One man's opinion:
 
Don Lucia will give the Minnesota job serious consideration, then politely turn it down to avoid uprooting his family from Colorado, and then he will sign a 10-year contract to continue at the helm of the Tigers. He will also guide CC to the NCAA title in 2002 in St. Paul, leaving thousands of Gopher fans in the arena wondering "what might have been."
 
Minnesota will interview Mel Pearson of Michigan and Jeff Jackson of the USA Hockey Development Team before hiring current assistant coach Mike Guentzel to be their next head coach. Guentzel will continue the all-Minnesota recruiting tradition and lead Minnesota to a third place finish in the WCHA next year. The Gophers will lose to CC in the WCHA Final Five title game, but get a NCAA bid and be sent to the West Regional to boost the crowds at Mariucci Arena.
 
I'm basing this opinion on the fact that Mike Sertich was widely regarded to be the "next Gophers coach" in 1984 when they hired Woog in the first place. But Sert decided that he liked it where he was and didn't want to: a) uproot his family from their comfortable home in Duluth, and b) be the first non-U of M graduate to coach the Gophers.
 
Remember, this is just a guess.
 
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