When a season falls short of the ultimate goal, there’s always a sense of disappointment and/or sadness. There’s not anything fundamentally wrong with those feelings, not from coaches, players, staff, or even fans. Fans, after all, invest their emotions and often their money into supporting a team. They have every right to the feelings that come with such an investment.
The UMD men and women both saw their seasons end over the weekend. There are plenty of thoughts to go around, so I figured it would be a good time to dedicate a column to that. We will hear directly from coaches Scott Sandelin and Maura Crowell next week, and it’s very likely that I will return at that point with more.
But what you’re about to read are my largely stream-of-consciousness thoughts on both teams, in 2022-23 as well as going forward.
8 THOUGHTS
1. In a way, the end of the men’s season was fitting. UMD largely was able to hold St. Cloud State at bay over the first six meetings of the regular season, conceding only seven five-on-five goals with the net occupied in six games.
But after Luke Loheit’s second-period goal gave UMD a 1-0 lead in Game 3 Sunday night, the dam finally broke. St. Cloud State got pucks and bodies to the net, largely with impunity, during an impressive second-period surge. It was not a great period for UMD, which struggled to win faceoffs, generate any real puck possession, exit its zone cleanly, and eventually defend the front of the net.
Zach Stejskal did what he could to hold his ground. But Cooper Wylie beat him on a wraparound when Stejskal couldn’t secure the post with his left pad/skate, and Adam Ingram ripped a shot five-hole 14 seconds later off a(nother) clean SCSU faceoff win. Then less than six minutes later, Stejskal stopped an initial shot by Grant Ahcan, but didn’t secure the puck between his legs. As it sat behind his body and between his skates, the referee refused to blow the play dead because he could see the puck, and Grant Cruikshank was able to get to it and put it over the goal line for a 3-1 lead.
UMD pushed back, but couldn’t find another goal to make things interesting, eventually falling 3-1 and seeing its season end in the first round of the NCHC playoffs for the first time since the league’s inaugural season of 2013-14.
After taking control of Saturday’s Game 2 with three goals inside of four minutes, the Bulldogs just couldn’t penetrate the middle of the ice enough, and they couldn’t finish when they did. Eventually, the inability to win faceoffs and generate consistent puck possession put the defense in enough bad spots to cost them.
2. It’s easy to focus on the offense not improving in 2022-23. But were expectations (including my own) realistic? UMD averaged 2.6 goals per game last season, not a great number, and lost Kobe Roth (16 goals), Noah Cates (11 goals), Koby Bender (seven goals, 26 points), and Casey Gilling (eight goals, 22 points), among others. Yes, Blake Biondi (led the team in 2021-22 with 17 goals) returned, but more on him in a bit.
Was too much internal improvement and/or freshman impact in an older player’s league expected? UMD ended up at 2.57 goals per game this season, up a tick from the 2.33 it was sitting at in January, but not nearly enough as it turned out.
Ben Steeves walked in the door and scored two goals in his second collegiate game, going on to finish a stellar freshman season at 21. But he came in as a 20-year-old. Isaac Howard, who turns 19 on March 30, had a nice second half but some expected struggles in the first half. In a sport littered with more 24- and 25-year-olds than pretty much any other time before (the COVID year gave everyone an extra year of eligibility, which created a lot of fifth-year players), was it fair to expect freshmen to walk in the door and light it up?
Probably not.
3. But offense wasn’t what failed UMD in the end. The Bulldogs allowed 2.20 goals per game last season, backed by Ryan Fanti’s breakthrough season. UMD lost Fanti, along with experienced defensemen Matt Anderson and Louie Roehl, who ran out of eligibility despite my best efforts to sneak them back.
Yes, Wyatt Kaiser returned, and Sandelin went out and found four-year Miami mainstay Derek Daschke after Connor Kelley transferred to Providence. But the blue line lacked experience, and as the young guys got their feet wet, there were some growing pains.
With Fanti gone, UMD went with a returning Stejskal, healthy after missing much of last season due to a cancer diagnosis, and Sandelin was determined to find a veteran goalie to replace Ben Patt, who moved on after his fifth year. In came Maine transfer Matthew Thiessen, who joined the goalie room with freshman Zach Sandy. Thiessen ended up getting the bulk of the work in the first half as Stejskal struggled to stay healthy, while Sandy ended up only playing a period of an exhibition game after a hard-luck first half filled with injuries and a serious scare during practice.
In the end, UMD went from 2.20 goals per game allowed last season to 3.09 this season. That jump of .89 goals per game, combined with an offense that never got any real consistency, really doomed this UMD team to an early exit.
It would be patently unfair to place this all on the goalies, as UMD never felt like it got to that lockdown style of defensive hockey we know the Bulldogs for playing. There are probably close to a dozen factors that led to it, but it happened and it was too tough to overcome.
4. Injuries were a frustrating and never-ending storyline. Coaches are loathe to make excuses, but you could see Sandelin’s frustrations grow as injuries mounted in the first half. There were multiple weekends where UMD had zero healthy scratches on the line chart, where every player sitting out was physically unable to play because of injury or illness.
Kaiser played a game against Colorado College, looked like death warmed over at the postgame press conference, and sat the next night. Cole Spicer played a game while nursing injury, only because he was able to play as a 19th skater when no one else could. Jack Smith missed a chunk of the preseason, started his season late, then suffered an injury during a mid-season exhibition game that forced him to miss more time. Biondi suffered a season-ending injury Dec. 9 against Denver, then underwent surgery on both shoulders that will hopefully allow him to start next season on time. He appeared at times to be hampered when he played, to the point where last year’s leading goal scorer had three goals (one empty netter) in 17 games.
Kyler Kleven suffered an upper body injury preseason and never played. Aiden Dubinsky showed some promise as a shutdown defenseman, but his freshman season was cut short by two injury absences that cost him eight games.
Up front, only Tanner Laderoute, Jesse Jacques, Carter Loney, and Quinn Olson were able to play in all 37 games. Owen Gallatin, Darian Gotz, and Daschke were the only defensemen to play in every game.
As Sandelin noted before the playoffs, the constant lineup shuffling led to freshmen playing roles they weren’t expected to play out of the gates. St. Cloud State coach Brett Larson, whose blue line was ravaged by injuries in the second half, referred to it as “guys playing above their pay grade,” and that’s one way of looking at it. Yes, the pay grade changes as a player gains more experience and understanding in his environment, but development isn’t a straight line up. There are ebbs and flows, peaks and valleys, and thrusting so many younger players into significant roles at one time was too much for this Bulldog team to handle on a night in, night out basis.
5. Kaiser has decided to move on, signing a three-year, entry-level deal with the Chicago Blackhawks. This is far from a surprise, as Kaiser felt like he was on a three-year arc to turn pro, and Chicago is in the midst of a massive organizational rebuild, stockpiling draft picks and prospects and NHL losses that the Blackhawks’ brass hopes will put them in good position to win the Connor Bedard Lottery in May.
If you look at the UMD roster, however, it does leave some massive holes. Here was the defensive line chart for Sunday’s finale with St. Cloud State:
Wyatt Kaiser – Darian Gotz
Derek Daschke – Joey Pierce
Owen Gallatin – Will Francis
Aiden Dubinsky
Freshman Riley Bodnarchuk, a left-shot, was scratched.
It can always change, but as of now, UMD does not have any defensemen recruits signed for 2023-24. There are a couple in the pipeline, but none are expected to join before 2024-25 at this point in time.
Does this open up the transfer portal as an option for UMD to find a veteran blue-liner, preferably a left-shot? I believe it does, but that’s pure conjecture on my part, just from looking at the roster, the recruits for next fall, and what the blue line looks like right now. UMD had eight and now has lost two, making it possible that the coaching staff adds a recruit and dips into the portal, or recruits two new bodies to fill the roster void that exists.
6. Up front, this was the Sunday line chart:
Ben Steeves – Dominic James – Luke Loheit
Quinn Olson – Carter Loney – Kyle Bettens
Luke Mylymok – Jesse Jacques – Tanner Laderoute
Jack Smith – Cole Spicer – Isaac Howard
Freshman Luke Johnson was a healthy scratch, with Kleven and Biondi not available. Laderoute and Jacques are out of eligibility, while Loheit and Olson could return. Loheit told Matt Wellens that is his plan, while Olson isn’t sure.
Wellens, who follows recruiting much more closely than I do, has Fargo Force forwards Anthony Menghini and Zam Plante as signed for next season, along with Youngstown forward Matthew Perkins. UMD carried 15 forwards in 2022-23, but never had more than 14 available, and that number regularly dipped to 12 or 13 after Biondi was lost for the year. I’m not suggesting that the Bulldogs would keep more than 15 forwards, but it’s not impossible.
James, Loney, Spicer, and Smith all have extensive experience at center, as do Plante and Perkins at lower levels. And while I could see a world where UMD tries to fortify its center depth in the portal (faceoffs were a clear problem, especially in the playoff series in St. Cloud), it feels like a time where the Bulldogs are all-in on developing these young forwards.
Biondi and Bettens are likely to be the top two right wingers going into next season, with Steeves and Howard on the left side. Olson and Loheit might be middle-six players, but I wouldn’t expect either to play top line minutes if they return.
(By the way, I do not think I expect any other UMD players with more than one year of eligibility remaining to turn pro. But the third season, as Sandelin likes to call it, can be unpredictable.)
7. The women suffered a 3-0 loss to Minnesota with a spot in the Frozen Four on the line. UMD finished 0-5 against Minnesota this season, leading for zero minutes and zero seconds of the 300 minutes and 15 seconds the teams played this season (one of the games went to an overtime that lasted 15 seconds before Minnesota scored to win).
While it’s easy to look side-eyed at those games and wonder what might have been, UMD’s ultimate downfall that cost it a Frozen Four wasn’t necessarily just the games conceded to Minnesota or Ohio State along the way. Instead, UMD finished in seventh, one spot behind Wisconsin in the PairWise, despite winning the regular season series. There are two primary reasons. One, the Bulldogs dropped six WCHA standings points to the teams that finished in the league’s bottom four, St. Cloud State, Minnesota State, St. Thomas, and Bemidji State, while Wisconsin only dropped three points to those teams. Throw in UMD’s 0-5 record against Minnesota (Wisconsin went 2-1-1), and you have the crux of the PairWise problem, and why Minnesota had UMD in its home regional instead of Wisconsin.
Crowell said after the game Saturday that Minnesota is the best team in the country right now. We’ll see if the Gophers can take care of business this weekend when the Frozen Four takes place at Amsoil Arena.
8. UMD loses a lot from a program that’s come a long way in the last few years. Just look at the line chart from Saturday’s game, I’ve italicized players who have exhausted their eligibility.
Taylor Anderson – Gabbie Hughes – Anneke Linser
Clara Van Wieren – Mannon McMahon – Mary Kate O’Brien
Naomi Rogge – Kylie Hanley – Gabby Krause
Katie Davis – Jenna Lawry – Danielle Burgen
Maggie Flaherty – Ashton Bell
Taylor Stewart – Nina Jobst-Smith
Hanna Baskin – Tova Henderson
Brenna Fuhrman
Emma Soderberg – Hailey MacLeod – Blanka Skodova
UMD has some talent coming in, again per Matt’s recruiting database. Goalie Eve Gascon is a top prospect, so that position should be in good shape. But as of now, UMD is only slated to bring in two forwards and one defender. As you can see above, there are more holes than that. UMD has room to bring in five forwards and two defenders to keep the roster at the same size as it was this season.
This feels like it might set up for some work in the portal, but we’ll see how the offseason develops for Crowell and her staff.
As I mentioned at the top, we get Sandelin and Crowell next week, and I’ll probably be back after that with a few more thoughts. Perhaps eight of them.
Thanks for reading throughout the season, and I hope you do indeed stick around for the occasional offseason update.
