The University of Minnesota and men’s hockey coach Bob Motzko have “mutually agreed to part ways,” athletic director Mark Coyle announced on Wednesday.
Motzko, 64, helped re-establish the hockey program in his eight seasons, leading the Gophers to five consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances (2021-2025), two Frozen Fours and a national runner-up finish in 2023. His career record with Minnesota was 172-104-24.
However, the Gophers finished this season 11-22-3, with their 11 victories the fewest since the 1971-72 team went 8-24-0. Minnesota lost to Penn State in the Big Ten tournament quarterfinals, snapping its streak of NCAA tournament bids. Motzko was booed at times by fans at Mariucci Arena when he was introduced.
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Coyle is overhauling underperforming hockey programs, having fired four-time national champion women’s hockey coach Brad Frost on Tuesday. The last women’s hockey national title was 10 years ago, with the men’s team’s last championship in 2003.
Motzko, who sources say met with Coyle on Monday and Tuesday, was under contract through the 2027-28 season.
“As hard as everything sounds, there’s tremendous pride in that (locker) room right now, and they’re hurting,” Motzko told reporters after the Penn State loss. “We will rise again.”
Motzko scheduled a team meeting on Wednesday afternoon to break the news to players.
This was going to be a challenging season for Motzko after so many significant departures last offseason, when the Gophers lost NHL prospects Jimmy Snuggerud, Oliver Moore, Sam Rinzel, Matthew Wood and defenseman Ryan Chesley. They also lost key leaders and seniors Mike Koster and Mason Nevers.
Minnesota will lose five seniors from this year’s team, like top scorer Brody Lamb and the Mittelstadt brothers (Luke and John).
Some possible names of candidates the Gophers could go after include St. Cloud State coach Brett Larson and Western Michigan’s Pat Ferschweiler, who led the Broncos to a national title last season. There’s also Maine coach Ben Barr and former Minnesota Wild and Gopher forward Darby Hendrickson, whose son Beckett is on the team. Grant Potulny, the coach for the New York Rangers AHL affiliate Hartford, could also be in the mix, as might Garrett Raboin (Augustana University).
The Gophers will receive an infusion of talent from the Cullen brothers, Wyatt and Brooks, who are expected to join the program next season. Wyatt is projected as a late-first-round talent in this year’s NHL Draft. If younger brother, Joey, a premier prospect, follows the two to Minnesota, that could be a big boost.
The height of Motzko’s run was a trip to the 2023 NCAA championship game in Tampa, Fla. But a group led by Brock Faber, Matthew Knies and Logan Cooley lost a two-goal lead and fell to Quinnipiac 10 seconds into overtime. Faber, their top defenseman, wasn’t on the ice to open overtime.
Motzko was an assistant on the Gophers’ back-to-back national title teams in 2002 and 2003. The longtime St. Cloud State coach rejoined the Gophers for the 2018-19 season. There were questions about how quickly Motzko was making recruiting adjustments to join the wave of those programs going after prospects in the CHL or using NIL.
“It is real, there is an impact,” Motzko told The Athletic in October about NIL and CHL eligibility. “Some people may try to delve right in. We’re maybe a little different. We’re navigating a lot, but we’re very fortunate to be at Minnesota, where we had very good players committed and we stayed with our commitments. We didn’t push anybody off to make room when it happened.
“But as we move forward, we’re all going to have a much better idea of where this is really all leading. There’s more Canadians coming into our game, but we all knew that was coming. … We’ve got a very strong in-state base and we’re going continue to bring in the Matthew Knies and the Logan Cooleys and the LJ Mooneys and make additions to make our program stronger and we will. But we’ve kind of got a base of a built-in recruiting because of where we’re located.”