Season's greetings
Saturday Morning Skate
Freddy’s Three Thoughts
Welcome to the Puckato Substack and the first “Morning Skate” of the season! Hope you enjoy it. To get things started, here are Freddy’s Three Thoughts on the season, or at least a few storylines to follow for ’21-22':
Stacking success: Minnesota State will be going for its fifth straight MacNaughton Cup, with hopes of being the first champion of the new CCHA (the Mavericks are the favorites and have several individuals among the preseason awards, including Nathan Smith as player of the year). After tasting the Frozen Four for the first time last spring, though, the Mavericks are certainly eyeing a national championship, too. Although some key players graduated, Minnesota State does return its top four scorers from last year, five of its top six defensemen and, of course …
Dryden McKay: Minnesota State returns one of the top players in the country in its senior goaltender, who can break Ryan Miller’s all-time NCAA shutout record this season with three shutouts. His career numbers include a 75-15-4 record with a .932 save percentage and a 1.53 goals-against average along with those 24 blankings. Even with those numbers, it seems that McKay is always trying to prove himself. If he needs extra motivation, there’s the carrot of the Richter Award, which has eluded him the last two seasons, and, of course, the Hobey Baker.
Send in the crowds: After playing last season in front of no fans or tiny crowds with limited capacity due to COVID-19 restrictions, the guess is that the Mayo Clinic Health System Event Center arena will be jam-packed with people clamoring to get back to the rink and watch one of the nation’s best hockey teams. With a home schedule that includes St. Cloud State, Northern Michigan, Bowling Green and St. Thomas before Thanksgiving, things should be getting back to normal very quickly — as long as the Delta variant stays away (be smart and safe, everyone!)
Quite the gauntlet
Minnesota State opens the year with a bang this weekend, going on the road to take on No. 1-ranked and defending national champion UMass. The Mavericks are ranked fifth in the first USCHO.com poll, which was released earlier this week (they’re seventh in College Hockey News’ Preseason Top 10 and UMass is second). MSU’s tough schedule to start the season includes teams ranked in the top 12, including No. 2 St. Cloud State next weekend in Mankato, followed by the IceBreaker tournament in Duluth against No. 12 Providence and either No. 3 Michigan or No. 6 Minnesota Duluth.
As The Free Press’ Kevin Dudley points out, however, this schedule, while tough, should only make the Mavericks stronger as the season goes on.
Several CCHA teams are in action Saturday and Sunday besides the Mavericks. St. Thomas will make history by starting its first Division I season with a series against St. Cloud State. The home-and-home series includes Sunday’s game at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul. Meanwhile, Ferris State hosts Miami and Lake Superior State goes to Omaha.
With the NCAA allowing exhibition games between D-I teams now, there will be a few of those, too, including Bemidji State at North Dakota, Bowling Green at Michigan and Northern Michigan at Michigan Tech on Saturday.
On Purple and Golden Pod
ICYMI, I’m the new host of the Maverick Hockey Live Podcast. Mavericks coach Mike Hastings joined me on the latest episode this week. It was a fun conversation, reflecting on his first nine seasons at MSU (yes, he’s beginning year 10!) and looking ahead at the upcoming year. You can watch above or subscribe on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. This is third episode of this season, so be sure to check out the others, if you missed them.
Captain Wyatt & Co.
The Mavericks announced their captains last week, and senior defenseman Wyatt Aamodt will wear the C this season. The alternates, wearing the A’s, will be a couple of fifth-year players who returned to the team, taking advantage of the extra season allowed by the NCAA due to COVID. Those players are defenseman Jack McNeely and forward Reggie Lutz.
Coaching changes
Minnesota State’s bench will look much difference this season, with Darren Blue leaving in July after 21 seasons as an assistant coach. His replacement is Paul Kirtland, who, previously, was an assistant at Yale.
The Mavericks are also losing volunteer goalie coach Brennan Poderzay, who, after six seasons at MSU, was hired for the same position at Minnesota, the Gophers announced Wednesday.