Ohio State University’s Nadine Muzerall is USCHO’s Coach of the Year.
When I first watched her as a player at Minnesota as the NCAA era of the sport dawned, I wouldn’t have expected to one day be typing that sentence. I’m not entirely sure why. Perhaps it is because Muzerall was the program’s first offensive star and is still its all-time leader in goals scored by a wide margin, and natural goalscorers don’t always make the best coaches. Maybe I’m comparing her to people like Courtney Kennedy and Winny Brodt-Brown, two of a number of her former teammates who also went on to make their mark in the coaching profession. Or I could be remembering the 20-year-old player who at times was more competitive than composed.
Even then, there were positive signs. She wasn’t the fastest skater, but she always seemed to be as fast as she needed to be to win a race to a loose puck in a scoring area or pull away from the last defender. She wasn’t the biggest player, but more often than not, it was her stick that would find its way onto a contested puck.
A decade later, when she returned to her alma mater as an assistant coach, her players were ready to play when the puck dropped. They may have viewed Muzerall as a big sister, but she was the big sister who would let you know in no uncertain terms if your effort wasn’t where it needed to be.
When she moved to Columbus, Muzerall took over a program that had only once reached 20 wins over its first 17 seasons. She soon had it setting more lofty goals. In her first six campaigns behind the Ohio State bench, her team has reached that milestone four times; one that fell short was the Covid season where it only played 20 contests.
The Buckeyes played in the final of the WCHA Tournament in the second season of the event, but hadn’t been back until Muzerall guided them to their first WCHA Championship in 2020. They’ve now played for that title three straight years, winning twice.
Ohio State had never tasted the NCAA Tournament under the previous regimes. Muzerall has coached them into that tourney four times, reaching the Frozen Four in all three that were ultimately played.
Like any coach who turns a program around rapidly, Muzerall owed much of her early success to players recruited by her predecessors. This year’s title, however, was earned by a team that was uniquely hers. It featured a star player in Sophie Jaques, who like Muzerall, came from the Greater Toronto Area. She got key contributions from the Minnesota kids she learned to pursue while on the Gophers staff, but she also had multiple recruits from Michigan and Finland. The identity of this roster was defined by its transfers, with eight players joining the Buckeyes this season after starting their college careers elsewhere.
Not that all has been perfect. Her coaching staff has been a revolving door at times. The roster has, too. Muzerall’s management style has been a little like that of Billy Beane of Moneyball fame. She’ll make changes in personnel or embrace an unconventional strategy that gives her team a better chance to win.
Never was that more evident than when Ohio State opened its final road series of the season in Bemidji, knowing that the first regular season title in program history was within reach. In fact, it was a mathematical certainty if the Buckeyes gained all 12 available points over their final four games. As the final seconds ticked away in a tie game, Muzerall elected to pull her goaltender in favor of a sixth attacker for an offensive-zone faceoff, knowing that a two-point overtime win might leave her team one point short of a title by season’s end. She may have lost that battle when the Beavers scored into the empty net, but it sent an unmistakable message to her team that they would play to win, not just to avoid losing.
In OSU’s first foray to the Frozen Four in 2018, the coach, like her team, may not have been quite ready for the moment. Following an overtime loss in the semifinal to eventual champion Clarkson, she arrived at the postgame media conference still lamenting a second-period penalty called on her team that she felt cost them a shot at scoring the game’s only goal in regulation.
With more experience, she proved better able to remain in the moment, and not get caught up in looking back at what-if scenarios. In four straight postseason games between this year’s WCHA semifinal and the national semifinal, Ohio State yielded the game’s first goal and fell behind. The 2022 edition of the Buckeyes proved to be resilient, as they just kept playing and rallied to win each time.
When Ohio State’s season culminated with its first NCAA Championship, the greatest tribute to the team and program that Muzerall built was that nobody was surprised. The Buckeyes, who set a new program mark with 32 victories, were simply the best team in the country.
Congratulations to this year’s USCHO Coach of the Year, Nadine Muzerall.
