Lucia will re-evaluate, but pleased with team's growth

Gophers coach Don Lucia said he will look at himself first in evaluating what changes are needed for next season.

"But I also look at the growth of our team this past year and I do feel good about the growth that our team showed," said Lucia, whose team was 5-0-2 in its last seven regular-season games. "A lot of the young guys got a lot better. We are obviously going to have a very young team next year. There are not going to be very many juniors and seniors, a lot of freshmen and sophomores. We will have to play the young guys next year and allow them to grow like we did this year and hopefully at the end of the year we will have different results."

(Here is how the 2011-12 roster breaks down if nobody else -- besides junior D-man Aaron Ness -- leaves:

Seniors: Seven, five forwards (Hansen, N. Larson, Matson, Miller, Sacchetti) and two goalies (Kremer, Patterson)

Junior: One, defenseman (Helgeson).

Sophomores: 11, six forwards (Bjugstad, Condon, Gardiner, Haula, J. Larson, Serratore). five defensemen (Alt, Holl, Parenteau, Schmidt, Student), and maybe one goalie (Fons). ... Fons might not be back.

Freshmen: Six, four forwards (Seth Ambroz, Travis Boyd, Christian Isackson, Kyle Rau), one defenseman (Ben Marshall) and one goalie (Adam Wilcox).

There are seven defensemen. Short there. Willl add at least one, maybe two.

Three goalies probably on roster. OK there.)

"Obviously, we have to win a few more games," Lucia said. "Hopefully next year we can stay healthy. we had to go through that a littrle bit this year.

"We are going to have a difficult early schedule. We have a lot of road games next year early. This year we had a lot of home games early. Next year, especially in league play, we are going to have a lot of road games through November, Some of it [is] because of the football schedule now that we have deal with."

(Explanation: When Gophers football team plays at home, hockey team can't play Saturday night because of the traffic snarl that would cause. So, obviously, Gophers are playing on the road those weekends.)

Actually, the Gophers had a better road record this season than a home record. Gophers were 9-10-3 at home, 7-4-3 away.

"We didn't get it done," Lucia said, referring to the Gophers missing the NCAA tournament for the third consecutive year. "That's on all of us, it is on the coaches, it is on the players, and it is disappointing. We want to do better,

"I understand fans want us to do well, and they expect us to do well, and so do we. We have to win a couple more games, and hopefully gain that momentum next year."

UAA HANGOVER

"I am still disappointed over the weekend," Lucia said, referring to Alaska Anchorage's 4-3 and 2-0 sweep of the Gophers in the first round of the WCHA playoffs. "It took over a few days to get over it. The disappointment for me was as a team we improved so much during the course of the season. We worked extremely hard to get ourselves in a position for home ice and knowing -- had we been able to advance this past weekend -- we probably would be in great shape for the NCAA tournament [as an at-large possibility].

The Gophers came out flat on Friday and fell behind 3-0 midway through the second period. Saturday's game was different. It was scoreless through two periods.

"I actually thought we played better Saturday than we did Friday," Lucia said. "Jay had a breakaway early in the game on Friday.[But he didn't score.] It is important for us to play with the lead. You also have to give Alaska credit for how they played. They played very well with a goaltender [Chris Kamal] -- they are obviously playing very confident in front of him. What is he, 7-1 or 8-1 at the end of the season? They are playing very good hockey."

Kamal is 8-1, a hot streak which began when he came off a long time on the bench to shut out the Gophers 1-0 on Jan. 29. He had 30 saves.

The Gophers, again on Saturday, had trouble scoring on Kamal. "We talked about trying to stay patient during that game," Lucia said, "and we made the mistake that caused them to get the first goal and then the second goal. We didn't do enough to win. That is for sure."