Good environments are fun for players to play in. Can noise be a factor at a place like Lawson Ice Arena, home of Western Michigan, affecting player communication on the ice and maybe even coach communication on the bench? Sure. But players like to play in good environments, and big, noisy crowds don’t just fire up the home team.
That said, Minnesota State has enjoyed some serious home ice advantage at the Mayo Clinic Health Systems Event Center, which is off-campus in downtown Mankato. That facility has been very good to the Mavericks. Since 2018-19, Minnesota State is 69-5-2 at home, a gaudy .921 winning percentage that is hard to find duplicated anywhere in the sport. UMD, a good home team, is 41-17-5 (.690) in the same stretch.
And I know what you’re probably thinking. The Mavericks don’t play the schedule UMD plays. And, I’m not going to insult anyone’s intelligence around here. You’d be right to think that. But before you hoist an asterisk on the aforementioned home record, please reconsider. To do what MSU has done in its building against Division I competition for a sustained period of time is extremely impressive. The whole point of this is simple: The Mavericks have cultivated a fantastic home ice advantage, and UMD will be challenged to go into Mankato this weekend and have success.
(Of course, the players help. Minnesota State sports the CCHA’s Preseason Player of the Year in Brendan Furry, a 20-goal scorer in Ryan Sandelin, a top defenseman in Jake Livingstone, and the Mavericks are deep and experienced all over the ice. Except in goal, where Hobey Baker winner Dryden McKay has moved on. But don’t expect MSU’s goaltending to go all “Minnesota Wild in the playoffs” or something like that. They’ll be fine.)
Doesn’t mean the Bulldogs can’t, or that they won’t. Just note that if they do, it’s a heck of an accomplishment.
8 THOUGHTS
1. UMD used its bye week to try to hammer home some points. Associate coach Adam Krause said Thursday that it was meaningful to be able to show players video clips — both good and bad (“probably more of what not to do than what to do, which is expected (this early),” he said) — and teach off those clips, indicating he believes players are more attentive and quicker to understand points when it’s them and not random college and pro players in the clips being shown.
Head coach Scott Sandelin clearly wanted a better defensive performance in the second game against Arizona State, and he generally got it. “Still a long way to go,” Krause said when asked about the improvements.
“You’re just trying to get some basic structures down,” Sandelin said last week of the leadup to the opening games, and he was looking forward to having the early bye to work on other things, like special teams, overtime (the three-on-three format remains), and late-game situations.
2. Matt Wellens is writing this week about UMD’s offensive-minded defensemen. Look for that at duluthnewstribune.com either Thursday night or Friday morning (after this blog goes to press). I’m not going to steal his thunder at all, but I did want to note how impressed I am with Miami graduate transfer Derek Daschke. He’s a smart, analytical guy who understands the game and communicates very well to the ink-stained wretches in the media room.
You can see the offensive skill Daschke has. Wyatt Kaiser and Owen Gallatin aren’t far behind. Those are UMD’s three power play defensemen at this point. And how they play five-on-five is going to be something worth tracking throughout the season. Sandelin wasn’t happy with the chances being taken by blue-liners in the opening game, something that improved in the second game. But Arizona State — all due respect — is not Minnesota State. The Mavericks will eat those types of bad decisions alive.
Krause told me that it’s important right now to not pull the reins back on the aggressiveness, but instead to “teach them when to be aggressive and when not to be.”
3. The always-modest Mike Hastings, head coach at Minnesota State, was having none of it when your humble correspondent tried to pump his tires a little bit this week.
I asked him about his decision to play Keenan Rancier in goal for both games against Minnesota last weekend. Hastings said it was basically a gut feeling he had, and he did say he wants to get other goalies an opportunity to play, which might happen this weekend.
Hastings (on the goalie decision last week): “Nobody’s ever really said I’m a bright guy.”
Me: “You can say you’re not a bright guy, but your program’s won over 150 games in five years, so you’re doing something right.”
Hastings (laughing): “Well, a guy like Dryden McKay helps that out quite a bit.”
4. Sandelin hinted during his Wednesday presser that UMD has some injuries it’s working through.
Asked about line changes, Sandelin said “not really. Got a couple guys that are questionable or day to day, we’ll have to see come Friday what they’re going to look like.”
Given a chance to identify which players were questionable, Sandelin declined, so we’ll have to see what things look like Friday in Mankato.
I get that everyone wants to know everything, but if you have a player potentially playing through even a minor injury, it’s not necessarily something that should be divulged, and we have to trust the head coach on such a thing. As I said on Twitter when asked about this, hockey ain’t ballet (no offense to ballet, which takes an insane amount of skill). Even practices can be hard and competitive, and there’s always the potential for an injury. Hopefully no one else is seriously hurt (we already know sophomore forward Kyler Kleven is out long-term), and players are back to full health very soon.
5. For it being mid-October, there are some potentially massive series this weekend, the kinds of matchups that could have a big impact on what the NCAA Tournament looks like in March.
UMD-Minnesota State is the only top five matchup of the weekend, but we also get Denver at UMass and Quinnipiac at North Dakota this weekend. Those series carry potentially even more significance, if only because of the cross-regional nature of them. There aren’t a ton of these games, and we all know how the PairWise can overinflate the importance of non-conference games because of the impact they have on common opponent comparisons. When teams we think will be top teams from the east and west collide, there’s even more significance. If Denver and North Dakota have good weekends, it would give the NCHC a boost, both in the here and now and also come PairWise time.
(The same can be said for Cornell’s visit to Duluth later this month.)
(And, yes, we all know the PairWise exists, but you really shouldn’t be looking at it until — at the minimum — 2023 arrives on the calendar.)
6. Really excited to watch UND and Quinnipiac. They played a good series in Connecticut last season, and there’s no doubt Quinnipiac is loaded for a potential title run next spring. North Dakota is no slouch, but the Fighting Hawks’ preseason preparation was hampered by an illness outbreak that left them short-handed for their Oct. 1 exhibition against Manitoba. The Bobcats have skill and can score, but don’t overlook their ability to defend. And we know UND can defend. We’ll see if the Fighting Hawks can get to the net and score against a top opponent. Bet against them at your peril, especially when they’re playing in that building.
Denver-UMass is a rematch of the 2019 Frozen Four semifinals, a game won by UMass in overtime, setting up UMD handing the Minutemen their lunch for the national title two nights later. This is a different UMass team, but no doubt they’ll be ready for an opportunity to take down the champs. Denver looked awfully good in winning the Ice Breaker last weekend, but this will present a much different challenge — no offense to Notre Dame or Maine.
7. The rest of the NCHC docket features some non-conference series of interest. Western Michigan opens its home schedule Thursday night with Bowling Green. Same two teams Friday. Omaha tries to shake off last weekend’s disappointing home sweep at the hands of Niagara when it hits the road for Lake Superior State. I’m aware I picked UNO to finish eighth in the NCHC, but I still think this is a good team, one that shouldn’t be written off no matter what last weekend looks like. Colorado College is in upstate New York for two games against St. Lawrence. And St. Cloud State is back from bye to travel to Wisconsin, next week’s foe for UMD. The Huskies and Bulldogs both played two games Oct. 1-2 before taking a week off.
8. The UMD women are off this week. At 6-0, the Bulldogs are getting ready for a fairly stiff portion of a very difficult schedule. UMD heads to Columbus (Ohio, not Georgia, Tommy Boy) for a national championship rematch against Ohio State next week, the first of two weekend series between the teams before holiday break. The Bulldogs then host Wisconsin Oct. 28-29 (both games on KDAL!) and travel to Minnesota the following weekend to face the defending conference regular season champions.
Needless to say, we’re going to learn a heck of a lot about the Bulldogs, even though it’s still early in the season.
6:30 pregame Friday from Mankato. Hope you can join us on KDAL. Back pregame with the lines and any other news.
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