{"id":29319,"date":"2007-10-09T22:32:54","date_gmt":"2007-10-10T03:32:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.uscho.com\/2007\/10\/09\/200708-colorado-college-season-preview\/"},"modified":"2010-08-17T19:57:03","modified_gmt":"2010-08-18T00:57:03","slug":"200708-colorado-college-season-preview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/2007\/10\/09\/200708-colorado-college-season-preview\/","title":{"rendered":"2007-08 Colorado College Season Preview"},"content":{"rendered":"

Besides losing at home in the playoffs last year to league upstart Michigan Tech, the Colorado College Tigers have another motivating factor this season to do well — the NCAA West Regional comes back to the World Arena.<\/p>\n

“We’re very excited and anxious for the season to get started,” said coach Scott Owens. “Losing last year at home in the playoffs for the second year in a row left a bad taste in our mouths and knowing that we have an opportunity hosting the West Regional in ’07-’08 I think has really excited our team.”<\/p>\n

CC has a lot of upside this year, returning a good chunk of its offense and, although the Tigers are a young team with 16 underclassmen, the argument could be made that they didn’t lose as much as the rest of their league counterparts.<\/p>\n

One could also argue that the only thing the Tigers really did lose is a goaltender — and a fantastic one at that — in Matt Zaba, leaving the Tigers’ net a question mark.<\/p>\n

“Drew [O’Connell] we’re going to give an opportunity to, early in particular, because of the time that he’s put into the program and he’s a good goaltender,” said Owens, “but [freshman] Richard [Bachman] has a lot of talent.”<\/p>\n

“We think he’s very talented, but he’s a freshman with an ’87 birth date and Drew is a junior with an ’87 birth date, so they’re the same age, but one’s just been around the college game a little bit longer.”<\/p>\n

Translated, that probably means that either O’Connell has the early edge or Owens may go with a platoon between the pipes.<\/p>\n

Up Front<\/h4>\n

The Tigers are most set in terms of offense; their top four scorers are back this year — senior Jimmy Kilpatrick, junior Chad Rau, sophomore Bill Sweatt and senior Scott McCulloch, though the former will be out until at least late October from a hip labrum injury.<\/p>\n

A possible surprise this season may be junior Eric Walsky, a transfer from Alaska-Anchorage who led the Seawolves in scoring in the 2005-06 season.<\/p>\n

Other than that, sophomores Addison DeBoer, Mike Testwuide and Andreas Vlassopoulos should also have improved seasons.<\/p>\n

The two new freshman forwards, Tyler Johnson and Stephen Schultz, should also be in the mix before too long.<\/p>\n

On the Blue Line<\/h4>\n
\"Scott<\/p>\n
Scott Owens’ crew could play at home in the NCAA tournament this year if all goes well for CC.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Colorado College’s defensive ranks lost a lot of leadership at the end of last season with the graduation of senior co-captains Brandon Straub and Lee Sweatt. As a result, Owens will have just two upperclassmen working the blue line — senior Jack Hillen and junior Jake Gannon, unless junior Cody Lampl returns back to his original position.<\/p>\n

Therefore, Owens will rely on sophomores Nate Prosser, Kris Fredheim and offensive-defenseman Brian Connelly until freshmen Ryan Lowery and Brett Wysopal can step into the system.<\/p>\n

In the Crease<\/h4>\n

With workhorse Zaba gone to graduation, the Tigers are yet another WCHA team with a question mark in net.<\/p>\n

“In goal, again, [we are] talented but inexperienced,” said Owens. “Drew O’Connell is a junior, he’s played 600 minutes in his two years that he’s been here.”<\/p>\n

Those 600 minutes translate into nine starts in 12 games played and, as Owens pointed out, “only three of those in the WCHA, three or four.”<\/p>\n

While O’Connell’s experience may give him a slight edge, he will get competition in practice from freshmen Tyler O’Brien and Bachman, the latter a fourth-round draft pick of the Dallas Stars.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Besides losing at home in the playoffs last year to league upstart Michigan Tech, the Colorado College Tigers have another motivating factor this season to do well — the NCAA West Regional comes back to the World Arena. “We’re very excited and anxious for the season to get started,” said coach Scott Owens. “Losing last […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":140328,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[322],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n2007-08 Colorado College Season Preview - College Hockey | USCHO.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Besides losing at home in the playoffs last year to league upstart Michigan Tech, the Colorado College Tigers have another motivating factor this season\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29319\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"2007-08 Colorado College Season Preview - 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