TAMPA, Fla. — There are a lot of similarities between Boston University and Minnesota, who will square off Thursday in the first semifinal of the 2023 NCAA Men’s Frozen Four: skill, depth, goaltending and a pro-style game.
But one difference is age and to a lesser extent, experience.
Boston University has 10 seniors as well as a graduate student on its roster, with an average age of 22.1 years.
Minnesota is tied for the youngest team in men’s Division I hockey, average age 21.4 years.
As Golden Gophers coach Bob Motzko put it, “We’ve got a veteran group of guys and 11 freshmen.”
But despite being young, Motzko said this is one of the deepest teams that he’s coached.
“We’ve got a group that went through it a year ago and we’ve got some young guys for their first [Frozen Four] experience,” he said. “But our older guys are paving the way for us. And we’re in a good spot.
“The greatest depth I can give you is our defensive corps, which is something I’ve never had or even seen with a ‘D’ corps this deep. And it started a year ago with Ryan [Johnson] and [Jackson] LaCombe, and we didn’t think any of them would be coming back. And these young guys are now experienced, they’re experienced at Minnesota and with what we’re doing.”
Boston University coach Jay Pandolfo had similar comments about his senior-laden team.
“I rely on these [seniors] a lot,” he said. “They’ve made my job easy. I talk to them a lot. It’s made my job really easy as a first-year head coach to have this type of support from our leadership group. You’re not always going to have that. So it’s been great.”
“Obviously we have, whatever it is, 10, 12 seniors who have been through a lot with this program,” said senior forward Jay O’Brien. “[We’ve had] some ups and some downs. And I think we’ve handled ourselves very well.
“And this is our last crack at it. This is our last go at winning anything in college hockey. And a national championship is just an incredible way to hopefully go out.”
O’Brien said that all of the upperclassmen have led in one way or another.
“Obviously, we have a lot of guys who don’t wear letters who are just as big of leaders as myself and Dom [Fensore],” he said. “I think we all bring our own aspect, our own way of leading this team. And our senior class has stepped up greatly this year and will continue to do so.”
Minnesota will counter with its own kind of depth, which includes some rookies that have gained experience throughout the season.
“Our three freshmen defensemen with [Ryan] Chesley, [Luke] Mittelstadt and Cal Thomas, they get a little hidden in that,” he said. “Two of them were on the World Junior team. That’s the depth of our ‘D’ corps.”
And Motzko said playing older teams isn’t anything new. That comes with the territory of being younger than everybody except for fellow Frozen Four participant Michigan.
“[The age difference is] one of those things,” he said. “It is what it is. We’re here because of our youth and our depth of our older guys. We can’t really look at the other team we’re playing because almost every team we played this year, every team we [defeated] was older than us, by a lot.
“It doesn’t affect us. We get pucks deep, don’t take penalties, win faceoffs. We take care of and manage the game, we’ll be in a good spot.”
“We’re ready for the battle,” said Johnson. “We’ve been tested early in the year and we’ve been tested throughout the season. That experience has prepared us for this.”
