Saturday Hockey Notes and Thoughts: UMD Rides Defensive Improvement, Opportunism to Second Straight NCHC Title Game

MINNEAPOLIS -- Not going to lie. UMD giving Western Michigan a five-on-three at the 2:24 mark of the first period seemed like a bad omen. Instead, it was a bit of a tone-setter.

The UMD penalty kill was spot-on Friday, and a stellar third period effort helped carry UMD to a 5-2 win over Western Michigan in the NCHC Frozen Faceoff semifinals at Target Center. UMD will play North Dakota, a 1-0 winner over Denver, in Saturday's 7:30pm championship game.

Western had a goal disallowed in the second period, but ended up getting one that counted 1:09 later to tie the game 2-2. The Broncos earned that tying goal, as they had been able to bottle up UMD on a couple of occasions and generate scoring chances with numbers down low. UMD didn't do a great job covering guys, and Colt Conrad buried a rebound by Hunter Miska to draw the game even on one of those occasions.

But the Bulldogs tightened up after that, as did Miska. Alex Iafallo scored a beauty of a goal late in the second period that eventually gave UMD the lead for good. After Parker Mackay capitalized on a great play by Adam Johnson to make it 4-2 in the third, Miska held his ground against a hard-charging Broncos team, which got a four-on-three power play in the final three minutes of regulation and turned it into a five-on-three by pulling goalie Ben Blacker. Miska stopped Western goal-scoring specialist Matheson Iacopelli twice, including once on a really well set up one timer.

"It wasn't probably the prettiest game for either team," UMD coach Scott Sandelin said. "We stayed with it. Hard-fought game, which was what we expected.

"I think their second goal work our bench up for sure. Thought we played better towards the end of the period. Gotta get better in second periods. Didn't think our start was very good."

(Give Western credit, by the way. Andy Murray held three-year captain Sheldon Dries and stud freshman Wade Allison out with injuries. I'm not sure how badly Allison was injured crashing into the end boards in Game 3 against Omaha Sunday, but he was stretchered off and briefly hospitalized before returning to the arena. Either way, the Broncos were short-handed Friday and gave UMD everything it could handle for two periods and then some. This is a really good team that is fixing to do some damage in the NCAA Tournament, possibly as a one-seed if it can win the third-place game Saturday afternoon against Denver.)

Sandelin compared this game to the Saturday game in Kalamazoo on March 4. In that game, UMD kicked away a 2-0 second-period lead, only to get a goal from Johnson with 4.4 seconds left off a mad scramble in front of the WMU net. The momentum carried over into the third, and UMD ended up winning convincingly.

In this game, Iafallo got his goal with 3:49 left in the second, but there's no question there was some residual into the third period.

I thought UMD's defensive effort in the third was as good as we've seen in a while. Miska, yes, had to make some saves, but he was sharper and there weren't any glaringly blown coverages in front of him. The Broncos were coming after UMD, but couldn't get any super chances. The Mackay goal and a Jared Thomas length-of-the-ice empty netter iced the win for the Bulldogs.

The third period was what Sandelin has been looking for. A composed, defense-first effort. UMD didn't generate many chances, but capitalized on the Mackay goal, which was a thing of beauty by Johnson to set up. He waited out a sliding defender, walked back toward the front, bided his time, and sent a cross-crease pass to Mackay for a tap in after Blacker committed to Johnson. Brilliant play and a great goal.

"Didn't really have much," Johnson said of the play. "Just tried to wait, and Parker got to the net."

******

It's cliche, but coaches talk about a team's best players being its best players in crunch time.

Let there be no doubt that UMD's top line -- Dominic Toninato, Iafallo, and Joey Anderson -- were good again, and Johnson, centering the second line, was brilliant with three assists, including the dazzler to Mackay.

Again, the six-man defensive corps managed without Carson Soucy, who will not play this weekend (week to week, so we don't know what the plan is beyond this week). Jarod Hilderman's blocked shot set up Kyle Osterberg's goal late in the first, Hilderman's first point in these colors. Neal Pionk was a freaking beast, with an assist, three blocked shots, and a plus-three.

Iafallo has points in ten straight (6-10-16), goals in four straight. Toninato has goals in three straight and is 8-5-13 in the last 11 games. Johnson now is 6-7-13 in the last ten games. Mackay had his first two-point game since the season opener and now has six points in the last six games.

Osterberg's goal snapped a ten-game drought, but he now has four points in the last two games.

Production is coming from all over the place, and there couldn't be a better time than this for it to happen. UMD's last five games: 5, 5, 5, 6, and 4 goals. Not going to lose a lot this time of year when you average five goals per game.

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UMD will face North Dakota for a fifth time this season in Saturday's championship game. The Bulldogs dominated the regular season series, going 4-0 with two shutouts and outscoring North Dakota 17-5.

I will guaran-damn-tee you Saturday won't be nearly as easy as an average score of 4.25-1.25 might suggest. UND is grinding teams down right now, impressively shutting down a potent Denver team Friday night at Target Center. Cam Johnson is playing well in goal, though Denver had a hard time really getting to him on Friday. Remember, as good as UND looked defensively in the semifinal, this game gave up five to St. Cloud State just this past Saturday. It is not an impenetrable defensive group. No one is, for that matter.

This will be a meat-grinder of a game, though. Mark my words. UMD will need to bring the proverbial lunch pails, because North Dakota is going to make the Bulldogs earn every inch of ice throughout the rink if Friday is any indication. The Fighting Hawks -- yes, it's still weird, sorry -- have won five straight games to put themselves back in the NCAA Tournament. Now they're coming for their first NCHC playoff title. And so are the Bulldogs. Someone's hoisting that thing for the first time Saturday, and I know who I want to see do it.

******

The dream of an All-NCHC Frozen Four may have died Friday night. North Dakota's win makes it difficult (I couldn't do it) to get UND to a No. 4 regional seed, which I figured was the only way to guarantee the possibility of the four NCHC teams in the tourney being assigned different regionals.

Maybe the committee ends up making that happen, but I don't see it as likely. I believe an NCHC team -- either UMD or Denver -- will join North Dakota in Fargo.

I'll likely jump back on Saturday morning and update PairWise scenarios, but I'm too tired right now to wrap my head around any of that.

We hit the air Saturday at 7pm on 92.1 The Fan. Join us for what should be a fun championship game. Looking forward to it.

Game 37: Western Michigan vs UMD (NCHC Frozen Faceoff Semifinal)

MINNEAPOLIS -- Greetings from Target Center and their giant new "Eat Your Heart Out, Craig Leipold" scoreboard.

Gotta be quick on this post, as technical terrorism reigns supreme. Need to get the in-house internet working.

Lines?

Lines.

UMD
UMD
Iafallo - Toninato - Anderson
Osterberg - Johnson - Mackay
Tufte - Peterson - Kuhlman
Young - Thomas - Exell

Pionk - Kotyk
Raskob - Hilderman
Wolff - Molenaar

Miska - Shepard - Deery

WMU
Courtnall - Rebry - Hadley
Molino - Tiffels - Iacopelli
McGing - Conrad - McMullen
McKee - Zehnal - Stoykewich

Goff - Bafia
Schueneman - Fleming
Lee - Moldenhauer

Olson - Blacker - Gorsuch

(You know the drill with the goalies. Also, Aidan Muir is listed as an extra skater for warmup. Twitter if he's in blah blah.)

Bulldogs Guaranteed Two-Game Weekend for Final Time This Season, Facing Western Michigan at NCHC Frozen Faceoff

Last year, this weekend brought a lot of pressure for the UMD men's hockey team. The Bulldogs knew they had to win at least once at last year's NCHC Frozen Faceoff to be in good position for an NCAA bid.

This year, UMD could win the NCHC Frozen Faceoff and not help its place in the PairWise. The Bulldogs, as I wrote Wednesday, will finish first, second, or third in the final rankings, and will be a No. 1 regional seed next weekend.

(Officially rooting for three NCHC teams to finish in the top four, with North Dakota as a No. 4 regional seed, setting up the possibility of an all-NCHC Frozen Four that the NCAA committee can't stop from happening even if it wanted to.)

First things first, UMD gets another rematch against a recent opponent Friday at Target Center, with a semifinal game against Western Michigan. Fifth meeting of the season between these two top-five PWR teams, and the Broncos have to be seething a bit after UMD ruined Senior Night in Kalamazoo with a 6-3 win March 4.

It'll be the final weekend where teams are guaranteed two games. Starting with regionals next weekend, it's one and done until you either lose a game or hoist the big trophy in Chicago.

Broncos coach Andy Murray, who is in his second Frozen Faceoff but first since the league's inaugural year of 2013-14, knows what his group is up against. He said the preparation doesn't change at all when facing a very familiar opponent.

"We prepare for every league opponent the same way," Murray said this week. "It's all based on what we want to get done in a game, not necessarily adjusting to what the other team does."

The Broncos won eight games last year, including a 1-15-2 finish to the season. Murray has lauded his older players and all the returnees for helping change the culture in the room and improve the commitment level of everyone.

"This is a real special group of seniors we've got," he said. "The group of upperclassmen, first and foremost they're quality people, great students, and they do things right. They were not happy with what happened here last year. They had a taste of what it was like to be in the NCHC Frozen Faceoff their freshman year, and they're glad to be back."

"Last year was definitely a learning lesson," three-year captain Sheldon Dries said. "It was really the mentality of every guy on the team, coming here with a new attitude. Proving something not only to ourselves, but Western Michigan as a whole and the community of Kalamazoo."

On getting back to Minneapolis, Dries said it "means a lot, not just to the seniors but to the whole team."

In recent years, Western Michigan had a reputation of being a team that could clog up the middle of the ice and play strong in its own zone, but didn't have the offensive firepower to back that up.

Now, that's changed. Remarkably.

Not only can Western play strong in the defensive zone, but it's as good a transition team as any out there. Look at the Broncos against UMD in Kalamazoo, where they scored eight goals (five Friday, three Saturday) with a goalie in the net. Of the eight, six of them came off the rush, three in each game.

"In the last series we had, there were a lot of goals scored," UMD coach Scott Sandelin said. "They're a team that plays with a lot of pace. They present some challenges defensively for us. I think we've been a pretty good team (defensively) all year, just need to tighten up a few things. The Saturday game there I think we did a much better job. You don't want to get in a lot of 5-4 games, if it happens it happens, as long as you come out on top."

******

I wrote about Nick Wolff in my Monday blog, discussing his continually-improving play that culminated in his first collegiate goal in Saturday's win over Miami.

Sandelin: "I think him and Danny (Molenaar) have been a really good pair together. I think for him, he's grown through the year. He's gained confidence. He's a little more comfortable with the puck. I think he's had a pretty consistent year for a freshman. He's been one of our pleasant surprises from the start of the year until now. He brings an element that's nice. He brings an edge, he's physical, he competes hard every shift. But he has good hands, he's made a lot of little plays coming out of the zone that maybe go unnoticed, but we notice them."

Call me a jinx all you want, but I noted that he has not taken a major penalty this season. For a bigger, physical defenseman to come in as a freshman and avoid even getting slapped with a head contact major for a big hit that looks worse live than it probably is on replay says a lot about how smart he is and how he plays the game. Wolff has played 31 games. It's not an accident anymore. He knows what he's doing.

"The penalty he took (last weekend), I wouldn't change that," Sandelin said. "He's an imposing guy, he's hard to play against. There's guys in our league who've played against him in high school hockey and junior hockey and they know that. It's been fun to watch him grow through the year, a big part of our D-corps."

With Carson Soucy (lower body) ruled out for the weekend, Wolff, Molenaar, and company will again be asked to carry a bigger share of the workload. They've shown they're capable, and managing those minutes should be at least a little easier in games like this, where UMD is the designated home team and has choice of matchups.

Of course, UMD also possesses some matchup nightmares up front. Adam Johnson was really good in the series in Kalamazoo. After getting knocked around to the tune of a minus-12 aggregate, the line of Dominic Toninato, Alex Iafallo, and Joey Anderson were very sharp in the Saturday game out there. When the teams met in Duluth back in November, Sandelin didn't shy away from matching Toninato's line with Dries' line for the Broncos. Murray really didn't in Kalamazoo, either. I anticipate we'll see a lot of that on Friday as well. Strength vs strength. Whoever's strength plays better has the upper hand.

******

The winner of this semifinal game moves into Saturday's championship and will be facing a team on a winning streak. The question is how long will that winning streak be?

The second semifinal pits North Dakota -- winner of four in a row -- against top-ranked and top-seeded Denver, which enters on a 13-game winning streak. UND's 2016-17 season has some parallels to UMD's 2015-16 campaign, where a seven-game streak late got the Bulldogs in the NCAA Tournament. UND needs a win to cement a bid in the tournament, and could actually get as high as seventh overall with a two-win weekend.

Denver is a top three overall team, no matter what, but the Pioneers are chasing a second NCHC playoff title as the NCAAs approach. Good luck dealing with this team, which has high-end skill up front, depth, and a top defenseman in Will Butcher (only NCHC player to make the Hobey Baker top ten finalists) who can play big minutes.

Monday Musings: UMD Rallies Late, Sweeps Miami, Advances to NCHC Frozen Faceoff

UMD started strong in Saturday's Game 2 against Miami, and appeared poised to blow the RedHawks out of the building in the first period. Shots were 10-0 about halfway through the first, 16-4 for the period, but UMD only led 1-0 on an early Brenden Kotyk goal.

We've seen this script play out a few times through the season. UMD couldn't find another goal, and Miami was very much in the game heading into the second period.

Freshman Nick Wolff's first collegiate goal gave UMD a 2-0 lead in the second, but the inability to find another goal during the first-period surge came back to haunt the home team. Miami got a power play goal to cut the lead in half. Then early in the third, the RedHawks scored goals 1:52 apart for a 3-2 lead that seemed to stun those in attendance.

But like it has all season, the Bulldogs found a way back. Jared Thomas scored for the second time in three games, a sharp-angle shot that seemed to trickle in off the pad of Miami goalie Chase Munroe to tie the game 3-3 with 6:35 to play. Barely two minutes later, Alex Iafallo put a world-class inside-out move on Miami defenseman Grant Hutton before wiring a wrist shot by Munroe for the eventual game-winning goal. Captain Dominic Toninato added a late empty-netter to seal the deal in a 5-3 win that sends UMD back to Target Center for the NCHC Frozen Faceoff.

(Iafallo, by the way, takes his second nine-game point streak of the season into the NCHC Frozen Faceoff this coming weekend. He's over 40 points on the season now, and when UMD needed them most, both he and Toninato were stellar this past weekend. If that continues, this team will be very hard for anyone to handle.)

You don't get to 23-6-7 and the second spot in the national rankings (PairWise at least) without figuring a way around a few bumps along the way. Nothing is smooth, not even for what almost appears to be a juggernaut in Denver. UMD has overcome slow starts, big deficits, and now an injury to top defenseman Carson Soucy to keep winning.

Soucy, by the way, got cornered by Matt Wellens during Saturday's game.

Ran into UMD Sr D Carson Soucy at Amsoil. He said he expects to be back “soon.” His season is far from over. #umdmhky

— Matt Wellens (@mattwellens) March 12, 2017

Good news, for sure. UMD used Adam Johnson on defense Friday, and even though Scott Sandelin wouldn't rule out that look in the future, he was playing forward by the third period and played it the whole game Saturday. His line with Kyle Osterberg and Parker Mackay combined for three assists and a plus-five in the game. Jarod Hilderman played on defense, but appeared to be a bit limited in terms of minutes and situations.

Basically playing five defensemen and spotting Hilderman is something UMD can manage at this point, maybe on a game-by-game basis depending on the opponent. I thought Hilderman was quite good in the Saturday game at Western Michigan, so maybe he plays in Friday's semifinal against the Broncos and we'll see what happens on Saturday? Early speculation, as we have the whole week to look at that.

******

Perhaps one of the reasons for Johnson being shifted back up front: The play of Wolff. As I said on the air Saturday, one of the joys of seeing every game UMD plays is you can see the young guys make incremental progress each weekend.

And Wolff is absolutely progressing. He's earning more ice time, which makes it tough to justify trying to assimilate Johnson to what's a new position for him at this level.

If you hadn't watched much of UMD in February, you might have missed the jump Wolff has taken in terms of his level of play. He scored his first goal on Saturday as part of a three-point night, but Wolff was also active with team-high six shots on goal and had a plus-four rating. For a guy who's been pretty steadily improving in the defensive zone, Saturday's game was an offensive breakout.

Wolff has shown his physical side more than a few times this season, and for a freshman, he's done a really good job making big hits without taking penalties for being too aggressive. That he hasn't taken a major this season -- while being unafraid to play a physical game -- is saying something, especially when you consider current UMD defensemen Soucy, Willie Raskob, and Neal Pionk all took at least one major penalty as a freshman.

Speaking of Raskob and Pionk, Wolff's emergence also takes more pressure off them, and it indirectly takes some heat off Soucy, who doesn't have to feel the need to rush back in the lineup before he's ready to do so.

******

Western Michigan is next up for the Bulldogs, Friday at 4pm in the NCHC Frozen Faceoff semifinals. The Broncos needed overtime of a third game to take down Omaha 2-1 on a Michael Rebry game-winning goal.

(The NCHC has set a precedent of letting the top seed express its preference for which semifinal it plays in, and commissioner Josh Fenton said Monday Denver wanted to play in the late game. There's certainly something to be said for keeping the players' routines, and most DU Friday games started at 7:30pm local time. But there's a benefit to being in the early game, because wonky game times are fairly commonplace in the NCAAs, and it's a chance to get the body clocks tuned for the odd 4pm game start that isn't so odd in the national tournament.)

Freshman Ben Blacker was outstanding all weekend for Western, allowing just five goals on 98 shots, including one on 37 in Sunday's series-deciding game.

The teams split four games in the regular season, with Western Michigan winning the Friday games (4-3 in Duluth, then 7-4 in Kalamazoo) before the Bulldogs rallied to take Saturday affairs (2-0 and 6-3).

UMD struggled against Western Michigan's top players, most notably Colt Conrad, Sheldon Dries, and Griffen Molino, and especially in Kalamazoo. This time around, UMD will be the designated home team and able to exercise some control over matchups. Barring injuries or a Soucy return, I would anticipate the same lineup Friday against Western as we saw Saturday against Miami.

In terms of PairWise, UMD remains second, and if you use the predictor tool of your choice for the upcoming weekend, you'll probably find any final seeding between 1-3 is realistic. Lots of different ways to get UMD to any of those spots, not really any ways to get UMD to any spot below the third overall seed.

******

A final note of thanks and congratulations to the UMD women's hockey team on a great season. It came to end Saturday with a 1-0 loss to Minnesota in the NCAA quarterfinals. For five seniors -- forwards Ashleigh Brykaliuk, Demi Crossman, Katie McGovern, and Lara Stalder, along with defenseman Sidney Morin -- and junior Maria Lindh (graduating), it was the final game in a UMD jersey.

They laid everything on the line and have nothing to hang their heads about from a superb effort that fell just a goal short.

Brykaliuk and Stalder, per assistant coach Laura Bellamy, deserve kudos as well for facing the media after the game. NCAA-mandated press conferences are a killer to watch when the losing team participates after having their heart ripped out, no matter the sport. Bellamy noted that Brykaliuk and Stalder were given the option to skip out and let other players take the questions of assembled media. Instead, they composed themselves as best they could and did what great leaders do.

Coaches talk all the time about culture. When you have a new staff take over, it's about building a culture the way they want to build it. A big reason Maura Crowell's second season ended in the NCAA Tournament is the culture created in the room, starting with the graduating class. Brykaliuk and Morin were great captains, and all the seniors were fantastic leaders. Thanks to the work they've done, UMD is quickly on the verge of a changed culture, one that expects greatness. For the young players, it was their first taste of big-time, high-level hockey. They'll come back in the fall craving more, and that's exactly what Crowell and her staff want. It's what's worked for so many great programs -- men's and women's, all sports -- over the years.

It's also how Minnesota has remained as good as it's been for so long. Lee Stecklein didn't arrive at Minnesota with national championship rings. She learned how to win from players who won, and now she's passing those lessons down as she wraps up her Minnesota career seeking an unprecedented fourth national title. Someday, that will be how it works at UMD, and it started -- at least in this go-round -- with players like Brykaliuk, Morin, and Stalder. We salute them on their way out, and wish them nothing but the best going forward.

Monday Musings: Split With Western Michigan Sets UMD Up For Postseason

Much better, more composed performance from UMD in Saturday's 6-3 win over Western Michigan in Kalamazoo. That they did it without big-minute defenseman Carson Soucy is a gigantic bonus, in my view.

There wasn't a long list of players who played well in Friday's game. UMD was guilty of missed coverages and not doing enough to get to the net front and disrupt WMU goalie Ben Blacker. Saturday's tone was set in the first period, when the Bulldogs were getting outshot in the early going but not letting anyone get second chances in Hunter Miska's kitchen. Then, the first Western Michigan penalty of the game ended up in the back of the Broncos' net when a shooting mentality and net drive led to Jared Thomas' first goal in 70 games, going back to Oct. 17, 2015.

A couple minutes later, Western captain Sheldon Dries took an undisciplined penalty and ended up in the box for six seconds. Why six seconds? Because Adam Johnson walked the blue line, found a lane, and scored off a Joey Anderson tip (yes, we know Johnson got official credit, but both he and Anderson said after the game it was tipped). It was a perfect example of a player up high finding a way to get a puck through to give UMD a scoring chance.

This time of year, you have to score that way.

You also have to, at this time of the season, deal with pushback from the team that trails. Down 2-0, Western Michigan didn't lay down. The Broncos leveled by the midway point of the second, and kept pushing to take the lead before UMD got a break late in the period. Blacker came out to play a dump-in and turned it over to Karson Kuhlman on the right wing. Kuhlman whipped the puck toward the net as Blacker hustled back to the crease. He stopped Kuhlman's shot, but Adam Johnson poked it by him as he kept sliding back out of the crease, and the puck crossed the line before the mass of bodies took the net off.

UMD seized the momentum, getting an Avery Peterson goal early in the third before Anderson made a great individual effort off the wall and ripped a shot by Blacker to chase him from the game.

The win is UMD's 21st of the season and it keeps the Bulldogs safely in the second spot of the PairWise rankings. UMD finishes NCHC play in second place after Denver swept Omaha over the weekend.

(Like I said last week, UMD didn't lose this conference title. Denver won it, going on a tear here down the stretch and looking every bit the national championship contender we believe them to be.)

******

UMD had to shake some adversity. Soucy was injured late in Friday's loss when he got tangled with Western forward Griffen Molino. Nothing malicious in any way, but Soucy fell awkwardly after Molino collided low trying to get in front of a shot. He hobbled off the ice and didn't return, and didn't dress Saturday. As for prognosis and the like, we should know more in the early part of the week. Keep the fingers crossed for good news.

Without him, UMD went with freshman Jarod Hilderman and mixed up pairings. We saw a lot of Neal Pionk with Willie Raskob, and they were very good. It was one of Raskob's best games in a while, and Pionk was his usual self. If Soucy is gone for any length of time, these are the two I expect the Bulldogs to ride. Both are capable of handling big minutes and can be dynamic players moving the puck. Pionk's shot is a game-changer.

Dan Molenaar and Brenden Kotyk also saw a lot of minutes Saturday and did quite well. Kotyk had an assist and blocked shots like normal. Molenaar played in his 33rd straight game -- a great accomplishment for a guy who had been so snakebit by injury and illness in his UMD career -- and continued his stretch of very consistent work on the blue line.

UMD also played without forward Riley Tufte (illness), who was sick on and off during the day and ruled out after the team got the rink pregame Saturday. Tufte told me at the airport Sunday he was already feeling better, so hopefully he's a full go this week for Miami. Same for forward Kyle Osterberg, who left late in the first with an upper-body injury after a check to the head. He did not return, but hopefully recovers in time to go this week.

******

Next up for UMD is the only weekend of playoffs that can't end its season. The Bulldogs will host Miami in a first-round NCHC playoff series starting Friday at 7. Same Miami team that gave UMD fits two weeks ago, but one swept last week at home by North Dakota.

The RedHawks need to win the league tournament to move on, and UMD wants to build off what it accomplished in a strong effort on Saturday.

Also, the UMD women and WCHA Tournament MVP Maddie Rooney host Minnesota Saturday afternoon. We'll have all the hockey this weekend on the radio, and preview stuff coming on the blog so watch for that.

Game 34: UMD at Western Michigan

KALAMAZOO, Mich. -- It'll be interesting to see how UMD responds after Friday got out of control so quickly in the second period. Western made it 2-0 late in the first, then got two goals in 53 seconds early in the second to double the lead and chase UMD freshman goalie Hunter Miska. Hunter Shepard finished the game by stopping 12 of the 13 shots he faced, doing his best to keep UMD in the game.

Bad news: Senior defenseman Carson Soucy is out with an injury, replaced in the lineup by freshman Jarod Hilderman. Not sure the prognosis at this point, but he went down late in Friday's game with what appeared to be a lower-body problem after a collision with Western Michigan forward Griffen Molino, who was sliding to block a shot but ended up hitting Soucy after he skated forward before trying to shoot. From what I saw, it didn't appear to be anything malicious, just unfortunate. It's Hilderman's sixth game this season, third since the new year.

Mixes up defensive pairings, as you can imagine. Up front, Riley Tufte is ill, so the lines are a jumbled mess.

As for the game, I hammered on the earlier blog the problems that reared their ugly heads in Friday's game. No need to rehash. Read down for that stuff. Playoffs start with Miami visiting on Friday night. This is the last chance to get everything going the way UMD wants it to before the second season begins.

One more note: This will be the last game this season where potential major penalties are not subject to video review. The NCAA directive is that officials be allowed to look at these during postseason games, and that extends to conference tournaments as well as the NCAAs. Because you're a loyal UMD fan, I'm giving you this info now so hopefully it sinks in for all of us by next weekend.

Lines?

Lines.

UMD
Iafallo - Toninato - Anderson
Johnson - Peterson - Kuhlman
Osterberg - Thomas - Mackay
Young - Spurrell - Exell

Molenaar - Kotyk
Pionk - Raskob
Wolff - Hilderman

Miska - Shepard

WMU
Molino - Dries - Iacopelli
McKee - Rebry - Hadley
Courtnall - Tiffels - McMullen
McGing - Conrad - Allison

Dienes - Bafia
Schueneman - Fleming
Lee - Moldenhauer

Olson - Blacker - Gorsuch

(WMU lists goalies in numerical order. Starter is expected to be Blacker, I'll update on Twitter blah blah.)

Saturday Hockey Notes and Thoughts: Western Michigan Ends UMD's Unbeaten Streak, NCHC Title Hopes

KALAMAZOO, Mich. -- After a 7-4 UMD loss to Western Michigan Friday night, thoughts -- naturally -- turned to Mike Yeo. And, no, not because son Kyler and Hill-Murray are heading back to the state tournament.

Back in 2015, the Minnesota Wild beat the St. Louis Blues in a first round Stanley Cup Playoff series. Leading the series 2-1, the Wild hosted Game 4 and were summarily waxed 6-1. So, naturally, Minnesota went into St. Louis and won Game 5 before clinching the series in Game 6.

After the series, then-head coach Mike Yeo appeared on KFAN with Paul Allen and was asked if that Game 4 loss might have been a blessing in disguise because it helped re-focus the team. Yeo didn't hesitate to agree.

"I think it's better to get your butt kicked in a game like that than to not be up to your game and just fall short," Yeo said. "It was a good, stiff reminder that's not good enough, that's not our level."

For a couple weeks now, UMD coaches have been imploring their players to be better, especially in the neutral and defensive zones. But as the team continued to rack up not-losses and ran its unbeaten streak to 11, was the message really getting through?

I'd like to think -- to be perfectly honest -- a veteran team like this wouldn't have any trouble understanding what's in front of it. However, if it can happen and be necessary in the NHL, why should a band of college kids be exempt?

With that in mind, was Friday the "stiff reminder" Yeo was talking about with his now-former team? Only time will tell, but there's little doubt that Friday wasn't good enough, and it can't be sugar-coated around a result that saw UMD get points. Instead, Western Michigan took it to the Bulldogs, putting five goals by UMD goaltenders, including four on just eight shots against freshman Hunter Miska before he was yanked. Classmate Hunter Shepard stopped 12 of 13, and the worthless empty net made no saves on two shots.

There was a lot not to like from UMD. Not the first game like this as of late, and now that the Penrose Cup has been won by Denver, we'll see some things change for UMD.

Poor coverage from the faceoff dots down helped stake the Broncos to a 2-0 lead after one. Sheldon Dries and Hugh McGing scored on different rebound plays. Dries got free for a quick slot shot that Miska made a good save on, but the rebound somehow bounced back to Dries, who was still open in the slot and this time made no mistake. On that play, UMD had defenders in the area, but Dries got in between Joey Anderson and Alex Iafallo, and the latter let Dries go after the first shot and wasn't ready for the puck to bounce back to him. Both Iafallo and Willie Raskob were in position to stop that shot from happening, but somehow Dries kept his stick free in a tight space and got a puck by Miska because the goalie had no chance to see it.

On the second, Hugh McGing drove the net from the goal line and threw in a rebound off a Griffen Molino shot for a power play goal. The killers did a good job, outside of McGing charging by Raskob to get to the puck, which can't happen.

The third goal featured a puck dumped to the right-wing side of the UMD zone. Instead of chasing the loose puck, Avery Peterson let Luke Bafia get there first. Watching the video, the only thing I can imagine is Peterson didn't see Bafia and was letting Riley Tufte get to it, but I don't know. It looks really bad on video, and while Miska should have stopped Bafia's shot, it's hard to be too mad at the freshman goalie when the shot never should have happened to start with.

I could do this all night. But I don't want to. You get the point. There were mistakes made on pretty much every Western Michigan goal that came with a goalie in the net, and even one of the empty-net goals featured a lost battle that just can't happen when a team has an extra skater on the ice. Maybe some messages will get through more effectively after a game like this that ends in a lopsided defeat than they were after wins and ties.

Miska wasn't great but had little help. The top line of Dominic Toninato, Iafallo, and Anderson was a combined minus-12 with one point and seven shots. I thought pretty much the entire defensive corps struggled, outside of Dan Molenaar and Nick Wolff, both of whom I thought were okay. Peterson and Adam Johnson won a combined eight of 27 faceoffs. The power play was a trainwreck.

Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?

This isn't to take away from the Broncos. They played very well. Dries and Molino are as advertised, not that I expected anything different. Western deserved everything it got on this night.

So did UMD.

******

The third period was, well, interesting. Karson Kuhlman's power play goal cut the lead to 5-2 early. UMD had a couple power plays after that but couldn't cash in, but Sandelin pulled Shepard with 4:13 to go. Western, however, won a faceoff and scored quickly into the empty net to make it 6-2.

UMD then responded with goals by Brenden Kotyk and Adam Johnson 26 seconds apart to cut the lead to 6-4. And 11 seconds after Johnson's goal, UMD was back on the power play.

It didn't score, and Dries capped a hat trick with an empty-netter in the final minute.

The power play struggled against WMU's pressure. It's been a longstanding theme for UMD to have difficulty scoring against aggressive penalty kills. Effective, aggressive kills force the power play guys to make quick decisions, and make them under pressure. UMD just wasn't decisive enough on this night, leading to tie-ups and battles on the wall, and the Bulldogs weren't able to win them often enough.

There were opportunities for UMD to claw back in, but the Bulldogs never got there. Power play struggles were a large reason for it.

******

If you'll indulge me, there was a topic that came up Friday that I thought merited a mention. Bemidji State hosted Northern Michigan to kick off the WCHA playoffs, and even though every BSU game this season was televised, this weekend's are not.

Read more from the Bemidji Pioneer.

(BSU athletic director Tracy) Dill cited attendance and revenue concerns as reasons for the playoff broadcast decision.
"We appreciate everything Lakeland does for BSU," Dill said. "The broadcast is really good. The difference for us is, for first-round games in the WCHA, if we are in a position where we host, you have to guarantee the league $25,000 for the first round. Semifinals is the same and I think the championship is $15,000 or something. So we have to be able to sell tickets."

Dill went down the road that televised games hurt attendance. In 2017.

And maybe he's right if you take the narrow view. Maybe Bemidji doesn't draw 2,904 paid for the series opener if it's on TV. But let's take a real-world look at this.

People go to games for an experience. That experience can't be fulfilled on television. Trust me. I rarely get to Wild games, but went to two during UMD's February bye. As much as I struggle with big crowds of people sometimes, how could any hockey fan not want to go to a Wild game in person? What a great experience, and with all due respect to Anthony LaPanta and Mike Greenlay and Michael Russo and Audra Martin and Wes Walz and whoever else, TV and social media can't touch what you get when you're in the building.

My point, and I promise I have one, is people who want that experience aren't going to give it up because the game is on television. If a particular team -- especially a successful one like Bemidji State -- isn't drawing enough fans compared to what it thinks it should, it should be looking in the mirror, not at a TV. If anything, television helps a team become more visible in its community, which should help attendance. Because, again, you can't get the stadium experience watching on television.

Ask the Chicago Blackhawks, who once blacked out home games from being televised, and in a shocking development, saw attendance -- which was already terrible -- get worse. The owner died, his son took over, put the games back on TV, and even before the team was relevant again, attendance was back on the rise.

Amazing, a team is visible and people want to attend its games. What a concept.

******

Denver beat Omaha 4-2 to clinch the NCHC title on the strength of two third period goals by Henrik Borgstrom and a three-point night from Troy Terry. North Dakota got a short-handed goal from Duluth native Trevor Olson late in the second and won at Miami 3-2. Finally, St. Cloud State scored the last four goals in a 5-2 home win over Colorado College.

On the last night of the regular season, spots four through six in the final standings are up for grabs. Right now, North Dakota has the last home ice spot with 32 points, St. Cloud State is one point back at 31, and Omaha is sixth with 29. Lots of scenarios in play, but UND is definitely in the driver's seat to be at home next weekend.

Game 33: UMD at Western Michigan

KALAMAZOO, Mich. -- Obviously, the odds are long, but UMD is here to take a swing at the Penrose Cup title. That's all you can do, right?

Western Michigan is locked into third and can only help/hurt its PairWise position this weekend, not a whole lot. Both teams will be home next weekend, regardless.

Lines?

Lines.

UMD
Iafallo - Toninato - Anderson
Osterberg - Johnson - Kuhlman
Tufte - Peterson - Mackay
Young - Thomas - Exell

Soucy - Raskob
Pionk - Kotyk
Wolff - Molenaar

Miska - Shepard

WMU
Molino - Dries - Iacopelli
McKee - Hadley - McMullen
Courtnall - Rebry - Tiffels
McGing - Conrad - Allison

Dienes - Bafia
Schueneman - Fleming
Lee - Moldenhauer

Olson - Blacker - Gorsuch

(WMU lists goalies in numerical order. Starter is expected to be Blacker, I'll update on Twitter blah blah.)

Playoff-Type Hockey Awaits UMD as Playoffs Loom

KALAMAZOO, Mich. -- What better way to prepare for the postseason if you're either of these teams?

Since the calendar flipped to 2017, Western Michigan is 9-3-2, including an 8-3-1 record in NCHC play that vaulted the Broncos from a home ice contender to a home ice lock heading into the final weekend of the regular season.

Since Jan. 13, UMD is 8-0-3, and over those 11 games, the Bulldogs have conceded just ten even-strength goals. Three of them came in last Friday's 3-3 tie with Miami.

Western Michigan plays a very difficult style for opponents. But things are different. Go back to before the teams met in Duluth in November, when I visited with WMU coach Andy Murray and asked him about how he's adjusted to the way NCHC teams play.

“When you have a poor year as we did last year, you have to take a look at what you’re doing and how you can improve," he said. "I think we changed our methodology. You’re foolish if you stay the same when it’s not working.”

What changed? This team has more speed and skill, for starters. The emergence of Corey Schueneman and Cam Lee gives WMU some serious mobility on the blue line. Up front, three-year captain Sheldon Dries is having another stellar season.

"He is our motor on our team," Murray said this week. "He thinks he's six-foot-four and plays in a five-nine body, but competes and battles and likes going up against other teams' best players."

Dries has produced this year, with 12 goals and 25 points. He has plenty of help, too. Sophomore Matheson Iacopelli was a revelation when these teams met earlier in the season. As teams have started paying more attention to him, he hasn't slowed down one bit. Iacopelli has 19 goals and 31 points to lead the team, and he's a very strong All-NCHC candidate.

(Dries, by the way, should be a good candidate for the league's Best Defensive Forward honors at the awards show before the Frozen Faceoff. But no one asked me.)

Flyers draft pick Wade Allison, a freshman, has 11 goals and 24 points. Sophomores Griffen Molino and Colt Conrad both have double-digit goals and 24 points. Molino will be a guy to watch after the season, as it sounds as if NHL teams are sniffing.

Schueneman and Lee lead a revamped defense that is mobile and can move the puck and join the rush. Lee is going to be a good one, he's only a freshman and has really emerged in the second half.

"They give us some mobility back there that maybe we've lacked in the past," Murray said, adding senior Taylor Fleming is another guy who can skate for the Broncos. "They've helped us move the puck more effectively than we did last year."

"They're a hard team to play against," UMD sophomore forward Adam Johnson said this week. "Always real physical. They've got some skill players and some guys who can score."

"They're fast, they hit hard, they block shots, they do things right," senior defenseman Brenden Kotyk said. "Obviously having Andy Murray as a coach will help that."

"I'm very impressed with their team," Bulldogs coach Scott Sandelin said. "They've done a really good job of adding more speed and skill to their lineup. It's not just one or two lines. It's lines one through four."

Of course, Western's opponent this weekend isn't exactly a slouch. Much like the Broncos, UMD doesn't have a star carrying the water. Or even a line. Behind senior Alex Iafallo's 34 points are four guys -- Neal Pionk, Adam Johnson, Joey Anderson, and Dominic Toninato -- in the 20s. Four Bulldogs have double-digit goals, and eight players are double-figures in points over the 22 NCHC games to date.

On UMD, Murray says "Tremendous, physical, they play hard-nosed hockey, in your face, can skate, good in transition."

Sounds like the kind of hockey both teams -- locks for the NCAA Tournament -- will see later in March. No better time to prepare than now.

******

Lots of work for UMD in practice this week on its defensive play. As assistant Jason Herter told me, it isn't that guys aren't working hard.

"We preach backchecking," he says. "And they backcheck so hard they take themselves out of position. We're trying to get our guys to settle their game down, understand what their job is."

Kotyk said there will be breakdowns, even in the NHL, but "you have to focus on your job.

"We have to make sure our defensive play is really tight."

He says communication is a huge key. Guys have to constantly be talking as they come back defensively.

"The defense start it on a rush," he said. "We can see the whole play. Forwards just turning around from the net can't really see what's going on. It's nice for us to be able to say 'Take far guy,' for example. It also identifies your man as you get into the zone."

UMD's rush coverage has broken down a couple times this season, most recently in the Thursday win over Miami. It's not the only wart Sandelin has found, but it's been a focus this week with the Broncos and then what should be a fantastic NCHC playoff on the horizon.

"Guys are working hard," he said. "We just need to work a little smarter.

"Our first forward back is usually low, and there's been some confusion. Sometimes it's a wing, and the center has to identify that. Sometimes, he gets caught low, and it leaves some gaps. It's just some more communication, reading, simplify things a little bit."

Sandelin also mentioned the team's inability to put opponents away recently. Up 2-0 on Colorado College, the Bulldogs missed a couple chances to make it 3-0 early, then ran into penalty trouble and had to settle for a tie and shootout win. Up 2-0 against Miami last Thursday, UMD had a long shift in the offensive zone, couldn't generate even a great scoring chance, much less the third goal, and eventually Miami scored off a rush to get on the board. Next thing you know, the game is tied and UMD has to grind out a win in the third period. The Bulldogs led 3-2 in Friday's game before Miami got a late equalizer and then an extra point in three-on-three overtime.

"We haven't been able to find the third goal," Sandelin said. "We've left some plays on the rink and missed some opportunities, you have to find a way to get that next goal."

That said, UMD is still unbeaten in 11, and while there might be some things Sandelin and the coaches see that cause aggravation, it's hard to complain about an 11-game unbeaten run against the competition the Bulldogs face on a regular basis.

******

Haven't talked much about the Penrose Cup. Frankly, it's still attainable, but you all know the odds are long.

Here's what UMD needs to win the Penrose Cup.

Sweep Western Michigan, and have Denver get no more than two points -- in any way -- out of Omaha. If DU gets two points out of one game and is beaten in regulation in the other, the teams would be tied at 55 points, and UMD would win the tiebreaker based on head to head goals (6-5 in that December series in Denver).

Sweep Western Michigan, and have Denver get one or zero points out of Omaha, and UMD wins the Penrose outright.

UMD can win with a five-point weekend, but only if Denver is swept. Otherwise, the Pioneers will have the league wins tiebreaker.

If UMD gets four points or less out of the series, Denver wins the Penrose without getting a point.

While UMD's players still want to win the league, they also know the more realistic outcome is a second-place finish that will probably send Miami back to Duluth for a best-of-three series next weekend.

"We're not out of it," Johnson said. "We just gotta to try to keep improving and put the pressure on them."

By staying the course and improving against a really good opponent this weekend, UMD also sets the course for a playoff run that starts in a week. After next week, everything left is one-and-done for the Bulldogs, with the obvious goal of getting to Chicago and the Frozen Four.

Monday Musings: Denver Sweep Likely Sends Penrose Cup to Pioneers

Listen, I'm all about optimism. I'm not the guy who likes to throw buckets of cold water on things and such.

No, really, I'm not. Quit laughing.

But it seems a safe bet right now to say UMD will not be claiming its first Penrose Cup NCHC championship.

If that's how it ends up this weekend, the Denver Pioneers won it. UMD didn't lose it.

The Bulldogs won and tied over the weekend against Miami to run their unbeaten streak to 11, the longest since the school-record 17-game run in 2011-12. Yes, Miami got a late Gordie Green goal to tie Friday's game, then Green scored in three-on-three overtime for the extra standings point. Yes, it stinks to have missed out on a chance for a sweep.

But that's not what cost UMD the league title. No, what cost UMD the league title was Denver having won nine straight games since a Jan. 20 loss to St. Cloud State. What cost UMD the league title is Denver's 12-2 record (10-2 NCHC) since the new year. UMD is a mere 8-2-4 (6-2-4).

The Pioneers are playing great hockey. They kept winning when UMD needed just a little bit of help. Tip the cap to DU, don't scoff at the Bulldogs. And hopefully the two meet in the postseason, because it'll be epic.

As for Friday's game, the Bulldogs were not sharp in their own zone and still avoided a loss. That's probably a good thing, but it won't help if UMD can't use the lessons to get better.

Freshman goalie Hunter Miska wasn't his sharpest, but two of Miami's goals came on long shots with traffic, something UMD has typically done a good job of avoiding this season. If Miska can see it, there's a really good chance he stops it. And the Bulldogs can be better defending up high, preventing those pucks from getting through in the first place. Look for that to be a point of emphasis this week as Western Michigan looms.

******

Current NCHC standings:
Denver 53 points
UMD 49
Western Michigan 39
Omaha 29
North Dakota 29
St. Cloud State 28
Miami 23
Colorado College 14

If my math and tiebreaker understanding are correct, Denver, UMD, and Western Michigan will be the top three, and WMU is locked into third. UMD is probably 85-90 percent to finish second.

After that, it's a jumbled mess. Miami can leapfrog teams with a home sweep of UND, and St. Cloud State gets Colorado College at home while Omaha hosts Denver. It's too early to tell for sure, but if North Dakota gets a point from Miami and UMD finishes second, it'll be guaranteed to face Miami in the first round.

UMD heads to Kalamazoo to finish the regular season against resurgent Western Michigan. The Broncos are still scoring, still getting great work out of the power play, but now Andy Murray has been able to settle on a starting goalie in freshman Ben Blacker. He's right behind Miska with a .925 save percentage (Miska is .926). These teams are pretty evenly matched, especially when playing at even strength. If UMD's power play can stay hot (goals in six straight games, 8-for-26 in that stretch), the Bulldogs stand a great chance of leaving Kalamazoo with points.

Game 15: Western Michigan at UMD

After a 7-0 UMD win Friday night, this is going to be very interesting. Western Michigan just looked -- to steal Matt Wellens' word -- "overwhelmed" in that game, and I don't know what needs to happen for Western to not look overwhelmed.

The Bulldogs haven't allowed a goal since Nov. 14 against Denver, a span of 230:20 that will extend a school record every second it stays alive. Western hasn't led at any point in the last 412 minutes and change while losing seven straight.

Just like Friday, the first goal in this game carries a small amount of significance.

Lines?

Lines.

UMD
Iafallo - Toninato - Johnson
Farley - Cameranesi - Kuhlman
Osterberg - Thomas - Young (Austyn)
Sampair - Decowski - Mackay

Corrin - Welinski
Soucy - Raskob
Pionk - Molenaar

Kaskisuo - McNeely - Deery

WMU
Pitt - Rebry - Muir
Molino - Tiffels - Novak
Conrad - Dries - LaPorte
Carpino - Hadley - McMullen

Schueneman - Kaski
Dienes - Fleming
Goff - Moldenhauer

Olson - Hafner

Game 14: Western Michigan at UMD

Here we go. UMD trying to run the unbeaten streak to four, Western Michigan looking to end a six-game slide. HUGE points this weekend as the Bulldogs start a four-game homestand.

Lines?

Lines.

UMD
Iafallo - Toninato - Johnson
Farley - Cameranesi - Kuhlman
Osterberg - Thomas - Young (Austyn)
Sampair - Decowski - Mackay

Corrin - Welinski
Soucy - Raskob
Pionk - Molenaar

Kaskisuo - McNeely - Deery

WMU
Tiffels - Rebry - Novak
Molino - Nong-Lambert - Muir
Pitt - Dries - LaPorte
Carpino - Hadley - McMullen

Schueneman - Stoykewich
Dienes - Fleming
Goff - Moldenhauer

Olson - Hafner

Bulldogs Open Homestand With Slumping Broncos

For the second straight time, UMD heads into a weekend series simply trying to keep a slumping team slumping.

Two weeks ago, UMD got the job done, outscoring Colorado College 11-0 over a two-game sweep to keep the Tigers winless.

Now, it's Western Michigan, a team that has been quite the thorn in UMD's side in recent years. The Broncos have lost six straight, outscored 27-7 in those games. Western hasn't led in a game since Nov. 13, a span of over 352 minutes.

Last weekend, coach Andy Murray was quick to point out that his team really only scored once in losses to RPI and Notre Dame at the Shillelagh Tournament in South Bend, Ind.

"Ended up losing the hockey game 4-1 (against RPI)," Murray said. "And the only goal that we did get, they shot in their own net. Our ability to finish has been a problem for us."

Murray also wasn't mincing words when asked about his team's recent struggles.

"We haven't been playing good hockey," Murray noted. 

It seems like a broken record. We went through this two weeks ago. But this is different animal. Western might not have a lot going on, but the Broncos have basically made Duluth a second home in recent years. WMU is 4-1-1 at Amsoil Arena, including a win and a tie (shootout win for a five-point weekend) last January.

And the style Western Michigan plays lends itself to much more success if the Broncos can come out and play well early in a game. Murray coaches his guys to play a very structured game, giving little room in the neutral zone and often outnumbering teams below the faceoff dots. The little battles in the corners that you see become really tough to win against the Broncos, and those little battles are bound to happen over the course of a game.

When UMD went to Colorado Springs, we talked almost incessantly about the importance of the first goal. That's the case this weekend, too. Murray basically admitted it. He told me his team had 28 scoring chances against the Engineers, "and when you aren't scoring you tend to open up a little bit." That leads to more opportunities for the adversary, and Murray said there were some goals his team has allowed in recent weeks that he wasn't pleased with.

The Broncos are constructed to play with a lead. We saw it twice last season, though UMD was able to rally for a tie in Duluth. When Western loosens up a bit, teams are able to generate scoring opportunities. Get a lead and try to drag the Broncos into a style of play they don't want anything to do with.

Assistant coach Jason Herter summed it up nicely this week.

"They have an exact opposite makeup in their hockey team than we do," he said. "We're exact opposites. It's going to be us trying to get them to play our game, which they're going to be very good at, and them trying to get us to play their game, which I don't think we're very good at. It's going to be the team that finds that middle ground, that can do pretty well at both, that's going to win this weekend."

Herter is the one who coined "skating refrigerators" to describe WMU last year. It's still correct. This is a big team. But that's not the only component of the Broncos that demands the attention of opponents.

"Some of those guys, they have some skill," Herter said. "You have to play against those guys who lean on you and play physical. They can back it up with offense and they can back it up with skill. That's why it's so important that we keep them down."

As I mentioned earlier in the week, there's plenty of skill on this team. Captain Sheldon Dries leads in goals with five, and he has speed to burn. They have guys like Fredrik Tiffels, too, who could play for any program in the country. They lean on you with that size, and then Murray can turn to his skill players to blow by unsuspecting opponents.

"In a run and gun game, we're faster," Herter said. "In a tie-it-down, lean on you game, they're fast enough to do some special things."
Western Michigan swept Omaha. Convincingly. Yeah, it was a month ago, but it still happened. If UMD isn't careful this weekend, the Bulldogs will find out how capable the Broncos are.

******

UMD enters with plenty of confidence and momentum, right?

Not according to Murray. He'll have nothing of either word.

"There's two words that I don't allow our players to use," Murray, who has plenty of coaching experience in college, juniors, and pro hockey, said this week. "I don't like the word 'confidence,' and I don't like the word 'momentum.'

"Bottom line to me is when you play poor, you feel bad. When you play good, you feel good. To me, you have to go out and earn it. Normally, you get in life what you deserve. At this point, we haven't been deserving enough.

"Everybody talks about 'We won, so we have momentum.' But do you think the next team really cares? They want to knock you off, and they're going to be ready for you."

Murray admits that his team probably doesn't have a lot of either right now, but "that doesn't mean we aren't capable of playing good hockey."

It's an interesting look at things, and one that UMD senior forward Austyn Young doesn't necessarily agree with. Whether you want to call it confidence or not, he says that series in Colorado was just what the doctor ordered.

"It's good for a team to get that," Young said. "When you're struggling putting the puck in the net, you have to keep looking at the positives. It's really helped our guys. I can tell on the ice that everyone's upbeat."

Herter agrees.

"A lot of times kids confuse confidence with trust," he said. "The trust in the process and the trust that what they're doing is the right thing. When it doesn't work, we tend to say they don't have confidence. I think the kids are starting to trust that what they're doing is the right thing. If they're consistently doing it, they'll have a chance to win every night."

Herter also quipped he would have "cried" -- because he just wouldn't have known what to say to them -- if he had to look at the players after the Nov. 14 game against Denver if the Bulldogs hadn't rallied to tie the game and win the three-on-three for an extra NCHC standings point.

If UMD gets hot here before break, there's no question that will be looked at as a turning point in the first half of the season.

Call it "confidence," "momentum," "trust," or coin your own term for it. But clearly UMD has a chance this weekend to show that CC wasn't a fluke or the byproduct of a good team playing against a bad one.

******

Just a quick programming note. The normal Saturday blog will not appear this week. I'll give you some expanded thoughts with the pregame lines on Saturday, but my son has a hockey tournament in Hoyt Lakes we're leaving for at 6:30 in the morning.

As always, follow me on Twitter for more -- pregame, in-game, and postgame, as well as during the day Saturday. 

Monday Musings: Bulldogs Back to Work

Hope you all had a good Thanksgiving. It was another holiday weekend off for UMD, which regularly does not play that weekend. It's a good time for a week off, as the Bulldogs were going every weekend from the start of the season. With final exams coming soon, UMD has two weekends of hockey left before the holiday break.

Of course, anytime you go unbeaten in three, get a rousing "win" at home and back-to-back road shutouts, you probably don't want to have a bye. Alas, the schedule is what the schedule is.

Now, UMD will be tasked with coming out of the rest with four strong performances before the halfway mark of the season hits.

There isn't much to say about the Colorado College sweep. UMD took care of business against a team it needed desperately to beat twice. The Tigers went to 0-12 with the losses, and while they got their first win of the year by beating Air Force on Saturday night, they're not a good team. UMD couldn't afford to lose, but I thought the Bulldogs played pretty well, especially in the first period on Friday and then most of Saturday's game. Shots were more even on Saturday because CC played much better, but UMD wasn't as leaky defensively.

Scott Sandelin wanted a more responsible performance from his group, and it looked like he got it. And once UMD popped a couple goals in late in the first period, the Tigers weren't the same. They were a shaken outfit that played like it. Good in spurts, but no confidence that anything good would come of the effort.

Don't discount these games, though. UMD needed to get some confidence of its own, especially in the offensive zone. After scoring 24 goals on 407 shots in 11 games (5.9 percent), the Bulldogs potted 11 on 70 shots against Colorado College (15.7 percent).

By comparison, St. Cloud State has 60 goals this season, on just 447 shots on goal (13.4 percent). If UMD scored on 13 percent of its 477 shots this season, the Bulldogs would have 62 goals, not 35.

Ugh.

(Yes, we're staying on that story. Much of SCSU's crazy shooting percentage is the result of a power play that's clicking at 30 percent, and that's more than double UMD's power play success rate of 14 percent. But it's something worth watching as the season goes on.)

******

Up next is Western Michigan. It'll be interesting to see how UMD fares this weekend after going 1-4-1 in the last six games against the Broncos, including a very meh 1-2-1 last year. At home, UMD is 1-4-1 against Western Michigan since the NCHC launched in 2013-14.

Western is a very structured team, but the Broncos have struggled as of late. WMU has lost six straight -- outscored 27-7, though one of those games is an 11-1 loss to St. Cloud State, so the total is a little misleading -- since a sweep of Omaha to open NCHC play. At 4-8-1, the Broncos are badly in search of a pick-me-up, and they probably look forward to this trip to Duluth, a place they've recently played well.

I'll get a chance later this week to watch back Western Michigan's losses to RPI (4-1) and Notre Dame (3-1) at the Shillelagh Tournament in South Bend over the holiday weekend. What's clear without the magic of digital video is that Western didn't score even-strength on the weekend, and the Broncos have scored just one even-strength goal in four games.

I like this Western team, honestly. They've got size (Mike McKee is 6-5 and having a good season so far, Willem Nong-Lambert is 6-4, Aaron Hadley 6-3, Aidan Muir 6-4, Scott Moldenhauer is 6-4, Neal Goff 6-5, and you get the drift) and what I think is underrated skill with guys like Sheldon Dries, Nolan LaPorte, Kyle Novak, Griffen Molino, and Colt Conrad. Despite allowing 11 goals in that SCSU disaster, the team save percentage is a respectable .900. Andy Murray has rotated goalies so far, with senior Lukas Hafner getting seven starts and Ohio State transfer Collin Olson six. The blue line has been shaky at times, and if UMD can play well in the neutral zone (a huge key this weekend, in my opinion), there should be opportunities to attack with speed.

Just don't assume that Western has all these trees and can't skate. You'll be quickly proven very wrong if you do.

(By the way, a country concert at Amsoil Arena will push UMD's practices to the DECC Wednesday and Thursday of this week. They aren't taking the ice out, only covering it for the show, so hopefully there aren't a lot of adverse impacts in that regard.)

******

During the bye week, College Hockey News broke some pretty significant news, reporting the Big Ten proposed legislation that would prevent 21-year-olds from entering college hockey with a full four years of eligibility.

(The site has a special section with updates on the story here.)

It's a proposal that -- per the story -- came largely from Minnesota coach Don Lucia, and he didn't really deny that at his weekly press conference last week. He said it was discussed as a Big Ten group, and once the Big Ten's coaches were on board, they decided to go forward with it.

I'm going to tread carefully. Frankly, I value my relationship with the University of Minnesota and with Lucia, both of which -- I think, at least -- have been good. Lucia has always made time for me, which can be difficult with televised games against UMD, because there TV wanting both coaches, and both coaches have similar pregame availability. He's never blown me off, and I appreciate that. I also think he's always been honest with me (and, by extension, my audience). I value that in coaches, because you don't always get it.

I respect what Lucia has accomplished in this sport, and I do think his perspective is a valuable one, even if I don't see eye to eye with him. And I don't see eye to eye with him, or any of the 11 coaches who -- according to CHN -- are in favor of this proposal.

Lucia answered every question that was asked last week of him. Here are a couple quotes, and I swear I'll try to move on.

"I don’t buy the fact that schools recruit older players. They recruit players and then delay them."

There are many examples of 20-year-olds being recruited and signing late in the process, often to take the spot of a kid who left early. When a school unexpectedly loses a player to pro hockey, there are two choices: Bring an existing recruit in a year early, or find a late bloomer.

For me, as a parent, I don’t think many kids leave to go play junior hockey thinking, "I’m gonna play [in juniors] three years." And every kid that’s playing college hockey, the beauty of it would be they just go to college a year earlier. I don’t see anything wrong with that. For me, philisophically, I don’t think there should be 22-year old freshmen (by the end of the season). Other people can disagree, and that’s fine. That’s what the intent was, I think it’s a good rule; it’s good for fans, it’s good for kids to be in college in closer proximity to the age of their peers.

Feel how you want to feel, but can you at least give me a reason why there shouldn't be 22-year-old freshmen? Why is this such a big problem that we need to change a rule to stop it?

With all due respect to Lucia (and that's a lot), I think he and the other coaches are off-base here. And it's not a good optic for any of them.

Most kids don't play three years of juniors post-high school. This rule isn't going to change much. There will still be the chance of facing 25-year-old kids who either redshirted or turned 21 after starting their freshman season, which followed two years of junior hockey.

It makes the Big Ten look bad, something the new conference in college hockey doesn't need right now. The league already has the perception of the group responsible for all these changes in college hockey, and the league isn't good right now (1-14-1 against the NCHC, for example). Now it looks like B1G coaches are trying to use the conference's position of power to push a rule change that is all about their inability to win. Even if that's an unfair sentiment, it's the prevailing public opinion in the wake of this story coming out.

Basically, I see a rule proposal that's searching for a problem to solve.

Monday Musings: Bulldogs Struggle, Finish Fifth, Hit the Road Again

Saturday was tough to watch.

I know how much our seniors wanted one more go-round at home. It wasn't meant to be, and some of our guys let their frustration show in a 3-0 loss to Western Michigan.

The Bulldogs got off to a good start, but the sledding was tough. Western came ready to play on Senior Night, and the Broncos were hitting everything in white that moved. UMD couldn't generate speed through the neutral zone, as Western was all over Bulldog players, especially in the middle of the ice.

Give the Broncos credit. You can blame lenient refereeing if you want, but UMD was able to fight through things on Friday. The biggest difference was Western played much more aggressive on Saturday than Friday. The Broncos also played a smarter game, avoiding selfish penalties and also doing a better job clogging up areas UMD wanted to play in.

When a team is trying to clog things up, it takes precision execution to win, and UMD didn't have that on Saturday. The Bulldogs whiffed on a couple early chances, then a bad line change led to the first -- and eventual game-winning -- goal.

I didn't think UMD was as mentally engaged as it has to be to win games, but saying that was the only reason the Bulldogs lost is 1) untrue, and 2) a discredit to Western Michigan's effort and execution.

That said, UMD will have to be better against bigger, grinding-type teams. Won't face one this weekend, as the playoff series at Denver will be racehorse hockey, but the NCAA Tournament can bring all types of opponents.

******

Denver is up next in the NCHC playoffs. The games between these two teams in the regular season were really, really good. I expect more of the same this weekend.

No question in my mind that there are two legitimate NCAA contenders at it this weekend, and while Denver is eighth in the PairWise, I don't think DU's in danger of falling out of the rankings. These teams can tear each other to pieces to see who moves on to Target Center and the NCHC Frozen Faceoff.

But is there advantage in defeat? Will the losing team take nearly two weeks of rest and use it to strengthen from within for an NCAA run. We know UMD is in, and we're pretty sure Denver is, too, after all.

I'll never advocate losing at the time of the loss, but it's undeniable that UMD's 2010-11 team was galvanized by losing to Bemidji State at the Final Five. It wasn't so much the days off that came after that loss. It was the loss itself. UMD knew it didn't play well and knew what it had to do starting the next week. The timing of that loss and the nature of it -- losing in overtime on a power play goal that came from a terrible call against UMD -- helped set up UMD's mindset that year.

Hopefully it doesn't take a loss this weekend to do that.

******

UMD, of course, is far from healthy.

Sophomore forward Alex Iafallo has missed two weeks with what we now know to be mono. Sophomore defenseman Dan Molenaar dealt with mono in January and missed significant time. With what little I know about the illness (I've never had it, so I looked it up on the internet), I'd think Iafallo won't be back until next week at the earliest, possibly not until NCAA regionals. That said, I also know everyone is different.

(Side note: This is at least four NCHC players I know of who've gotten mono this season. Molenaar had it. So did North Dakota's Trevor Olson, and it's been reported that Omaha's Dominic Zombo has it, too.)

Making matters worse, senior captain Adam Krause suffered an injury on the hit that got him run from Saturday's loss. He knocked knees with hulking Western Michigan forward Willem Nong-Lambert. Neither appeared to be seriously injured on the ice, so hopefully there is nothing wrong with Krause that will keep him from playing this weekend.

If Krause can't play and Blake Young can't return, UMD will have to deploy both its extra defensemen -- Dan Molenaar and Nick McCormack last weekend, with Molenaar playing both games and McCormack scratched -- as forwards on the fourth line.

Game 36: UMD at Western Michigan

KALAMAZOO, Mich. -- And we arrive at the end of one journey.

Of course, it's just the first journey. There are more to come.

On this night, the Bulldogs close out the regular season against Western Michigan. On Friday, the teams combined for seven second-period goals -- five of them coming in a crazy two-minute stretch -- before UMD added two Dominic Toninato tallies in the third for a 6-3 win.

There are too many scenarios to count when it comes to UMD's home-ice chances. Reality is that if the Bulldogs win, they'll get home ice next week if any of the three teams ahead of them lose, and it might not need to be a regulation loss.

Never before have I seen a league with only one home-ice slot decided going into the last game of the season.

Enjoy it. This is all part of the journey.

Lines?

Lines.

UMD
Sampair - Toninato - Krause
Farley - Cameranesi - Kuhlman
Osterberg - Thomas - Crandall
Decowski - Young (Austyn) - Molenaar

Johnson - Welinski
Soucy - Raskob
Corrin - Kotyk

Kaskisuo - McNeely

WMU
Tiffels - Nong-Lambert - Laporte
McKee - Mellor - Hadley
Hargrove - Dries - Novak
Kovacs - Kessel - Muir

Stewart - Morrison
Goff - Moldenhauer
Dienes - Fleming

Slubowski - Bridges - Hafner

(This is how the goalies are listed. I have not gotten a confirmed starter from WMU. Watch Twitter for updates.)

Saturday Hockey Notes and Thoughts: UMD Survives Crazy Flurry, Stays Alive for Home Ice

(UPDATED with full list of UMD scenarios and tiebreakers provided by the NCHC.)

KALAMAZOO, Mich. -- After scoring just twice in a weekend series at home against Omaha last weekend, there's no question the time was right for an offensive breakout.

Check.

With just one goal since Dec. 13, Dominic Toninato didn't necessarily "need" to get back on the scoreboard, but a goal or two from him before the regular season ended would be a good thing.

Check.

The 20-win marker means virtually nothing when you've clinched an NCAA Tournament berth, as UMD has done this season. But Friday was UMD's fourth chance to clinch a fifth 20-win season in seven years, a mark never before reached by this program.

Check.

The Bulldogs never trailed in a 6-3 win over Western Michigan Friday night that featured a little bit of everything.

While the first period featured good action on both ends of the ice, there weren't a ton of huge scoring chances. Kasimir Kaskisuo and Frank Slubowski kept the game scoreless when called upon, and things seemed quite innocent, honestly.

Even in the second period, there was nothing to indicate that an opening of the floodgates was about to come. Willie Corrin and Sheldon Dries (power play) traded goals, and we went into the last four minutes of the second period with a 1-1 tie. Corrin's goal gave UMD a lead against Western Michigan for the first time in 149:36 of play this season, and 163:14 dating back to last year's playoff series.

And then things, well, escalated. Quickly.

At 16:18 of the second, Willie Raskob made a great move and pass to set up Justin Crandall for a power-play goal, his 12th of the season. It stayed 2-1 UMD for all of 41 seconds before Western tied it on a rebound goal by Sam Mellor. Then Karson Kuhlman gave UMD the lead back 47 seconds after that, putting home a rebound off an Austin Farley shot.

We weren't done. 13 seconds later, Frederik Tiffels banked a puck in off Andy Welinski's skate to tie the game 3-3. Then Welinski got redemption 19 seconds later with a missile of a shot from the right point off a Jared Thomas drop pass.

Five goals in two minutes.

Not kidding, I felt like I was having an out of body experience. Craziness.

I have to think Andy Murray and Scott Sandelin can share a laugh about this at some point, but I find it hard to believe either coach was thrilled with what was happening. Neither team was playing well defensively, and the game got a little loose for either's taste, I'd assume.

Things settled down in the third, but not for Toninato.

He netted his first goal since Jan. 31 and second since Dec. 13 with 7:48 to open the gap back up to 5-3 for the Bulldogs. Toninato then hit an empty net from practically 200 feet away (corner boards at the other end of the rink) at the buzzer.

Kaskisuo made 25 saves for the win, his 17th. He was especially good in the third period, but it was hard to blame him for some of the lunacy in the second. He didn't get a great amount of help from the defensive play. Luckily, the run support rendered those mistakes irrelevant.

I thought UMD made a few mistakes in the third, letting Western Michigan generate scoring chances it shouldn't be able to get when facing a team protecting a two-goal lead. Tiffels had a great chance that Kaskisuo stoned him on, and another WMU player whose identity I can't remember tried to go short side on a rush and missed the net.

******

So what does UMD have to do to get home ice?

For starters, UMD is in fifth in the NCHC. It can fall no farther, so if the Bulldogs are on the road next weekend, it will be against the fourth seed.

UMD can finish as high as second in the final standings.

Here's how it breaks down, courtesy of Tim Danehy, via Michael Weisman of the NCHC.

UMD will be ...

Seeded #2 with a win, a Denver loss or shootout loss, a Miami loss or shootout loss, and a Omaha loss, shootout loss, or shootout win.

Seeded #3 with a win, a Denver win or shootout win, a Miami loss or shootout loss, and a Omaha loss, shootout loss, or shootout win.

Seeded #3 with a win, a Denver loss or shootout loss, a Miami win or shootout win, and a Omaha loss, shootout loss, or shootout win.

Seeded #3 with a win, a Denver loss or shootout loss, a Miami loss or shootout loss, and a Omaha win.

Seeded #4 with a win, a Denver win or shootout win, a Miami win or shootout win, and a Omaha loss, shootout loss, or shootout win.

Seeded #4 with a win, a Denver win or shootout win, a Miami loss or shootout loss, and a Omaha win.

Seeded #4 with a win, a Denver loss or shootout loss, a Miami win or shootout win, and a Omaha win.

Seeded #4 with a shootout win and a Omaha loss or shootout loss.

Seeded #4 with a shootout loss and a Omaha loss.

Here are the tie-breaker scenarios. Teams are listed in the order they would finish. If there are multiple point totals teams can tie with, and the tie-breaker is different, they are listed specifically by point total.

Two-team ties
DEN-MIA (goals DEN 13-12)
DEN-UNO (wins)
DEN-UMD at 41 pts (wins)
UMD-DEN at 42 pts (goals UMD 13-9)
MIA-UNO (wins)
MIA-UMD at 41 pts (wins)
UMD-MIA at 42 pts (goals UMD 12-11)
UMD-UNO (wins) 

Three-team ties
DEN-MIA-UNO (wins, then goals for DEN-MIA)
DEN-MIA-UMD at 41 pts (wins, then goals for DEN-MIA)
UMD-DEN-MIA at 42 pts (goals UMD 25-20, MIA 23-25, DEN 22-25)
DEN-UMD-UNO at 41 pts (wins)
UMD-DEN-UNO at 42 pts (wins, then goals for UMD-DEN)
MIA-UMD-UNO at 41 pts (wins)
UMD-MIA-UNO at 42 pts (wins, then goals for UMD-MIA)

Four-team tie
DEN-MIA-UMD-UNO at 41 pts (wins, then goals for DEN-MIA)
UMD-DEN-MIA-UNO at 42 pts (wins, then goals for UMD-DEN-MIA)

Just win, baby. That's all you can control.

(And there's something else on the line there. UMD has gone into Saturday games with a chance to win or sweep a series five times in the second half of the season. In those games -- against North Dakota, Western Michigan (home), St. Cloud State, Miami, and Omaha -- UMD is 0-4-1. It'd sure be nice to get over that hump before the playoffs start. After all, there are some pretty significant games to be played on Saturdays in the coming weekends, right?)

Hope you're as confused as I am. There will be a quiz later. Don't fret, because I'll fail it, too.

******

Good and bad for UMD's home ice chances with the other results Friday.

In Oxford, North Dakota clinched the Penrose Cup with a 2-1 win over Miami. Zane McIntyre stopped 43 of 44 shots, while UND got goals from Keaton Thompson and Connor Gaarder. The RedHawks peppered McIntyre in the final 40 minutes, but couldn't get the equalizer. And as a result, Miami is still not guaranteed to be at home next weekend. Or it could finish second. Sound familiar?

Adam Plant picked a good time to score his first of the year. Plant was credited with the game-winner in the third period as Denver beat St. Cloud State 3-2. Tanner Jaillet made 39 saves as SCSU outshot DU 42-27.

Omaha had to settle for a 2-2 draw with Colorado College, as the Tigers got second-period goals from Peter Maric and Matt Hansen and 32 saves from red-hot goalie Tyler Marble. The Tigers won the shootout 1-0 on a goal by Cody Bradley, so Omaha falls to fourth and leads UMD by just one point.

Game 35: UMD at Western Michigan

KALAMAZOO, Mich. -- I'll just cut to the chase.

Don't forget we're on 92.1 The Fan starting with this series. Network stations are unchanged. Red Rock Radio app for mobile streaming, go here for non-mobile.

Lines?

Lines.

UMD
Sampair - Toninato - Krause
Farley - Cameranesi - Kuhlman
Osterberg - Thomas - Crandall
Decowski - Young (Austyn) - Molenaar

NOTE: Nick McCormack will take the warmup and may play at forward.

Johnson - Welinski
Soucy - Raskob
Corrin - Kotyk

Kaskisuo - McNeely

WMU
Tiffels - Nong-Lambert - Laporte
McKee - Mellor - Rebry
Hargrove - Dries - Novak
Kovacs - Kessel - Muir

Stewart - Morrison
Goff - Moldenhauer
Dienes - Fleming

Slubowski - Bridges - Hafner

NCHC Season Wraps Up With UMD Facing 'Skating Refrigerators'

KALAMAZOO, Mich. -- When I tweeted the quote Wednesday, a UMD fan responded by asking if it was bulletin board material.

I've listened back a few times now, and I don't believe it was.

In fact, UMD assistant coach Jason Herter -- conducting the weekly men's hockey press conference Wednesday in place of head coach Scott Sandelin, who was making his way down I-35 to watch son Ryan play and score a goal in the state tournament -- was referencing how he doesn't think UMD matches up wonderfully with Western Michigan.

It actually started with a question about the teams' meeting in January, one that saw Western Michigan take five of a possible six points. The question framed that series as "disappointing."

"Disappointing? I don't know. You look at our league, every weekend so far, we've gotten points," Herter said. "Points matter. Yes, disappointing we didn't get three points, but as close as our league is and as hard as it is every weekend, playing against a team I would say we don't match up great against because they're like a bunch of skating refrigerators.

"They're big men who have a decent amount of skill. They work hard and they're well-coached."

Herter wasn't trying to insult the Broncos. Instead, the point was to show why UMD doesn't necessarily match up very well against them. That is especially true when the Bulldogs -- who probably have a speed and skill advantage in these games this weekend -- aren't moving their feet and are maybe trying to be too physical themselves.

Times have changed. When Western rolled into Duluth, Andy Murray's Broncos were, well, rolling. After starting 3-8-1, WMU ripped off a pair of three-game winning streaks in going 7-1-2 over a ten-game run that ended in Duluth. The Broncos split the following weekend at St. Cloud State, and since beating the Huskies 3-2 on Jan. 24, Western has won just one out of eight games (outscored 24-14, but half that margin came in Saturday's 5-0 loss to Colorado College).

Murray, however, says that doesn't tell the whole story.

On the North Dakota series, which ended in a UND sweep, Murray noted "we liked our compete level." He said UND goalie Zane McIntyre was the difference.

Murray thought his team played very well against North Dakota, but McIntyre (Murray called him the MVP of the NCHC) helped the adversary get all six points on the weekend. The Broncos rallied from 2-0 down in the third period of the Saturday game to force overtime, but gave up the winner in the extra session.

Last weekend, however, Murray wasn't as pleased with what he saw. Western outshot Colorado College 52-25 in the Friday game, which ended in a tie and a WMU shootout win. Saturday, the Tigers pummeled a Bronco team Murray described as "arrogant."

"Most disappointing game, probably, that I've had as a college coach," the former NHL bench boss said this week. "We knew we were going to finish seventh (in the NCHC), and did not show enough respect for our opponent. We were undisciplined in our game, and we got what we deserved.

"How can you play arrogant as a seventh-place team? I've always told people that if you don't stay humble, you'll get humbled."

That's the backdrop for this weekend.

Murray is an exceptional coach, one of the more intense individuals you'll ever come across. If you think he hasn't reminded his players of what happened Saturday -- whether it be subtle or blunt -- you're nuts. He's a smart guy. He'll use that as motivation for this weekend, when Western Michigan knows it will play at Lawson Ice Arena for the final time this season.

WMU only has four seniors -- Justin Kovacs, Will Kessel, Matt Stewart, and goalie Frank Slubowski -- but Senior Night can be a catalyst for everyone on the roster. Especially when the group knows it isn't playing at home again, no matter what.

My point? The Broncos will be ready.

UMD should be, too. The Bulldogs didn't play poorly last time out against this team, but UMD is 0-3-1 over four meetings against Western going back to last year's NCHC playoffs, when WMU ended UMD's season at Amsoil Arena.

(Murray said he felt his team's goaltending was the difference that weekend.)

As Herter said this week, UMD needs to do a better job using its speed as an asset. In January, there were times where the Bulldogs looked liked they were playing more at Western's pace, which is slower. Most opponents will try to -- at least to an extent -- slow UMD down. There aren't a lot of Miamis out there who can skate with the Bulldogs.

If the Bulldogs can quicken the pace and make Western chase more, they'll find more success this weekend.

It's a vital one for UMD's home-ice chances, which took a significant hit with the two ties/shootout losses against Omaha. UMD now trails Denver by two points for fourth and UNO by three for third. With UNO hosting last-place Colorado College this weekend, odds are high the Mavericks will go "over .500" and pull far enough ahead of UMD to hold on to third place. Denver is the kicker. UMD owns the tiebreaker, and DU is at St. Cloud State, which still has an outside shot at improving its position.

UMD will be trying to move up the standings without speedy sophomore Alex Iafallo, who will miss a second straight weekend because of illness. Herter was quick to point out Wednesday that both he and Sandelin were sick for extended periods of time. He forgot that his favorite radio nerd was also sick -- started with respiratory flu symptoms and then a persistent cough and off-and-on stuffiness and sore throat -- for close to two months. There's some serious crud going around, and it sounds like Iafallo is the latest victim.

It stinks, because this is the time of year you want your optimal lineup out there consistently. It's not the time for experimentation or rotating players. North Dakota, for example, has pulled away from the pack by going 11-1-1 since losing to UMD Jan. 9. The lineup hasn't changed much over those games, though it will now with senior forward Mark MacMillan (finalist for both the Lowe's Senior CLASS Award and Hockey Humanitarian Award) out indefinitely.

UMD hasn't been able to field its best lineup since a Feb. 6 win over Northern Michigan. The Bulldogs are 3-2-2 while dealing with the five-game absence of Dominic Toninato and now the two games Iafallo has missed (you can add these two to that record once we know the results of the games).

So it's "GOHUSKIESWOOOO" this weekend for UMD fans (that's a real Twitter handle, y'all), while hoping for the best in Kalamazoo.

That's all for now. I'll return at some point and post all the standings scenarios and the tiebreakers the NCHC will use. For now, know that UMD can finish anywhere from second to sixth, so there are a lot of possibilities in play. Obviously, some are more realistic than others.

Monday Musings: Bulldogs Struggle With Broncos, Settle For Single Point

Not the best weekend for our favorite college hockey team. I knew it would be a struggle with a big, tough, and deceptively-skilled Western Michigan group. But a number of factors made it a bigger struggle than even I thought it would be.

• Western Michigan stuck to its game plan and played very well. While UMD was largely burned by "older guys" throughout the weekend (Nolan LaPorte and Colton Hargrove did a ton of damage), Andy Murray was able to get quality shifts from younger guys like freshman Frederik Tiffels and defenseman Matt Stewart. Goalie Lukas Hafner was rock-solid. It was a 20-man effort for the Broncos, and it was an impressive one. Credit where it's due. That's how we roll around here.
• (It's also not a stretch to give that credit. Western is 7-1-2 over its last ten games. Murray has them positioned to make a lot of noise in the second half of the season.)
• UMD missed a number of opportunities, especially with three empty power play chances on Saturday in the second period. Two of those overlapped by a couple seconds, giving UMD 3:58 of contiguous power play time with no goals. The power play is now four for its last 38 going back to before Christmas. 
• The Bulldogs failed to lead for even one second against WMU. Considering how tough the Broncos are in their own zone and how adept they are at taking room away from opponents, it's just too difficult to get into the pace game UMD wants to play without getting a lead. There's nothing to "suck" Western Michigan into that style when what the Broncos are doing is working as well as it was over the weekend.
• UMD goalie Kasimir Kaskisuo is struggling a bit. No time for panic on this, but we'll have more on it in a moment.

Back to the beginning. Start this by giving Western Michigan credit. LaPorte shook off an obvious knee injury to score once Friday and add the shootout winner. Hargrove scored twice Saturday, once off a bad and wholly uncharacteristic Andy Welinski turnover that he turned into a goal with a wicked wrist shot, and the other on an unreal bank shot into the empty net.

When I chatted with Murray during the week, he noted that he had a lot of young players, but it was his upperclassmen carrying a lot of the water over the weekend. That's how it should be for everyone. You'll notice that UMD teams that relied too much on freshmen weren't as successful as those that had a good mix of classes with the older guys doing the bulk of the work.

The Bulldogs need to do a better job around the net. Whether it's screening goalies or driving the net to get after loose pucks, UMD isn't quite as effective as it could be. This team is not built on pure goal-scoring talent. UMD wants to play a pace game, wear down opponents, and score goals by driving the net and making life difficult on defensemen and goalies. Not having the goal-scoring leader, sophomore Dominic Toninato, in the lineup Saturday because of an NCHC suspension exasperated the problem, because it put more of a premium on getting to the net and breaking down Western's strong team defense. When that didn't happen, UMD was in a lot of trouble.

The power play looked better at times this weekend after some tweaks were made during the week. I know the coaching staff is frustrated with the lack of production as of late, but I doubt we'll see a ton more changes there immediately. At least some of the things they tried were working in a small sample. Might be worth it to stick with this plan against Bemidji on Friday and see how it goes.

******

To me, one of the biggest stories this season has been Kaskisuo. Just last week, coach Scott Sandelin talked about how he stepped in and solidified such a position of need for his team.

"We knew Aaron Crandall was leaving, and we identified him, and he's had a pretty good year," Sandelin said. "He's got a long way to go. He's certainly stabilized that position."

Kaskisuo had some huge games early in the season for UMD. He played very well in a win at now-No. 1 Minnesota State in October, and he was superb when tested in back-to-back wins over then-No. 1 Minnesota in November. His numbers were great for a while, but they've tailed off lately.

In Kaskisuo's last five starts, he has stopped 90 of 104 shots for a save percentage of .865. That's dropped his season number to .914 for a peak in the low-.920s earlier in the season.

It's far from panic time. However, UMD needs Kaskisuo to get back to the form he showed in the fall, or at least get close to that. I don't know if a night off is in his future, but I do know that backup Matt McNeely played well enough at Michigan Tech and then at Lakehead to earn a chance if it comes to that.

******

The North Star College Cup is this week at XCel Energy Center in St. Paul. Outside of small crowds for the afternoon games, the event was a success last year, and I'm sure there's optimism for better ticket sales this year, given Minnesota isn't playing in an outdoor game the week before the tournament this time around.

UMD will take on Bemidji State (7-12-3) Friday afternoon, while Minnesota and Minnesota State clash Friday night. You know the drill on Saturday.

The Beavers are off a sweep at the hands of Lake Superior State over the weekend. On Friday, the Lakers scored a power-play goal with one second left to beat BSU 1-0. Saturday, Lake State jumped to a 4-0 lead and won 4-2.

Bemidji is 2-2 against the NCHC this season, thanks to splits against North Dakota and St. Cloud State. No secrets here: Bemidji will work hard, and they have some skill with Cory Ward and the Fitzgerald twins. UMD will need to be ready, because it can ill afford to let this winless run hit four games on Friday.