Potomak will take classes and practice with fifth-ranked Minnesota while continuing to redshirt, The Gopher Hockey Blog has learned. This allows her to keep a full four years of playing eligibility and get an extra semester of school. The 18 year-old will be a redshirt freshman in 2018-19 provided she doesn't skate in a game.
Potomak missed the first semester as one of 28 players centralized in Calgary with the Canadian Olympic team. Cut from the team in November, the Aldergrove, British Columbia native took her time with Gophers head coach Brad Frost making a decision. In the interim, she skated with teammate Lindsay Agnew on Canada's National Women's Development Team in the Nations Cup.
A side effect of the decision is that she will spend a semester with the team without older sister Sarah. The older Potomak, also cut from the Canadian Olympic team, will continue to redshirt by spending the semester in her native Canada.
Sarah will be a redshirt junior next season.
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Minnesota associate coach Joel Johnson missed the Gophers' 2-1 win over St. Cloud State Tuesday. He had a good reason. Johnson is currently in Moscow coaching the United States U-18 World Juniors team for the fourth consecutive year. Featuring seven Gopher commits, the three-time defending gold medal Americans have run through their group, outscoring three opponents by a combined 13-6 in three wins. The US will face Canada tomorrow in the semifinals.
Of those seven, three commits - captain Taylor Heise (Red Wing) and alternates Gracie Ostertag (Shakopee) and Madeline Wethington (Edina) - are wearing letters.
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The Gopher women, facing Vermont at home this weekend in non-conference play, continue to employ a season-long goaltender rotation of redshirt senior Sidney Peters and freshman Alex Gulstene.
On the men's side, this weekend's home series against Michigan marks the fourth since sophomore Mat Robson was eligible. Each of the previous three has seen a pattern emerge where Eric Schierhorn started the first game and Robson the second.
While Lucia would not divulge his goaltender plan against the Wolverines, he does feel that both goalies are capable of playing and push one another. He also isn't tied to a Friday-Saturday rotation if someone gets hot.
"We're not necessarily in a situation where we'll split every weekend. Somebody might play (both games) in a weekend and somebody else might play the next weekend," he said.
That could open things for Robson, who shut out St. Cloud State when Schierhorn gave up five goals a night earlier. In his last two games he has given up a single goal. For his efforts Robson was named the Big Ten first and third star, respectively.
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Schierhorn, for what it's worth, is adjusting to not starting every game following the end of his 94 consecutive start streak. Being on the bench once a weekend brings a different persepctive.
"It's different, but I think you learn some too being on the bench. Mat's about as calm as it gets being on the bench. You realize even more so you don't have to move that much and make it more difficult for yourself," he said. "So it's kind of nice to see it from that perspective."
Taking away Saturday's game in St. Cloud, Schierhorn had a .932 save percentage, 1.65 GAA and a shutout in the three games prior to last weekend.
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One player who will be out this weekend is Tommy Novak. The junior forward missed both games against St. Cloud State with an upper body injury. He's been held out of practice to recover. Lucia hopes to have him back in 1-2 weeks.
Novak, who had a 4 point weekend (1G-3A) when the Gophers traveled to Ann Arbor in November, is not the only forward to miss time. Michigan's Will Lockwood (1G-2A against Minnesota) will miss a chance to play at Mariucci for the second straight season. Lockwood was injured in the World Juniors and expected to miss the rest of the year.
Casey Mittelstadt, who was rested earlier in the week post-World Juniors, missed practice Wednesday with the flu. He is expected to play as are a couple others dinged up with minor injuries.
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Returning to Big Ten play for the rest of the regular season, the Gophers are in a unique spot as a team. Minnesota is currently in good position to make the NCAA Tournament, sitting ninth with quality wins over St. Cloud, Clarkson (x2), North Dakota and Penn State.
However, the Gophers would be a tiebreaker away from starting the Big Ten playoffs on the road. For the first time in five seasons the regular season title looks to go to someone else besides Minnesota (that someone being Notre Dame, who holds a 14 point lead on Ohio State. To put in perspective, the Gophers have 14 points in 12 games.)
It puts Minnesota in a precarious situation as the team tries to peak for the end of the season. There's nothing tangible to play for in six remaining series against the other six Big Ten teams other than home ice. The 2nd-4th place teams will host the 5th-7th place teams in the first round of the Big Ten playoffs. (
"A lot of teams are pretty close together. It's going to be about winning games from here on out," said Lucia.
"We have to get better in the offensive zone of keeping possesion. We can learn some things how St. Cloud flooded the area and did a nice job in the offensive zone recovering pucks," he said. "We're working on it."
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Ryan Lindgren was ready to play Saturday. He didn't due to his equipment not making it up to St. Cloud, but that didn't stop him from watching the game on TV.
Lucia mentioned postgame Sunday that Lindgren made a speech to the team while watching video. He confirmed it.
Here's how the sophomore defenseman and alternate captain described what he said:
"Before Christmas break was a really tough time for us, getting swept at Ohio State and we got swept at Notre Dame too. Obviously that was a couple weeks before. It wasn't going very good for us and then I heard against Army we hadn't played great.
"Then that St. Cloud game it was tough, it was embarrassing to watch. So when Don asked me (what I thought of the performance) the next morning at video, I thought I would express how I felt. We have such a great team with great players, we got to expect more out of each other. That game just looked like we didn't really care. There wasn't a lot of heart in that game.
"That's something we got to change and we did Sunday. Hopefully we keep doing that moving forward and I think we will."
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