Minnesota's glut of healthy, talented defensemen has resulted in the withdrawl of a player who hasn't managed to crack the lineup all season. The Gophers announced that sophomore Blake Thompson will transfer away from the school at the end of the current semester. That means he'll be gone in a matter of days.
Thompson, from Eden Prairie, skated in five games last season. The big (6-foot-3, 210-pound) sophomore had played three strong seasons in the USHL before coming to Minnesota. He was the Waterloo Black Hawks' Unsung Hero and a big fan favorite during two seasons there. Before that, Thompson played for former Gopher star Kevin Hartzell with the Sioux Falls Stampede and competed in the 2009 USHL All-Star Game.
Gophers head coach Don Lucia said, "While I'm disappointed in Blake's decision to transfer, I respect his choice and appreciate his contributions to the program over the last two years. Our team and our staff wish him the best as he moves forward."
Thompson, who was not listed on the active roster all season, exits a program that has had an embarrassment of riches at the blue line. So many healthy defensemen, in fact, that Lucia has played several as forwards when the situation is appropriate. Most recently, Mike Reilly played up front during the series last weekend at Colorado College. Justin Holl, Ben Marshall and others have also made the jump to forward in one or more games during the first half of the season.
When I asked Lucia whether he was going with one or two defensemen as forwards or what last Friday night, his answer was priceless: "I'm playing the best eighteen guys." And really, that's how it ought to be. Too much is sometimes made when defensemen are placed on forward lines. That kind of flexibility gives the Gophers a fluidity that can pay big dividends as the season's inevitable battering goes on.
It also gives premium players like Reilly, who played both defense and forward for several years prior to coming to Minnesota, a chance to keep their skills at both positions sharp. And who knows, maybe even have fun.
It's a numbers game: Thompson's impending departure — destination as yet unrevealed — is something Division I coaches have had to deal with for years: good players want to play in top-level programs, even if they're not on full-ride scholarships. So many, in fact, that when the active roster is full and everyone is healthy there's no way to elbow into the lineup. I don't know whether there were additional issues in play here but the raw tonnage of first-class hockey players that stocks the Minnesota program every season is a challenge that is often too tough to crack.
Junior camp, here they come: While the rest of the Gophers look forward to finishing finals and going on the holiday break, Reilly and fellow rookie defenseman Brady Skjei will fly east to the New York Rangers' facility in Tarrytown, NY, this weekend to take part in the U.S. National Junior Team's preliminary training camp. If they make the team, they're off to Finland for more training in Helsinki. The final roster will be named December 23 and the survivors will compete in the World Junior Championships in Ufa, Russia, December 26 through January 5.
This means that while Reilly and Skjei are unquestionably honored, one or both could be gone for the Mariucci Classic. And it's the second game of that New Year's weekend tournament that's in the sights of everyone in college hockey: the clash between the Gophers and top-ranked Boston College on December 30.
