It’s one thing to talk about how a COVID issue and potential pause were practically inevitable. Just look around. Half the NCHC — Colorado College, Omaha, Denver, and now UMD — has endured some sort of COVID-related shutdown that caused games to be moved (so far, none have been officially lost).
So the bottom line was that this was probably going to happen. It happened to the UMD women’s hockey team. And both basketball teams.
(I should note that, while every one of UMD’s active winter sports teams has endured a pause due to COVID positives, the actual number of positive tests in each case has been quite small. The pauses have come as a result of necessary contact tracing around the positive tests. As much as we probably have grown to despise the phrase “out of an abundance of caution,” it’s appropriate here, as none of these shutdowns have come as the result of outbreaks of COVID within teams. Instead, they’ve happened to prevent those outbreaks that would bring on much longer pauses.)
UMD endured this. The Bulldogs’ series at Miami last weekend was scrubbed as a result of COVID positives and contact tracing in the UMD program. Credit to the UMD athletic training staff, because they jumped on this as quickly as possible, got the necessary players in quarantine, and clearly had a plan and a protocol in place so everyone was ready for this to happen.
The Bulldogs were able to practice Wednesday, and will have all but one player available for this weekend’s series against Western Michigan, which was shifted to a Saturday-Sunday affair to keep me from being able to watch the Packers in the NFC Championship Game at home allow UMD an extra day of practice before the games.
UMD head coach Scott Sandelin was pragmatic about the pause when we talked to him via Zoom on Wednesday afternoon, after the team’s first practice back. Sandelin said the energy was good with his group.
“I’m expecting the guys to be a little sore or tired (Thursday),” Sandelin said. “I was happy with the day. It was good to be back on the ice.”
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Obviously, the Bulldogs are looking to get a good jump out of the pause. UMD is 1-5-2 in its last seven games, but Sandelin wants to be clear about something: He feels this team has played better than that record indicates.
Go back to the pod. UMD played five strong periods against Omaha and North Dakota, dominating Omaha until it ran into third-period penalty trouble that allowed the Mavericks to tie the game and eventually win in a six-round shootout. Against North Dakota, UMD went toe-to-toe with the NCHC favorites, only to concede a late goal off a tipped point shot. Out of four straight meetings with St. Cloud State, UMD twice controlled play at five-on-five, didn’t play poorly in the other two games, but managed just a 1-3 record and two NCHC points because the win came in overtime.
So the record isn’t great, but Sandelin isn’t completely unhappy with what he’s seen from his group.
“It’s close,” he said, “and that’s what we’ve kept reminding our team. I haven’t been disappointed in our effort. I think there’s certain situations where I’d like to see us compete a little bit harder, and battle harder, but it’s getting there. I think it’s such a fine line. Win five more face offs in the game, score one power play goal, do this, do that, but that’s how close it is.
“We can’t lose sight of that fact and I don’t want our guys to get down. You guys can talk about our record over the last seven games, but I could say I felt the same way when we were (4-0-1), that we weren’t as close, there was a lot of things we needed to improve on. That doesn’t change throughout the year. It’s just now we have a little bit better foundation because we played more games.
“I don’t think we’re that far off. I’d like to see some better play a certain guys. We need that. There’s some guys we count on that need to play better. There’s been some surprises. So that’s kind of balanced that off, but if we get everybody playing, we could be a pretty good team. And like I said, we’re not that far off.”
It’s not hard to see where UMD could use a boost: Offense. The Bulldogs are sitting at 2.62 goals per game so far, which would be UMD’s lowest per-game average since the 2012-13 team hit at a 2.61 goals per game clip. Opposing goalies are currently stopping pucks at a .914 clip against UMD, which would be the highest save percentage against the Bulldogs since 2015-16 (.923). You’ll remember that edition of Bulldog hockey also struggled to score goals consistently, going 3-7-1 during an 11-game stretch late in the season that saw UMD lose four freaking games by 2-1 scores, and six of the seven losses were by exactly one goal.
Sound familar? Three of UMD’s five losses this season have been by one goal, and a fourth only became a two-goal game with a minute and change left (Jan. 3 at St. Cloud State, which was a tight game throughout).
The margin for error in this league is paper-thin. If UMD can find a little more offense without sacrificing defense, the Bulldogs will take a huge step toward getting where Sandelin wants them to go.
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UMD will face a different Western Michigan team this weekend than we saw in the NCHC Pod. This Broncos team appears to have found something in freshman goalie Alex Aslanidis.
The Broncos are 3-0-1 in their last four games entering this series, a modest stretch to be sure, but a huge step in the right direction. Western went 2-6-2 in the pod, allowing 46 goals in ten games. Since then, WMU is 3-2-1, but has allowed just 15 goals in six games, an improvement of two goals per game over their concession rate in the pod.
Western definitely turned a few heads with last weekend’s sweep of then-No. 4 St. Cloud State, where WMU won 6-2 and 3-1 in Kalamazoo.
The hot streak coincides with freshman Alex Aslanidis getting a chance to start. Aslanidis, who made his college debut filling in for Austin Cain in the pod after No. 1 goalie Brandon Bussi went down with an injury in the season opener, has a .928 save percentage in the last four games.
“They’re getting better goaltending, so they’re playing with more confidence as a group,” Sandelin said of his adversary this weekend. “They still play a fast game. They play north really quickly. They defend hard. I think it’s a team that is at a way different confidence level than they were in December, and you know what confidence can do.”
They’ve got plenty of talent. Ethen Frank has ten goals in 15 games. Drew Worrad (two goals and 15 points in 16 games), Josh Passolt (five goals and 14 points for the Hayward native), and captain Paul Washe (six goals and 13 points) are all playing well. Jason Polin doesn’t have huge numbers, but he plays with the kind of speed and tenacity that you’d expect out of someone in the Western Michigan program. He’s going to be another really good player in the mold of a Hugh McGing/Colt Conrad type (undersized, speedy, smart, reliable, skilled) before he’s done learning under coach Andy Murray.
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As I noted before, Sandelin told us that one player would be unavailable for this weekend because of a continued quarantine requirement. He said that player was “one or two days behind” his teammates. Besides that, the word as of Wednesday was that everyone else would be available for selection this weekend.
It feels like a month ago, but it was just Jan. 9 that UMD played last. During that 1-0 overtime loss to St. Cloud State, freshman defenseman Wyatt Kaiser left the game late in the second period with an injury. Watching it back this week, it was really difficult to discern what actually happened to the dynamic 18-year-old, but he was hobbled by some type of contact (perhaps with the boards), went down the tunnel, and was not seen again. While not offering many cues as to his availability for this series, Sandelin did say Kaiser practiced Wednesday and indicated he would continue skating if he felt good.
Even though none of us really noticed it at the time, senior Louie Roehl was also dealing with some sort of physical malady during that game. Well, one of us noticed it. Wasn’t me.
End of the second period: UMD 0, SCSU 0. Shots 19-15 UMD.
Roehl out at the end of the second skating around, testing himself, talking with training staff.
— Matt Wellens (@mattwellens) January 10, 2021
(Credit where it’s due. Matt was the eagle eye on this one.)
Anyway, Sandelin said Roehl is good to go this weekend.
5:30 pregame on KDAL Saturday, 3:30 Sunday. Distraction factor will be high for the first part of Sunday’s game, as the NFC Championship Game kicks off at 2pm. #GoPackGo
Back pregame with the lines. Thrilled to be back, even though it’s been only two weeks, it does feel like much longer.
