Sophomores are expected to carry teams

The Gophers suffered a very difficult weekend and the easiest way to summarize their struggles is by focusing on the lack of scoring and where it’s supposed to be coming from. Most hockey fans thought the biggest hole in the lineup would be at the blue line, where Minnesota is very young. There is more experience at the forward position, but more importantly there’s top end talent. However, talent hasn’t led to goals…..yet.

Kyle Okposo and Jay Bariball had successful freshman seasons and because of that it was thought they’d jump right back into form this year by equaling or bettering their offensive output from a year ago. It may still happen, but it calls attention to a pair of sophomores that have done a better job at picking up where they left off last year.

The best example is St. Cloud State’s Ryan Lasch and Andreas Nodl. Lasch already has five goals and eight assists this year and has fired 30 shots on goal in just eight games. Nodl, from Vienna, Austria has three goals and five assists in the Huskies first eight games. Lasch (16 goals, 23 assists 2006-2007) finished one point shy of averaging a point per game in his freshman year while Nodl (18 goals, 28 assists 2006-2007) had 46 points in 40 games for St. Cloud State.

Okposo (19 goals, 21 assists 2006-2007) , Lasch and Nodl were all named forwards on the WCHA All Rookie Team last year and Bariball's 20 goals and 23 assists as a freshman were probably enough to put him on the second All Rookie team, if there were one.

Granted, Minnesota has played what would seem like stiffer competition than St. Cloud State this year, but there's no question that if the Gophers are to be successful they will need more output from Bariball's one goal and three assists and Okposo's one goal and two assists through six games.

Erik Johnson and Jamie McBain, both of whom played for Team USA U18 before their freshman seasons, made the WCHA All Rookie as defenseman. Johnson's currently injured for the St. Louis Blues while McBain is off to a steady start for Wisconsin.

Last year's goaltender named to the WCHA All Rookie team was UMD's Alex Stalock, who has opened his sophore season with a big shut out at Denver. Stalock is 4-1-1 with a 1.64 GAA and two shut outs so far this year.

St. Cloud Times story on Ryan Lasch

Story on Andreas Nodl named college hockey rookie of the year

Story on Stalock's big game vs. Denver