It was something we talked about when we learned Max Plante would miss some time with an upper-body injury.
It sucks to lose your best player, no matter when he is lost. But losing him after the second of (at least) 36 games made everyone’s job more difficult.
If you lose a player of that ilk after a month or two of games, you’ve already gotten a pretty good idea where all the pieces fit, and you can adjust accordingly. But losing him when you still don’t exactly know what you have and how everyone fits added a new layer to the challenge for UMD.
Last weekend made it clear that UMD still hasn’t answered all the questions yet. The test continues this week.
10 THOUGHTS
1. Let’s be fair here. UMD is 6-2-2 with one regulation loss. The sky is not falling because the Bulldogs couldn’t finish off a sweep against Colorado College on Saturday. Nor is it falling because the power play is 4-for-27 outside of the three-goal explosion against Minnesota on Oct. 16.
UMD is still trying to figure out how all the pieces fit together. Max Plante’s absence has affected everyone, from Zam Plante to Victor Plante to Jayson Shaugabay to Barrett Hall to Hunter Anderson and all the way down the line.
It’s affected UMD’s five-on-five play, but also the special teams. Max not being on the top power play unit takes a shooting threat away, and that makes the power play easier to defend. And as good a job as Shaugabay has done filling in on the penalty kill, Max is missed there as well.
“He’s a big heart and soul guy along with his talent,” junior defenseman Adam Kleber said. “We feel like we can be even more of a scary team to play against (once he returns). But I feel like for right now, I don’t feel like we just have more to prove. And I don’t want to say it’s been good, because we know we got more to do.”
Based on the third period Saturday and practice this week, it appears some changes are coming to the forward lines. Max Plante and Trevor Stachowiak have been skating, so their returns aren’t that far away. But neither will play this weekend, and we don’t know when they will again be available.
2. UMD coach Scott Sandelin praised the work his team has done at the defensive end. We talked last week about how Colorado College wants to play in the offensive zone, and while UMD got hemmed in a few times, the Bulldogs gave the Tigers very few high-quality chances from their in-zone offense.
“They like to play in high ice and their D are very active,” Sandelin said of the Tigers. “We made our guys aware of that, and for the most part, even when we got pinned in a couple of times, they didn’t really get a lot. They had possession, which is, once you get the puck after they possessed it, you’re probably tired. But I thought our guys did a good job getting through those.”
Also, when you’re missing your best offensive player, playing well at the other end of the rink is going to take you a long way towards thriving through such a significant absence.
3. UMD got burned off the rush a couple times on Saturday, including a goal just seven seconds after Callum Arnott converted a loose puck off a good forecheck by Kade Kohanski. Sandelin acknowledged at his media conference that the goal — scored by Owen Beckner on a centering pass that hit a UMD player in front — “hurt the worst.”
But, as Sandelin noted, the Bulldogs still only gave up one five-on-five goal from in-zone play (the fourth goal by CC’s Carmelo Crandell). To do that over 120 minutes is pretty good.
There were some details that UMD got burned by on Saturday. A goal that quick after a faceoff will drive any coach batty. The Bulldogs lost some puck races and battles that were costly, none more than the empty net goal that sealed the game for Colorado College. But this team has played well defensively.
“Can we get can we get better as a team against moving forward?,” Sandelin said. “You’re always trying to get better. Guys are getting a little more accustomed to what they need to do. When there’s breakdowns, the game happens quick. You can draw up, this is what you want to do, but sometimes the game happens quick. And if you turn the puck over in a bad area or they make a great play, things happen quick in the game. And sometimes your structure gets challenged. I think for the most part, our guys are getting more more comfortable with what we’re doing and there’s always room for improvement.”
Kleber said communication is a huge key to good rush coverage, and he hopes that continues as the season goes on.
“I think the biggest thing is if it’s a three on two and you’re the D,” Kleber said, “you got to know that you got to be a little bit passive and kind of just take the middle. You don’t want to be too over-aggressive. If you know that you have a forward coming back, you want to be able to communicate where he’s got to go and then try to be more aggressive and close the play at the blue line.”
4. Ty Hanson is the NCHC Defenseman of the Month for October. With his co-captain out of the lineup, Hanson has taken the proverbial bull by the horns. He has eight goals and 14 points through the first ten games.
Sandelin has joked about how much he’d enjoy playing on a line with someone like Shauagabay, but he was a defenseman through his playing career. Wouldn’t he love to have a partner like Ty Hanson?
“He’d like to play with me,” Sandelin joked. “Come on, Bruce. No, I’m just kidding. Yeah, I mean, I’d probably been good for him too, because I’d let him go. Probably a little more than he does.”
The hyper-competitive Hanson keeps learning and improving, and that’s a big part of his success so far this season.
“He’s looked different in a really good way,” Sandelin said of Hanson. “Even coming off the year he had last year, I think he’s going to keep getting better. He’s a catalyst. He plays his way and we’ve talked to him about this, sometimes he wants to make such a difference in a game. He tries to do too much, but I think he’s picking his spots better here and we’re seeing the results of it.”
5. Kleber knows he’s got it good with a guy like Hanson as his partner.
“I think the biggest thing that stands out is just his reliability and ability to compete,” Kleber said. “When we played CC on Saturday, I had a turnover and he was back and back checking and able to swat the puck away from the second chance. So that’s just kind of an example of just him being reliable. And I think the biggest thing like when you look for a D partner, you want reliability and knowing that they got your back. And that’s what Ty does.”
On their third year of playing together, Kleber said they’ve reached a point where much of their communication is non-verbal.
“It makes it easy,” Kleber said. “I feel like you don’t have to talk as much because you know your partner’s tendencies.”
Sandelin appreciates his top pair in a lot of ways, but he was quick to highlight their durability this week.
“The thing I like about both of them is they can play big minutes,” he said. “Klebes doesn’t get tired. Ty doesn’t get tired. Those guys are playing upwards of 25 plus minutes, probably a little more. When you got two horses like that that can just eat up minutes and play at the level they play at, it’s really nice to have.”
6. UMD faces Miami at home this weekend, and it’s a RedHawks team that continues to improve. Third-year coach Anthony Noreen authored a 15-win improvement last year, and while no one is expecting the RedHawks to win 33 games this year, it also doesn’t appear they are taking a step back.
“We didn’t come here and our recruits that we brought in this year and the previous years didn’t come here just to be a good competitive program,” Noreen said in September. “We’ve we’ve got bigger goals than that. We have bigger aspirations than that. We like to believe that having a group of returners and what they were able to do last spring in the summer, coupled with bringing in another recruiting class, that we could keep taking steps because we know we’ve got to get better. Our conference certainly got better. When you look across the board, every team improved, whether it was through the portal, recruiting, or returning players that are going to take a step. We’ve got to continue to do that.”
Miami is 6-2, having scored 25 goals over seven games since being blanked by Northern Michigan in its season opener. The RedHawks split against St. Thomas at home last weekend.
“They’re going to not give you much,” Sandelin said of Miami. “I think right now they’re one of the top teams defensively, too. So they’re going to make us work for that, but it’ll be a great series. It was a great series last year. It’s a much different team than what we saw three, four years ago. They believe they can win any game and they’re showing that the way they’ve started this year.
“They kind of just rebuilt it, I mean they 20 some (new) guys last year. But that’s what Anthony had to do, right? They’re trying to change the culture. They wanted to get their players. He’s a really good coach. He had a lot of success in the USHL, too, so he knows what he’s doing and his guys have gotten the players that fit what they need to do and how they need to play.”
Miami sophomore Kocha Delic has four goals in eight games, while classmate David Deputy has eight points in just six games.
7. Before we get into the NCHC slate, I want to pause and send best wishes to Minnesota State defenseman Sam Court. The Arizona State transfer is still — as of Thursday, at least — hospitalized after a brutal hit Saturday by Lake Superior State forward Raoul Boilard.
I’ve decided not to embed the clip of the hit here. It isn’t gross or anything like that, but I don’t want to amplify what this young man did to Court.
Court went down in a heap and was immediately taken to the hospital.
The CCHA suspended Boilard for four games, a suspension that does not take this weekend’s exhibition games against Maryville into account. Boilard will be eligible to play again on Dec. 4.
Court released a statement through Minnesota State on Thursday.
A note to the #MavFam from defenseman, Sam Court. https://t.co/ZPoklrfTo2
— Minnesota State Hockey (@MinnStMHockey) November 5, 2026
If you’ve seen the hit, you know this is too short of a suspension. I’m not a “suspend him until the player he hit can return from injury” guy, for frankly a multitude of reasons. I’m a “punish the act, not the result” guy. But sometimes the result is impossible to ignore. And it’s wrong that Boilard can play this weekend unless his school decides he will not. Hopefully the adults at Lake Superior State intervene and do the right thing, but they shouldn’t be in that position. Boilard should not play again until at least after Christmas.
Meanwhile, we send all the vibes we can to Sam Court. Hopefully his recovery is as swift and thorough as humanly possible.
8. Elsewhere in the NCHC this weekend, Denver heads to Arizona State. These will be the first home games for new ASU coach Dave Hakstol, who took over before a road series at Lowell, then had a bye week before the league opener last weekend in St. Cloud. The Pioneers started their NCHC season 2-0 with home wins over Omaha last weekend.
Those Mavericks are home to face St. Cloud State this weekend. Omaha is 2-4, but appears to have found a goalie in talented freshman William Lacelle, who has a .927 save percentage despite Omaha being 1-4 in games he’s started. Wins, kids, are not a goalie stat.
Also this weekend, Colorado College stays home to face Lindenwood in a two-game series, while St. Thomas faces Alaska-Anchorage at Anderson Arena this weekend.
9. The spotlight series this weekend will happen in Grand Forks, where North Dakota tries to snap a three-game slide but faces Western Michigan. The Broncos are off to a superb start again this season, led by NCHC Forward of the Month William Whitelaw and NCHC Rookie of the Month Adam Benak, a Minnesota Wild draft pick.
As the great Brad Schlossman wrote this week, North Dakota has spent less time in its own zone than any team in the country. Despite that, UND has conceded five goals in three straight games, all losses (two to Minnesota, then one to Michigan State). That means the Fighting Hawks are giving up too much off the rush. Some of that is surely to be expected, given the (exceptionally talented) youth on UND’s blue line. But now North Dakota tries to track toward a correction while facing one of the best transition teams out there. The Broncos are averaging close to six goals per game, by the way.
This should be a tremendous early-season series.
10. Not college hockey related, but you’ve undoubtedly been exposed to the recent developments regarding Russia and international hockey.
Cliff notes version: Last Friday, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), a body that has existed since 1984 to resolve disputes in (mainly) international sports, ruled that Russia’s exclusion from IIHF events must end, starting with the 2027 calendar of events. That starts on Dec. 26 with the World Juniors in Edmonton and Red Deer, Alberta.
As you can imagine, this decision — on its surface an illogical one, as Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine triggered the ban and they have not retreated nor relented — has caused a firestorm.
Sweden, Norway, and Denmark were among nations that announced they will not play Russia in any scheduled hockey games. Canada’s Prime Minister, Mark Carney, announced that nation would not give visas to Russian athletes for the World Juniors. Oh, and sponsors are either backing out or seriously considering it.
This a mess. And the IIHF has to wear it. The organization dropped the ball when it argued that Russia’s ban was over safety concerns, for some reason unwilling to tell the truth. That Russia was banned because the nation engaged in a full-scale invasion of Ukraine that has caused immeasurable death and destruction. Further, Russia’s leader — Vladimir Putin — takes great pride in the sporting successes of his nation, especially in his beloved hockey.
The story is not complete. CAS has ordered Russia’s inclusion in the World Juniors. Canada, which is hosting, says that will not happen. CAS has also ordered Russia’s inclusion in the 2027 World Championships. Germany, the host country, is now considering backing out of that responsibility, which would lead the IIHF in an immeasurable bind.
(Also, Ukraine won promotion into next spring’s World Championships. Imagine the IIHF deciding Russia must be able to play in the event, and it’s Ukraine that ends up getting bumped to make room in the field.)
And this story takes on even more relevance when you consider the Men’s Under 18 World Championships begin April 21 in Duluth. The U.S. government has bigger fish to fry at this point, but at some point it will have a say here.
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The Bulldogs appear to be wearing their throwbacks this weekend. The white buckets have been out for practice, a sure sign we’ll see the maroon threads for the games against Miami.
These are third jerseys for the program, not jerseys being worn for an auction (people have asked). The UMD store will soon be selling them, so watch for information on that.
Saturday, by the way, is UMD’s annual Military Appreciation Night. The Minnesota Warriors will be on hand Saturday for the national anthem, holding the big flag out on the ice. With Veteran’s Day coming next Wednesday, it’s a great chance to say “Thank you” to so many men and women who have given so much of themselves so we can enjoy the freedoms we have today.
We’ll hit the air at 6:30pm Friday, then 5:30pm Saturday.
Back pregame with lines. Cheers!
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