By Ryan Stieg
It’s time for another season of what’s been dubbed “The Process” for the St. Thomas men’s hockey team and even though the Tommies have yet to start practice, the anticipation is growing as they look to build on last year’s success.
In its first year of NCAA Tournament eligibility, UST was at one point on an 11-game winning streak, finished second in the conference standings, and for the second straight year, it made it the CCHA Championship game. Unfortunately, the Tommies fell again to rival Minnesota State and missed out on a tournament bid in their last season in the conference. Despite coming up short again against the Mavericks, Tommies head coach Rico Blasi was pleased with how the season went.
“I think we were pretty consistent with our game and winning 11 games in a row isn’t easy,” he said Thursday. “Obviously, we had a tough nonconference schedule, but I felt like we played pretty consistent throughout the year and we ran into a little bit of a, I don’t want to say a slump in February, but we had some banged up guys and we were trying to get over the finish line and we just weren’t able to do it. So, a little bit of disappointment in the fact that we weren’t able to finish off the regular season, but then we kind of rebounded in the playoffs and played pretty good against Lake (Superior) State and Augustana. We just fell a little short again against Mankato in their building and obviously, they were playing pretty good at the end.
“All in all, I thought we continued to grow our program and make strides. Playing in meaningful games is important for a lot of different reasons. For culture, for development of your players, for our alumni, our fanbase and obviously, recruiting too. Anytime you win 20 games, you’re doing something pretty good.”
The Tommies had a strong senior class leading them last season, including longtime captain and CCHA First Teamer Lucas Wahlin as well as Harvard transfer Alex Gaffney. Blasi said they’ll be missed, but that’s just how college hockey works.
“They were the first group (to complete four years at UST),” he said. “On and off the ice, they meant a lot. The guy that we’ll probably miss the most is Wahlin and his leadership, and just the way he played night in and night out. But that happens all the time, so you regroup, and you’ve got a new set of guys and new opportunities, and we need some of our returners to step up into those roles, and I think they will. That’s part of the evolution of what we do at the college level. We can’t keep them forever, although some of these programs are trying to do that with all these rules.”
This season brings yet another change to UST as it switches from the CCHA over to the NCHC, which may be a change to fans, but Blasi knows what it’s like to coach in a highly competitive conference as he coached Miami for several years.
“I think the success that the NCHC has had on a national level and knowing the institutions that are in that league and how they operate in terms of their support of their programs is probably the biggest difference I would say,” he said. “We had some good programs in the CCHA too as you know, but from top to bottom, the one thing that I can tell you about the NCHC is that they’re all like-minded institutions when it comes to Division I hockey. That will be a new challenge for us.
“I feel like since I started here at the Division I level, however many years ago it was now, we’ve had challenges along the way from not just only building a Division I program, but the implementation of scholarship aid. Then we had transfers and then we had multiple transfer opportunities, to NIL, to revenue share, to Alston money to getting a new building and not playing at the (St. Thomas) Academy anymore. I don’t even know how to tell you this, but there’s been so many changes here at St. Thomas over the last five years, this feels like just another year for us. Let’s go and try to play in the NCHC and see what happens.”
The NCHC schedule will be a tough one, but the Tommies have a difficult nonconference slate such as traveling to Providence along with hosting Air Force, who split with UST last year, as well as playing Alaska Anchorage at home.
“Air Force is always tough to play,” Blasi said. We were up there last year, and they just play extremely hard and they’ve got talent and (head coach) Frank (Serratore) does a great job. That will be a tough series at home. Anchorage, I don’t know much about them in terms of their team just because Eric (Rud) took over and we’ll have to see them on video, but knowing him and the way he coaches, I’m sure they’ll have a pretty good structure and a pretty competitive team that we’ll have to play our best. College athletics, especially in hockey, from top to bottom, anybody can beat anybody on any given night. There’s so much talent and the hockey is so good in every league. So we’ll see how they play and then we’ll have to put a game plan together and see how we can take advantage of them.”
UST lost some key pieces of its offense to graduation such as Wahlin and Gaffney, but it is returning some talented veterans like CCHA Second Teamer Lucas Van Vliet and CCHA Rookie Team honoree Nathan Pilling as well as good transfers along with some skilled freshmen like Jackson Potulny and transfers like Jakub Altrichter from Northern Michigan.
“I think we’ve tried to recruit to roles on the team with a couple of guys that we think can play up and down our lineup and it’ll be up to them to earn their spots,” Blasi said. “We feel like we have a pretty talented freshmen group as a whole and I always hesitate to mention anyone in the freshmen group because you just never know, but I think collectively there will be some guys that we think can play. We’re really excited about Altrichter. Playing two years against him was enough for me, but I think he brings an element to our team that we needed and we might’ve been missing over the last couple of years, especially down the middle. (Quinn) Rudrud (from Augustana) is a big guy, Winter Wallace (from Cornell) is a big guy, (Kevin) Anderson (from Princeton) is a workhorse. I think we have some depth, I think we have some size and obviously, we’ve got some skill with Van Vliet and Pilling and the things they can do. It’ll be an interesting group. It’ll be something that we’ll have to continue to work on weekly and daily to get that group in sync with the chemistry there.”
As far as the Tommies’ biggest strength, it’s probably along the blue line with CCHA Second Teamer Chase Cheslock leading the defensive corps.
“They’ve been here, they’ve seen it all, and they’ve played in pretty meaningful games over the years,” Blasi said. “Adding (Justin) Kipkie (from Arizona State) and adding Sammy (Groebner) from Army gives us a little bit more of a veteran presence back there and (Hawke) Huff is part of that talented freshmen group that we think we have. He was drafted by Seattle this past June. We feel good about it. Cheslock is a horse, and Cole (Miller) and (Mason) Poolman are guys that are reliable back there. On paper, you would probably say that would be our strength, but as you know, we play as a five-man unit out there. It’s going to have to be not just our D corps, but our forwards all on the same page in doing what we need to do.”
Finally, the Tommies have three goalies this year in returnees Carsen Musser and Will Ingemann as well as newcomer Ajay White. Right now, there isn’t a No. 1 goalie, so the job is up for grabs.
“I would say probably the most depth is right there with Musser and Ingemann and Ajay had a pretty good USHL career and played pretty good in Fargo,” Blasi said. “As I said earlier about the forwards and in terms of freshmen, they’ve got time and we don’t feel like we need to just throw them into the fire. We’ve got a pretty good presence of older guys, so they can understand how to play at this level and how to work, and how to prepare and how to be a professional. Hopefully, that comes sooner rather than later in their development here in September and October, but at the same time, they’re going to have some good leadership and some good veteran presence to kind of show them the way.”
So what will define success in Year 6 of The Process? For Blasi, it’s going to be a little different this year since the Tommies are playing in a different conference.
“I think every year you want to play for a championship, and you put yourself in position to be there at the end,” he said. “That will never change. Every decision we make in terms of our program and how we run our day-to-day business is always going to be with that in mind. The process will be important. We’re going to have to navigate through some new buildings and then play some, what I would say, top tier teams on a consistent basis. We’ve got a stretch where we’ve got to go from North Dakota to Denver to CC (Colorado College) to Omaha, and those are stretches that are not going to be easy. Then you’ve got (Minnesota) Duluth and Western (Michigan) on back-to-back weekends. Those will be new challenges for our program, and we’re going to have to be ready to play every day. Every day in practice is going to have to be earned in terms of your playing time and in terms of your development and hopefully, that will prepare us well to compete on the weekend.”