It ain't over yet, coach Lucia insists on radio show

"You want to stay on that even keel," Lucia said on Monday during his weekly radio show on WCCO. "You can't get to high or too low. Monday through Thursday, you try to gear up to Friday and Saturday and then you want to have the same performance both nights and not just one."

The Gophers play at Denver this weekend and Lucia is hoping for at least a split to give his team a chance to make a run for home ice.

"We still have that opportunity," Lucia said. "Obviously, we are going to have to get some points this weekend against Denver. If we get a couple [two] points, then all of a sudden you are only five back [of Colorado College] and you have them in your own building for two games.

"CC still has Minnesota, North Dakota and Denver, so they don't have an easy go of it as well."

Clearly, the Gophers have their sights set on overtaking North Dakota, one point ahead of them, and CC, a deceivingly seven ahead. The Tigers are tied with Wisconsin for fourth place with 25 points but are idle this weekend.

So if the Gophers can get two points or more, they can reel the Tigers in the following weekend at Mariucci if they can sweep CC.

"You still want to continue to play well and to finish as strong as you possibly can," Lucia said. "And then whether you are home or on the road, you are going to have to win that first round matchup no matter where you are. The fortunate thing for us is, we have played pretty well on the road all year long.

Certainly, the Gophers can damage the chances any of their next four opponents have of winning the WCHA regular-season title. They still play UMD, tied for first with St. Cloud State; Denver, which is a point back in third, and CC and Wisconsin, tied for fourth and four points behind the leaders.

Lucia said his approach all season long has been not to worry about what is going to happen next month. "You have to worry about today and try to get better each and every day," he said. "We have improved a lot over the course of this season. We are playing better as a team. Even though we lost on Saturday up in Alaska (2-1 to the Seawolves two weekends ago), I thought we played well. We certainly had our chances and couldn't get that second goal."

HOEFFEL BACK

Mike Hoeffel, who has missed the past four games with mononucleosis, was back at practice on Monday. He still leads the team with 11 goals.

"Obviously getting him back, even though he won't be 100 percent," Lucia said, "is going to be a big addition when leading goal-scorer comes back in your lineup."

"The [Denver Pioneers] are a really good team and they are ranked like they are for a reason," said Lucia, whose Gophers play No. 2 DU on Friday and Saturday. "It starts with their goaltender. [Marc] Cheverie is an outstanding goaltender. He is the best goalie in our league and certainly one of the top goalies in college hockey.

"You are not going to go out there and score four or five [goals]. You better win 2-1, 3-2 type games because goals are going to be very difficult to come by certainly against him."

Lucia said the Gophers are not going to change anything aginst the Pioneers. "Obviously, we want to make sure -- we are back in a small rink -- we'll chip pucks in and get pucks behind their defensemen and not turn it over," he said. "because they have some good, quick forwards, too. With [Rhett] Rakhshani and [Tyler] Ruegsegger and [Joe] Colborne and [Anthony] Maiani, they got some dynamic players up front.

"But I really think the strength of their team is thier goaltender and their D-corps. It is very big, it is very mobile, they're experienced back there. I really like this Denver team."

ON RECRUITING

Lucia was at games every night last week from Tuesday to Saturday. "I saw a lot of good games and it was fun," Lucia said.

Recruiting has changed a lot since Lucia became a head coach. "If you go back 20-plus years, there really wasn't much summer recruiting going on," Lucia said. "There wasn't any recruitment of 15-, 16-year-old players. You would go to junior hockey, the fall classic. That's when recruiting kicked off, in September. And you were recruiting seniors in high school and not watching 10th graders back then.

"That part of it has changed. Kids are certainly a lot more worldly then they were 20 years ago. They have traveled much more extensively playing on triple A and all-star teams but like anything else you have to adapt and recruiting is still fun and it's the name of the game. The team with the best players usually wins."

KANGAS COULD BE KEY

"When you get to the end, what is going to become important if you are going to win low-scoring games is your goaltender," Lucia said. "Certainly Alex [Kangas] has proven in the past that he can get hot and put a team on his back. And that's how we are approaching these last eight games.