The game should be good, but that would be the case no matter the venue.
Denver has earned the right to host Saturday’s NCHC title game, and we’re expecting Magness Arena to be 1) full, and 2) jumping.
But the lead-up to Saturday includes chatter about the future of the conference tournament, for good reason.
9 THOUGHTS
1. Moving to campus sites might still be awesome, but there are pitfalls to deal with. When UMD ends up playing North Dakota, for example, it’s easy. Just get a bus, pack up, and head west.
When UMD director of hockey operations and all-around good guy Christian Koelling finds out late Saturday evening that he has to get a 26-player roster, coaches, and support staff to Denver in five days, that’s when he really has to get to work.
It took some time, and it took dividing up the travel party into three groups, but Koelling got everyone to Colorado who needed to go.
I don’t know the final bill, but I can assure you this venture was not cheap.
It was a struggle for UMD to get everyone to Denver two years ago for the first round of the NCHC playoffs. And when UMD lost the series in two games, it left everyone stuck in Colorado until that Monday afternoon, because while your humble correspondent was able to flip from a Monday flight to Sunday pretty easily and get home, it’s harder to do that with a travel party in the area of 35 people.
My point, and I do have one, is this: Can the NCHC sustain this format with its massive footprint?
The CCHA has gone on campus for its playoffs, but the longest trips in that league are in the neighborhood of 12 to 13 hours by bus, easily accomplished over a couple days. Ideal? No, but doable.
Should UMD try to bus to Denver, it would take more than 15 hours and span around 1,000 miles. Two full travel days, not something a team is going to want to do in the thick of its postseason.
The league has said all the right things, about how it will look at everything and learn what it can as we work out the kinks in real time. Anyone who knows me knows that I have a great reverence for and trust in the leadership of this conference, so I am going to maintain a positive outlook and hope that we can iron out the issues that have presented themselves this postseason.
2. Denver coach David Carle has become practically the spokesperson for campus site postseason hockey. With that in mind, it really shouldn’t surprise anyone that he’s completely on board with what the NCHC is doing, and he’s thrilled to have a chance to play the league playoff championship game on home ice in Denver.
Carle saluted the Pioneers faithful who filled Magness Arena for last weekend’s semifinal win over Western Michigan.
“It was a great crowd,” he said. “Really thankful for our fans and their support on short notice to turn out and show up. Talking to many of our guys, it was probably the best atmosphere they’ve ever played in at Magness.”
And, yes, Carle likes the potential of this event helping sway the skeptical about moving NCAA regionals away from pre-determined neutral sites.
“Hopefully it gets more people to think about it,” he said. “We’ve talked about it so much, which is a good thing. We need to continue to bring it to the forefront of people’s minds over the next couple of years.”
3. Carle wasn’t done. He laid out what his plan has been for a long time.
“Our hope is that we can move to a model where the top eight host the bottom eight, the remaining higher seed hosts the remaining bottom four, and then we can get into the Frozen Four. We weren’t the only great atmosphere around the country. Michigan was excellent. North Dakota was really good. Lynah (Rink), you saw what Cornell turned into for the game three of their quarterfinal (series).
“There’s just so many great buildings around the country, yet we ask our fans, hockey, as the most loyal, diehard local, regional fans you could ask for, we ask them to get on buses and planes and cars and try and watch us in remote, obscure locations. And it’s kind of asinine to me. So hopefully this is proof of concept to continue the conversation.”
(He’s not wrong. I watched Cornell-Harvard on Sunday, and Lynah was packed. Tremendous atmosphere for a playoff Game 3.)
Carle also unloaded on what has been a huge issue for me in past tournaments. UMass and Boston College aren’t hosting in Worcester, Holy Cross (not getting in) is the host. Augustana isn’t hosting in Sioux Falls. Omaha (out) is the host.
Yet what will happen if UMass or Boston College get in on Sunday? One will almost certainly play in Worcester, whether a correctly-drawn bracket calls for it or not. Same for Augie if the Vikings get in. The committee will do what it can to get them to Sioux Falls.
“We talk about bracket integrity,” Carle said, “but they ultimately make decisions based upon attendance. And so you can’t have it both ways saying that you want it for attendance, but you don’t want full buildings. Why don’t we just all go play all the games in Florida and Texas in front of nobody then? Little snark, yeah, I get it.
“Do we want great atmospheres? Do we want great opportunities and great environments for our players to play in and for our fans to be a part of, or do we not? It’s kind of pick a side and let’s at least try it. If it sucks and everybody doesn’t like it, we can always go back to this boring format that we do in the NCAA tournament.”
That’s kind of where I’m at. I don’t think this format works. You shouldn’t have to give regional four-seeds a sort of home-ice advantage in order to create a championship atmosphere. If you are resorting to that, you have a broken system. How many times has Providence played as a low seed in a regional at Providence, that Providence doesn’t ever host (Brown does)? Why should they get an advantage that’s supposed to go to the other team in town?
Change it. If we try it and it’s full of problems, you can always change it back. But shouldn’t we be trying to make something better, instead of constantly putting more and more lipstick on the pig?
4. Anyway, on to this game. UMD and Denver got here by winning very different semifinal games.
The Bulldogs jumped on North Dakota early and never let the Fighting Hawks truly get back in the game, winning 5-1 in Grand Forks. Denver and Western Michigan were locked in a goal-less duel into the third period before the teams traded goals in the second half of the third. Denver’s extra-attacker goal late forced overtime, where the Pioneers got a goal to win 2-1.
“We’ve talked about how they’re always a fast starting team in their building,” UMD coach Scott Sandelin said of North Dakota. “I thought even when we played there in October, I think we had a good start, kept kind of kept the crowd out of it. This time we got a couple of goals and we just kept building on it. So we never really let the crowd get into it, which is good, even though it wasn’t 12,000 like it was before, but it’s still 10,000 and they feed off that usually. So that was important. We never really let them, you know, get back in the game.
“Guy-o (Adam Gajan) was a big reason for that, especially in the first period, but throughout the whole game. I never felt safe with, with the three goal lead and even the two goal lead, you know, especially two goals in the first period, a lot of game left. They’ve come back on us a number of times. It was just one of those games where we got timely goals to keep extending the lead.”
5. Led by their goalies, these teams appear to be dialed in defensively. Denver freshman Johnny Hicks has allowed all of 13 goals while starting 11 games since classmate Quentin Miller went down with an injury.
“It’s borderline historic what he’s doing and what he’s done,” Carle said. “So I was just really happy for him and thrilled for our team. We’re playing good hockey in front of him. When we have had our lapses or been in some real tight games, John’s been able to stand tall for us and and just be a rock back there. So I can’t say enough good things about him.”
Meanwhile, after a midseason wobble, Gajan has now posted a .942 save percentage over his last five starts, helping UMD to a 3-1-1 record in that stretch. The loss was a 1-0 overtime defeat in Denver before Gajan left to join Team Slovakia at the Olympics.
“He’s been great since he’s been back,” Krause said of the sophomore goalie. “He’s been through a lot this year in traveling and certain things like that. He’s handled himself well. He’s been rock solid back there. And obviously, you need those types of performances at this time of year. So we’re really excited about that. Let’s limit the chances that we give up. Let’s limit his exposure. And when we do have to give something up to a good team, he’s there to help us out. So it’s been a good balance. And at this time of year, you need both.”
6. Sandelin talked about the importance of UMD’s February bye week, which came after North Dakota won 4-1 at Amsoil to split that series, and while Gajan was gone at the Olympics.
“In January, we had that stretch where we went 1-5,” he said. “I still think we played some good hockey. It maybe just wasn’t obviously good enough. I think maybe coming out of that, we lost a little bit of confidence in ourselves. So the bye week came at a good time to kind of reset. And I think since then, I think we kind of picked up where we left off. I think our guys have I think handled game situations a little bit better.”
Games like those first-round meat-grinders against St. Cloud State weren’t necessarily going UMD’s way for a while, or a game like the Friday tilt at Miami where the Bulldogs played well and found themselves down 2-0 in the second period. Finding ways to win those kinds of games has built confidence, and now the Bulldogs will try to take a trophy before going after a bigger one.
7. So what’s on the line for UMD Saturday night?
Here’s what we know.
–> UMD will be a No. 2 regional seed in the NCAA Tournament next weekend.
–> UMD will be placed in one of three regionals: Albany, Sioux Falls, or Worcester.
–> If UMD beats Denver Saturday, the Bulldogs will finish No. 5 overall in the NPI, likely meaning a trip to Worcester for a regional that will feature Western Michigan as the No. 1 seed.
–> If Denver wins, UMD will finish either No. 7 or No. 8 in the final standings. At No. 7, it sets up perfectly for UMD to join No. 2 overall North Dakota in Sioux Falls. If UMD finishes No. 8, that would likely place the Bulldogs in Albany with overall No. 1 seed Michigan.
–> I do think there’s a very good chance that an eighth-overall UMD team still is sent to Sioux Falls. Worcester and Albany could be in line for some attendance-inspired bracket adjustments. Sending a No. 5 UMD to the second overall seed’s regional in Sioux Falls might be a bridge too far, but I can absolutely see the committee keeping UMD in the Central time zone if it loses Saturday.
The only thing we know is UMD can’t go to Loveland. Denver is going to land on the same No. 2 regional seed line as UMD, and the Pioneers are hosting in Loveland. That means Denver has to go there, and UMD literally can’t. So cancel your Fort Collins hotel room if you haven’t already.
8. Max Plante is the NCHC Player of the Year. He was also announced as a Hobey Baker Top Ten finalist this week, along with being named NCHC Forward of the Year.
None of these honors, by themselves, are surprising after the season he’s had. But it’s still cool to see him get recognized.
“He loves to play the game and loves being at the rink and he loves being a hockey player,” Sandelin said of his star. “Certainly I think that can rub off on a lot of people.
“He likes the moments. He wants to make that, he wants to score that big goal. He wants to make that play, but he doesn’t care if somebody else does. I think he’s very team oriented, very unselfish.”
Associate coach Adam Krause is similarly impressed.
“He’s infectious,” he said, “his compete is infectious, his energy is his passion. He doesn’t get distracted with any sort of maybe success that he’s had or any doesn’t get really distracted with any sort of lack of success. I think there was a stretch of games there where maybe he wasn’t getting rewarded with points as he was, but his demeanor doesn’t change something that I’ve been really impressed with.”
You can vote on the Hobey now. The selection committee will whittle the ten finalists down to the Hobey Hat Trick top three on April 2, with the winner announced on April 10.
9. Denver junior Eric Pohlkamp was a finalist for Player of the Year, and he won Offensive Defenseman of the Year honors. However, the Sharks draft property has just one goal in his last 11 games. He’s still impacting games. I thought he was tremendous defensively when UMD played in Denver at the end of January, and it feels like a situation where we get so focused on a player’s offensive output that we forget the other ways he can affect games.
“People love to talk about the shots and,” Carle said, “and rightfully so. He set the record for goals by an NCHC defenseman. Obviously the play he made on (Western forward William) Whitelaw this past Saturday night where the stick breaks and he’s able to fight to the D side and he has a shift in the third where he’s got a couple of huge blocks. Eric cares certainly about scoring, but he’s cared a lot more about his own end as well.”
“He’s got an NHL shot,” Sandelin said of Pohlkamp. “He shoots a puck a lot and is an ultra competitor. I think you see that every shift, not just offensively. He’s a driver. They create a lot of offense from their back end. He’s certainly a key component of that. One of the key components. But his competitiveness, I think, has always been there.
“He’s improved defensively, which really hasn’t taken away much from his offense, either. And that’s nice thing about college. You can keep working on things to become a better player, and he certainly has. And he’s one of the elite defensemen in the country. But I would probably say people don’t talk much about it. I could say the same thing about Ty (Hanson). Ty’s numbers offensively have been great this year, but he’s another one that probably doesn’t get talked about defensively as much because he’s putting up numbers where Klebs (Adam Kleber, named the NCHC Defensive Defenseman of the Year) is a little bit more on the defensive side.”
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As for the NCHC title game, we hit the air at 6:30pm Saturday from warm and sunny Denver. Excited to bring you what should be a fun game in a hot building.
Back pregame with lines and notes, along with the latest thoughts on where UMD will head for regionals next week once we have more information based on Friday’s games.
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