Last offseason was difficult for the Sioux City Musketeers of the USHL. First, Peter Mueller, who had originally considered playing for the Muskies for a season before joining the University of Minnesota, decided to instead leave for the WHL. Second, 16 year old defenseman Brendan Smith was not allowed to play in the US because he was too young. The loss of these potential star players considerably hurt the Muskies chances last season, and they finished in last place in the USHL's West Division.
As bad as last offseason was, this offseason is turning out to be an even bigger disaster for the Muskies.
I had previously mentioned that Sam Gagner, the team's second leading scorer, who was poised to be one of the league's leading scorer's next season, left the team to play for London in the OHL.
After the loss of Gagner came reports that defenseman Frank Grzeszczak, who was one of the few 1989 born defenseman in the league last season, and had committed to Nebraska-Omaha for 2007, had decided to forgo another year in Sioux City and sign with Plymouth of the OHL.
Then today, it was reported that Matt White, a forward from the LA Jr. Kings who Sioux City drafted with the 3rd overall pick in the USHL draft this season, will play for Cushing Academy next season into of for the Muskies. White will likely end up playing at an Eastern school in college.
Those three players would have made up the core of the Sioux City team next season. Instead, it could be another miserable season for the Musketeers.
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5 comments:
Damn. If I was an NCAA club, I would NOT want them drafting recruits of mine. If Gagner had been drafted by any other USHL club, he very well may have enjoyed his experience and still been on track to attend UW. Same goes for these other kids (though they don't seem to have really announced their bad experience there?).
Does anyone think Sioux City's extremely small ice surface have something to do with it? Don't they still use that? I could see A LOT of extremely quick, talented players hate to play there because their is virtually no room to maneveur and so much clutch and grab like Gagner said in an interview.
Gagner is a baby if his reason for leaving Sioux City was he couldn't handle the tougher style of play in the USHL or if he couldn't handle the size of the rink. Grow a sac and toughen up. If he couldn't take it, somebody should put a pink tutu on the kid and have him participate in ballet.
Sioux City has a brand new state of the art facility with NHL regulation sized ice. Let's stop beating the tiny rink dead horse now...
And to the poster of this illustrious article...
2005-2006 Regular season stats
1st Place Sioux Falls - 190 goals scored
Last place Sioux City - 182 goals scored
1st Place Sioux Falls - 135 goals against
Last place Sioux City - 216 goals against
So basically what your article is saying is that if we had Peter Mueller on our team here in Sioux City last season, he would have made up the difference of 81 goals? That would have been 263 goals total if you count the ones that we scored on our own without him.
Wow. That's a pretty audacious assumption. I seriously doubt that you looked into any of the FACTS... because they speak the truth about Sioux City's season last year, and it wasn't because Mueller wasn't there, I'll clue ya...
ummm...Mueller wouldn't have gotten them into 1st place, but could of been the difference in some tight games(which I think he is implying, possibly putting them in the middle of the pack in the division. Regarding the Smith situation, that's a poor job of general managing, with Smith and Mueller, they probably wouldn't one the Clark Cup, but may have been that key ingredient for a 2nd or 3rd place finish because they're both studs.
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