As I write this over the last weekend of June, we’ve just passed the geographic midpoint of UMD’s men’s hockey offseason.
The traditional 100-day season countdown has begun, you can follow that daily on my X account (@BruceCiskie).
To put all of this in perspective, we’re about ten weeks out from NCHC Media Day (date still not announced, so we’re guessing a bit here), and the season opener is 14 weeks from Saturday night at Amsoil Arena against Bemidji State.
And we have a new column name. As of Monday, Arizona State is a member of the NCHC. The Sun Devils have seemingly been trying to get in the league since they started their program, and it finally became official last summer.
Nine teams in the NCHC. Nine thoughts rattling around my head. If you’re new here, not every thought is going to cover a different NCHC team. The format was stolen from the great Elliotte Friedman of SportsNet, and the basic idea is to make sure I can keep a sense of focus surrounding this stream of consciousness column, which will publish somewhat regularly during the season.
Welcome, Arizona State. Plenty of time to talk about how this team will do in the standings. We’re just excited to have a warm-weather destination to travel to.
9 THOUGHTS
1. Arizona State took the long way to the NCHC. If you haven’t paid much attention, Greg Powers has built a competitive program despite some roadblocks along the way. The program launched out of club status — where they were quite successful — playing at Oceanside Ice Arena, a small, old facility that wasn’t meant for modern Division I hockey. And everyone knew it wasn’t meant for Division I hockey, to the point that ASU’s first attempt to gain entry into the NCHC failed largely because the Devils had Oceanside and no set path to a better arena.
Despite the facility issues, Powers got Arizona State off the ground quickly. Behind goalie Joey Daccord, Arizona State made the NCAA Tournament in 2019, losing to Quinnipiac in the first round in Allentown. Had the 2020 event not been canceled by the onset of the pandemic, Arizona State would have been back in.
A difficult COVID year saw ASU play games exclusively on the road against Big Ten adversaries, and the Devils responded with 17- and 18-win campaigns in 2021-22 and 2022-23, respectively. ASU went 24-8-2 last season, finishing 20th in the PairWise. When scheduling as an independent, one of the real problems you can run into comes with scheduling. I’m not enough of an expert on the PairWise to explain it, but it’s become clear over the years that bad losses can have a profound impact when the overall strength of schedule isn’t great. The fact that Arizona State made the tournament once, was in position to make it a second time, and was certainly in the picture last season says a lot, but now the Sun Devils will experience a whole new kind of step-up in scheduling with the 24-game NCHC gauntlet.
2. How do the Sun Devils fit into the league? It’s going to be difficult to discern this right off the hop. Powers brought in a bunch of transfers who will make an impact, including forwards Artem Shlaine (UConn, then Northern Michigan) and Cruz Lucius (Wisconsin). Cullen Potter ended up at ASU after deciding to enroll in college early and decommitting from Michigan State. The talented forward will be draft eligible next summer.
No. 1 goalie TJ Semptimphelter is spending his last season of eligibility at North Dakota, however, so Powers needs a new top starter.
Arizona State went 3-2-2 against NCHC teams last season, 16-28-6 all-time against the conference, with basically all of the damage done since 2018.
And we have no idea if the Sun Devils have the depth necessary to run this gauntlet. It’s one thing to play a few games per season against NCHC competition. It’s another to play 24. That’s the task starting in early November.
But in terms of Arizona State’s goals in the sport, this is a great fit. The league doesn’t drastically expand its geographic footprint, and there’s no doubt it helps the conference from a competitive standpoint. And, from a purely selfish standpoint, I can think of no better early December road trip to prepare for.
3. The NCHC won’t be a nine-team league for long. St. Thomas has been accepted as a new member in 2026, and the Tommies will show up with a new arena that is set to open in 2025. What happens in between is anyone’s guess.
Brad Schlossman has noted that the league expedited UST’s application to the conference, because the fear was the CCHA would soon increase the league’s exit fee. The story also brings up the possibility of the CCHA giving St. Thomas the boot after this coming season.
However, the NCHC’s schedule is already set for 2025-26 as a nine-team conference. And from the sounds of it, there is little appetite for the league to admit St. Thomas a year early should the Tommies be removed from the CCHA. NCHC teams already had to make adjustments to their 2024-25 schedules after the Arizona State announcement, and my understanding is that a lot of teams have set their slates for next season.
If St. Thomas has to leave the CCHA earlier than planned, it seems more likely than not that the Tommies will need to set up an independent schedule for 2025-26. Shouldn’t be a major issue. It’s not like St. Thomas lacks experience getting kicked out of a conference.
4. Closer to home, the UMD men have dispersed for a few weeks. Scott Sandelin and staff brought all the 2024-25 players to Duluth in June for a couple weeks of workouts and team-building. That wrapped up June 21, and players are off on their own for the time being. Some will stay around town and work this summer’s Bulldog Hockey Camp, while others will head back home to continue workouts and preparation for the upcoming season. School starts late in August, at which point everyone will be back.
UMD has published its roster, which is a sign that things are set for this fall. Doesn’t mean nothing can change, but as of now there’s no reason to think anything will.
12 newcomers. 11 freshmen. Might want to familiarize yourself, though based on those who’ve reached out over the last few months on the socials, a lot of you already have familiarized yourselves.
(Even better? No returning players changed their numbers. Bless all of you.)
5. There’s plenty of excitement in the facility, no doubt. UMD is optimistic that a turnaround from back-to-back 20-loss seasons is on the way, that this group of newcomers is the one to lead it.
But, at the same time, you don’t want to put the weight of the world on the shoulders of freshmen.
After a class that brought in older freshmen, UMD has two “true” freshmen in the fold this fall, both of whom were drafted this weekend. Forward Max Plante of Hermantown went 47th overall to Detroit, while defenseman Adam Kleber of Chaska was taken five picks earlier by the Buffalo Sabres. Zam doubles the Plante contingent on the roster, making father Derek the first UMD alum to ever put two sons into the program.
(Though, as Zam was quick to point out when we chatted recently, it could very easily become three in the future. The youngest Plante, Victor, heads to the U.S. National Team Development Program for this coming season and is two years out from NHL Draft eligibility. Just go ahead and file that name in the back of your mind.)
UMD brought in a couple future recruits this year because of transfers, adding forwards Blake Bechen and Harper Bentz after successful junior campaigns in Green Bay and Fargo, respectively.
Don’t fret, because the pipeline is still strong and growing.
Defensively, Kleber is joined by Ty Hanson, the ex-Hermantown standout who captained Sioux City this past season. They join a group of seven returning defensemen from last season, and UMD should have some major competition for ice time on the back end.
6. It’s been a busy offseason on the south side of the building. Maura Crowell stepped down as the UMD women’s head coach on May 31, taking the same job out east at Dartmouth. That touched off a national search for a new coach, the first head coaching search UMD has conducted since Forrest Karr took over as athletic director.
Matt Wellens talked to Duluth native, former UMD associate coach, and current Harvard head coach Laura Bellamy last week, and she confirmed to him that she did not apply for the vacancy.
The timing, it seems, was not great. Bellamy has only been back at Harvard one year, after all.
That makes it almost too obvious that current top assistant Laura Schuler should be in line for the job, but nothing is done until it’s done, and this is not done as of the writing of this column. UMD’s job should be considered a top five job nationally, thanks to a wonderful facility and an abundance of resources available. Without knowing the candidate pool, it’s nearly impossible to say who the best external candidate would be.
Either way, it was a late coaching change that led to an emotional press conference, and we’ll learn the ultimate conclusion to the story soon. UMD hasn’t lost any players as a result of the coaching change, so whoever gets the job is inheriting a talented roster with quality goaltending.
7. It’s not the only late change we’ve seen. Grant Potulny left Northern Michigan for the AHL, touching off a search that led NMU to hire former player and current St. Cloud State associate coach Dave Shyiak. It also sent a bunch more NMU players into the transfer portal, with Western Michigan picking up the Slukynsky brothers (forward Grant and goalie Hampton).
Out east, Casey Jones left Clarkson to become head-coach-in-waiting at Cornell, where the great Mike Schafer announced he’s stepping down after a quarter century. Alum Jean-François Houle was hired out of the AHL to replace Jones at Clarkson, and only one player has entered the portal since Jones left (the 30-day window is still open for those players).
Schafer isn’t the only legend who announced his departure a year ahead of time. Jeff Jackson is leaving Notre Dame after the 2024-25 season, which will be his 20th on the job in South Bend. The Fighting Irish have seen great success under his leadership, but Jackson told Jess Myers of The Rink Live that the modern climate of college hockey contributed to his decision, which he resists calling a retirement.
“I really don’t want to give up coaching, to be honest with you, but I feel like I’ve been boxed-in, recruiting-wise over the last couple of years and I have to take responsibility for that. It’s caused the program to drop a little bit over the last few years,” Jackson said. “It’s been hard for me to deal with. We’ve tried a lot of different things to offset all of the commentary out there about how we play and how we develop players…it’s something I couldn’t combat.”
While he did not name names, Jackson spoke of highly-regarded players who either visited Notre Dame but didn’t commit to the school, or others that committed to the Irish originally and ended up playing for Big Ten rivals. Former Gophers stars Logan Cooley and Brock Faber had standout seasons in the NHL last winter. Both were originally committed to Notre Dame before ending up at Minnesota. Other Notre Dame commits who never arrived on campus include defenseman Tyler Duke, who went to Ohio State then to Michigan, forward Sasha Pastujov, who went to Canadian major juniors, and current Michigan standout Rutger McGroarty. Jackson admitted that he misses the days of the “gentleman’s agreement” among college hockey coaches which dictated that once a player had announced his commitment to a particular school, rival recruiters would consider that player off limits.
“As a coach, you have to change with the times, but college athletics is a mess right now,” Jackson said. “Notre Dame doesn’t feel this way, but I read somewhere that they don’t want us using the terminology ‘student-athlete’ anymore, and I find that embarrassing. That’s not what college athletics was meant to be.”
I have great respect for Jackson and Notre Dame, and I understand his frustrations (Sandelin vented his own frustrations about the current system at UMD’s end-of-season press conference). It appears some of them are unique to Jackson and Notre Dame, and there are no easy answers on that kind of thing.
(Then again, there really aren’t any easy answers to the current issues within the game or college sports. Good on him for speaking his mind, because it isn’t always easy for coaches — even well-established ones — to speak out.)
8. In addition to the new team, the NCHC has one new head coach this fall. Anthony Noreen takes over at Miami after Chris Bergeron was let go. Noreen moved to Oxford after a good run leading the way at USHL Tri-City. The Storm won over 200 games, while Noreen won USHL Coach of the Year twice.
The job at Miami is, well, not an easy one.
The RedHawks’ last winning season was 2014-15. Bergeron didn’t reach double-digit wins in any of his five years on the job. It feels like we haven’t gone a full season without some sort of discourse somewhere about Miami wanting out of the NCHC, even though it’s never happened and to my knowledge there’s never been a move towards making such a thing happen.
We’ll see if Noreen can engineer a turnaround. Under Rico Blasi, Miami not only was up-and-coming, but it arrived. Eight straight 20-win seasons, reaching 30 once. Eight straight NCAA Tournament bids, with ten in a span of 12 years. Two Frozen Fours, one gut-wrenching appearance in the title game.
The parity we have in this sport nowadays makes this type of success difficult for a smaller school like Miami, but it’s far from impossible.
9. The audience has questions. Do I have answers?
How has the off season been to ya?
— Scott Radzak (@Radman_50) June 29, 2024
Not bad. Haven’t fished quite as much as I’d like, but there’s still time. Haven’t taken any real extended time off work, but that’s also on the way.
Spicer is listed on the roster, does that mean anything on eligibility or is that irrelevant?
— Galo (@ZGalo35) June 29, 2024
Cole Spicer, that is. I would say it’s a good sign, but it’s not like the roster can’t change in the next few weeks if circumstances warrant. Hopefully, however, this is a good sign. I know the work continues, but I haven’t had any direct contact with Cole.
Is this the most draft picks UMD has had on a roster?
— Dan Jacobsen (@DanJacobsen) June 29, 2024
The 1983-84 team had 14 draft picks on the roster. Not sure if that’s the most ever, but it’s more than the current team’s 11.
What’s our goalie depth look like this year? Gajan looks great
— Jeremy Smith (@jlbksmith) June 29, 2024
It’s a younger goalie room, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be better. Adam Gajan has played in the World Juniors, and he got some valuable USHL playoff experience this spring with Green Bay. Klayton Knapp also joins this fall after a solid season in Bismarck of the NAHL. Zach Sandy returns after a season that saw him make his UMD debut in a late-season win over St. Cloud State, and the popular teammate should be in the mix again this fall.
Can’t wait to see what longtime goalie guru Brant Nicklin does with this group.
______
ASU coach Greg Powers joins me on my radio show Monday (July 1) at 10:10. If you miss it, we do podcast the show daily here. Check out that archive for conversations with incoming UMD freshmen Kleber and the Plantes, along with fifth year senior and SCSU transfer Joe Molenaar, senior Owen Gallatin, and sophomore Matt Perkins.
The UMD women’s job should be filled at some point before the middle of July. Outside of that, we’re hoping for a quiet few weeks, news-wise.
And hopefully weather-wise, as well.
Anyway, I’ll be back probably in August with projected depth charts and the September predictions column will be here before we know it.
Enjoy the summer, all. Thanks as always for clicking and reading!
Comments