Guentzel predicts Gophers will make 2012 NCAA tournament

About 80 to 100 people gathered around a stage at the State Fair on Tuesday for some Gophers hockey talk.

Mike Guentzel, a familiar name, did much of the talking. He was there with assistant coach Grant Potulny and three players. But Mike spoke and first.

"This year we are going to get to the Xcel Center and play in the NCAA tournament," said Guentzel, hired this summer to be the Gophers associate head coach. " We are hosting a regional, and that would be our goal to get back and play in it. If we do that, it probably means we are good enough to get in the Final Five, where Gophers hockey should be."

Last spring, the Gophers were upset by Alaska Anchorage in the first round of the WCHA playoffs and did not advance to the Final. They also missed the NCAA tournament for the third season in a row. To make that blow even worst, the Frozen Four was at the X.

Guentzel, a former Gophers coach and player, said that he is happy to be back in Minnesota.

"I spent of my life here, 14 years as a coach and four years as a player," Mike Guentzel said. "I am excited to come back and hopefully it is my last stop."

After he left the program four years ago, he moved around. He was an assistant coach for Colorado College one season, head coach of Des Moines in the USHL for one season and an assistant coach for Nebraska Omaha last season.

"That was one thing that made it easy to come back," Guentzel said. "I had a lot of success with Don. And obviously Grant [Potulny] was our captain on those two championship teams. We are looking forward to having the opportunity to compete for [an NCAA title] again in the next couple of years."

AN IRON RANGER

Guentzel grew up in Marble, which he called a metropolis of 700 on the Iron Range. He gradudated from Greenway High Cchool in 1981 and then was offered a scholarship by Brad Buetow to play for the Gophers.

One year after college he became an assistant coach for the Vulcans and three years later replaced former teammate Kevin Hartzell as head coach. He had some success theer and then coached Omaha of the USHL before joining Doug Woog's Gophers staff.

A FEW TOUCH UPS