2010-2011 Roster

[Eric Vegoe]

The Frozen Four is happening this weekend, and I’m trying not to think about Wisconsin winning a seventh national title--which by the way would tie them with Denver and North Dakota for the second most NCAA hockey titles behind Michigan’s nine. Meanwhile, Minnesota enters another summer stagnated at five titles. If Lucia can pull off another back-to-back run, then the program will be back with the class of the WCHA. Stay positive, right?

We’re nearly a month into the off-season and while Jordan Schroeder discovered his scoring touch again in the AHL, a couple seniors have moved on to pro hockey, we can hopefully assume the flight risks for 2009-10 are settled. UMD radio voice Bruce Ciskie reported that Fairchild is coming back, http://bit.ly/dpkJs5, and looking back to GPL Writer Ryan Cardinal mid-March musings on next year’s roster, http://bit.ly/a4BGuc, we can look at ahead to November when Lucia tries to right the ship. I thought it might be nice to summarize things outside of the 50 page, 215000 viewed committed recruits thread.

It’s looking like there will be at least 17 forwards available for 12 or 13 spots each night in 2010-11 including four seniors and five juniors. More importantly maybe though is that there will be two 23-year-olds, two 22-year-olds, and seven 21-year-olds, and the youngest three players are physically mature (Budish 6-3 220, Bjugstad 6-3 190, and Ambroz 6-3 205). The defensive corps won’t have quite the same maturity, but will feature a 22-year-old, two 21-year-olds, two 20-year-olds, and three 19-year-olds.

Forwards - 17
23-year-olds: Barriball – Sr – 5/27/87, Miller – Jr – 9/11/87
22-year-olds: Cepis – Sr – 12/21/87, Matson – Jr – 9/16/88
21-year-olds: N. Larson – Jr – 1/16/89, White – Sr – 1/28/89, Hoeffel – Sr – 4/9/89, Serratore – Fr – 7/16/89, Hansen – Jr – 8/21/89, Sacchetti – Jr – 8/21/89, J. Larson – Fr – 8/28/89
U-21: Condon – Fr – 5/29/90, Birkholz – Soph – 3/21/91, Haula – Fr – 3/23/91, Budish – Soph – 5/9/91, Bjugstad – Fr 7/17/92, Ambroz – Fr – 4/1/93

Defense - 8
22-year-old: Wehrs – Sr – 4/7/88
21-year-olds: Fairchild – Sr – 1/15/89, Parenteau – Fr – 6/10/89
20-year-olds:Ness – Jr – 5/18/90, Helgeson – Soph – 10/8/90
19-year-olds: Leddy – Soph – 3/20/91, Schmidt – Fr 7/16/91, Alt – Fr - 10/18/91

Iceburg Summary of Players: http://bit.ly/9OUUlW

Other Committed Players
2010: Max Gardiner (5/7/92), Jake Youso (6/8/90)
2011: Justin Holl (1/30/92), Christian Isackson (1/20/92), Ben Marshall (8/30/92), Connor Reilly (10/1/91), Ryan Reilly (10/1/91), Ryan Walters (7/30/91), Sam Warning (9/29/92), Adam Wilcox (11/92)
2012: Travis Boyd (9/14/93)

[valdivia]

Eric, Do you see any clear stand-outs in that group of forwards coming in? Also, I noticed that the returning Gophers are a little small on defense. It's really noticeable in games. Guys like, Weirs, Fairchild and Ness do a good job of getting the rush started and the puck out of our defensive end. I think they struggle, however, in clearing people out and tying people up out in front of the net. It would be nice to have some more muscle in the back. -- Marc from Chicago