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September 29, 2010

MSU hockey has many questions to answer in ’10-11

By Shane Frederick Free Press Staff Writer

— The preseason polls predicting the outcome of the Western Collegiate Hockey Association will be released today, and there’s a pretty good chance that Minnesota State won’t be anywhere near the upper division of either the coaches or media polls.

The Mavericks likely will be around the No. 10 mark (although I had them ranked eighth in my submission), a number that used to denote last place but is now two from the bottom with Bemidji State and Nebraska-Omaha putting the WCHA at a dozen teams this year and until the Big Ten takes Minnesota and Wisconsin away in a few years.

One can already predict the quotes by coaches picked at the bottom as well as at the top of the polls.

They’ll call them “meaningless” and “fun for the fans” and “irrelevant” once games begin being played on Oct. 8 (nine days from today!).

They’re right. But let’s indulge, for a moment, the meaningless, fun and irrelevant and consider the thoughts, if any, that might have gone into this year’s preseason predictions.

It’s not difficult to see why Minnesota State might be picked low in the polls this season.

The Mavericks, who will get the 2010-11 season started with two practices on Saturday and play an exhibition game already on Monday night, graduated four of their top five scoring forwards from last year’s low-scoring team, while their most-promising scoring threat, Tyler Pitlick, bolted after one season to play major junior hockey in Canada.

Only two players on the roster have recorded double-digit goal totals at the college level, with this year’s captain, Rylan Galiardi, scoring 11 goals last season and Mike Louwerse, netting 13, including nine on the power play, the year before (he followed that up with a seven-goal performance last year).

Defensively, MSU has never had a reputation as a dominating team. This year’s team appears to have the best group of returning blueliners since Troy Jutting became head coach in 2000. However, most voters, likely are adopting a wait-and-see attitude about the Mavericks’ back end before making bold predictions for the new year.

In goal, Phil Cook should be penciled in as the starter after a strong finish that gave him eight wins and the No. 1 job in during the three-game, two-overtime WCHA playoff series at St. Cloud State last March. But a skeptic certainly could look at where Cook was one year ago this week when he was clearly the No. 3 goalie behind Austin Lee and the now-departed Kevin Murdock.

There certainly seems to be a lot of ifs with this year’s Minnesota State team: IF Cook can continue to improve … IF they indeed have their best defensive corps in a decade … IF some goal scorers emerge … etc.

But those are all questions that can’t be answered in the preseason polls.



Shane Frederick is a Free Press staff writer. Read his blog at mankatofreepresshockey.blogspot.com.

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