THE SKINNY

For now – heck, for the next 20 months or so – let’s just pretend this summer didn’t happen. Let’s turn the clock back to April 10, when the Minnesota Duluth Bulldogs were getting honored at a NHL game and basking in the glow of the school’s first NCAA men’s hockey title.

Sure, we knew that the whole Big Ten thing was coming, and we’d accepted that life without the Gophers and Badgers was on its way. We’d found peace with that. In fact, after the first round of the playoffs, we got used to not having them around anyway.

Minnesota Duluth is the reigning national championship, but it won't be an easy title to defend after the Bulldogs endured significant roster turnover following their title.

We were happy for the five teams that made the NCAAs. Four of the five won at least one game there (and we’re still a little unsure about at OT “goal” that knocked out Nebraska-Omaha). Colorado College whipped the defending national champs. Two of those five teams got to the Frozen. One of them won it. Bulldog nation celebrated, cheered on by a strange alliance of many Sioux and Gopher fans.

And then, a few months later…well, nothing of note happened. At least that’s what we’re going to pretend, remember. For two more seasons, the WCHA is the 12-team league that we just started getting accustomed to a year ago. And for the season to come, there are at least five and maybe more teams with legitimate hopes of a charter flight to Florida in April.

We like a lot of what the league has at the top, especially in terms of individual talent. We’re interested to see what kind of statistical battle shapes up between Jaden Schwartz of Colorado College, Drew Shore of Denver and Jack Connolly of Minnesota Duluth.

Even at what we expect will be the bottom, we see some interesting things to keep an eye on. We may have been too optimistic about St. Cloud State and Wisconsin a year ago. Maybe we’re too pessimistic on them this time around, but better to be pleasantly surprised than sorely disappointed. For long-suffering Michigan Tech, we see signs of hope, as a new coach with deep roots in the program has returned, and sees opportunity where others saw only more struggles.

As for the great upheaval, well, we’re not pretending that none of it happened. We’ll just leave the doomsday theories and Chicken Littling to others. For now, we’re focused on what should be another exciting WCHA season.

And while some pick Linkin Park or AC/DC as their pregame theme music to get their blood pumping, we’ll dance to a different tune as the games begin. Hand me that old Howard Jones cassette and I’ll put on “Life In One Day” so we can hear these words as the teams hit the ice:

“Try and enjoy the here and now. The future will take care of itself somehow. The grass is never greener over there.”

BREAKTHROUGH TEAM

What was most pleasantly surprising about the Alaska Anchorage Seawolves and their playoff run last spring was not the efficiency with which they dispatched of Minnesota, and not the fact that they won twice at Mariucci Arena, in the playoffs, when the Gophers had lost one postseason game, ever, there. It was that they worked on the ice and acted in the locker room like it was no big deal. This is a program that has seen more than its share of tough times, and after never hosting a WCHA playoff series, one can tell the Seawolves are more than ready to make an opponent take the long, long trek to Anchorage for the first round in March. With nine of their final 12 games at home, we like their chances.

PRIMED FOR A FALL

It will be mighty loud inside Amsoil Arena for the next two weekends, as top-ranked Notre Dame comes to visit on a night that the Minnesota Duluth Bulldogs will raise their NCAA championship banner, and a week later the old rivals from Minneapolis come to the waterfront for a pair. The team and the fans should enjoy the accolades, and face the harsh reality that after getting to the top of the mountain, things will be much, much tougher in their quest to stay there. We clearly see the Bulldogs as a top-half-of-the-WCHA-standings team, but with Mike Connolly, Kyle Schmidt, Justin Fontaine and Justin Falk gone, there are plenty of challenges, and opportunities, for those who return.

PRESSURE TO PERFORM

It’s a testament to the strength of the North Dakota hockey program, and the sky-high expectations of its rabid fans, that a season which included WCHA regular season and playoff titles, and a trip to the Frozen Four, left many wanting more. There are seven NCAA title banners hanging from the Ralph Engelstad Arena ceiling, but the most recent is more than a decade old now (and probably reeking from smoke damage now, after an off-season fire at the rink). The good news is that much of what made the Sioux great last year is back, alongside a deep and experienced group of rookies, so there’s a good chance that those lofty expectations could be fulfilled in Tampa this April.

TOUGHEST ACT TO FOLLOW

Jack Connolly did his family proud last year, playing a key role on the top line for the national champions, and bringing the second NCAA title in three years to his family’s home in east Duluth (his brother Chris won one with Boston University in 2009). That was yesterday. Today, there is buzz in the Twin Ports that Connolly can be and should be a strong candidate to bring the Hobey to the shore of Lake Superior for the fifth time. But what he’s able to do with a new cast surrounding him (with his two linemates from last season gone) will be interesting to watch.

BEST PLAYER

Jaden Schwartz

“This young man has had a very trying rookie season…” and no, we’re not talking about Ogie Ogelthorpe. After making a huge impact on the ice in collegiate and international hockey, and also dealing with injury setbacks and a death in his immediate family, Colorado College sophomore forward Jaden Schwartz must wonder what it’s like to just focus on hockey. As a freshman, he led the Tigers in scoring, despite missing a full third of his team’s games after suffering an injury at the World Juniors while playing for Team Canada. Off the ice, things weren’t any easier, as his sister (who played at Yale) lost a battle with cancer. With Schwartz healthy, able to focus on nothing but one class at a time (in accordance with the block plan at CC), and able to just relax and play hockey, we like the Tigers’ chances of making it a game or two further than they did a year ago.

IMPACT NEWCOMER

Before he’d ever moved into a North Dakota dorm room, nearly everyone in college hockey knew his name (thanks to, among other things, a spread about his potential for stardom in the pages of Sports Illustrated). Before he’d ever met the press after a collegiate game, he was known far and wide for his opinions (thanks to a controversial series of Tweets in which the devout Christian urged female fans to dress more conservatively). Now it’s time to drop the puck and see if Rocco Grimaldi can once again just be known as a really, really good hockey player and show college fans why the Florida Panthers picked the highly-skilled Californian in the second round last June.

UNSUNG PLAYER

It’s not a particularly long or challenging drive from the Minneapolis suburbs to Mankato, but for Minnesota State senior forward Michael Dorr, it seems like the journey took forever. He committed to Minnesota Duluth in high school, suffered a shoulder injury that required surgery, changed his mind and enrolled at Minnesota, played all of two games for the Gophers before deciding that school there was not for him, sat out a year, and emerged as a critically reliable source of offense for the Mavericks, notching 16 points as a sophomore and leading the team with a dozen goals last season. The Mavs aren’t on national TV much and don’t figure to be among the contenders for the WCHA title this year, but Dorr’s is a name you should know when his team comes to town.

BURNING QUESTIONS

• Who is the “next one” that will make the new WCHA a 10-team league two years from now? As of this week, nine teams had committed to the WCHA for the 2013-14 season, but we all know 10 is better for scheduling. Will Alabama-Huntsville get a new home, and new life? Will Minnesota State-Moorhead raise the money it needs to give the Red River Valley a second program? How about Air Force? Or all three to get back to an even dozen?

• Which Nebraska-Omaha team will we see most often this season? Yes, there are two sets of Mavericks in the WCHA, but last season it seemed like there were two sets of Mavs in Omaha as well. There was the one set that swept at Minnesota, started the season 8-1-1, scored eight goals at North Dakota one night and made the NCAA playoffs. The other Mavs got swept at Quinnipiac, missed the WCHA Final Five and went 0-5-1 versus Bemidji State. Some consistency please!

• How much of the Badgers’ load will Justin Schultz carry this season? The most pleasant surprise in Madison as hockey season begins is that the junior All-American defenseman is there, and not in Finland, skating for the Anaheim Ducks. He led Wisconsin in scoring last season and helped the team stay in the NCAA tourney race until a February tailspin doomed their season. Will Bucky find new and more diverse sources of offense this time around?

MARK IT DOWN
Things you can take to the bank in the WCHA this season

• A wrong has been righted with Mike Guentzel’s return to the Minnesota bench. There was surprise when the long-time assistant was let go at the end of the 2008 season, and perhaps even more surprise this summer when he agreed to return. But players all talk of a new attitude in the room, which is a good thing for a program in a rough patch.

• The Pioneers have gotten a taste of winning in late March again, which is a bad thing for the rest of college hockey. Denver’s double-OT win over Western Michigan in the NCAA playoffs last spring was the Pioneers first national tourney win since the 2005 Frozen Four title game. They put a big scare into North Dakota in the Final Five title game, and were picked in a few polls to win the WCHA title. Sounds like a Rocky Mountain resurgence.

• By MLK Day, there’s abundant free parking at the Sanford Center, if you have snow tires. For years, Bemidji State has boasted about acres of free parking adjacent to campus, as students are welcome to park cars on Lake Bemidji once it freezes. With the Beavers’ new rink just a long slap shot from the lake, there’s ample parking for your 4×4 if you take in a game after about January 15 or so.