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This is Michael Russo's 17th year covering the National Hockey League. He's covered the Minnesota Wild for the Star Tribune since 2005 following 10 years of covering the Florida Panthers for the Sun-Sentinel. Michael uses “Russo’s Rants” to feed a wide-ranging hockey-centric discussion with readers, and can be heard weekly on KFAN (100.3 FM) radio.
Also find Russo on Facebook.
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NHL/NHLPA working to salvage season; USA-Canada world junior rematch Thursday
Posted by: Michael Russo under Vikings, Gophers, Wild off-season news Updated: January 2, 2013 - 6:49 AM
After working past midnight on New Year's Eve and all day New Year's Day, the NHL extended a "comprehensive response" to the NHLPA's comprehensive response to the NHL's latest proposal late Tuesday night.
Got it?
Basically, the NHL and NHLPA are in a negotiating game of ping-pong, which is very much a good thing.
Good morning. I'll be filling in from 12-3 on KFAN (100.3 FM) today, so please tune in. You can also tweet me questions at @russostrib or leave them on my Facebook page.
Guests today include Gophers coach Don Lucia (12:35 p.m.), St. Louis Blues coach Ken Hitchcock (1:20 p.m.), Ottawa Sun's Bruce Garrioch (1:35 p.m.), Vikings.com's Mike Wobschall (12:15 p.m.) and WCCO's Mark Rosen from 2-3.
The NHLPA took the NHL's latest response last night in order to digest it and likely respond to it today. There's a very good chance the two sides meet again.
"In our response, there were certain things that the Players' association asked for that we agreed to, there were some things that we moved in their direction and there were other things that we said no," Commissioner Gary Bettman told reporters in New York. "But that's part of the process."
Three proposals have been exchanged in the past five days. A deal must be struck by Jan. 11, or the season likely will be canceled. The plan is for training camp to start by Jan. 12 and a 48-game season to begin Jan. 19 if a collective bargaining agreement can be reached.
Realisticallty, a deal must be reached before Jan. 11 in order to get it fully down on paper, lawyered up and ratified.
The NHLPA has until midnight tonight if it wants to file a disclaimer of interest and dissolve the union, but with both sides creeping closer, that's unlikely. The NHLPA could always vote as a membership again to file a disclaimer of interest at a later date if things go haywire.
But I don't see that happening. I truly believe a deal will be struck in the coming days. There's several part of the pact that has already been agreed upon, and as RDS reported last night, the NHLPA is willing to do a 10-year CBA now under certain conditions and the sides are close to an agreement on revenue sharing.
The main things being tackled now are pensions and what the upper limit of the salary cap will be starting in 2013-14. The NHL's proposal of $60 million was unacceptable to the NHLPA.
"The fact that we're involved in a continuous process is something that I'm glad to see, but we're clearly not done yet," said Bettman.
But players I talk to are confident and more and more players are starting to trickle back from Europe in anticipation of camps starting.
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I'm up early because I couldn't fall back to sleep after my 3 a.m. wakeup call to watch the U.S. Czechs. No contest as the Americans won big, 7-0, in the quarterfinals to advance to a 3 a.m. CT Thursday rematch against Canada. The U.S. lost 2-1 to Canada a few days ago. The game can be seen on NHL Network and NHL.com.
Johnny Gaudreau had a hat trick today and has five goals in two games, showing why Don Lucia said after the Gophers' 8-1 win over Boston College on Sunday that the win should have an "asterisk" on it because the Eagles were without Gaudreau and two injured veteran defensemen.
Riley Barker had two goals, JT Miller had a goal and two assists, Jacob Trouba and Seth Jones had four assists apiece and John Gibson had the shutout with 31 saves. Trying to decipher the boxscore, but I think the Americans went 5 for 12 on the power play and there were 18 or 19 power plays in the tightly-called game.
OK, that's it. Give me a listen please on the radio if you want to hear some Vikings, puck talk and a little bit of everything with Rosie. And of course I'll be up at 3 a.m. for the semifinal, although I've been keeping the tweets to a minimum because I don't want to wake up anybody who happens to get my tweets texted to their phones.
Get ready folks. NHL season on the horizon. 
Gophers ring in the New Year with No. 1 ranking; Haula week to week; CBA update
Posted by: Michael Russo under Gophers, Wild off-season news Updated: December 31, 2012 - 5:38 PMUpdated
The 13-3-3 Gophers' men's hockey team jumped three spots in the rankings today to overtake Boston College for the No. 1 team in the nation in the USCHO.com poll.
This was thanks to an 8-1 pasting of the now second-ranked Eagles on Sunday night to win the Mariucci Classic.
So the fifth-place team (three points behind St. Cloud State with two games in hand) in the WCHA is No. 1 in the country.
Nick Bjugstad scored a career-high four points, Kyle Rau had two goals and an assist and 12 Gophers had points, including goalie Adam Wilcox, who made a career-high 32 saves.
The bad news though is Wild prospect Erik Haula left the game in the third period after being slashed across his hands.
Coach Don Lucia emailed me tonight that Haula is week to week with an upper-body injury and is doubtful for the Gophers' Jan. 8 game against Notre Dame.
I am hearing from multiple sources that Haula, the Gophers' most consistent forward this season, has a potential fracture in one of his fingers. A few years back, another Finnish center, one that's captain of the Minnesota Wild, missed a month when he broke a digit.
Again, the Gophers don't play next until Jan. 8 against No. 3 Notre Dame. That could feature a father-son battle between Don Lucia's Gophers and Notre Dame freshman Mario Lucia.
Despite the U.S. world junior team expected back into the country only the day before, one would assume Mario Lucia will want to be in the lineup.
However, Don Lucia said before the holiday tournament that he will likely give freshman defenseman Mike Reilly, who scored the winning goal in the Americans' 9-3 win over Slovakia today, the game off to rest for the weekend series Jan. 11-12 against Alaska-Anchorage.
In NHL lockout news, the NHLPA tendered a counterproposal today. Talks are done as the NHL reviews the counter. The two sides plan to get together New Year's Day. Maybe their New Year's resolution is to play hockey this year. 
In Wild news, Torrey Mitchell has signed with the ECHL San Francisco Bulls.
Remember, I'll be hosting for Common on KFAN from 12-3 on Wednesday, so please tune in.
Happy New Year everybody!
Bjugstad leads Gophers' 8-1 trouncing of No. 1 Boston College; Haula injured
Posted by: Michael Russo under Gophers postgame Updated: December 31, 2012 - 9:20 AMThe Gophers handed No. 1-ranked, defending NCAA champ Boston College its most lopsided loss since Feb. 24, 1996, tonight with an 8-1 trouncing.
That night against New Hampshire, the Eagles lost 10-0. There have been a handful of six-goal losses since, but none by more than six.
Read the game story for many of the details on www.startribune.com/gophers, but Nick Bjugstad scored a career-high two goals and two assists, Kyle Rau scored two goals and an assist, captain Zach Budish tied a career-high with three assists and Adam Wilcox made a career-high 32 saves and nearly had a second shutout in two nights.
The conference rook was named tournament MVP and continues to impress coach Don Lucia. Last night against Air Force, Lucia was anxious to see if his timing would be off after three weeks of holiday break. Tonight, Lucia was anxious to see how Wilcox would handle the test of the No. 1 team in the nation and terrific offensive juggernaut.
As usual, Wilcox passed with flying colors. He even assisted on Sam Warning’s shorthanded breakaway tally. Wilcox is eighth in the nation with a 1.63 goals against average. He has a .927 save percentage. His 12 wins are tied for second in the country and his .794 win percentage ranks second.
“It’s nice to be in a little groove,” he said (a little?).
Warning also had two points, Nate Condon, Seth Ambroz and Nate “Quote Machine” Schmidt also scored goals and 12 players had points. The Gophers scored four times on the power play.
Potentially bad news though. Leading scorer Erik Haula, who had two assists, leads the Gophers with 26 points and has points in 14 in a row (two points from 100), left the ice writhing in pain after taking a nasty slash on I believe Rau’s third-period goal. He was seen with ice packs on both hands after the game and didn’t accept his all-tournament team award postgame on the ice.
Lucia said he got “dinged” and would be evaluated by doctors in the next few days. He will provide an update mid-week.
Also on the all-Gopher/all-tournament team was Bjugstad, Rau, Schmidt, Jake Parenteau and Wilcox.
Now, before you start to think that such an impressive win automatically means they should hand the Gophers the national championship now, know this: the Eagles were without leading scorer Johnny Gaudreau and two injured defensemen, Patch Alber, who may have torn his meniscus in a pregame soccer game Saturday night, and Isaac MacLeod, who has a shoulder injury.
So Lucia said you kinda have to “asterisk” this win, but he still was proud of the all-around performance by his team and happy with the weekend as a whole (includes a 4-0 win over Air Force).
Also, in the Thursday availability, Lucia said by name that Bjugstad, Rau and Condon needed to contribute more offensively. All three had big weekends.
“They know it,” Lucia said. “They had not scored at the level that I think they’re capable of, not because they haven’t been trying. It had to happen. When you start putting some pucks away and getting some points, you feel better about yourself and walk a little taller. Nothing’s worse for an offensive player when you’re struggling to score.
“It just weighs down on you. We had good contributions from a lot of guys this weekend and that’s what we have to have from here on out.”
Bjugstad said he wasn’t happy with his first half. He now leads the team with 10 goals. He said he spent the holiday break shooting a lot of pucks and trying to refocus.
“He’s a big, strong player,” Boston College coach Jerry York said of Bjugstad. “I think it’ll benefit him by staying another year in college. I thought that was clearly a good choice for him. Chris Kreider did the same thing the year before. It helped him. There’s no rush getting in the pros. [Bjugstad’s] getting better and better.”
What’s cool is Lucia has signed up Boston College and Northeasten to four-year commitments, so Gophers fans will get to see B.C. starting next year.
Next up for the Gophers: Jan. 8 against No. 3 Notre Dame, who happens to have a pretty good freshman named Mario Lucia.
OK, that’s it for me. I’ll update you with the new rankings Monday. The NHL and NHLPA are expected to meet in person Monday as well.
Also, I will be filling in for Common from 12-3 Wednesday on KFAN (100.3-FM). One of my guests may be Don Lucia.
Gophers return with same lineup against No. 1 Boston College
Posted by: Michael Russo under Gophers, Gophers game day Updated: December 30, 2012 - 5:43 PMOne night after shutting out Air Force, 4-0, the Gophers will return with the same group of 18 skaters against No. 1 ranked Boston College.
Originally, the plan was to play A.J. Michaelson tonight, but the fourth line of Ryan Reilly, Christian Isackson and Justin Holl was so effective last night, Michaelson will sit.
Here is the line chart for both teams:
Minnesota
Forwards
Kyle Rau-Nick Bjugstad-Nate Condon
Sam Warning-Erik Haula-Zach Budish
Tom Serratore-Travis Boyd-Seth Ambroz
Ryan Reilly-Christian Isackson-Justin Holl
Defensemen
Seth Helgeson-Mark Alt
Jake Parenteau-Ben Marshall
Brady Skjei-Nate Schmidt
Goalies
Adam Wilcox
Mike Shibrowski
Ryan Coyne
Boston College
Forwards
Destry Straight-Pat Mullane-Steven Whitney
Kevin Hayes-Bill Arnold-Brendan Silk
Quinn Smith-Patrick Brown-Brooks Dyroff
Cam Spiro-Michael Sit-Danny Linell
Defensemen
Teddy Doherty-Patrick Wey
Michael Matheson-Colin Sullivan
Travis Jeke-Peter McMullen
Goalies
Parker Milner
Brian Billett
Brad Barone
Gophers blank Air Force, move on to Sunday showdown with No. 1 Boston College
Posted by: Michael Russo under Gophers postgame Updated: December 29, 2012 - 10:49 PMSolid performance here at Mariucci Arena Saturday night by the Gophers. They made simple work of Air Force en route to a 4-0 win and now advance to the big showdown Sunday night at 7 against No. 1-ranked Boston College, the defending national champions and the team that ended the Gophers' season last spring.
Biggest game in town in the Twin Cities on Sunday, right?
Well, other than the little football game being played a few miles away.
Read the game story on www.startribune.com/gophers for all the details, but Erik Haula scored a goal and assist for his 26th career multi-point game, Ryan Reilly scored his first college goal, Kyle Rau and Nate Condon also scored and the always reliable Adam Wilcox showed zero rust from three weeks off by making 18 stops for his third career shutout.
With younger bro Mike Reilly roaming Ufa, Russia, with the American junior team and twin bro Connor Reilly out for the season, Ryan Reilly repped the Reilly clan impressively by using his speed and making himself noticeable all night. Then he scored his goal on a beauty crash of the net to one-time Christian Isackson's pretty feed.
Big game for Reilly because Don Lucia said he plans to play him again Sunday against Boston College, which is big because Reilly, 21, had been scratched in seven consecutive games and 12 of 18 this season. A.J. Michaelson originally was expected to play Sunday, but with the line of Reilly-Isackson-Justin Holl pretty effective, we'll see if Lucia makes a change now.
Lucia was happy with the way his team played. He liked the play of all four lines, the way the six defensemen got pucks through and of course how Wilcox always seems to make the big save when his team needs it. There was that 2-on-1 in the first period with the Gophers up 1-0, the breakaway in the third with the Gophers up 2-0.
So good game all around.
Now B.C. They beat Alabama-Huntsville, 5-2, tonight for Jerry York's NCAA record-breaking 925th win. Lucia joked with him after, "I'm no threat." Lucia has 609 wins in 26 seasons, but the successful coach has made it quite clear he doesn't plan to coach into his retirement years.
For more on York, the Eagles' lineup (they have injury issues and are without one of their best players) and an NHL CBA update, please see the previous blog.
OK, I'm outta here. My wakeup call for this morning's 3:30 a.m. Canada-U.S. world junior game comes in 4 1/2 hours.
Where's the watch party at?
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