Gophers Leaving Early

There's nothing I enjoy more than having other people do my work for me. While I was gone last week, CSTV's Elliot Olshansky penned an interesting article on the offseason departures suffered by Minnesota.

Olshansky points out that the three Gophers who have left early for the pros this season(Ryan Potulny, Dan Irmen, and Kris Chucko), and potentially a fourth, Phil Kessel, all come from outside the state of Minnesota. He raised the question of whether or not Gophers from outside the state of Minnesota valued the Minnesota sweater as much as kids that grew up in the state.

This trend isn't that surprising though. When Don Lucia came to Minnesota, he said he would take players from out of the state, but that he would only do so if it was an elite player. So it makes sense that the players most likely to go to the pros early would be the ones from outside the state.