers, 2002, 2006

* Brian Rafalski, Detroit, 2002, 2006

* Scott Gomez, Montreal, 2006

* Jamie Langenbrunner, New Jersey, 1998

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Justin Holl, a defensman for Minnetonka, has committed to the Gophers. Brian Urick, his coach, said what year Holl will become a Gophers has not been decided yet.

Holl will be a senior at Tonka this coming season. Last season he was listed at 6-2, 170, so he still has to fill out a bit.

He had one goal and six assists for seven points in 28 games. Sounds like he is primarily a defensive defenseman.

“He is a very smooth skater, real fast with good feet,” Urick said. “He is not real offsensive, but very good one-on-one. He has a very actice stick and is always in the right lane.”

Holl visited Colorado College and Denver, and Wisconsin also was interested in him, Urick said.

So too were Princeton and other Ivy League schools, Urick said, because of his high ACT score.

The Omaha Lancers of the USHL want Holl to play for them before and after the high school season, Urick said, but he resisted the temptations to skip his senior year at Tonka.

“He wanted to play with his buddies,” Urick said.

Holl has grown a little since last season. Urick said Holl is probably 6-3, 175 now. My guess is Holl will play in the USHL for a season before joining the Gophers in 2011-12.

Three players who have committed to the Gophers are on the under-18 U.S. Select team that will compete in the Ivan Hlinka Memorial hockey tournament from Aug. 11-15 in Piestany, Slovakia.

The three are defenseman Ben Marshall (Grant, Minn.) of Mahtomedi High School, and forwards Nick Bjugstad (Coon Rapids) of Blaine HS and Christian Isackson (West St. Paul) of St. Thomas Academy.

All three of them played on the U.S. team in the Five Nations Tournament a year ago.

They are joined on the U18 team this year by two other Minnesotans, goalie Zane Gothbery of Thief River Falls and forward Kyle Rau of Eden Prairie. Kyle is the younger brother of Chad Rau, a college star at Colorado College who was a senior there last season.

The players for this U.S. team were picked from the recent under-17 development camp.

St. Cloud State assistant coach Erik Rud will coach the team in the Hlinka Memorial. Other teams in the tournament are Canada, Czech Republic, Finland, Russia, Slovakia, Sweden and Switzerland.

In a previous post, I wrote about new Gophers assistant coach Grant Potulny. If you want a slighly different perspective, here is the news release from the U on his hiring and the addition of Justin Johnson as a volunteer assistant goalie coach:

 Two recent University of Minnesota men’s hockey standouts have been added to the Gophers’ coaching staff for the 2009-10 season.

Grant Potulny, who was named a volunteer assistant coach in May, has been elevated to a full-time position following a national search process. In addition, Justin Johnson has been named the team’s volunteer goaltending coach. Both were members of Minnesota’s national championship teams in 2002 and 2003 with Potulny serving as a team captain each year.

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Guess Grant Potulny doesn’t have to find a paying job anymore. He has one.

He was going to be a volunteer assistant coach this season with the Gophers. But he was in the right place at the right time. With Mike Hastings’ sudden departure to the University of Nebraska-Omaha, an opening for a coach materialized.

Hastings was a proven winner, with 14 seasons under his belt in the USHL at Omaha. He is the league’s all-time winningest coach. Potulny? He is an M-man all right. He played on the U’s national championship teams in 2002 and ‘03. But can he coach?

No one really knows for sure. Potulny was playing minor league hockey until injuries forced him to consider a career change. Don Lucia must obviously think he can. Still it’s a bit of a risk.

The Gophers have had two subpar seasons in a row. Fans will start howling if the team is not better this year especially since it lost only Ryan Stoa as an early departure. There willl be six seniors on the roster, injured Taylor Matson, who played only 13 games last season because of knee surgery, is back. Jacob Cepis, a dynamic forward from Bowling Green, joins the team at midseason, and the freshman class is talented. And sophomore center Jordan Schroeder is already being touted as a Hobey Baker candidate.

So the ingredients seem to be there to have a team that can at least challenge for a WCHA title. Fans should not expect anything less.

There’s some presssure on Lucia, and his assistants John Hill and, fairly or unfairly, Potulny, to get results.

 UMD HAPPY WITH SCOTT

Scott Sandelin, whose UMD team won the Final Five,  has signed a two-year contract extension that runs through the 2011-12 season.

Rumors were hot and heavy he could be fired in this offseason until the ‘Dogs got hot in the WCHA playoffs and reached the title game of the NCAA West Regional.

This coming season will not be the first time the Gophers have had co-captains in the Don Lucia era. But it’s been a while.

Jordan Leopold and John Pohl were co-captains in 2001-02. That team won a national title. The season before, 2000-01, there were three co-captains: Pohl,  Dylan Mills and Erik Westrum.

Here is a look at Don Lucia’s captains since he became the Gophers coach in 1999:

1999-2000: Nate Miller

2000-01: Dylan Mills, John Pohl, Erik Westrum

2001-02: Jordan Leopold and Pohl … the lone assistant captain was Grant Potulny

2002-03: Potulny

2003-04: Potulny

2004-05: Judd Stevens

2005-05: Gino Guyer

2006-07: Mike Vannelli

2007-08: Derek Peltier

2007-08: Ryan Stoa

2008-09: Ryan Flynn and Tony Lucia

So the U will have co-captains this season. Not a bad idea.

I remember Ryan Stoa last season and what being the lone captain did to him. When things went bad, he took things personally, maybe blamed himself too much.

The media was always asking to talk to him.

Having two captains splits the responsibilities a bit.

Ryan Flynn was an assistant captain last season along with then-senior Justin Bostrom.

“It was evident by the team vote that Ryan and Tony would be our captains for 2009-10,” Gophers coach Don Lucia said in a news release. “Both are extremely hard-working, team focused and representative of the program on and off the ice in a positive manner.”

Tony, of course, is coach Lucia’s older son.

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Gophers coach Don Lucia said he expects to hire an assistant coach next week.

An opening was created after Mike Hastings left after one season to become associate head coach at the Univ. of Nebraska-Omaha.

Recently, new volunteer coach Grant Potulny has been filling in for Hastings. Potulny also has been interviewed as a possible successor to Hastings.

Potulny was a Gophers captain for two seasons, played on national championship teams in 2002 and 2003, and since then kicked around in the minor leagues of pro hockey.

He is an interesting candidate but a little risky because he has no coaching experience.

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Six players with Gophers ties were among the 25 current or future WCHA players selected in the 2009 NHL Entry Draft this past weekend in Montreal, Quebec.

Nick Leddy, Mr. Hockey in 2009 from Eden Prairie, was the first future Gopher picked at No. 16 by the Wild. He also was the first player with WCHA picked, a bit of a surprise.

Sophomore center Jordan Schroeder, rated No. 5 among North American players by Central Scouting, was taken at No. 22 by Vancouver.

Others with Minnesota ties picked:
* Zach Budish, a forward from Edina, No. 41, second round by Nashville
* Josh Birkholz, a forward for the Fargo Force (USHL), No. 67, third round by Florida
* Seth Helgeson, a defenseman for Sioux City (USHL), No. 114, fourth round by New Jersey

Those three are joining the Gophers this season.

* Erik Haula, a junior forward for Shattuck-St. Mary’s, No. 210 by Wild.

He will join the U in 2010.

In the past four years, 24 players with Gophers connectiions have been taken in the NHL Draft.

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