Golden Gophers – Page 301 – David Shama's Minnesota Sports Headliners

Perra Pushing for U No. 2 QB Spot

Posted on April 1, 2015April 1, 2015 by David Shama

As the Gophers move through their practices toward the April 11 Spring Game who is their No. 2 quarterback?

“If it was tomorrow it would be Chris (Streveler) because of the experience factor, but I think Chris would be the first one to tell you he’s gotta continue to perform,” offensive coordinator Matt Limegrover said last week. “It’s no secret that…Jacques Perra from Roseville really opened some eyes with some things he did—just being around the program and now in the spring. There’s a pretty good competition that’s developing there. I think Chris is still the No. 2 but I think Jacques is getting bigger and bigger in his rearview mirror.”

Mitch Leidner is a lock as the team’s No. 1 quarterback but injury or illness could force him to the sidelines during Minnesota’s 12-game schedule in 2015. Last fall Streveler, then a redshirt freshman, filled in for an injured Leidner. Streveler started the San Jose State game, rushing for 161 yards (third most ever for a Gophers quarterback) while completing one of seven passes.

Perra joined the program as a non-scholarship quarterback last year but didn’t play as a redshirt freshman. He did impress the coaches, and Limegrover described Perra as a more “natural thrower” than Streveler who is a gifted runner.

In spring practices so far Leidner has received more work with the team’s better offensive players. Not playing with a superior supporting group in practice makes it more difficult to fairly evaluate Streveler and Perra, Limegrover said. But Limegrover expects that to change as the Gophers move through their last six spring sessions.

Limegrover will then have a better report card on Streveler and Perra, but he already believes both can be starting Big Ten quarterbacks. Leidner will be a redshirt junior next season so he is one class ahead of Streveler and two in front of Perra. The future Gophers starting quarterback could be one of the two current backups.

Streveler is a scholarship player who was All-State his senior season at Marian Catholic in Woodstock, Illinois. His straight ahead speed is impressive and the best among the Gophers quarterbacks. Streveler, who in 2014 was Academic All-Big Ten, can make explosive gains on designed runs and scrambles from the pocket. While fans saw an unpolished passer last fall, he has made some good throws this spring and is a fierce competitor who will work to improve. Streveler is a leader, too, and last summer he and Leidner got players together for volunteer practices—something that impressed Limegrover.

Perra was All-State and the Minnesota Gatorade Player of the Year at Roseville High School where in his senior season he threw for over 3,100 yards and 35 touchdowns. “The great thing about Jacques is that I don’t know if he has a bad day.” Limegrover said. “There isn’t a whole lot that bothers him. Not a whole lot that phases him.”

If an observer just watched Perra, and didn’t see all the other things happening on a particular play, the person probably wouldn’t know what happened because the 19-year-old quarterback is so under control. “I think that part of his makeup is fantastic,” Limegrover said. “…This kid was put on this earth to play quarterback.”

Limegrover said incoming freshman Demry Croft could figure in the plan to determine the No. 2 quarterback. The Gophers tell all their new players not to assume they will redshirt and Limegrover is enthusiastic about the 6-5 quarterback from Boylan High School in Rockford, Illinois.

“We feel like the sky’s the limit for him,” Limegrover said. “We feel like he’s a kid that at some point might overtake these two (Streveler and Perra). That’s what you try and do every year. You’re trying to recruit to beat out the ones that you already have in the program—and that’s how you go from 3-9, to 6-6 (records). If you get to that point, where you’re doing that every year, that’s when special things happen.”

Why does Limegrover talk about Croft having so much potential?”

“We saw that he had a lot of athletic ability when we saw his film as a junior,” the coach said. “Then being able to see him live at camp and watch him throw the football, and how he approached camp and being coached, and how he went about his business, and his physical tools.

“There’s a maturity there. He’s not your typical dimply faced 17-year-old kid. There was kind of a presence about him, which you really like in your quarterback.”

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Dubnyk and Wild Look at Big Stage

Posted on March 30, 2015March 30, 2015 by David Shama

What an interesting spring this will be for the Wild and “Superman” goalie Devan Dubnyk.

The Wild has six regular season games remaining before the Stanley Cup playoffs begin. A franchise with shaky playoff ambitions a few months ago, the Wild has made a remarkable recovery since acquiring Dubnyk in a trade. The man wearing a “Wild cape” has won 26 times in 34 games for Minnesota. The NHL’s hottest team and hottest goalie look like they will not only play in the postseason, but be a favorite for a deep run.

In the playoffs a superb goalie can be even more valuable than during the regular season. With a short series, it’s win or start relaxing on the golf course. The Wild and their fans hope they see the same goalie in the playoffs they’ve watched with awe in January, February and March.

That’s not a guarantee, though. Despite Dubnyk’s superhero performance so far he is (as far as we know) human. In his NHL career with three other clubs he didn’t win or compile the same impressive goals against average (1.70) and save percentages (.939) as with the Wild. A change in goaltending technique that better helps him track the puck receives at least partial credit for the upgrade that puts Dubnyk among the league’s best goalies now.

Dubnyk’s salary, reportedly at $800,000, certainly doesn’t place him among the NHL’s top paid goalies. At 28, with five previous seasons in the league, he is a journeyman who has found sudden success, almost like a character in a Broadway play. Dubnyk turns 29 on May 4 and if the Wild are still in the playoffs and toying with the possibility of winning Minnesota’s first Stanley Cup ever, it will be a great script for the 6-foot-6 Canadian.

Dubnyk, who has led the Wild to five straight wins and 10 in a row on the road, is an unrestricted free agent after this season and unless he flops in the coming weeks he will command a huge pay upgrade. Not as much compensation as Rangers goalie Henrik Lundqvist’s $8.5 million per season (per Spotrac.com) but perhaps in the $4 million to $5 million range.

Those numbers are much more likely if Dubnyk doesn’t lose his kryptonite and the Wild at least make the Western Conference Finals, if not the Stanley Cup finals. An NHL title is a no-brainer for a long-term deal at major money.

Dubnyk is in his prime career years and 2015 could be his best and last chance to secure a max deal. Lundqvist is the league’s top paid goalie and six others make $6 million or more, according to Spotrac’s 2014 goalie salary rankings. If Dubynk is wowing the NHL as summer approaches, Wild general manager Chuck Fletcher will have competition in re-signing the goalie he aced with his trade last January, giving up a third round draft choice to the Coyotes.

If Dubnyk has the Wild in a bidding war, the team’s fans can feel some confidence about owner Craig Leipold’s willingness to open his wallet. Leipold wants to win and he puts that in writing every time he signs the checks of Zach Parise and Ryan Suter, two players he signed to long-term $98 million deals in July of 2012.

The challenge for the Wild, though, is how to fit all the salaries on their roster together and stay near the league’s expected payroll cap of about $73 million. Part of the puzzle and challenge is there are other free agents beyond Dubnyk. One helpful move could be to buyout the contract of backup goalie Niklas Backstrom who reportedly is due $4 million for next season.

The summer of 2012 was interesting. This spring will have its own drama.

Worth Noting

In Sports Illustrated’s baseball preview issue last week the magazine included a story on Byron Buxton, saying he can “hit to all fields like Kirby Puckett, possesses the arm of Russell Wilson” and “is nearly as fast as Bo Jackson.” The 21- year-old center fielder is ranked No. 1 by Baseball Prospectus and MLB.com, according to the magazine, and the publication reports the much-hyped Twins prospect threw a 98 miles per hour fast ball in high school and has been timed in 3.9 seconds from home plate to first base.

The Minnesota Football Coaches Association has honored the O’Brien family including Gophers senior associate athletic director Dan O’Brien and his 15-year-old son Casey O’Brien with its Cal Stoll Award. Casey has recovered from bone cancer after an ordeal that included a seven hour operation and 24 rounds of chemotherapy. His support group includes his family and Gophers coach Jerry Kill who has praised the young man for his courage. The award is named after Stoll, the former Gophers football coach, and is given to someone who has overcome adversity.

The MFCA honored Dwight Lundeen, the only coach in Becker High School football history, as its Man of the Year on Saturday night. Lundeen coached Becker to 13 consecutive wins last year including the 4A state title.

The MFCA’s Minnesota Football Clinic had a record 1,263 registrations and 67 vendors last week. The clinic dates next year are March 31, April 1 and 2.

Joe Haeg, the 6-6, 300-pound former Brainerd High School player who walked on at North Dakota State and is now an All-American, has the interest of pro scouts and might be selected as an offensive tackle in the early rounds of the 2016 NFL Draft. He will be a senior for the Bison this fall.

Greg Kleven reported in the March 26 Eden Prairie Sun Current that Eden Prairie High School safety and linebacker Blake Cashman will be a preferred walk-on with the Gophers this summer. Kleven wrote that Cashman turned down Division I offers from Iowa State and North Dakota State, hoping to earn a scholarship at Minnesota.

Gophers basketball coach Richard Pitino signed four recruits late last year for his 2015 incoming class this summer. He has three more scholarships available, although not all of them maybe used this spring. “We believe we will have a top-25 recruiting class when it’s all said and done,” Pitino wrote on his Gophersports.com blog last week.

Big Ten women’s basketball drew a record total of more than 869,000 fans for the home games of its 14 conference teams this past season. The Gophers, with an average of 3,846, finished 10th in average home attendance.

The women’s WCHA is represented by 40 current or former players at the International Ice Hockey Federation World Championships that started last Saturday and continues through April 4 in Malmö, Sweden. Seventeen of the women played during the 2014-15 season, while 23 are WCHA alumnae. The list includes three Gophers from the 2015 national championship team: Hannah Brandt, Dani Cameranesi and Lee Stecklein.

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Nobody Builds Stadiums Like Minneapolis

Posted on March 27, 2015March 29, 2015 by David Shama

Like it or not, by the year 2018 the Minneapolis-St. Paul market could have five new stadiums that opened during a 10-year period.

Dr. Bill McGuire’s intent to build a soccer-specific stadium to house his Major League Soccer expansion franchise puts MSP in unique territory on the American sports scene. Three or four years from now it looks like this town will be the only area in the country that can list the opening of five major stadiums in a decade—at a cost of about $2 billion.

“It is an incredible phenomenon,” said Bill Lester.

Lester (center) with dome colleagues Steve Maki & Dennis Alfton.

Lester was executive director of the Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission from 1987-2012. Part of that period he contended with restlessness among the Metrodome’s major tenants who wanted their own buildings. The campaigns to move on were all successful, with the Gophers opening TCF Bank Stadium in 2009, the Twins moving into Target Field in 2010 and the Vikings now working toward a first season in their new covered stadium in 2016.

The independent baseball St. Paul Saints will open their new $60-plus million stadium in Lowertown this spring. And this week comes news the MLS is granting a franchise to McGuire and his group who want to build an open air soccer stadium in the Minneapolis Farmers Market area that might cost between $100 million and $150 million.

The Gophers, Twins, Vikings and Saints facilities received major funding from the public sector. Indications are most city, county and state political leaders aren’t in favor of public money for a soccer stadium. Yet even if the facility is privately financed there surely will be at least indirect taxpayer money involved to help with surrounding roads and other elements. “There are some ways you can help them without it being a direct subsidy,” Lester said.

The real possibility of five new stadiums at a $2 billion collective price tag is completely different than what’s going on around the country where building one major venue sometimes gets done, but not always. Atlanta is building new football and baseball stadiums for its NFL and MLB teams at the same time but that’s unusual. Los Angeles has been trying to agree on a football stadium plan for decades to attract an NFL franchise—perhaps the Rams who once called LA home but now find themselves trying to convince the city of St. Louis and state of Missouri to build them a new palace. Oakland is in danger of losing its baseball and football teams because no progress has been made for years in finalizing a plan for new stadiums. Other cities and teams are at odds, too.

Long ago there was a reluctance here to invest in facilities but Lester thinks that changed with the successes of the Metrodome and Xcel Energy Center. He noted the dome was “built on time and on budget,” sending a message of accountability to a skeptical public. The versatile facility also kept the Twins and Vikings from moving out of town for 25 years. “The public portion of the investment was very successful,” he said.

The Xcel Energy Center had a cutting edge design and enhancements. The facility showed the public how a gameday experience there, or later at Target Field, could be so much more than what fans once experienced in other Minnesota sports venues.

MSP, once a reluctant player in the stadium building game, has become the parade leader among American cities. Lester believes the change in attitude is also explained by how team owners are no longer viewed as billionaires running out of town with the money from their new riches generated in new stadiums. “It just didn’t hold up to very much scrutiny,” Lester said.

Minnesotans have come to realize stadiums ensure the commitment of teams to stay here and the facilities make major league sports entertainment possible. Fans enjoy the experiences in the stadiums and realize those venues create jobs, generate taxes and can lead to neighborhood developments providing more economic stimulus. There’s also the benefit of maintaining and building this area’s national image of being a high quality place to live, offering exceptional education, health care, housing, live theatre, major league sports and more.

Lester said the diversified sports scene here plays a role in attracting and keeping young professionals and entrepreneurs, “part of a broader picture” to feed the vitality of this area.

By 2018, Minneapolis-St. Paul will be home to not only major league baseball, basketball, football, hockey and soccer but also big time college basketball, football and hockey with the Gophers. In addition, MSP has professional women’s basketball with the Lynx and men’s pro lacrosse with the Swarm. No other city can match that lineup, including metros with three and four times the population of the Minneapolis-St. Paul area.

The already intense competition among teams for ticket buyers, sponsors, suite purchasers and advertisers will kick up a notch with an MLS club and new stadium. Can all those pro teams, and the Gophers, be successful at the box office and with their overall balance sheets?

Lester isn’t sure while taking an optimistic but cautious view. “If the economy is healthy and the business climate is okay…I am not so sure anymore that there is a point at which it implodes. I used to think there was but I am not so sure anymore.”

Worth Noting

Sports Illustrated’s baseball preview issue, on newsstands this week, predicts Twins AL Central Division rival Cleveland will not only win the division but also will defeat the Nationals in the World Series. The Tigers, White Sox and Royals will trail the Indians but finish ahead of the Twins who will be last in the division, per S.I. The magazine forecasts a Twins record of 67-95, the worst in the AL. The club was 70-92 last season and S.I. believes the 2015 team is improved but so is the division with tough competition.

The magazine—quoting an anonymous scout—said “the starting pitching is respectable now.” But outfield defense, including with a declining Torii Hunter, is a minus and while the club has power hitters in Oswaldo Arcia and Kennys Vargas, the long ball isn’t part of Joe Mauer’s future, S.I. wrote. “Joe Mauer has lost his power, and in that ballpark (Target Field) it’s not coming back,” said the scout. “He’s an opposite-field singles and doubles hitter now.”

New manager Paul Molitor? “The team stopped listening to Ron Gardenhire, so the manager change was smart,” the scout said.

The Gophers hockey team and coach Don Lucia have plenty of incentives in the NCAA Tournament. The Gophers have a tournament opening Northeast Regional game late this afternoon against Minnesota Duluth. A win advances Minnesota to the regional title contest tomorrow, with the winner earning a place in the Frozen Four April 9-11 in Boston. The Gophers were the national runner-up last year at the Frozen Four.

A national title would be the third for a Lucia-coached Gophers team. If Lucia is successful in winning the NCAA title, he receives a bonus of $75,000, according to a schedule of incentives document he and the University agreed to in July of 2012. Lucia has already earned $30,000 and $15,000 bonuses for winning the 2015 Big Ten regular season and conference championships, according to that document.

Union defeated the Gophers in the national championship game last April but didn’t qualify for this year’s NCAA Tournament after a 19-18-2 season. The Union team of last year showed the Gophers an aggressiveness and physical style that could help Minnesota in this year’s tournament.

Wild goalie Devan Dubnyk is 2-0 against the Flames this season with a 0.98 GAA and one shutout. The Wild play the Flames at Xcel Energy Center tonight. While the Wild is 2-0 this season against Calgary, Minnesota is 0-2 versus the Kings who are at Xcel tomorrow night.

Should be fun having the Matthews brothers in the NFC North together next fall. The Vikings signed linebacker Casey Matthews as a free agent this week. Casey’s older brother, Clay Matthews, is a six-year NFL veteran and standout linebacker for the Packers. Casey started a career-high 11 games for the Eagles last season. A four year pro, he also had a career-best 62 tackles last season.

Timberwolves president Flip Saunders and general manager Milt Newton rank No. 24 in ESPN.com’s listing this week of the NBA’s front office decision makers. The top five front offices among the 30 league franchises are the Spurs, Warriors, Rockets, Heat and Trail Blazers. ESPN ranks Saunders No. 25 among the league’s best coaches, with Gregg Popovich of the Spurs No. 1, the Hawks Mike Budenholzer No. 2 and the Warriors Steve Kerr No. 3. Former Wolves coach Randy Wittman, now head coach of the Wizards, ranks No. 26 despite a winning record in Washington.

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