OXFORD, Ohio — If the start to this season feels awfully familiar to you despite this mostly unfamiliar roster, you’re not hallucinating.
Thanks to illness and injuries, UMD was never able to field its full and preferred lineup. Even if you remove Will Francis (cancer recurrence) and Dominic James (surgery on an upper-body injury suffered in the second game) from the equation, the Bulldogs were battling uphill all season, oftentimes going into a week of practice with no idea who was going to be available Friday and Saturday. The health ups and downs affected practice planning, game planning, line combinations, defensive pairings, basically everything, and it just added more frustration to a season that already had more than enough of it.
This season has started, frankly, in a very similar fashion. UMD overhauled the roster, bringing in 12 new players (11 freshmen and a transfer), and to a man, everyone was excited about the foundation being laid for the program’s future.
That excitement hasn’t waned one bit. The new guys have shown plenty to be pumped up about, even as the team absorbed some tough-to-stomach losses over the first nine games of the season.
But the frustrations are still there. Freshman forward Max Plante was lost to an upper-body injury in the third period of UMD’s season opener against Bemidji State. Junior forward Jack Smith went down with an injury when he took a hard and unnecessary check from behind and went careening into the boards against Stonehill Oct. 25. And last Friday, UMD lost its captain, forward Dominic James, for the weekend when he got tangled up in a battle with North Dakota forward Carter Wilkie, who appeared to put some weight on James as James slid along the ice. That undisclosed injury cost James the rest of Friday’s game (a little more than half of it) and all of Saturday.
Throw in the NCAA “suspending” freshman goalie Adam Gajan for the season opener because he committed the heinous crime of playing half an exhibition game with professionals during COVID, and the Bulldogs have yet to have their full and preferred lineup available for a single game.
But to quote the hard rock band Rise Against, help is on the way (only unlike the situations portrayed in the song, it actually is this time).
9 THOUGHTS
1. UMD should get at least one or two of its three injured players back, if not all three. At his weekly media conference Wednesday, head coach Scott Sandelin said James, Plante, and Smith are all “probable” for the game Friday. The eye test showed all three practicing without any obvious restrictions (read: They were on lines and did not have no-contact garb on), which is a very good step in the right direction by itself.
Long story longer: We’ll see how the lineup looks on Friday, but it is a safe bet that UMD will have at least one healthy forward scratched for the series opener.
Getting the dynamic James and the ever-reliable Smith back is a major plus for UMD whenever it happens. Sophomore forward Anthony Menghini picked up his first career hat trick last Friday after James left the game, but it was clear that he was energized getting to play with James before that happened.
And how could you not be? James’ frenetic style seems a perfect fit for a guy like Menghini, who had to shake off an injury during fall camp but seems to have found his form as of late.
“Getting hurt before the season even started was kind of a tough blow,” Menghini said. “Then trying to play through the first few games of the year was super tough. But now it’s out of my head and I know I can just play like myself.”
Like the captain, Menghini plays the game at what feels like 100 miles an hour, but he uses that crazy pace to affect the game in so many ways. He’s unafraid physically, is effective on the forecheck, and has the skill necessary to finish around the net.
2. A 3-6 start has done nothing to dampen Sandelin’s enthusiasm about this team and the potential of these young players.
Frankly, it shouldn’t.
Without James and Smith in the lineup on Saturday against North Dakota, UMD’s top six forwards were exclusively freshmen and sophomores. No, the start to the game was not very good, but UMD responded with perhaps its best period of the season in the second.
Besides outshooting North Dakota 13-5 and getting the only goal of the frame, it was more about how the Bulldogs played. There was intensity, tenacity, physicality, moxie, poise, all of it. Frankly, those 20 minutes were the best representation of what UMD needs to look like that we’ve seen so far, especially given the adversary.
Sucks that the result was still a loss and zero conference points, but it was a very good step for the group, especially when you look at what was missing.
Sandelin was intense when talking about it Wednesday.
“There’s some guys that need to play better,” he said. “But our young kids are getting better. And I think if you watch the games, there’s a lot of things to get excited about right. If you look at the results, you’re pissed off just like we are. I mean, it’s that simple.
“You don’t want to fall too far behind. This is a very important weekend here. The next two before we have another break. And we’ve got to find ways to win games and get some points and keep building from there.”
3. It’s impossible to say exactly when we don’t know the lineup yet, but I would expect UMD to have a healthy scratch or two up front on Friday, something that did not happen on Saturday. Trevor Stachowiak debuted on the fourth line (and his physicality along with that of Menghini and Joey Pierce helped, I felt, get UMD going in the second period).
No matter when the injured players return, the internal competition metric for UMD is going to change. Instead of players banging on the door to show what they can do, they’ll be banging on the door after showing a glimpse of what they can do.
“I can tell you that the perspective has changed on some players because we’ve got a chance to see them playing games,” Sandelin said. “And some of the younger guys have gotten an opportunity to play and play in situations that maybe we didn’t see in September. So it’s great. I think we need it. There’s some guys that can’t have complacency.”
4. UMD is here in Ohio to face Miami this weekend, in just the third and fourth road games the Bulldogs will have played this season so far (they’ll play just two more before Christmas break).
The RedHawks cleaned house after last season, replacing coach Chris Bergeron with Tri-City (USHL) coach Anthony Noreen. The UW-Stevens Point alum moved to Oxford for his first crack at a Division I head coaching position, and he immediately got to work re-shaping the roster.
3-7-2 Miami has 11 newcomers, six freshmen and five transfers. And when we spoke at NCHC Media Day, Noreen was clear and pointed in his praise of those transfers, a group that includes national champion Christophe Fillion from Quinnipiac, along with Colby Ambrosio from Boston College and Matt Choupani of Northeastern.
“I think it says a lot for a Christophe Fillion who could have went anywhere, or Colby Ambrosio could have went anywhere, Matt Choupani, like these guys, it meant a lot to me and us, and it says a lot about the program, they believed. They got one year to probably have a chance to play pro hockey. It should be the best time of your life when you’re playing college hockey. I think for those guys that believe and take a chance on me, on us, and believe in this, I think it says a ton about the program.”
Not only have these players played a lot of college hockey for good programs, but these are players who have won.
“Whether it’s you talk about winning a Beanpot,” Noreen said, “you talk about being in a national championship game, winning a national championship, being around it, they’re good players, but the ability to draw on older, experienced guys who are hungry and wanna be pros and wanna move their hockey career along, to be able to use them, not just from my side as a coach, but for the rest of the players to be like, ‘What was it like, what did it feel like, what did you guys go through, how did you approach the day to day?’
“That’s been a huge part for our staff here in building this thing.”
5. It’s another busy weekend in the NCHC. Looking forward to the 311th and 312th all-time meetings between Denver and North Dakota this weekend in Grand Forks. These are two top teams, two of the biggest in the country (Denver is second-heaviest, UND third). Always intense matchups, should be a great weekend in Grand Forks.
Elsewhere, Colorado College visits Western Michigan. Don’t look now, but the Tigers are still unbeaten after sweeping Arizona State at home last week, and Western Michigan swept Omaha in Omaha. CC is going to be a very tough out come March with the way they play, and the Tigers appear to be a team hell-bent on not letting math decide their fate this time.
Finally, it’s Arizona State’s first home series in the NCHC, battling Omaha. After going 16-3 in one-goal games last season on their way to the NCAA Tournament, the Mavericks immediately won two overtime games (UMass and Minnesota) to claim the Ice Breaker title. The wheels have started rattling since then, as Omaha has lost six in a row, four at home, and four of the six losses have been by one goal. One of the two that wasn’t? Western Michigan got an empty-net goal to secure a two-goal win Saturday night in Omaha.
To make matters worse for Omaha, sophomore forward Tanner Luedtke, their leading scorer last season, is out for the year after having surgery recently on an injury. Like UMD, Omaha is battling through a lot of injuries. In a sport where everyone is this close together, having top players (or even key contributors) out is not a good start on the road to success.
6. Women’s hockey doesn’t have the same luxury as men’s hockey when it comes to deferred enrollment (more to come on that topic). Players get through high school and move into college hockey. There is no equivalent of the USHL or CHL or NAHL or whatever for women’s players who finish high school and need that step to be ready to play in college. And since women’s hockey doesn’t have deferred enrollment, the clock is ticking.
That means the lion’s share of freshmen start college hockey at 18, and no matter the level of experience a player has before college, it’s a jump.
That’s what makes Caitlin Kraemer’s start all the more impressive. Yes, she was a star for Canada’s Women’s U-18 program. No, you can’t put a price on the kind of experience Kraemer got in international competition. Even with that, it’s an ask to expect someone to jump into a top-six role on a Division I team that expects to contend nationally.
“She has done a fantastic job,” head coach Laura Schuler said. “Wonderful kid, such a good person. But I also will give a lot of that onus onto our leadership. What a great job they have done in bringing her along. I feel like our leadership and our upperclassmen have made her feel really super comfortable about asking questions, not being afraid of asking questions, coming in for feedback and video, and all of those things. So we can continue to see her game keep getting better and better and better. Really happy with her and her performance. She’s a tremendous athlete. What a beast she is on the ice. She’s hard to stop, that’s for sure.”
Assistant coach Olivia Soares, also in her first season with UMD, has been equally impressed with how UMD’s leadership has helped Kraemer step in and make the impact she’s made.
“She learned really quickly our systems and how we wanted to play,” Soares said of Kraemer. “And I give credit to a lot of the older players and leaders on the team that helped her learn, held her accountable, and just taught her and talked her through it. I think they made her feel comfortable to ask questions and to learn and grow.”
7. It’s a rivalry weekend for the UMD women, as Minnesota visits for two games.
Schuler talked about her affinity for the rivalry at her media conference Wednesday, referencing pictures of UMD-Minnesota battles that adorn the workout room on her way to the podium.
“It’s my favorite rivalry of all ours,” Schuler said, adding “I love playing them.”
Referencing the inductions of Gopher alums Natalie Darwitz and Krissy Wendell-Pohl into the Hockey Hall of Fame this week, Schuler added “the Gophers have always had a lot of high-end talent and that’s still the same to this day. And so that just makes it that much more exciting to play against a team like that.”
It hasn’t gone terribly well for UMD as of late. The Bulldogs are 1-8-1 against Minnesota over the last ten meetings, though that one win was a memorable one, as UMD beat Minnesota 2-1 at Ridder Arena to advance to the 2022 NCAA Frozen Four, where the Bulldogs made the championship game. Oct. 9, 2021, was UMD’s last home win over Minnesota (5-4 in overtime on a Maggie Flaherty walk-off).
But this is a different season. It’s one that sees UMD five points ahead of Minnesota in the league standings. The Bulldogs have mostly been a verrry stingy team to play against. UMD conceded 12 goals to Wisconsin in the Badgers’ two game sweep of UMD in Madison. In the Bulldogs’ other eight games, they’ve allowed only ten goals. The last goal they allowed at Amsoil Arena was last season (they shut out St. Thomas twice in their only home games so far this season).
“Mankato played us really hard,” Schuler said. “And so this past week, we’ve been really focusing on holding the puck when we have the puck, playing with confidence, making sure we’re playing heads up hockey, and distributing the puck when it’s appropriate, versus that kind of hot potato mentality and let somebody else deal with the puck next.”
8. Schuler and staff have done their best to make this weird schedule into a positive. UMD’s been off twice in the last three weeks, and while everyone can joke about being sick of bye weeks by now, the schedule is what the schedule is.
“Very sick of bye weeks,” Baskin said, laughing. “I’m ready to get into a normal schedule here.”
“I feel like last week maybe wasn’t the most needed bye week,” said senior co-captain Clara Van Wieren. “We still scrimmaged, we still got better. We worked on some special team stuff. Obviously you would like to have your bye weeks later in the season when you need them, but it is what it is.”
This week starts some normalcy for UMD. Four Friday/Saturday series in four weeks, three of them at home, before the Bulldogs’ finals/holiday break. UMD hosts the Gophers, then Bemidji State and Vermont, before wrapping up the first half of the season at St. Cloud State the first weekend of December.
Schuler said she and the coaches conducted what she termed “hard” practices last weekend, both on Friday and Saturday.
“Sometimes during the week you don’t always get to work on everything,” she noted, “and I felt like this past week we’ve done that. So we feel really good and confident and ready to go for this weekend.”
9. With the migration from X to things that aren’t terrible, I offered up a chance for people to ask questions. Got a couple I wanted to address here. Also, more on the social media landscape in a moment.
With ASU joining NCHC and then St. Thomas soon, was there ever a thought or chance for Mankato? Or was their stance at the start of NCHC a non starter?
I don’t think it’s safe to say the NCHC won’t be adding beyond ten teams anytime soon, because none of us saw the addition of St. Thomas happening as fast as it did this past summer (and, well, look around). You might remember MSU and Arizona State applied a few years ago, but it came before the plans were finalized for Mullett Arena and I don’t think the Sun Devils had a prayer of getting in the NCHC without a set path for getting out of Oceanside Arena.
After that went down, Minnesota State and the others moved on to forming the CCHA. The Mavericks’ leading role in that change would tell me we won’t see them re-applying to join the NCHC.
But the way college sports are changing, can we really rule anything out???
Via aburesh01 on Threads, which doesn’t have an “embed post” option after all this time…
Bruce, excited to follow you over here after deactivating my Twitter account last week. We need more College Hockey accts on Threads! I’m heading to Oxford with my Dad for the UND series in December. What restaurants, bars, activities are worth checking out while in town?
I’m the last guy to ask about food options (somehow a worse option to ask about bars because I don’t drink), but I’ll give you a couple places I like.
UND beat writer extraordinaire Brad Schlossman swears by Skyline Chili, which is not 1) good or 2) chili. But the locals love that place so don’t rip it in their presence.
There’s a place called Mac N Joes near downtown Oxford. The entrance is in an alley, which is all you need to know. But they’ve got really good food and it has that total “old school dive bar” feel to it. I make a point to stop there at least once every trip. Big fan of the Mac N Cheese Burger.
If you like breakfast food, Patterson’s Cafe is a fun spot. It can fill up quickly on the weekend, so you have to have a good strategery and time your visit well.
Otherwise, it’s a college town. Lots of chain food, which can be fine.
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5:30pm pregames both Friday and Saturday from here in Oxford on KDAL. I’ll have semi-regular updates posted on both BlueSky and Threads as we continue to navigate a world where the toxicity of X is left to whoever wants to jump into that echo chamber. We have better options available than that.
(By the way, Matt Wellens of the Duluth News Tribune is not here. He will be covering the UMD-Minnesota women’s series at Amsoil. Follow him on BlueSky here for updates.)
Anyway, BlueSky has a TweetDeck-style option available, and most of you are likely aware how I felt about TweetDeck going away for me as an option for game day posting (the feelings were mostly irrational, yes, but I also kind of stand by it). So BlueSky is my preferred spot at the moment as Threads tries to figure out what it wants to be. That said, I’ll use both for at least this weekend. We’re learning as we go here.
And I wanted to make mention of this: If you’re going to the women’s games this weekend — or any UMD home athletic event this month — please consider helping UMD’s DEI council in its annual clothing drive. The group is headed up by women’s hockey super-senior and co-captain Clara Van Wieren, along with men’s basketball senior Joshua Brown. It’s the third year of the drive, which aims to collect winter clothing for kids grades K-12. Items for donation may include sweatshirts, sweaters, leggings, pants, shoes, hats, mittens, scarves, boots, socks, gloves and coats. They’ll have a dropbox at Amsoil Arena both this weekend and next (men’s and women’s hockey both home next weekend), and on campus for football this weekend and everything at Romano Gym the rest of the month. Brown noted on Wednesday that there is also a dropoff spot inside the Sports and Health Center, by the UMD ticket office.
Please consider donating if you can.
Back pregame Friday with lines, and we’ll deliver more written vomit with a postgame 9 Thoughts.
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