{"id":46243,"date":"2012-10-31T05:30:16","date_gmt":"2012-10-31T10:30:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.uscho.com\/?p=46243"},"modified":"2012-10-31T12:34:18","modified_gmt":"2012-10-31T17:34:18","slug":"western-michigan-about-to-get-an-idea-of-how-far-it-can-go-this-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/2012\/10\/31\/western-michigan-about-to-get-an-idea-of-how-far-it-can-go-this-season\/","title":{"rendered":"Western Michigan about to get an idea of how far it can go this season"},"content":{"rendered":"
This weekend, Western Michigan opens its CCHA season and defense of the Mason Cup against Notre Dame. Even though the Broncos are 3-1 in nonconference play, second-year coach Andy Murray isn’t sure yet of what this year’s team can do.<\/p>\n
“I really don’t know,” Murray said. “I think we need to play some games within our own league to get a real read on our team. I fully expect that our work ethic and that the things that we’ve been noted for are here. We’ve got some speed and some size on the blue line and our goaltending we expect to be our strength again.<\/p>\n
“We had a number of seniors move on plus Matt Tennyson, so we don’t know the impact until we’re a little further down the road.”<\/p>\n
WMU had four players net 10 goals or more last season, but of those four only Tennyson, the defenseman who opted out of his final year of eligibility, isn’t on this year’s roster. None of the other three — juniors Chase Balisy and Shane Berschbach and senior Dane Walters — has yet to find the net. In fact, Berschbach has yet to play a game because he was suspended at the start of the season for violating team rules.<\/p>\n
Two Broncos players, junior Danny DeKeyser and sophomore Garrett Haar, have two goals to their credit with a handful of other players registering a single marker, including newcomers Josh Pitt and Nolan LaPorte.<\/p>\n
“We’ll probably have five freshmen playing in their first CCHA games this weekend,” Murray said, “and that’s basically 25 percent of the roster you dress, so we’ll see.<\/p>\n
“As long as our juniors and our seniors and our sophomores improve … that creates time and space for our freshmen to mature.”<\/p>\n
One of the bonuses of the Broncos’ recent success is the program’s ability to recruit players who can take a little time to mature — or to recruit talent that can step in right away.<\/p>\n
“We’re at a point where we lose a player now, we’re recruiting a like player,” Murray said. “We can be more selective than the program has been in the past. We have choices now.”<\/p>\n
Although he’s not keen on giving early impressions of the Broncos, Murray did give up something that he’s noticed through the first four games of the season.<\/p>\n
“We’re averaging 39-40 shots a game and averaging 20 against,” Murray said, noting that it’s an improvement over the 23.4 shots on goal per game WMU was giving up last season.<\/p>\n
“It’s not because we sit back and play defense; we probably pressure as much as any team in college hockey. As much as anything, the shots are down because we had the puck quite a bit.”<\/p>\n
Murray has made the transition from the NHL to the NCAA seamlessly. “I enjoy every single day,” he said. That’s because — according to Murray — there is no difference between coaching the pros and the college kids.<\/p>\n
In the NHL, Murray said, just as in the college game, the players “want to have fun, they want to work hard, they want to play. The only thing is that … just because of the game schedule, some nights you just don’t have that energy.”<\/p>\n
And the college kids? “They can do everything in practice and tactically that a pro player can do,” Murray said. “There’s a lot of talent at this level.”<\/p>\n
It doesn’t make any difference, Murray said, that his current players are college students: “Every player in the NHL is going to the School of Hockey.”<\/p>\n
As they open their league season against the Fighting Irish this weekend, the Broncos remember that they went 2-1-1-1 against Notre Dame last season. “We had a positive balance,” Murray said. And they know now that they can play with anyone.<\/p>\n
“As I told our players, we’re going to be playing one of the best teams in college hockey this weekend,” Murray said. “That’s good news. The other part of the good news?<\/p>\n
“Their coaches are telling their players the exact same thing.”<\/p>\n