MHM 2018 Oct-digital

TALKING NORTHERN HOCKEY
UMD ADDS DEPTH IN ATTEMPT TO DEFEND NCAA TITLE
Continued from previous page
tournament time.
In the championship game against Notre Dame,
Kuhlman scored his 13th goal of the season midway
through the first period, and 10 minutes later,
Thomas scored his 11th goal of his season after
Kuhlman had forechecked the puck free to him.
That made it 2-0, and the Bulldogs kept hustling,
while Shepard took control from there, yielding
only a second-period power-play goal to anchor
the 2-1 victory.When it ended, Shepard let it all out,
racing to the corner of the rink for a high-jump into
the boards that would have won Olympic Gold if
they had high jumping in goalie pads as an event.
The championship was as surprising to Sandelin
and his staff as it was to all the opposing teams who
took the Bulldogs too lightly until it was too late,
then were helpless to stop the momentum.
UMD allowed only 16 goals in its final 12 games
last year, evidence of Shepard’s talent and the
rapid development of the five freshmen and a
sophomore on the kiddie-corps defense. The final
twist of statistics was more frosting on the cake:
Most of the Frozen Four emphasis going in was
on No. 1 ranked Notre Dame and its top-rated
goaltender Cale Morris. The 2-1 UMD victory still
left Morris with an exceptional 1.94 goals-allowed
average, but the unheralded Shepard wound up
1.93.
That .01 difference brought back the .001 edge
-- one ten-thousandth of a point -- in the NCAA’s
performance index ratings that let UMD slip past
Minnesota for the 16th and final spot in the NCAA
tournament field. Notre Dame’s move to the Big
Ten and its domination there raised the computer
profiles of the whole Big Ten, and despite clear
evidence that the NCHC remained the strongest
conference in college hockey, three of the Frozen
Four teams were from the Big Ten, and Minnesota
was close to making it all four.
UMD remained under the radar despite having
beaten Minnesota 4-3 in an overtime thriller for
the nonconference season opener last season, and
head-to-head play figures into the computer. Close
as it was, the Bulldogs outshot the Gophers in all
four periods that night for a 44-21 total, and won
on a goal by Parker Mackay, this year’s captain, and
another prospect for scoring more than in his injury
limited junior year. Observers say winning that
game paid off in the final computer analysis for the
.001 edge, but if that victory meant so much, why
was Minnesota ever ranked ahead of the Bulldogs?
Last year’s opening victory sent them against
Minnesota in this year’s opening series having
beaten the Gophers an amazing eight straight
times.
Most likely, it was a matter of respect, something
that Sandelin and the UMD program have worked
hard to gain. The Gophers have historic respect
as one of the vital programs that hoisted college
hockey into the realm of big-time sports. It has
taken over a decade for many to realize that the
Gophers are no longer the reigning top dog among
Minnesota’s five Division 1 programs, as St. Cloud
State, Minnesota State and Bemidji State have all
risen in competitive strength. UMD may finally
have attained that elusive respect, after beating
the Gophers for the eighth consecutive time, then
ignoring theories about young defense and a lack
of scoring, and compensated with hard work and
goals-by-committee to keep hanging with the
NCHC leaders.
At the end they squeezed into the NCAA
tournament’s selected 16 teams by that
computerized eyelash, and stayed hot to win the
West Regional with come-from-behind one-goal
victories over WCHA champ Minnesota State and
upstart Air Force to reach the Frozen Four at Xcel
Energy Center in Saint Paul.
Once there, sophomore goaltender Shepard
continued to be rock solid, and the five freshmen
and a sophomore “veteran” on D were even more
impressive. The Bulldogs knocked off Ohio State 2-1
in the semifinals, then beat top-seeded Notre Dame
by the same 2-1 count to claim their second NCAA
title at the same site as their first championship, in
2011. This time, UMD singlehandedly knocked off
three Big Ten entries in the Frozen Four, providing
the NCHC with its third consecutive national
championship in four years of existence.
“I don’t notice any difference in attitude of our
guys this year,” Sandelin said. “But we can’t take
anything for granted, because getting to the NCAA
tournament doesn’t just happen. At the same time,
our guys might be even more hungry to prove that
we deserve that respect. We’ve got good leadership
from our captains, because Parker Mackay, Nick
Wolff and Mikey Anderson are all a lot like Karson
was.
“We’ll have to make sure we keep working hard,
and that we’re not getting too far over our ski tips.
We need to have short-term focus, and not the idea
we’re going to get there at the end.”
Two years ago, UMD made it to the NCAA Frozen
Four with a solid and experienced team, but after
that spring of 2017, graduation and early signings
sent some Bulldogs into pro hockey and left UMD
with some glaring holes. It didn’t seem to matter to
Sandelin that he would have one lone defenseman
returning, and he was Nick Wolff, only a freshman.
Defying dour predictions about the lack of proven
goal-scorers, needing to solidify a promising but
unproven goaltender, and having to write in the
names of five freshmen to join sophomore Wolff
on defense every game, Sandelin whistled past the
doom and gloom forecasts in the NCHC like a Pied
Piper in hockey breezers.
Sandelin gives strong credit to his staff. Brett
Larson and Jason Herter were his top assistants,
and all three had been defensemen as players.
Larson, a primary recruiter of the first UMD
championship team, left to become head coach
in the USHL, then became top assistant to Steve
Rohlik at Ohio State, where he recruited most of the
Buckeyes team UMD defeated 2-1 in last spring’s
NCAA semifinals. Eventually, Larson returned
to UMD and helped recruit most of the current
Bulldogs, but now he’s gone to replace Bob Motzko
as head coach at St. Cloud State. Larson’s loss will
hurt, and while Sandelin is certain Larson will do
a great job leading the Huskies, he moved on by
making Herter an associate head coach, and hired
former two-year UMD captain Adam Krause to
leave pro hockey and become his second assistant.
His youth, 28, should be an asset in communicating
with the team’s young players.
Sandelin may turn up the wick on his laid-back
theory of scoring more, knowing how tenuous it
was last year, when the Bulldogs always seemed
to get just enough contribution from everybody
on all four lines, plus that big boost from the
rambunctious defensemen.
“We expect more scoring from the forwards,”
said Sandelin. “But I don’t mind who scores, as
long as somebody scores. We have some returning
players who should score more. I expect Riley Tufte
to maybe get up to 20 goals, and Nick Swaney,
Peter Krieger and Justin Richards could also score
more. And we have some freshmen, who, in time,
might add to the scoring, because all of them put
up good numbers in junior hockey.”
Up front, Krieger and Tufte were together and
may remain a tandem, possibly joined by Swaney
on their right wing. Richards and captain Parker
Mackay -- another forward who could add more to
the offense -- were linemates and may start being
centered by freshman Noah Cates. His brother,
Jackson Cates, opened at center on another line,
and returnees Jade Miller and Billy Exell are now
experienced and will be joined by several other
incoming freshmen to form units. They can feel
secure in knowing that under Sandelin’s new and
improved strategy, the lines will be balanced, and
the fourth line is allowed to outplay the first line
and earn immediate promotion.
“We’ve got some freshmen who are ready to step
in and see what they can do, and it’s a nice problem
to have, being able to shift guys around with more
depth,” said Sandelin. “We’re deeper through the
middle, and we’ll move guys around more easily.”
Sandelin also fulfilled his plan of a tough
nonconference schedule, which also helps the
selection committee’s computer decide who gets
the nod in final ratings. “We’ve got a tough first
month,” said Sandelin. “We always pride ourselves
on a tough nonconference schedule, and this year,
after Minnesota, we go to Michigan Tech, then
we come home against Maine, and then we go to
Notre Dame.”
Ah, Notre Dame. And we promise (wink-wink) to
not bring up the fact that UMD beat Notre Dame
in the semifinals of the 2011 Frozen Four before
knocking off Michigan for the school’s first title, and
again beat the Fighting Irish 2-1 in the NCAA final
last spring in the same Xcel Center. That’s all history
now, of course, and the future is now, couldn’t look
brighter. 6
OCTOBER 2018 MINNESOTA HOCKEY MAGAZINE MINNESOTA HOCKEY MAGAZINE OCTOBER 2018
38 39