Each week during the season, we look at the big events and big games around Division I men’s college hockey in Tuesday Morning Quarterback.
Dan: There are some weeks where I feel like this space is repetitive, like I’m rehashing points that either Jimmy or Ed made last week, and I know that there are weeks where we probably sound like broken records when we talk about the hockey or the off-ice conversations.
I like those weeks, largely because it gives us an opportunity to chart things more slowly over the course of the year.
This past week…was NOT that. I can’t remember a week where parts and news flew as quickly or as suddenly as things did in college hockey this week. The COVID postponements aside, this was a week where A LOT happened.
Where do we even start?
Well, in a twist, I’m going to kick this off at the end with the news that broke out of Minnesota after the Gophers swept Michigan State to take first place in the Big Ten. Their goalie, Jack LaFontaine, signed an entry-level contract with the Carolina Hurricanes and left his college team right in the middle of the season.
I hardly fault any player for making a personal decision, and we’ll likely never know the intricacies of the conversations involved. But from a fallout perspective, this comes both at a strange time for Minnesota and for the rest of the college hockey season.
Paula, how did this impact the Midwest, the Big Ten, and, most importantly, the Gophers?
Paula: This is such a stunning development that I’m still processing it, Dan.
The first thing that people unfamiliar with the situation should understand is that the Hurricanes are hurting for goaltenders – really hurting. Their backup, Antti Raanta was scratched Saturday night with an upper-body injury, and two of their AHL goalies are also out. They don’t have anyone in reserve, really, and if the Hurricanes find themselves without both Raanta and starter Frederik Andersen at the same time, Carolina would be in a world of hurt.
I know that what NHL teams do to deliver their product typically doesn’t concern us until the college hockey season is over and many players leave to help bolster both AHL and NHL rosters making playoff runs, but this appears to be an usual situation during very unusual times.
COVID has taught us that anything can happen to disrupt our lives at any time, and that we ought to think twice about taking anything for granted. I can’t fault LaFontaine one bit for making the most of his time here on this planet. He doesn’t know what’s going to happen for the remainder of the NCAA season. No one does. He’s 24 years old. The Hurricanes tried to sign him last summer. I’m sure they sweetened the deal considerably. I wish him all the luck in the world. I don’t doubt that his name will one day be on the Stanley Cup.
Even though you asked about the Big Ten and Minnesota specifically, Dan, I think it’s important to get all of that out there.
First, the Gophers. LaFontaine has been a big part of their success this season as a steady presence in net and, as one of three team captains, a leader in the locker room. Minnesota has two remaining goalies, junior Justen Close and freshman Brennan Boynton. Close has seen action in three games this season with a .917 save percentage. Boynton has yet to play a game, but in 46 games with the Fargo Force (USHL) last year, he had a 2.43 GAA and .901 save percentage. I’m sure that each is chomping at the proverbial bit to prove himself in net.
Also, the success the Gophers have seen this season can’t be attributed to LaFontaine alone. LaFontaine has the fifth-best GAA and sixth-best SV% in B1G Hockey. The Gophers have the third-best B1G offense and fourth-best defense.
Now onto the Big Ten. It’s a complicated league and the hockey played there is better than most people realize. It’s cutthroat. It’s tight. The fifth-best team in the conference – Michigan State – has a goalie that can steal a game from anyone in Drew DeRidder. No one’s talking about the surprising season Ohio State is having. Two points behind Minnesota in the standings, the Buckeyes are bolstered by freshman goalie Jakub Dobeš.
Then there’s Notre Dame’s stifling goaltending duo of Ryan Bischel and Matthew Galajda, Nos. 1 and 2 for goals-against the in the league and both with saver percentages above LaFontaine – and the Fighting Irish are fourth in the league.
There’s very little that separates the top four teams in the Big Ten. Michigan’s tied with Ohio State in points and Notre Dame is three points behind Minnesota. Will LaFontaine’s departure prove to be the thing that opens the door for the three other teams vying for a conference title? I can’t say. His experienced will be missed in Minnesota, for certain.
We find all of this shocking, Dan, because LaFontaine’s departure comes in January and immediately following a fantastic performance in Minnesota’s first sweep of the season. It’s better that he leave now, though, than a month from now when and if the Hurricanes have reached desperation with their goaltending situation.
I know people are tired of hearing this, but this is where we are now because of COVID. Nothing is certain.
Dan: I tend to agree with all of this, and you actually lead me into several branching points from all of this.
One, Minnesota didn’t get this far with just goaltending, and the Gophers won’t win because of one single player.
Two, the Big Ten really is that good, and the complexity of the league is sometimes lost on its small roster size and association and branding with a bigger, all-sports conference. I think we tend to look at the NCHC as a more powerful league, but this is a conference full of major, big-time brands, and the talent pool (and budgets) reflect it.
Third, this is all caused, somehow, by the COVID pains that are still ongoing in the world, and even though I’m hopeful we’ll get to the other side relatively soon, I’m also very concerned about the ravaging damage it’ll leave in its wake.
And somehow, through all of this, those three points stand both independently and intertwined.
Let’s start with a continuation of the Gophers, who lose their goalie but are set to lose several other pieces because of the COVID-induced withdrawal of the NHL from the Olympics. Both Ben Meyers and Matthew Knies already have 20 points on their season, and Brock Faber, a sophomore defenseman, is coming into his own after scoring a goal and an assist against Michigan and after registering two assists this weekend against Michigan State.
All three could conceivably be lost to the American roster, which announced its coaching staff this past week with the additions of Minnesota State head coach Mike Hastings and St. Cloud head coach Brett Larson.
Plenty of teams are going to be dealing with this, and we’re all assuming Michigan, with its NHL-ready talent already on the roster, is going to lose a ton of its personnel. The additions of college coaches only fueled that speculation, and while there are Americans playing abroad, the only thing close to an NHL roster would be, for both USA and Canada, a team stocked with NHL-caliber talent.
All of this, of course, ties back to the future schedule, which is dealing with some major potholes because of COVID. I have a bad feeling that some of the postponed games will be played in the middle of the week during February, at which point some of these teams will be missing coaches, players, teammates, and who knows what else. The postponements I thought would be more of a better-safe-than-sorry approach are now in full-blown outbreak status, and while I’m hopeful we’ll get to the other side, any postponement that is made up might be played under the cloud of missing players.
I’m admittedly not sure when the Olympics rosters are going to be released, but with the games starting on February 3, the speculation is going to turn to reality pretty, pretty quickly.
Paula: I’m still really apprehensive about the Olympics – not in how they’ll affect the teams losing players, but for the players and staff involved.
I know that many people see me as an alarmist, but I think global travel right now is foolhardy. I know that everyone involved is as vaccinated as possible, and that certainly mitigates the risk of catching a case of COVID that would manifest severe symptoms. With the omicron breakthrough cases and what we still don’t know about long-term COVID, I worry especially about young people and the lasting effects even a so-called “mild” case might have.
I’ve read all of the precautions that are being taken in Beijing and I’m confident that everything will be done to prevent COVID transmission. We’ve also seen studies that show that ice rink conditions provide particularly fertile ground for COVID transmission. I think the odds are good that anyone associated with hockey in Beijing may be infected, and given that the Olympics end Feb. 20, that may put returning players in COVID protocols as we approach the end of the regular season.
It feels like a potential double-whammy for many programs. That having been said, like everyone else, I will be pulling hard for these kids to defy the competition odds as well as the COVID odds in Beijing.
All of these more big-picture items – COVID, the Olympics – sometimes overshadow great stories this season, like the Buckeyes who were picked in preseason by B1G coaches to finish last. There’s Western Michigan’s fifth-year forward Ethen Frank and his 17 goals in 19 games. There’s St. Cloud State’s insane .359 power-play conversion rate – and Minnesota Duluth’s stunningly subpar 15.4% power play, their 2.60 goals scored per game and yet their seventh-place PairWise Ranking and No. 7 place in the DCU/USCHO Division I Men’s Poll.
What are the stories that you’re seeing that maybe deserve a little nudge?
Dan: I am really trying to make a concerted effort to appreciate some of the players who we won’t see beyond this year.
More specifically, I’m really rooting for Dryden McKay, who notched his 32nd career shutout this weekend when Minnesota State beat Ferris State 7-0. He somehow hasn’t won the Mike Richter Award, and while I think Minnesota State is one of those teams that benefits from being head and shoulders better than the rest of its conference, the confluence of events helping him constantly re-break his own record has me constantly in awe. It needs the right system and the right personnel playing in front of him, but he needs to stay both healthy and stop the shots to record those numbers. Even the best goalies occasionally have a bad game, but McKay might finish the year with 35 shutouts on his career. We’ll want to remember that long after he’s gone.
One other thing I’m watching is in my beloved Atlantic Hockey, where teams are logjammed at the top of the conference. Sacred Heart’s four points against Niagara made that a five-way race for first, but I can still see a sixth or seventh team jump into that race with an ease thanks to the three-point system in the standings. AIC is the three-time defending champions, but this league is probably at its deepest right now. Bentley led the entire first half but lost its perch because of what AIC did against Holy Cross this weekend, and Canisius and Army split to remain in third and fourth. Sacred Heart is now just two points behind that group, but RIT is three points behind the Pioneers.
Atlantic Hockey is notoriously even, and the race down the stretch of the season is always packed with nightly changes. Last year’s pod-based schedule and standings took this away from us, but the fact that some team can jump out of nowhere to go on a run is one of the things I love most about this league. I’m genuinely looking forward to when Robert Morris returns because I think inserting the Colonials into this mix is going to only deepen that bench…assuming RMU comes back to Atlantic Hockey because, quite frankly, that’s the only correct decision.
Paula: Yeah, every January I begin to think of the players we’ll have to say goodbye to at the end of the season. Dryden McKay tops the list of greats that college hockey will lose this year. He’s extradentary.
There are a bunch of seniors having career seasons. Boston College’s Jack McBain and Marc McLaughlin, who have a combined 27 goals. Michigan Tech’s Brian Halonen, whose 12 goals equal the totals he put up in each of his first two seasons. Bowling Green’s Nathan Burke, whose 13 goals are one shy of the total he scored in his first three seasons.
There are guys playing their hearts out on every team, in every conference, as their collegiate careers wind down and they push themselves to wring out every last possible drop before moving on. We should definitely say more about them in the coming months.
To end this week, we offer our condolences to the family and friends of Teddy Balkind, who died following an on-ice collision during a high school game in Connecticut between St. Luke’s of New Canaan and Brunswick School of Greenwish. The 16-year-old defenseman and 10th grader at St. Luke’s did not survive the surgery to treat the injury to his neck.
Words like “unthinkable,” “unimaginable,” and “tragic” are tossed around too casually in our culture, but this is an unthinkable, unimaginable tragedy. When something affects one player, one team, one family in our tightknit community, it affects us all. It reverberates and touches many lives. It stays with each of us.
Our sincere thoughts and prayers are with Teddy’s family and with all those who knew and loved him.
