8 Thoughts: Will Francis is Cancer Free

“I could do as much as I wanted (at home), like working out and skating and that sort of thing, but you can’t be doing that all the time. So it’ll be nice to get back in the routine. For me, it’s honing in on that core and lower body strength and explosiveness and building your body up, that shield of armor that is gonna kind of protect you the duration of the whole season.”

Will Francis is an impressive dude, and I don’t just mean his physical stature. Everything he’s been through, and his passion for this game and his teammates hasn’t waned. As UMD coach Scott Sandelin pointed out Wednesday, Francis and goalie Zach Stejskal — who waged a successful and very public battle with testicular cancer two seasons ago — are examples for everyone, including their teammates.

“They’ve gone through hard,” said Sandelin. “They’ve gone through hard. Some of these guys haven’t gone through hard, right? I think there’s an appreciation from those guys that they’re grateful they’re able to still play the game. And I think more guys need to look at it that way.”

Good advice, whether you’re a Division I hockey player or not.

Let’s get into the rest of this. Pre-emptively, I’ll just tell you there’s a lot here and I’m sorry in advance.

8 THOUGHTS

1. Sandelin minced zero words when asked about UMD’s 3-1 exhibition loss at St. Thomas on Saturday. But he found people to praise as well.

“Not very good,” he said of his team’s performance. “I thought our goalies (Matthew Thiessen and Zach Sandy split the game) were great. I thought our fourth line with (Braden Fischer) and Joey (Pierce) at forward, I thought those guys did a great job. (Anthony Menghini), too. The rest of the guys, we turned pucks over, we weren’t engaged. It looked like we didn’t want to be there. I was disappointed with our effort. And if we play like that, we won’t win many games.”

Fischer, Pierce, and Menghini indeed gave their team quality shifts. It was nice to see Fischer find the back of the net, albeit in a game that did not count.

“I really like where Fischer’s come,” Sandelin said. “For a player that didn’t see much action to get thrown in in Milwaukee, first couple games, I thought he did a really good job. He’s a smart player. He’ll get used to the pace. I think we’ve seen him get better each week, each month here. Now he’s getting some game (action), so I’m excited to see where he could go.

“He’s worked hard. He stayed out. He’s done extra, you know, he’s had a great attitude and he’s getting an opportunity now and I like what I’ve seen out of him.”

“I think he’s only going to get better,” associate coach Adam Krause said. “I think he’s going to become a very reliable center for that line moving forward, not just this year, but moving forward in his career here.”

2. It feels like whatever success UMD has in its final 16 regular season games will center around its defensive play and goaltending. Yes, UMD is down Francis for the duration, and a healthy Will Francis gives UMD a size and snarl dimension on the back end that it otherwise does not have. But the Bulldogs have shown themselves capable of playing strong defense since Thanksgiving.

Since returning from that first holiday week bye in early December, UMD has played six games, conceding 12 goals, down a full goal per game from its season average of 3.0 goals allowed per game. Yeah, I get it, this isn’t the most dynamic offensive team ever assembled, but if UMD can keep that “goals allowed” number in the low- to mid-twos through the second half, the Bulldogs are going to have chances to win a goodly number of those games.

“When we’ve had success, we’ve tracked back quicker to defensive zone coverage,” Krause said. “We’ve been a little bit more connected defensively.”

While the coaches felt — and the eye test backed it up — that UMD got a bit loose defensively against Air Force in the Kwik Trip Holiday Faceoff third place game, Zach Stejskal was outstanding in goal, giving up only a first period power play goal and holding his ground the rest of the game.

“Credit to Air Force, they challenged us on (zone) exits,” Krause added. “And I think we got extended on some exit turnovers (where) they had hard tracks and they stood up. I think once you get running around, which they made us do, you’ve got to get reconnected in that zone. Moving forward, it’s going to be critical.”

3. Goaltending has helped. Stejskal bounced back from a so-so game against Northeastern in Milwaukee by stopping 33 of 34 shots against Air Force, including some massive saves in the third period while UMD was protecting a one-goal lead. That simply continued a trend toward stronger play from the UMD net, centered around Stejskal, who has started all six games since the Thanksgiving bye.

Over those six games, where UMD is 3-2-1, Stejskal has given up the 12 goals on 158 shots, a save percentage of .924. Combine that with some solid play from Matthew Thiessen in November, and the Bulldogs have gotten .919 goaltending since the Minnesota series (12 games total).

“I think it’s been really good recently,” said Krause. “There’s some games where they play really well and you want to have a little bit more run support. That’s something we’re continuing to try to work on, trying to make sure the pressure is not so much on the goal scoring or it’s not so much on the defensive play or so much on the goaltending. I think if you can have a healthy balance where your defensive structure is going to bail out your goalie and your goalie is going to bail out your defensive structure and sometimes your offense is going to bail out your goalie. Sometimes we weren’t right in sync with that early in the season, so I think we found a little bit more of a healthy balance of supporting each other in different areas of our game and not relying so much on one part of our game to get a win.”

4. How much has the internal competition at that position helped? It’s hard not to notice UMD’s struggles with injuries over the last few years.

The Bulldogs like to carry 15 forwards (you’ll play 12-13 every game as long as you have enough healthy players), eight defensemen (typically, teams play six or seven), and three goalies.

It’s been since the COVID year of 2020-21 that UMD has started the season with 15 healthy and available forwards. Luke Mylymok suffered a preseason injury in 2021 that required surgery, keeping him out of the lineup until February of 2022. Kyler Kleven missed the entire 2022-23 season after suffering an injury during preseason training. Then it was Kleven suffering a different injury that kept him out for the first part of this season, and by the time he returned, Dominic James was lost for the season.

With Cole Spicer not eligible for the second half, UMD now has 13 forwards. In the exhibition game Saturday, Blake Biondi didn’t dress for injury-related reasons, while Kyle Bettens dressed and was mostly a spectator on the bench. With Francis redshirting, UMD will have — at the maximum — two healthy scratches for every remaining game the rest of the season, and one of those would be the third goalie if the Bulldogs only choose to dress two for a game.

Health will be a huge component in the second half. Finding some internal competition in practices will be as well.

I asked Krause about this subject, and while he made it clear that one has to be careful when evaluating and potentially changing the roster construction, they also have to find ways to bring on that competition.

“I think it’s really healthy when players are on their toes in all parts of your lineup,” he said, “whether it’s a player trying to get in the top six versus the bottom six, or trying to get in the lineup or whatnot, it’s healthy. I think it’s been what’s made us good here in Duluth. I think we’ve had a lot of depth in the last few years and when we’ve had our success on a national level, we’ve had some really good internal competition, something that we’ve probably missed here in the last few years.”

Of course, where UMD has that internal competition right now is in goal. Stejskal. Thiessen, and Zach Sandy — who drew praise from Sandelin for his performance Saturday (yeah, he gave up all three goals, but he also stopped a partial breakaway eight seconds after he came into the game for Thiessen, and the second goal came from a breakaway off a garish turnover) — are healthy.

“I think it’s been a little bit tougher year for him,” Sandelin said of Sandy, “as far as not playing versus last year. Last year he had some injuries, this year he was healthy. I do think early on he wasn’t pushing enough for me.”

In terms of using numbers to create important internal competition, the goalies have been tremendous as of late. If they can keep that up, again, it will give UMD a chance to stay in a lot of games going forward.

5. It’s Colorado College to start the second half of the league season for UMD this weekend. The Tigers are improved again, having hit the ten-win mark with Sunday’s 6-4 triumph at Minnesota.

Third-year coach Kris Mayotte likes what he is seeing so far, though you can still find some inconsistencies along the way.

“Some nights we look really good,” he said this week. “Some nights, not so much. I think we continue to get more consistent. We continue to get a little bit more of an understanding on how we have to play to win hockey games and what type of team we’re trying to become.”

What CC has is a team that hounds pucks, forces turnovers, and acts quickly on them.

“I think in today’s game, you’re going to create turnovers one of two ways,” Mayotte said. “Either you just sit back and sit above everybody, or you press pucks everywhere and you don’t let them get off the wall and you create turnovers. I think with how well everybody’s coached, how talented this level is, if you’re not creating turnovers and you have to go through five guys to get your scoring chances, you’re not going to score much.”

The Tigers still don’t light up the scoreboard like their counterparts up I-25 can, but Colorado College has shown much improved depth, especially up front, and sophomore Kaidan Mbereko continues to lead the way in goal. Yeah, Jimmy Snuggerud got his Sunday and Monday, but Mayotte made it clear he is in no way discouraged by his young goaltender.

“He’s been incredible for us,” said Mayotte. “And you look at the chances that we gave up for stretches (Monday). We gave up a lot of looks and a lot of them on the power play. I think we gave up 21 shots on the kill. Those aren’t dump-ins, those aren’t outside chances, those are their best players getting looks from really good spots.”

“Very good goaltender,” Sandelin said of this weekend’s adversary. “The top line’s very good. I think their depth has improved a lot with their team over the last year or two. They got some older guys that have been there. I like how they’ve grown with their guys. They haven’t spent a lot of time in the portal, they’re trying to grow within. I think that shows in the way they play. But their top line’s good, top line’s good. And it’s not just that line, but they’ve got some, (Noah) Laba’s good. We didn’t see (Gleb) Veremyev last year, because he was hurt, big body. They got some speed, a good transition team. Couple defensemen that are very mobile and they’ll be part of the offense.

“But Mbereko’s good. He’s gonna be a tough riddle to solve.”

6. I got an excellent question randomly emailed to me after the New Year’s holiday from listener/reader David. Wanted to take some time to answer it here, so David can consider this his response.

He asked:

Talent does matter. With the World Juniors going on right now we have the comparison of the back-to- back championship team –  wasn’t there something like 5 or 6 off those teams that played in WJ? Current team is none (with James out)? Not sure we realized it at the time – but that now seems to have been a generational talent group back then? Seems like the 2011 team had some pretty high end talent too – wasn’t a WJ fan back then so can’t compare – but FCC line and guys like JT Brown and Justin Faulk come to mind. Can you compete in college hockey without that level of talent?

(Emphasis mine.)

The short answer is, unequivocally, yes.

To expand a bit: One of the wonderful things about college hockey is that there is more than one way to win. You can win with young players as the lead dogs. Michigan has made Frozen Fours recently with a lot of quality young talent. You can win with older players as well, as we’ve seen Minnesota State and Quinnipiac do.

Talking to the UMD staff, especially Sandelin and Krause, this season, you can sense a real purpose to their recruiting methods going forward. This year’s freshman group was an older one, as the youngest freshman (Matthew Perkins) is older than three players UMD leaned on as freshmen last year (Spicer, Isaac Howard, and Aiden Dubinsky). Next year will be keyed by forward Zam Plante, who went back to the USHL for more seasoning this year and is tearing it up, and goalie Adam Gajan, who got more high-level experience with Slovakia at the World Juniors and is having a very good season in the USHL with Green Bay.

No, UMD isn’t shutting the door on the idea of true freshmen. But as Krause noted, this is a program that made its living on older freshmen for a long time, and those well-seasoned, experienced players will be big parts of the plan in the future.

(Also worth noting: That 2010-11 team had Faulk and Dylan Olsen in the World Juniors, with Olsen signing pro during the tournament and never returning to school. Guys like Justin Fontaine and the Connollys were later bloomers who never played in that event.)