Within a span of 48 hours earlier this week the Minnesota Golden Gophers announced a pair of new hockey coaches for their women’s and men’s programs. On Sunday Minnesota athletic director Mark Coyle announced that Gopher assistant coach Greg “Boom” May would be promised and would take over the Gopher women’s program, and then on Tuesday Coyle announced that former St. Cloud State head coach Brett Larson would be moving down I-94 to take over the Minnesota men’s hockey program. Both coaches have had
initial meetings with the players and have had a chance to settle in. So what comes next?
Gopher Women:
Once Minnesota ad least made an approach to former Gopher star and former Brad Frost assistant and current Ohio State Head coach Nadine Muzerall and she instead signed a new five year contract with the Buckeyes, there were no new obvious names for Coyle to hire to be the Gophers head coach. He decided to keep the hire in-house and promoted assistant coach Boom May to the top job. The hire was made relatively quickly as the Women’s Frozen Four wrapped up last weekend and the women’s portal opened Monday morning. So what’s next for May to try and figure out who will be on his roster next fall:
Is anyone leaving?
As of now, no. Other than the seniors who ran out of eligibility no other Gophers on the 2025-26 roster have announced they are hitting the transfer portal. The portal opened on Monday and will remain open until Monday April 6th, so there is plenty of time for some of the current Gophers to decide they might fit in elsewhere.
May was a large part of recruiting the current 2026-27 class to the U, so its not a real surprise that we have heard of any players from that class looking elsewhere either. Again, as of now, all the Gophers current recruits will be in Dinkytown in the fall.
What about the coaching staff?
There have been no publicly announced additions or changes to the Gophers coaching staff other than Brad Frost not returning and May’s promotion. According to the gophersports.com roster page current assistant coach and Minnesota GM Jess Scott are still listed, and both her and May are likely out recruiting at a big youth tournament this weekend in Toronto as well as working the portal. No longer listed is former Gopher goalie coach Mitch Baker who spent the last three seasons as a Gopher assistant working with the goalies.
As for potential additions? Minnesota Frost assistant coach Chris Johnson played at Augsburg with May—and is also Wisconsin head coach Mark Johnson’s son. If Minnesota wanted a new goalie coach with tradition they could look back to St. Cloud and try and lure away former Gopher All-American goalie Noora Raty back to campus after she served as an assistant coach for fellow former Gopher Mira Jalosuo and St. Cloud State last season.
Portal Additions?
As was said above, the women’s portal is currently open and will remain open for players to enter through April 6th. According to the portal database on Gopher Puck Live as of 2:30 PM on March 26th there were 93 women’s players who had entered the portal since it opened on Monday. However, of the 93 in the portal, there is not a lot of top end talent that Minnesota might be looking to add to their roster. The most interesting name thus far is St. Thomas senior to be Rylee Bartz. The Fargo native who transferred to Warroad to play her final season of high school hockey has played three seasons with the Tommies playing in 109 games with 35 goals and 35 assists in her career. She led the Tommies in scoring last season with 30 points in 36 games. One other name to note would be Mercyhurst’s Julia Schalin. She has two years of eligibility remaining and recorded 31 points with nine goals in 33 games this season while also playing for Finland in the 2026 Olympics.
Gopher Men:
Is anyone leaving?
Just as like the women’s team as of now, no. Under new 2026 NCAA rules, a 15-day transfer portal window opens for men’s ice hockey players five days after a new head coach is announced. So in theory Minnesota players could officially enter the portal on Saturday. The main college hockey transfer portal opens on April 13th and will remain open until April 27th. There has not been any rumors of current Gophers looking to leave immediately, but if Larson wants to bring in some of his former players from SCSU or make some significant roster additions either via the portal or with recruiting additions from the CHL, some players are going to need to go. So while nobody has left yet, that is very likely to change.
What about the coaching staff?
Rumors have been flying about potential assistant coach additions to Larson’s staff. All of the current Gopher assistant coaches including Steve Miller, Ben Gordon, Brendan Poderzay and special assistant Paul Martin expire at the end of April, so Larson would need to retain and extend any of them he might choose. It appears of that group the likeliest to return would be Gordon who has been in charge of Minnesota’s recruiting classes recently and Martin who might be looking for a move up from special assistant to an actual assistant coach who can be on the ice during practices. As for additions to the staff the most consistent name floated is current St. Thomas assistant coach and former Gopher Cory Laylin. Laylin and Larson were teammates together in Europe after their college careers and are close friends. Another name mentioned is former SCSU and NHL star Matt Cullen. Cullen has a trio of sons who of whom are slated to be freshman for the Gophers next fall, and a third Joey who may be the most talented of the three and is slated to be a junior at Moorhead next fall—but is also likely to be accepted to the US Hockey Development program in Michigan for the next two seasons.
Larson was asked at his introductory press conference about adding some type of GM position to his staff and he said that he would likely want to have an assistant coach who had extra GM roles, but would be able to be a coach as well not just a GM. Current college hockey rules allow three assistants and the head coach to actually be behind the bench and on the ice for practices so that makes sense.
Portal Additions?
As was said above, the men’s portal does not open until the day after the Frozen Four on April 13th. Once St. Cloud State announces their new head coach, there will be a five-day waiting period and then their players will be able to enter the portal if that occurs before the April 13th date. A few players who have been discussed as potential targets to join Larson in Minneapolis would be Austin Burnevik. The 6’4 forward recorded 38 points and scored 20 goals in his sophomore season this year for the Huskies. He played two seasons at the US development program where he was teammates with Brodie Ziemer. Another name would be freshman defenseman Tanner Henrichs. He is a 4th round draft pick of the Anaheim Ducks and recorded six points this season for SCSU.
Minnesota will looking for additional talent in both the portal and from the CHL especially on the blue line where the Gophers have gaping holes.
So? Now What?
It will be a busy few weeks here for both May and Larson as they look to add to and reshape their team’s rosters. While nothing may be publicly said for a few weeks, you can expect that behind the scenes things are moving quickly to help the Gophers be in the best position to add talent and maybe more importantly retain critical talent form their rosters for next year. We will keep you informed as things are announced here and on bluesky.
