For both UMD hockey teams, it doesn’t get much more intense in October than when Minnesota appears on the schedule.
Big games lie ahead, which we’ll look at here.
9 THOUGHTS
1. UMD’s top line continues to generate headlines, but the play of sophomore goalie Adam Gajan has been a huge part of the Bulldogs’ 5-1 start. Matt Wellens is writing about Gajan this week at the Duluth News Tribune, and we aren’t thunder-stealers around these parts. Plus, Matt’s a better writer than I am (duh), so it wouldn’t go well if I did decide I wanted to go there.
Anyway, the numbers tell you at least part of this story. Gajan is at a .922 save percentage through UMD’s 5-1 start, after posting a save percentage of .885 last season. After allowing 10.7 goals above expected last season, Gajan has saved 1.8 goals above expected so far this season, per College Hockey News.
Assistant coach and goalie whisperer Brant Nicklin said one of the big differences from last year to this year — beyond UMD’s improved play in front of Gajan — is the goaltender’s habits away from the rink. Nicklin said they urged him to get away from hockey once in a while, and Gajan picked up golf as a result.
(As Matt will write, as a golfer, Gajan appears to be a good goaltender. But I’ll leave those quotes for him.)
Also, don’t be quick to just pass Gajan’s improvement off as a result of better team defense. Per CHN’s tracking, 33.6 of the shots Gajan faced last season were classified as “high danger.” His save percentage on those shots was .786. This year, 33.3 percent of the shots Gajan has faced are “high danger” shots, and his save percentage on them is .865.
2. Nothing Gajan has done in the first three weekends of the season will top the buzz generated by his decision to go for a skate Saturday. For those who missed it, well, we’re here to help.
With UMD on the power play up 2-0 in the third, Bemidji captain Kirklan Irey created a loose puck by being aggressive at the top of UMD’s power play formation against Ty Hanson. The puck ended up about ten feet across UMD’s blue line, and Gajan decided he wasn’t facing a short-handed breakaway on this night.
Chaos ensued, but Jayson Shaugabay got back and blocked a Vincent Labelle shot attempt, the puck was turned back over, and Hanson ended up drawing a tripping penalty on Labelle that gave UMD a five-on-three it would score on to make it 3-0.
My immediate reaction was the Opening Day scene in Major League, the best baseball movie this side of Field of Dreams. It’s also NSFW so be careful when you click.
3. It was fun to get perspective on this play this week from a couple of the guys who were on the ice with Gajan.
“I loved it,” said Shaugabay. “I had a front row seat to it, and then I got to block a shot after two, so that felt pretty good. But no, I mean, I thought it was cool. I mean, he saved the goal, possibly. He does stuff like that all the time. So it’s just expected from (Gajan) at this point, and it was good.”
“I was sitting kind of around the bumper area,” fellow sophomore Max Plante said. “Zam gave a pass to Ty, and Ty bobbled it a little bit. But I don’t know how the puck got so far down (we do, Irey chipped it by Hanson). It just started going. I was sitting there, like, don’t think he’s (Gajan) going to get that. The guy just has take it and shoot in the net. But Gajan’s a pretty good skater.
“I was sitting there just kind of mesmerized watching it because I was helpless. I was way behind the play, just trying to get back as fast as I can. That’s the kind of stuff that I feel like is exciting. And we’re not afraid to make plays this year. Like, even our goalies are making plays out there, other than just stopping the puck. But that was an unbelievable play.”
Did you guys think he wasn’t going to make it to the puck when he first decided to go after it?
“He got there pretty quick,” Shaugabay said. “He got up there. But yeah, no, for sure. At the start, I was like, uh-oh. But then he got it.”
What was UMD coach Scott Sandelin thinking on the bench?
“I was watching the play come up the rink and I just saw him come out of the net,” he said. “At the end of it, I’m glad nobody got hurt. That was number one. He made a decision and you know what? He stuck with it and it worked out. And we got a power play out of it, too. It’s one of those 50-50s. You either commit to it, which he did, and it worked out. Sometimes it’s going to go the other way, but I have no problem with it.”
The tripping call on Labelle gave UMD a 75-second five-on-three, and Zam Plante’s attempt at a cross-crease pass to Shaugabay bounced off a defender’s skate and by Bemidji goalie Max Hildebrand, giving UMD a 3-0 lead on its way to a 5-1 win.
4. Sandelin has talked about how the schedule is ramping up for the UMD men. It takes a big jump this weekend, with all due respect to the first three opponents.
“Not that we haven’t played good teams, but Minnesota’s a different animal.”
The Gophers are 2-3-1, having split with Michigan Tech (home) and North Dakota (road), while losing and tying at home against Boston College.
Bob Motzko had to replace a lot from last year’s team. Of last year’s top ten point producers for the Gophers, only senior Brody Lamb, junior Jimmy Clark, and sophomore Brodie Ziemer, all forwards, are back.
The back end is almost completely remade, but it’s a very talented group nonetheless.
“They’re a Minnesota team,” Sandelin said of the Gophers. “They’ve got talent. They’re good in transition. Yeah, they lost some key pieces. I can tell you, (freshman LJ) Mooney’s a really good hockey player. Ziemer is a really good hockey player. Brody Lamb’s a really good hockey player. They’re deep through the middle.
“They lost a couple guys in the back end, especially (Chicago rookie Sam) Rinzel. But (Luke) Mittlestad’s a good player. They’ve got some size and mobility and they’ve got a nice mix there.”
5. I probably don’t have to remind anyone what happened the last time these teams met. But I am required by law to note that Minnesota outscored UMD 12-4 in sweeping the Bulldogs in Duluth last October.
Yes, everyone in the building seems well aware.
Max Plante, who missed last year’s series with an injury, offered some perspective.
“That for sure matters,” he said. “That weekend series when we played the Gophers last year, the pinnacle moment of our season, we had sold out fans. Our student section was up to the top level. And after that, really, they scored four in the first period. I felt like it was kind of dead around here the rest of the year. We let the fans down early.
“I was sitting there. It added a little bit of fuel to my fire for the rest of the season, just trying to prove people that we can be a good hockey team. Obviously, we have guys here that weren’t here last year. We’re not going to let that happen again.”
“It does for sure,” Shaugabay said when asked if last year still sticks in his mind. “They put up, what, seven on us the first game? I mean, it’s not never fun to lose, especially to those guys. And then when they do it like the way they did last year, it definitely still stings. And we have a little something to prove this weekend.”
For his part, Sandelin had no issue with his players being so blunt with their feelings about last season’s matchup.
“I think it’s great,” he said. “I think, as a whole, last year didn’t sit well with a lot of guys. It’s been a group that’s very motivated, very hungry, very driven. This will be another great test. They’ve got a good team and again we’re going on the road. It’s never an easy place to win. If you look at our next four games, we’re gonna find out a lot about our team.”
(Of course, North Dakota looms next weekend in Grand Forks to start the NCHC season.)
6. Before Saturday’s game against Bemidji State, Sandelin said he was looking for a better defensive game out of his team. He mostly felt like he got that. He also got more offense out of his blue-liners, with Joey Pierce picking up his first goal of the season Friday and Ty Hanson dishing out four assists in the series (yes, that’s a lot of power play damage, but the points still count).
Of 25 goals through six games, only three have come from defensemen (two by Hanson and one by Pierce), and only ten of UMD’s 64 points are by blue-liners (Hanson has seven, with Pierce, Grayden Siepmann, and Adam Kleber each having one).
Sandelin still thinks there’s more his defensemen can do to be factors offensively.
“I think it still needs to grow,” he said. “I think we can do a better job. I think we still need to do a better job of getting them involved a little bit in the offensive zone. I think we need to do a better job of getting pucks through past the first layer. We’ve had a lot of shots blocked or deflected. And sometimes you can’t, but you got to know where to put pucks.
“I think sometimes we get too stationary. They’re always going to be part of the rush offense, or they should be. There should always be a fourth man. But I think offensively, we can do a little bit more. But we’re still trying to work on the starting foundation and not throw too much at them. So hopefully we can get more and more of them.”
The talent is there. Aaron Pionk had 28 points last year, none through six games (it’ll come). Siepmann can skate and moves the puck very well. Some of it will come through special teams (Pionk and Siepmann are on UMD’s second power play right now, but the first unit has done most of the damage).
7. We have one more weekend before the NCHC season begins, and there are some significant games on the docket. Perhaps none loom larger than UMD battling Minnesota. As Brad Schlossman of the Grand Forks Herald noted a few days ago, the Big Ten (.721) and NCHC (.695) are neck and neck for the best non-conference winning percentage. The NCHC only got two teams into the NCAA Tournament last year because it wasn’t as good in non-conference play as it had been in previous years. Seeing that turn around this October has been nice.
Western Michigan opens a home-and-home series against Michigan Thursday in Ann Arbor before meeting Friday night at Lawson in Kalamazoo. That’s the other Big Ten vs NCHC series this weekend. North Dakota travels to upstate New York for two games against Clarkson. Omaha is home for a massive series against UMass (Hockey East has a non-conference win percentage of .544 right now, good for third). St. Cloud State is home to face Alaska-Anchorage, which hasn’t played since opening weekend against Bemidji State (Beavers won two by a 14-2 aggregate). Denver heads out east to face Boston College Friday, then Northeastern Saturday. Miami puts a 4-0 mark on the line this weekend with two games at Lindenwood.
Colorado College and Arizona State are off this week.
8. It’s also a rivalry weekend for the UMD women, as they are set to face Minnesota starting Friday at Amsoil Arena.
The Gophers haven’t lost to UMD since the 2022 Minneapolis Regional final, which sent UMD to its last Frozen Four. Minnesota is 9-0-1 against the Bulldogs since.
This is a great opportunity for UMD to make an early-season statement. The Bulldogs missed out on a win at Wisconsin after the Badgers rallied late to steal the series opener, but UMD rebounded nicely last weekend with two wins over Minnesota State.
“They’re a fast team,” said UMD coach Laura Schuler. “They’re a great team. We know it’s going to be a battle and it’s going to be back and forth. This whole week we’ve been just focusing on playing fast and the importance of playing fast.”
What does it mean to play the Gophers?
“I get excited,” Schuler said, “because you always know it’s going to be a back and forth battle. There’s a ton of passion. There’s a ton of energy. Every single player on the ice is a true competitor. Everybody wants to win and I think that’s what makes those games so electric and so exciting to see. If people are in town and they want to come out and watch us play, I definitely encourage you to because it’ll be a fun weekend.
“Anytime we get that chance to play them, it ends up being that much that much more special because there’s energy in the air. It’s a lot of fun. It’s great.”
The Gophers will be playing shorthanded on Friday. Defenders Chloe Primerano and Gracie Graham, Minnesota’s second pairing, will sit out as a result of Sunday’s fracas at the end of a 6-3 win over Ohio State. In a game that was getting chippier and chippier, the teams scrapped after the final horn, with Graham given a game disqualification (automatic one-game suspension that can’t be rescinded) and Primerano suspended a game by the WCHA for actions the league felt escalated the situation.
The Bulldogs will be hard-pressed to sustain an attack against a strong Gophers team, but there might be more opportunity to do so on Friday with two key defenders sitting in the stands for the visitors.
9. For two UMD newcomers, this will be a chance to face some old friends/teammates. Defenders Krista Parkkonen (a senior) and Kate Kosobud (sophomore) both transferred to UMD for this season after one year at Minnesota.
” I feel like we’re both fired up and excited about it,” Parkkonen said. “It’s a huge opportunity for us to show like how we can play as a team. So I feel like we’re both just really excited to showcase how we can play.”
“Excited to see our old teammates,” Kosobud said, “but also excited for the opportunity to play against them and also to play Bulldog hockey and to show them kind of what we’re doing over here in the north.”
Parkkonen hails from Lappeenranta, Finland, and is a candidate for the Finnish Olympic Team this winter. She played at Vermont before joining the Gophers.
“Culture is a big thing,” Parkkonen said about her decision to attend UMD, “and also just the compete level that we have. The whole team strives to be at that top level, which is huge. The coaches’ knowledge of hockey is just on another level compared to many others. So I feel like that’s a pretty good package right there. I also like the passion for hockey here.”
Kosobud, who is from Moorhead, said her northern roots played a factor.
“I want to play northern style hockey and that’s exactly how we play here. I knew I would fit in right away.”
The women’s games are 6pm Friday and 3pm Saturday at Amsoil Arena.
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I’ll be in Minneapolis for the men’s games this weekend, 7pm both Friday and Saturday. Kraig Karakas is planning to join us on the air Saturday night.
Back pregame with the lines and any other pertinent notes.
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