Lots to get to here this week, with the UMD men starting their second half with a win before ringing in the new year on a Highway 2 bus ride, and now both UMD teams are starting multi-weekend homestands below a new video board at Amsoil Arena.
But the news to start is not great.
9 THOUGHTS
1. Will Francis’ cancer has returned. The UMD senior defenseman announced through a team social media post that it was found during a routine checkup in October.
A statement from UMD senior defenseman Will Francis. Will is unavailable for questions or additional comments at this time.
— UMD Men’s Hockey (@umdmenshockey.bsky.social) January 2, 2025 at 1:14 PM
Francis has appeared in two games for UMD, most recently on Nov. 8 against North Dakota. Per College Hockey News, he’s averaged around five minutes of ice per game. He red-shirted last season after a relapse in the summer. Francis appeared in UMD’s Dec. 31, 2023, exhibition game at St. Thomas, playing a couple shifts. He announced the following week he would redshirt and try to return to the team in the fall.
Francis was back at UMD this fall, and he spoke to reporters at the media conference Oct. 2, the Wednesday before UMD’s season opener against Bemidji State. He talked about his weight going down from the 220 range to around 190 after having a bone marrow transplant in the spring. He joked about trying not to eat too much Dairy Queen as he tried to build back closer to his normal playing weight.
Obviously, our best wishes go to Will Francis and his family. Hopefully this treatment goes well and he can return to campus next month as is his stated goal.
2. UMD started its second half strong on Tuesday, beating Bemidji State 4-2 at Sanford Center for its first win since Nov. 16 (in fairness, UMD lost four straight games over that six-week stretch).
Lots to unpack, but in speaking with a couple players on Wednesday, it’s clear this was an important win for vibes, among the many other good reasons.
“I look back to my freshman year and how it felt to win big games in the third period,” said captain Dominic James. “One goal games, tie games in the third period, that’s what it felt like in that locker room and that’s what it felt like on the bench. And that’s why you play. And I’m so glad these young guys are starting to get these opportunities to win these games and feel how we felt in Bemidji. That’s a big game. That’s a good team. We’ve beat good teams this year. So if we can just keep playing that game, we’re going to be in a good spot.”
“Very important (win), I think,” senior defenseman Owen Gallatin said. “Especially going into break and a few days after break, the motto was ‘A new second half.’ But we needed to start off on the right foot, especially with this three games in one week. We couldn’t really afford to drop many games at all.
“I think we did a lot of good things that maybe weren’t quite there (in the first half). Like when it was a 2-2 game going into the third. We were in a lot of games in the first half of the year that were close, but we didn’t end up winning. So to be able to go into a game like that, 2-2 in the third, get a goal, and then finish out the game was a big step for us.”
3. The story of the night might have been James’ glass shower. The UMD captain was sent into the boards on a first-period check by Bemidji defenseman AJ Macaulay, and as he fell his skate hit the glass, causing it to immediately shatter.
We might make it to midnight in Bemidji…
Bizarre play, no doubt, but tip of the cap to the crew at Sanford Center, as it only took them 11 minutes to clean up the mess on both sides of the boards and get the new glass in place to restart the game.
James — who is fine, by the way — was able to mostly laugh off the crazy circumstances by the time we spoke on Wednesday. I’m sure winning helped.
“That’s crazy,” James said. “You kind of forget that’s a play that happens in hockey, especially nowadays with the plexiglass. I saw the puck was loose. I knew I was going to get hit. I knew I had to get a stick on it. And I kind of felt like I got hit harder than I usually do. I heard the crowd making some noise and then all of a sudden there was just glass all over my back. It was hard to comprehend, but it was kind of a cool funny thing.”
I half-jokingly asked James if he woke up Wednesday morning and found glass. He credited the officials and UMD equipment manager Chris Garner for helping him get cleaned up, both on the ice right after it happened and on the bench during the delay.
That said …
“I’m sure at practice (Thursday) I’ll find glass in my skate,” James cracked.
4. With 11 freshmen on the team, we’ve talked a lot about the changing internal competition. One way that has manifested is with players seizing opportunities that maybe weren’t there at the outset of the season.
There is no better example of that than Harper Bentz. The freshman out of Moorhead was a healthy scratch for the season opener Oct. 5, then played (and played well) in the Manitoba exhibition the next day. He made his official UMD debut Oct. 12 against UMass-Lowell before being a scratch the following weekend against Minnesota.
Bentz was in the lineup Stonehill weekend, and he hasn’t come out of it since.
“Look at how he’s played and the chances he’s had in the games, he probably could have almost 10 goals,” UMD coach Scott Sandelin said. “Think of Arizona, two, three, four chances there, not to fault him, but he’s getting opportunities. And again, when you start getting those they’re gonna go in.
“He’s been a good fit. We moved him to the offside because Shaugs (Jayson Shaugabay) went there but he’s done a good job since he’s been in there. He keeps plays alive. He’s got a good nose around the net, that’s where he scored a lot of his goals in the USHL. I know Zam loves playing with him, because they have some chemistry and he knows Zam, too. He’s done a good job.”
He contributed three points on a goal and two assists in Bemidji, scoring a big goal late in the third that gave UMD a 4-2 lead when the Beavers had been pushing hard for an equalizer.
5. UMD will again be missing Max Plante and Adam Kleber this weekend, as the two ply their craft for Team USA at the World Juniors. The U.S. routed Switzerland Thursday to advance into Saturday’s semifinals, and the Americans will play for a medal on Sunday in Ottawa. Both are playing well, which is great to see. Hopefully they can carry that over to their return to Duluth next week.
As for injuries, Trevor Stachowiak is out long-term, but it sounds like UMD got some good news on his lower-body injury, so we’ll see if he can return at some point. Joe Molenaar and Adam Gajan (both lower body) have been skating, but it’s unknown if they’ll be available this weekend against Alaska.
I suspected we wouldn’t see the same goalie for all three games this week, but it seems safe to think Klayton Knapp is going to start against the Nanooks on Friday. He stopped 26 of 28 in Tuesday’s game, picking up his first collegiate win. We’ll see if Gajan can play this weekend, or I’m thinking we’ll see Zach Sandy start again.
6. Jack Smith and Carter Loney have played well with different linemates recently. It was Molenaar at first, then when he went down Kyle Bettens got a chance to play with those two in Arizona. He did well, but Braden Fischer drew the assignment in Bemidji.
And it doesn’t seem to matter who that third man is. Smith and Loney keep on doing their thing. Sandelin has always talked about being a big believer in building two-thirds of a line, and he’s got another great example here.
“I think he (Smith) had a great start to the year,” Sandelin said. “I think since he’s come back, he hasn’t missed a beat, right? And I think Lones has been, in his time here, he’s just very consistent. I’d like to see him shoot the puck more. We’ve talked about that. I think he had three or four shots last night. But he’s a guy that is very consistent in how he plays. He’s very responsible defensively. He plays above people. They were the line that kind of played the game, kind of got us some shifts in the offensive zone, just doing it the simple way. Hard work, getting pucks low. They did that again (Tuesday).”
7. When Max Plante missed ten games with an upper-body injury, Zam Plante had his ups and downs. He was moved to wing, then back to his natural center spot, and going back to the middle seemed to help get him going. Then Max returned and Zam really started to blossom.
This go-round, Max being out of the lineup really didn’t hurt Zam. He had two assists Tuesday, including an absolute beauty to set up Owen Gallatin’s game winner in the third period.
Plante keeps the puck alive, Gallatin with the dagger, 3-2 Dogs!
— UMD Men’s Hockey (@umdmenshockey.bsky.social) December 31, 2024 at 9:09 PM
I joked that — no offense to Bentz — Zam should have gotten both assists on that goal.
“I still don’t really know exactly how he came out that puck,” Gallatin said. “I know he was on his knees grinding, came out the puck from his knees, still passed me in the puck out front. But just kudos to him on that effort.”
8. It’s a rather light weekend in the NCHC, with teams playing doing so in non-conference action. UMD is home for Alaska, while Western Michigan hosts Alaska-Anchorage Friday and Saturday. The Broncos are off a runner-up finish in the Great Lakes Invitational, as top-ranked Michigan State scored two in the third to win Monday’s title game 3-1.
Off a shocking exhibition tie/shootout loss against club team UNLV, Denver visits Maine for two games. Augustana visits Colorado College in a two-game series, and the other action involving the NCHC will happen in tournaments.
Arizona State hosts the Desert Hockey Classic, where the Sun Devils play Robert Morris Friday while Cornell faces UMass-Amherst. Omaha will play in the Cactus Cup in Palm Springs, Calif., facing Holy Cross Friday while Michigan Tech takes on UMass-Lowell.
9. The UMD women kicked off their second half with a 6-2 win over Syracuse Thursday afternoon. UMD controlled the game from the start, but needed a three-goal second period to put it away. Olivia Wallin scored twice, Clara Van Wieren had a goal and two assists, and UMD also got goals from Mary Kate O’Brien, Caitlin Kraemer, and Jenna Lawry.
It doesn’t always work out this way, and it wasn’t supposed to when the schedule came out (remember, the Syracuse series was initially scheduled for September before the Orange ran into travel issues related to Hurricane Helene), but head coach Laura Schuler isn’t at all upset about having a non-conference weekend before two massive home league series (St. Cloud State next week, then Ohio State after that).
“Oftentimes around Christmas after the holidays, you don’t get too many exhibition opportunities or non-conference games,” she said. “So this is going to be great to help us open back up and get ready for our WCHA games.”
Fifth-year senior co-captain Nina Jobst-Smith likes where the team is sitting after a strong first half and wants to keep that going.
“I think we’re built for a lot of things,” she said. “And I think our group does a really good job in all situations. We’ve been tested. We’ve handled adversity. We’ve come back from other teams scoring the first goal, second goal. And I think we have everything we need in this group. So I guess as far as what we might need is just continuing to do what we have been and continuing to play with that same mindset and not letting any outside noise or any distractions take away from what we’re doing right now at this program.”
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We’ve got the men’s games for you on the radio, 6:30pm pregame, 5:30 Saturday. Doubleheader weekend next week with both teams facing St. Cloud State, but we’ll get to that later.
Back pregame Friday with the lines.
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