Take a look outside, and you’ll see why the headline is the headline.
Much of the Midwest is getting slammed by some nasty late fall/early winter weather. The legendary gales of November are fired up on Lake Superior, on the 47th anniversary of the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. Blizzard conditions in western Minnesota are forcing flight cancellations and making travel extremely hazardous. That might impact Denver’s trip to North Dakota this weekend, which is still on as scheduled as this blog goes to press.
Luckily for us, UMD is home this weekend, battling Omaha in a two-game series at Amsoil Arena. The Bulldogs have actually avoided most every weather-related travel calamity the NCHC has experienced in its nine-plus years of operation. Blizzard in southern Minnesota? No problem, UMD is at home. Travel advisories in northwest Minnesota? Sure, we’ll just head to Western or something.
It’s like the hockey/weather gods know I’m not built to spend hours hanging around an airport waiting on a delayed flight.
Anyway, best wishes to everyone who has to get anywhere that’s affected by the weather. The first big snowstorm is no fun for anything.
8 THOUGHTS
1. UMD is coming off a better game in Saturday’s 3-1 win over Colorado College. But the next step in the growth process for this group is to avoid the 5-0 loss that happened the previous night and left everyone sour heading into Saturday.
“It can’t take an ass kicking to really fire you up,” junior forward Luke Mylymok said this week. “You’ve got to be able to show up every game like you’re down 5-0, fight with that fire. That’s what makes this program successful.”
Coach Scott Sandelin had a similar message after Friday’s game, saying that it wasn’t good enough, and his team wasn’t ready to play. Sandelin called UMD’s performance “embarrassing,” and he got the response he was looking for Saturday night.
Now we’ll see if the Bulldogs can string together two games like that this weekend. It’s certainly easier said than done, but it’s time to start seeing more progress, instead of steps forward followed by steps backward.
2. I thought UMD’s net front performance at both ends of the ice Saturday was much better.
“We were just much harder in every zone,” said UMD captain Tanner Laderoute. “Whether that be boxing out in the D zone or being hard and closing on plays or getting to the net in the (offensive) zone.”
I pinpointed that before the game as a big story. UMD was not good in front of either net Friday, giving up too much in front of its goaltenders and not doing nearly enough to affect the play of CC freshman Kaidan Mbereko. Yes, Mbereko was very good again Saturday, but the Bulldogs made him earn his keep that night.
Said Sandelin: “Did we play harder? Yes. Was it perfect? No. But you know, we played better defensively. We only gave up 20 shots. We had some opportunities offensively. We had a goal taken away. Probably could have scored five or six goals but we ended up scoring three. But bottom line is we won a hockey game.”
3. Sandelin refused Wednesday to try to characterize the week of practice, but he did talk about its importance in terms of being ready to play on the weekend.
“If they’re not ready, I take that personally as a coach,” said Sandelin, “but at the same time, it’s a two way street. You prepare yourself through week of practice. Through preparation. Sometimes you get what you get, but I don’t know why it was the way it was Friday.”
Laderoute echoed those sentiments, talking about how important the week is for the weekend.
“It’s not a switch, you don’t turn the lights on,” said the fifth-year senior. “You’re ready to go. It’s Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. And even that Friday morning skate, you can’t take any of those moments off. And it even goes more than that. It’s not just the skates at the rink. It’s getting the right sleep, it’s doing the right things when you’re away from the rink, making sure that you’re doing what you can to help the team win on a Friday.”
The Bulldogs will be tested by Omaha this weekend. The Mavericks had a nice rebound Saturday to get a tie and shootout win after a tough Friday loss to North Dakota. Omaha has plenty of size and skill in its lineup, and Mike Gabinet’s teams are always a bear to deal with on the power play. Jack Randl already has 11 goals, which is seven more than anyone on the UMD roster (Ben Steeves has four).
Both teams have struggled at stretches to score five-on-five, and both teams have gotten some uneven goaltending at times. Whoever puts all of that together the best this weekend is going to be more likely to come out of the weekend with points.
4. If Denver can get to Grand Forks, man will that be a series. UND continues to, very similarly to UMD, struggle to play with any consistency from game to game. Or, in UND’s case, period to period. Reference the destination game two weeks ago in Las Vegas, when the Hawks jumped to a 2-0 lead on Arizona State before the Sun Devils even realized there was a game going on, only for ASU to shut down UND the rest of the way and steal a 3-2 win. Last weekend in Omaha was also uneven, though the Fighting Hawks managed four of six points in the series.
The Pioneers have basically picked up where they left off last season, which should be scary for everyone in the country. We’ll see if a talented UND back line can slow down red-hot Carter Mazur, who has been going at an awfully high level for a while, going back to the summer World Juniors and likely prior to that as well.
This is probably the best rivalry in league play. You can always count on high-intensity hockey with these teams, and it’s been known to get out of hand on occasion.
5. Elsewhere, Western Michigan travels to St. Cloud State. That should be a series worth checking out, as I love what Western Michigan has been doing, especially at home. But this is a doozy of an NCHC road trip for a team that still lacks some experience. For Pat Ferschweiler and staff, playing a team like SCSU on the big ice this early should tell them a lot.
(Western hosts UMD next weekend, by the way.)
Finally, Colorado College is at Miami. The RedHawks stumbled out of the NCHC gates last weekend, losing twice by a 12-3 aggregate in Kalamazoo. Miami didn’t play a murderer’s row in non-conference, but it did win at UMass-Lowell, which is no small task. Colorado College looked awfully good against UMD last Friday, but how much of that was CC and how much was UMD? We’re probably not deep enough into this season to have a clear picture on that.
6. While the men play at home this weekend, the women head to the Granite City. Coming off back-to-back-to-back weekends against three top five teams, a less mature group than this might need to guard against a letdown against the unranked St. Cloud State Huskies.
However, this particular group knows better. And even if it didn’t, SCSU snapped everyone to full attention Monday night in Andover, where the Huskies picked off No. 1 Minnesota 4-1 in the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame Classic. The victory snapped a winless streak of 61 games for St. Cloud State against Minnesota that spanned more than 12 calendar years.
“Another couple challenges ahead,” said coach Maura Crowell. “Going down to St. Cloud, playing on the big sheet. New coach, a new style of play, all sorts of different things that I think are good for our group to keep us on task.”
St. Cloud State is flourishing, winning five in a row under new coach Brian Idalski. The former North Dakota head man is in his first year at SCSU, and he inherited a very experienced roster.
“They’ve always had opportunistic players,” Crowell said. “They’ve got good size, they’ve had it for a while. The kids who are producing for them are the kids who have produced all the way through. They’re playing hard. I think their goaltending is good, we know JoJo (Chobak, a transfer from UMD) well, and Sanni Ahola is doing a fantastic job.”
It was Ahola who shut down the potent Gophers on Monday, with help from her friends to the tune of 22 blocked shots. It was a very impressive win, but likely didn’t change anything in terms of UMD’s perception of this week’s opponent.
“If you focus on yourself, and not what the opponent is doing, I think that’s what makes a team better,” senior defender Taylor Stewart said this week. “When we go into this weekend against St. Cloud, we’re not thinking about what they just did, we’re thinking about what we’re going to do.”
7. Matt Wellens asked Crowell about Chobak and Minnesota defender Lizi Norton, both of whom transferred from UMD after last season, and if it’s weird to see them in different colors now. I thought Crowell’s answer was — as usual for her — really interesting and thoughtful.
“It’s hard,” she said, “because so much goes into bringing those players into your program and spending the time that you do with them. If other programs have the right academics for them or the right opportunities where they can play more, than it is what it is. It’s hard to see them in a different uniform, and I just hope that they’re doing well and want the best for them.”
Chobak was outstanding in goal for UMD last season while Emma Soderberg was away at the Olympics, but she decided to move on when Soderberg announced she was coming back to use her fifth year. Norton had graduated from UMD last spring, but there was no real indication she wouldn’t be returning until she put her name in the transfer portal late in the process. There were academic reasons for that decision, as Matt pointed out at the time.
8. The UMD men will mark Hockey Fights Cancer night on Saturday.
Saturday we are fighting for more than a win💜
Signs will be available to purchase on the concourse. All proceeds will be donated.
Donate to the Mo-Bros: https://t.co/jgCmMDJaiA #BulldogCountry pic.twitter.com/TJqnryZaTU
— UMD Men's Hockey (@UMDMensHockey) November 10, 2022
Hockey Fights Cancer is one of my favorite sport-led initiatives. Cancer has touched so many of us, either directly or through loved ones. My grandmother was lost to lung cancer, my dad battled and beat back cancer three times before he passed in 2020. Obviously, the stories of Zach Stejskal and Will Francis have inspired many around the program as well. Look through the photos the team posted and see the different messages on the guys’ cards.
On a different but not completely unrelated note, the UMD Movember campaign continues to do well, as they’re close to the original goal of $2,000 and have upped it to a $5,000 goal one year after topping $10,000. You can donate here. Mylymok’s handlebar mustache has come in quite nicely, coming from a person who couldn’t grow one of those if his life depended on it. 🤣
6:30 pregame Friday, 5:30 Saturday. Back pregame with the lines.
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