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BIG TEN CONFERENCE MEDIA DAYSeptember 19, 2013Don LuciaCHICAGO, ILLINOIS THE MODERATOR: Good morning, welcome to the inaugural Big Ten hockey media day. Before we review how this session will run, I'd like to announce that the Big Ten conference this morning announced its preseason players to watch list and preseason coachesÂ’ poll. The players to watch list includes Michigan Mac Bennett, Alex Cuptill, Michigan State's Alex Bury, and Jake Hildebrand, Minnesota's Kyle Rau, Mike Riley, and Adam Wilcox. Ohio State's Ryan Dzingel and Max McCormick, Wisconsin's Nic Kerdiles, Jake McCabe, Michael Mersch, and Mark Zengerle. Wisconsin was selected by Coach to finish first in the standings. The complete release can be found in your media bag. This morning's interview session will give you the opportunity to ask questions of the conference's men's ice hockey coaches. Each coach will be available for approximately ten minutes. At this time I'd like to introduce Minnesota head coach, Don Lucia, the first coach joining us. In his 15th year with the Gophers, guiding Minnesota to back‑to‑back national titles in 2002, and 2003, and four Frozen Four appearances. Lucia welcomes back 16 letterman winners from last year's winning squad. Coach, we'll begin with an opening statement and then take questions. DON LUCIA: Thank you, it's exciting to be here. It almost seems like in many ways, it's a new job. It's so fresh this year with entering a new conference, the Big Ten, even though we've played many of the teams over the years, this is the first time we'll be playing each of the Big Ten members four times. I think it's going to be an exciting year, not only for us, but certainly our fans. I think our guys are excited about it. We'll be young this year. We'll have seven incoming freshmen that we're going to ask to play a pretty significant role. But like every team, it's your veterans that are going to have to lead the way. I think Adam Wilcox had a great year in net for us last year with Reilly, with Brady Skjei, Ben Marshall, Justin Holl, and Nate Condon. We have five experienced defensemen, I think, that can certainly play at the Big Ten level. That should be one of the strengths of our team. Up front, we'll probably have upwards of five or six freshmen playing on a nightly basis, but we do think some of those guys have some talent and are going to be able to score for us. That will be the real key for us is not only how well our freshmen play this year, but also the returning guys, can they make another step in their development and score some goals since we did lose a number of outstanding players off our team last year. Just excited. We've been on the ice a couple times and we're ready to go and begin the new season and a new conference. Q. You've talked for years about relying on upperclassmen and teams having success with juniors and seniors. How much does it change the dynamic for you having to put that many young players in key roles? DON LUCIA: Well, it changes it greatly. We did lose five juniors to the National Hockey League last spring. I think we did know that we were going to lose a few of those. It seems like every year there are one or two that maybe you don't expect is going to move on. But that's just the way it is nowadays. When you recruit players, you kind of recruit them and expect them to be put in certain roles, but at the same time, you have to grow with some of those players. It was no different than when Bjugstad and Holl came in as freshmen and they were our number one and two centers and we had to grow with them. And it paid off when they were sophomores and juniors and we were able to win the back‑to‑back WCHAs and make it to the Frozen Four. So this group, we have to be patient and allow them to grow during the course of the season. But we have some guys that can make plays and we've seen that so far in practice and just in our couple days. But that has to translate into when you're playing five‑on‑five too in real games. Q. As all is said and done, the Big Ten logo behind you, the trophy, everything that it entails being in the Big Ten? DON LUCIA: Has what? Q. Everything that entails being in the Big Ten now? DON LUCIA: It is exciting. I can go back even as a player part of a league with Michigan or Michigan State. So it's not as foreign to me as a coach, and now the teams are back together. I think we've all felt all along at some point this was going to happen. I think from our perspective, I think it is exciting. I think from the players' perspective, the newness and freshness of a new league, it adds that added excitement. I think there is a little trepidation with some of the fans at times, but I do believe that they're going to see we're going to have at Minnesota the best of both worlds. We're part of the Big Ten. We'll continue to play our in‑state rivals, a lot of our former rivals are from the WCHA over time, and I think it's going to be a very successful move for us in our program. Q. You mentioned Adam Wilcox, do you like the young man in front of him in the back end, so to speak? DON LUCIA: We'll have to replace three veterans, obviously, with Nate Schmidt signing and Mark Alt, Seth Helgeson, three big guys. So those are three of our six regulars. But we have that experience. Justin Holl was one of our defensemen who went to the Frozen Four two years before. He played forward last year. He'll move back. So we're a little thing with only seven right now. But as long as we don't get injuries, we think the seven certainly are all good players and will compete with each other for playing time. It's as much as figuring out who will play the power play roles and who will kill penalties back there and making the right mix. A guy like Reilly's probably put on ten pounds and gotten stronger, and Ben Marshall had a great year for us last year. I think we have some ability back there to get the puck out of our own zone, which is a big part of how we play. Q. How, if at all, do you think being in the Big Ten changes the dynamic of making the postseason, trying to get a top seed? Is it going to be tougher? DON LUCIA: I think it's going to be difficult. There is no question that not only is beating up on each other within the conference, but the non‑conference part of your schedule becomes important. You're going to have to have some success there. You're always going to have that end of your character, if you win the tournament, you can get into the NCAA Tournament. Also, I just saw yesterday I think it came out that there are some tweaks on the NCAA selection who it's going to be. I wasn't aware that was going to happen. So how that ramification works itself out this year, that will be interesting to see as well. Bottom line, you'll have to win games. I think we all came from very competitive conferences. Even though Penn State, you know, they're a new program. But at the same time, they beat hoy high state last year, they beat Michigan State, they beat Wisconsin. In this day and age, it's not like the rest of us have a bunch of seniors. A lot of times those guys depart for the pros. So they're in year three of their process, so I think they'll be very good right from the beginning as well. It will be every game will be a test. It's a fine line between winning and losing. But I think that's the competition is what make it's great for our players, our coaches and certainly our fans as well. Q. How long do you think it will take before we know for sure that this is a good thing, that the realignment of college hockey, the switching of the leagues, the creation of the new leagues is going to be a good thing or bad thing? DON LUCIA: Well, I think at the end of this year it will start to become the new norm. I said that as looking back to the history of being part of what was the WCHA as a player, the change that happened in 1981 with the split with Michigan, Michigan State and Notre Dame going to the CCHA, and adding Northern Michigan, and adding Mankato and Alaska along the way. After a few years, it becomes the new norm. Fans start to see the way the conferences are, and all of a sudden, you don't know any different. But I think you are seeing like schools together. Even the old WCHA, they're all Division II schools, and now the expectation there is every team has a chance to win that conference too, just like it's in the Big Ten. Every year, every team has a legitimate chance to win the Big Ten hockey conference. I think that's what's going to make it fun for the fans. I think it's almost like it was a straight process, I think for the fans the last year or two with this coming because it was the unknown. But now that it's here, I think everybody starts to say I think it will be okay. At the same time it maybe opens up new avenues if someone is willing to hockey, hopefully the Big Ten can grow. If we can get up to eight teams I think it would be great for our conference. But if somebody else wants to add, there is room in the ECAC, and room in the WCHA. So who knows. Five years from now there could be some difference in alignments in the conference as well. I'm not sure everything's settled now. We see it in all sports. Q. Kyle was a unanimous preseason watch list. What do you guys hope to see this year with the guys you mentioned you lost? DON LUCIA: There's a good chance he'll play center this year. That was always his natural position. We've put him at back at center down the ice two times for thirty minutes with our guys up until now. He'll have the puck a little bit more if we move him back to center, so we haven't decided yet whether he'll play center or wing. So whether we keep him at center, Condon at center, it gives us a couple older guys and having to rely on true freshmen especially in those couple top line positions.  So I think we need Kyle to score. He's our leading returning scorer, and we need the puck on his stick as much as we possibly can. That is one of the reasons why we're really strong and considering moving him back to center, so he has more touches. Q. Are the odds getting steeper with regards to keeping teams together? You've lost five underclassmen this year. The coaches picked to win it, the reason they're picked is they have nine seniors and a lot of upperclassmen. Are the odds getting steeper in it's more difficult to keep teams like that together? DON LUCIA: Well, there is no question. That is part of the issue that we face at the collegiate level is how long are you going to have guys here? Do you have the fruits of those players that you're working with for year two or three, or do they depart right when they're going to get to the point where they're really going to help you? And that is the hard part and mix in your recruiting. We've recruited some smaller players in the hopes that we'll have them for four years and hopefully that will pan out down the line. When you look at Quinnipiac last year with a dozen seniors on their team, I don't care, whatever sport, you need to have your juniors and seniors, you still have to have your elite player and continue to recruit your elite player, but you have to have that mix because it is difficult for an 18 or 19‑year‑old still physically with a 22 or 23 or 24‑year‑old. If you can recruit that player that's going to be a good college player and keep them for four years, you're ahead of the game. But at the same time, when you're recruiting somebody at 16, you really don't know what they're going to end up like in two or three years. We've recruited players that were not that big, and they grew two years and ended up a first‑round pick and they were gone after one year. Three years before you never would have dreamed that would happen, but that's just all part of what we face now. Q. You mentioned being a little thin on defense. You've had one player leave school early already and you have a suspension. How is that going to affect your depth on offense in the first month of the season, especially? DON LUCIA: I don't think that will affect it at all. You have lessons learned and standards for your program. Like I've told our kids many times, we're not going to lower the standard or the bar for anybody. Their job is to make sure they get above the bar and the Gopher way and how we want to do things. Sometimes there are just difficult lessons that the kids have to have, and that's certainly happened this fall with our young men, and in some regards maybe it will be the best thing that's happened to him. In the long run, it's maturity and everything else. But I think we have enough good players that it shouldn't impact us. He's going to have to certainly fight to get back in the lineup a month plus when we're playing. But with our incoming freshmen, we'll have Connor Reilly back who didn't play at all last year. I think he'll help us. It will take some time and effort after not playing for a year and a half to get back in the groove. But with Rau and Condon, I think we have enough depth. We don't have Nick this year, and I don't think we have an Erik Haula. But we have the makings of more offensive depth than we had a year ago. That hurt us after last year we didn't get much scoring after the two lines. Q. What sort of benefits, if any, are you seeing from the new conference? I know recently they announced a pretty extensive TV schedule? DON LUCIA: We'll be on certainly multiple channels. But starting with the Big Ten Network, having that doubleheader on Friday night, I think that's going to be great for college hockey. It's going to be great for our conference where if you're a fan, that second half of the year, there is going to be that double header Friday night. There is an eastern time game, then you'll go into a central time game, it's either going to be Minnesota or Wisconsin. So as a fan, you can really kickback and watch. Also, this is spreading our brand, the Big Ten brand for all of our schools across the country. You get into so many new markets, and I think that's going to be a real win down the line too, even for recruiting. If you're the parent of a player that maybe you're not in the vicinity, but you know that even if you can't make it to the game you'll have the opportunity to watch it on TV, and I think that's a real benefit as well. We'll have the best of, I think right now 31 of our games are on TV next year. I think when it's all said and done, we'll have one or two more before TV is finalized. It's going to be good for our program and good for all the Big Ten teams. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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