Looking back on Gophers' finish, ahead on recruiting

Gophers coach Don Lucia on a Saturday morning radio show on KFAN called Beyond the Pond: "You have to have thick skin because you are not going to please everybody.

"You are going to make decisions that are not always popular. But you always try to make decisions that you feel, at the time, are in the best interests of the program. And that's what I have tried to do since I have been here."

Comment: Winning helps silence the critics.

Lucia and most other coaches are packing up to go to the American Hockey Coaches' Association meetings in Naples, Fla., which run from Wednesday thru Sunday.

The first day is a relatively light schedule:

3 p.m.: Division I men's commissioners meeting ... the five commissioner, including Bruce McLeod of the WCHA, meet. And a hot topic, no doubt, will be the Big Ten Conference and its aftershocks

5:30 p.m.: NCAA Division I men's hockey committee meeting

8 p.m.: Opening meeing of American Women's Hockey Coaches Association

9 p.m.: AWHCA social

Comment: Commissioners have lots to talk about. The CCHA looks vulnerable. The WCHA and Hockey East could both go after Notre Dame and Miami, its two marquee programs.

RECRUITING CHANGES

Lucia, on the same KFAN radio show, talked about how recruiting has changed. He went to tryouts for the under-17 U.S. national team in Ann Arbor, Mich., and seven of the 40 players there, all sophomores and 15 year olds, had already picked a college, he said.

"Second, what's happened -- obviously, we'd like to be older. We are trying to get older. There are kids who have to go play juniors post-high school, but if somebody leaves your program and signs a professional contract, then you have to bring in that kid. You can only offer so many scholarships."

(The Gophers, last summer, decided to bring in two 2010 Minnetonka high school graduates, forward Max Gardiner and defenseman Justin Holl, because two sophomores-to-be left unexpectedly.)

"We have 18 scholarships spread out with our team," Lucia said. "You can't offer scholarships that you don't have.

"Ideally, do we want every one of our players to play junior hockey? Yes. That is a very important step whether you are a senior in high school or it's post-high school. Ideally, that's what we would like.

"This year's team, I think we had 10-11 kids on our team that came directly out of high school. To be quite frank, that's too many. It is a big learning curve when you go play junior hockey.

"A kid like Nick Bjugstad who came directly out of high school, he had a transition period. It took him really half a year to really get acclimated to the WCHA and he took off the second half of the year, which is what we expected. There is a learning curve."

GO -- IF YOU WANT TO

As for players who leave college early for the pros, Lucia said, there is little he can do to stop them.

"The one thing I have learned, I almost think it is a mistake to try to talk a kid into staying," Lucia said. "They have to reach their own conclusion. A kid has to be back with both feet in. You can't have a situation where, 'Boy, I want to be a pro. I wish I could have turned pro.'

"It is really important for me and the program that the kids that stay, they want to be here and are willing to delay their pro hockey for another year or two.

"NHL teams, more than ever, want access to their players. If a kid is playing in the Canadian Hockey League they can go on the ice and work with them right after they draft them. And they can come to their training camp so they have much more access than they do at the collegiate level."

Players also have other influences, they didn't in the past. "Kids come to college. A lot of the kids have advisors at 16 years of age," Lucia said. "It didn't used to be that way. It's a different day and age and we have to accept that. We can't go back. We can't wish we could go back. We just have to find the right formula under today's parameters."

ON CRITICISM OF HIS ASSISTANTS

"They [assistant coaches] are looking at different opportunities each and every year," Lucia said. "Most of the criticism ends up John [Hill]'s way. And he understands that and I understand that. And I always say back in the '90s we worked together [at Colorado College] and we lost in the national championship game to Michigan.

"We had three, four defensemen who were all-americans, we had defensive players of the year. John came here when I first came to work here and certainly helped us those couple years to where we won a couple national titles.

Comment: Rumors, so far unsubstantiated, continue that Hill won't return. Will he be the scapegoat for the Gophers' third season in a row without an NCAA at-large or automatic bid?

MORE DON

* On his long illness, which required weekly steroid treatments by IV: "If I had to do it over again, I would have taken a leave of absence, whether it would have been six months or how long, I don't know. What ends up happening, you go through it and you lose a few games and you don't think you can walk out on your team. ... Getting that IV zapped my strength."

Lucia didn't need those steroid treatments this past season and felt much better. "I'm glad it is behind me," he said.

* On where his younger son, Mario, will go to college: "That is something that he is going to have to decide. I've told him all along, he has earned the right to do what he wants. If he wants to come here, he certainly has the opportunity if that is what he thinks is in his best interests. But, under the circumstances, if he feels it is better to get away and not have to worry about nepotism or being Don Lucia's son, I certainly understand that as well."