COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — It’s probably a coincidence that UMD is starting its tenth season of play in the NCHC where it began its first. Heck, the Bulldogs won’t be playing in the same building as in October of 2013, after all. UMD will become the last team to serve as a visitor at Colorado College’s sparkling new Ed Robson Arena when the teams meet Friday night.
The NCHC’s first season of play launched Oct. 18-19, 2013, with UMD splitting two games at the old World Arena, which sits about seven miles from the front door of the new building, which opened last season. UMD rotated off the Tigers’ home schedule last year, so this will be the Bulldogs’ first chance to see it.
It’s a beautiful facility, and to compare it to the old building is just unfair, really to both facilities. Ed Robson Arena is an intimate (3,500ish seats), modern facility with all the amenities you can think of, and the World Arena was an older building that lacked a lot of that, along with being seven miles from the CC campus and a place that it was hard to draw student crowds to.
Even with the Tigers struggling a bit last season, they were able to pack the student section here, selling upwards of 400 tickets for some games.
“It was special,” second year CC coach Kris Mayotte said in September, “to have it on campus for the first time in our history, to see the response from the campus, the students, was really cool.”
(Colorado College is a very small school with an enrollment of only around 2,000.)
So we’re expecting a good atmosphere for these games. Looking forward to finally seeing games in this building.
8 THOUGHTS
1. UMD coach Scott Sandelin was unquestionably happy to see his team get wins last weekend against Cornell, but he cautioned reporters Wednesday that the Bulldogs still have a lot of work to do.
Asked about areas he’s looking to see improvement, Sandelin offered up a few thoughts.
“We’ve gotta get better tracking back into our zone,” he said. “It’s little things, turning our backs on pucks, not getting pucks out, those things are going to kill you.
“They’re habits that can creep in. We’ve got simple things like positional, being where you’re supposed to be. Those are things that are still not there yet. It’s still hit or miss. As I said last week, consistency to what we’re trying to do.”
Coaches are never truly satisfied until they’re lifting a trophy in April. And last weekend was surely a step for UMD, but there’s absolutely more work to be done.
2. One reason UMD won twice last weekend was that its top players were its best players. The “We need our best players to be our best players” cliché is one that gets rolled out often when a team is struggling. UMD was certainly doing that over two tough weekends, and seeing guys like Wyatt Kaiser, Dominic James, Quinn Olson, and Blake Biondi do what they did last weekend was a huge boost for everyone.
“I just got my feet moving, making the right plays,” the understated Kaiser said Wednesday.
“He was just assertive in every way,” associate coach Adam Krause said. “He was a motivated player, I think it was obvious from the drop of the puck. Maybe his best overall weekend as a Bulldog so far. He wasn’t hesitant, he was on his toes. When a player of that caliber is on his toes, with his skating ability and competitive nature, it can be pretty scary and you see the results that can happen.”
Kaiser’s home run pass to James sprung a breakaway that opened the scoring. Looking at the play, it was a good example of how a layered defense and a “go north” style of hockey can create scoring chances. That’s how UMD wants to play, and Kaiser and James performed to perfection in this sequence.
“Great read,” said Krause, “anticipating that play from Dom, and great execution from Wyatt, making that pass and having a head’s up. Getting our toes up north, playing a bit more of that game, where as soon as we can see an attack we go. It’s a fine line between anticipation and cheating. That goal, you could really feel the pressure come off Dom and the whole bench.”
“They all played better,” Sandelin said, “but there’s more, right? Hopefully guys feel better about that. It’s such a mindset. If you get in a good mindset, you get a little better feeling about your game. Winning always helps that. But, again, it’s reset and get back to work. Hopefully, we’re a better hockey team this week and going into the weekend, and we play well again.”
3. The Tigers are in the middle of what could be a long and fruitful rebuild. Mayotte talked at NCHC Media Day in September about his mindset with this program.
“If you look at what it takes to build a championship program, or what championship programs have, it’s ‘Hey, we committed to this program and we understand the identity of it before we even set foot on campus.’
We, quite honestly, didn’t have that. For us, it was building what we’re going to be, what we want to be, and this is the work it’s going to take to get there.”
Mayotte didn’t dip into the transfer portal, a move that was by design.
“It doesn’t mean that we don’t look at the portal and get intrigued by guys,” he said. “Looking at where we are and what we’re trying to build and how we believe the right way to build it is, we just were not very active in that pond right now.”
“They’re trying to change it,” said Sandelin. “They’re getting different players. They didn’t bring in any portal guys, they’re doing it through recruiting, which I think is awesome. And you know what? They’ll build it.”
Mayotte has fifth-year defenseman Bryan Yoon back as the Tigers’ captain this season. Yoon has eight assists through eight games for the 3-5 Tigers, who split a home and home with Air Force last weekend (8-0 home win, 6-3 road loss). Junior Hunter McKown, who led the team with 13 goals last season, already has five, and freshman Noah Laba has four goals and eight points. Colorado College has two freshmen among their top three scorers, and four of the top nine. This is a league that isn’t traditionally very kind to freshmen, but Mayotte has brought some talent in here and this team is not to be taken lightly, a message repeated by the older UMD players this week.
4. Isaac Howard is set to return from a two-game NCHC suspension, a result of his hit on Wisconsin defenseman Corson Ceulemans on Oct. 22. Now, UMD got some jump out of the James Gang Saturday (the original lineup, that is, with James between Olson and Biondi), and Carter Loney seems to have something going with Ben Steeves on the second line.
Where do you put Howard?
Great question. We’ll find out Friday night (no, really, I don’t know the answer).
I don’t know that there’s a great answer. I think James stays with Olson and Biondi, to see if they can build off that game Saturday. If Sandelin isn’t quite ready to move either Steeves or Howard to their off wing, only one of them gets to play with Loney. Steeves would have the inside track, I think, but I also think Loney is the kind of guy who can play with basically anyone, and anyone would want to play with him.
He’s UMD’s most consistent player, from what I’ve seen. And as we talked about last week, consistency breeds predictability and trust.
“He’s a guy I’d like to play with,” Sandelin said when asked about Loney. “He’s pretty consistent. That’s what you look for out of players. Guys that are, you kind of know what they’re going to do. I think that’s what he’s shown here. Hopefully, he continues to gain confidence in his game. I like him from the reliability and trust standpoint.”
I’m very confident that UMD will continue to deploy James, Loney, Jesse Jacques, and Cole Spicer as its four centers. I think the James Gang will stay as it was constructed last weekend, since they made pretty good music. I’m just not sure what else will happen down the lines. Stay tuned, I guess.
(I do think the top power play unit will go back to what it was at the time of Howard’s ejection from that Badgers game, which was James, Olson, Biondi, Howard, and Kaiser. That seems to be the best bet for a top unit at this point in time, and there’s no doubt the coaching staff is still evaluating fits and roles, given the Bulldogs have played three straight games without being able to deploy these five together. It might not be a coincidence the power play went 1-for-11 in those three games.)
5. Along with scoring two huge goals, James also posted his best career faceoff performance, winning 19 of 24. As noted Monday, it’s believed to be the best performance by a UMD center since Justin Richards in 2019. Yes, sometimes those numbers can be skewed depending on who is keeping score. But Sandelin hopes that what he saw from the sophomore can carry over as the league season starts.
“I talked to him (James) after the game (Saturday),” said Sandelin. “You look at some of the teams, go back to North Dakota and Shane Pinto. Penalty kill, throw him out there, win a draw, get off. He can still kill. We haven’t had a guy. You get a guy like that, doing that game in and game out or close to that. Hopefully, that’s a huge springboard for him.”
Unofficially, I have James at 58 percent for the season (90-for-155 in eight games). Cole Spicer is next on the list at 46.2 percent (31-for-67).
Faceoffs will continue to be a point of emphasis, and James is well on his way toward earning Sandelin’s trust in key situations. He might not ever be a guy like Pinto was, but right now he’s the best UMD has.
6. The UMD women will finish their three-weekend gauntlet at Minnesota, which took over as the new No. 1 in the polls after taking four of six points from Ohio State last weekend in Columbus. The Bulldogs have accounted for themselves quite well, as expected, coming off a weekend split against Wisconsin. That was one of those series where UMD arguably played better in the game it lost (Saturday) than it did in the game it won (Friday).
“I think we got better and better as Friday went on,” UMD coach Maura Crowell said this week. “And Saturday I feel like we carried the majority of the play. Second period, couple mistakes, puck’s in the back of our net, but we certainly outshot them that period. We had more possession than them all weekend long. I think we’re doing a lot of things right. We’re focused on the process of just getting better and better. Lots to learn, lots to like.”
Certainly, even if the result isn’t what UMD was looking for Saturday, its effort and performance should give players plenty of confidence heading into Minnesota. The Gophers are loaded, with Patty Kaz winner Taylor Heise back, along with returning U.S. Olympians Grace Zumwinkle and Abbey Murphy. Unsurprisingly, those are Minnesota’s top three scorers through eight games (7-0-1).
We’ll see if Gabbie Hughes can do Gabbie Hughes things against the Gophers again. She has 11 goals in 18 career meetings, averaging over a point per game. Her line with Naomi Rogge and Gabby Krause did a lot of good things in the offensive zone last weekend, with Hughes getting the late equalizer Friday to force overtime, and Krause scoring a goal by going hard to the net Saturday. Rogge added a goal later Saturday, but hers was wiped off the board by a Wisconsin offsides challenge.
7. As good as Hughes has been with whoever she’s played with, a newly-constructed second line was going last weekend against Wisconsin and could be a big key going forward.
Crowell put Kylie Hanley between Clara Van Wieren and Anneke Linser for the Ohio State series, and that line caused all sorts of problems for the Badgers last weekend. Van Wieren and Linser were great on the boards, winning puck battles constantly and keeping UW chasing all over the rink. Hanley’s speed and smarts seem a great compliment in the middle of the rink.
“They’re big, strong players,” said Crowell of Linser and Van Wieren. “They’re in your face. They’re not going to give up the puck unless you steal it from them. And if you do, they’re coming back, hunting back. They just have that tenacity in the style that they play and they also have goal-scoring ability.”
On Hanley, Crowell said “she’s slick, she’ll get to the soft areas of the ice. So if they’re doing the grunt work on the wall, she does a great job finding that soft ice and getting a quick shot off, or finding the weak-side D on the back door.”
8. November means Movember for many, and it certainly took on a very special meaning for the UMD men last year after goalie Zach Stejskal was diagnosed with testicular cancer in October. Ex-UMD goalie Ben Patt spearheaded a fundraising effort that brought in over $10,000 for men’s health.
“He did a good job last year,” UMD senior and new Movember captain Luke Loheit said of Patt. “Last year with Stezzy (Stejskal) we wanted to support him and try to raise some money, and it turned out to be a pretty big deal. I thought it’d be a cool thing for us to do again this year.
“Just talked to Patter (Patt) about it (Tuesday) night and we got a good laugh out of it. So, ya know, he allowed me to take it over this year.”
The effort is indeed back, led by forwards Loheit, Jesse Jacques, and Luke Mylymok (Stejskal says Mylymok has a “nice handlebar mustache going right now”). Their team page is here, and they would love for you to consider a donation.
(By the way, our Saturday player interview this week is with Stejskal. Tune in to catch that, including a message for men that we can all take to heart.)
8pm pregame on Friday, 6:30pm on Saturday. Hope you can join us on the radio. Back pregame from the arena with the much-anticipated line charts.
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