At last, even I am prepared to climb on the bandwagon and say that this
year's Minnesota team is coming together.  Minnesota-Duluth has shown that
is a good team, though I think they're still too young and lack the
offensive punch to take the next step yet.  This, after all, is a team that
wiped out Vermont on the road.  The Gophers played very well this past
weekend; without a couple of miscues, they could have both been 5-1 games.
They really do need to make sure that opponents aren't sneaking up behind
them to steal the puck.  (It had been a while since Dan Trebil turned the
puck over quite that badly.  Considering that it's one of his signature
moves, I was wondering if he had been kidnapped by aliens or something.)
  Now that they have finished off the tough part of their schedule, the
Gophs just need to make sure they don't let up against the weaker teams.
Only four of their last twelve games are against teams with winning
records, though two of them are with CC.
  I would also like to plug Erik Rasmussen for WCHA rookie honors.  The
Swanson's have been tremendous for Colorado College, but I'm not sure that
anyone has done as much to help his team as Rasmussen has.  I think that he
has some real skills that I'm hoping he develops in coming years.  He has
sacrificed them this year, I think, to be the kind of muscle that was
sorely lacking from last year's team.  The most obvious example was the
second game up in Anchorage.  The Seawolves had been really been laying
into the Gophers (including giving Jason Godbout a concussion on a check
from behind).  Rass was the guy who stepped up and delivered a tremendous
hit that backed them off.  Until this last weekend, he had even cut down on
the number of penalties he was taking while playing the enforcer.  The
effect he has had is measureable not just in the scoring totals of the
premier guys like Bonin and Crowley.  Last year, Mike Crowley was one of
the most heavily penalized players on Minnesota's team; Doug Woog was at
pains to point the number that were coincidentals where the action was
started by the other guy.  So far this year, Crowley only has eight
penalties, largely because he has protection.  Some others have stepped up,
including a couple of the other freshmen and Dave Larson (smile at this
part, Carol).  Rasmussen stands out above them all, though.  He may have
some very fine years coming up and still not help Minnesota as much as he
has this year.
 
J. Michael Jackson
 
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