By Ryan Stieg
Year 4 of what has been deemed “The Process” for the St. Thomas men’s hockey program is complete and the Tommies have progressed in a big way since their inaugural Division I season in 2021-22.
After a tough first half, UST caught fire after the winter holiday break and made a run toward the CCHA championship. The Tommies finished as the No. 3 seed, defeated both Ferris State and Bowling Green and made it to the CCHA Championship where they fell to MacNaughton Cup champion Minnesota State in a tight game.
Looking back on last season, Tommies head coach Rico Blasi saw several positives that he thinks will carry over to this year.
“Well, there’s a lot of things,” he said in a recent interview. “I think our approach never really deviated from our process, which was I think is really important. We weren’t getting results early in the year and it could’ve been easy to just panic, and kind of throw in the towel and start over again, and we didn’t do that. That’s credit to the guys for sticking with it, and that’s a big part of it. I think our guys believe that we had what it took to be a good team, and it was just a matter of being a little bit more detailed, a little bit more determined, a little bit more of a will to kind of make it happen. So, I think those lessons are all good lessons and when you’re doing something for the first time, especially in our case, with our program and the way we’ve built it so far in the last couple years, sometimes you have to go through some difficult times to get to the other side and I think we did that. I think we had to really look and evaluate our process. Make sure it was right, make sure we’re doing things the right way and that we were holding each other accountable. So, the biggest thing that I probably would take away from it is our culture, and our identity was challenged, and we stayed true to both those things, and all of a sudden, we started to win some close games, and then it kind of snowballed from there. So, the biggest thing for me is there’s no shortcutting In terms of how to do it, and we still have to be focused on that work ethic and that commitment level to our process.”
The Tommies will have to put last season’s success behind them as a new part of their Division I journey begins in October when it moves from the St. Thomas Ice Arena in Mendota Heights to the Lee and Penny Anderson Arena on the UST campus in St. Paul. UST opens the season with a game on the road against St. Cloud State on Oct. 4 (The Huskies will then return the favor by traveling to UST Nov. 11) before an interesting series against North Dakota where Friday’s game will be in Grand Forks, while Sunday’s game will be played at the Grand Casino Arena (formerly Xcel Energy Center) in St. Paul. UST then travels to Air Force the following weekend before opening up the LPAA with a series against Providence Oct. 24-25.
When asked why the Tommies aren’t opening up their new arena against UND and are instead playing at the GCA, Blasi said the decision was made a while ago.
“I don’t know if everybody knows this, but scheduling in hockey happens two years in advance,” he said. “Otherwise, you’re not gonna get any teams to play you. So we had no idea that our building would be ready at the time. We know we wanted to pursue North Dakota. It was originally at home and home, but since we’re moving into the NCHC a year from now, we had to make a decision. So, not knowing if the building would be ready or not, we didn’t want to be on the road for the entire month.”
“The Providence series, if the building wasn’t ready, we were gonna flip it. We go to Providence first, and they’d come here after. So, there were a lot of things up in the air. We were keeping an eye on the process of the building and trying to finalize scheduling. The X has been great with us, so it worked out for everybody.”
What also has worked out so far, at least on paper, is replacing a lot of senior players and upperclassmen including star forwards Liam Malmquist and Cooper Gay. The Tommies picked up Harvard forward Alex Gaffney, Ohio State forward Dylan Godbout, Arizona State forward Charlie Schoen and Michigan Tech defenseman Nick Williams. Colorado College netminder Carsen Musser is the final transfer and he’ll be probably fighting upperclassmen Aaron Trotter for the number one spot. Musser, an Arizona Coyotes draftee, will be attending the Utah Mammoth’s development camp.
“I think you’re losing a big senior class and having a big freshman class, we wanted to make sure that we had some experience,” Blasi said. “Some guys have been through it and that’s you know no different than what we’ve done the years past. We’ve added some quality guys that are coming home to play, and that have good experience at the college level at some very good programs with some very good coaches. They’ve been in championship games, won championships, gone to the national tournament. So, all those experiences that those transfers have been through, we hope that that kind of translates to our senior class, which is a good class. It’s a deep class in terms of what they’ve meant to us and the production that they’ve had. So, those guys will hopefully lead our young team and help navigate them through the season.”
In regard to his young squad, the Tommies are bringing in 10 freshmen with three of them being invited to NHL development camps with Vegas Golden Knights draft pick Lucas Van Vliet attending their camp, Nathan Pilling going to the Ottawa Senators’ camp and Edmonton Oilers draft pick Bauer Berry going to their camp. Blasi expects all of his freshmen to contribute, but also says that they’re young, so it could be an adjustment going from juniors to DI hockey.
“They’re still freshman,” he said. “They got they gotta go through the grind a little bit freshman. They’ve got to go through the grind a little bit to gain experience, but we feel good about our depth, skill, level, size, speed. This is the first full year (in DI). We’ve been now, with the rules changing, who knows, but at least we’re at the minimum 18 scholarships. So, we’re making progress towards getting there, and this is really fun now. We feel like we’re gonna be in every game we feel like we belong. We feel like we’ve done a pretty good job. We’re moving into a new building, so that there’s a lot of pluses that we couldn’t talk about maybe three years ago.”
In addition to some newcomers going to development camps, there’s also a couple of veteran Tommies at camps as New Jersey Devils draftee Chase Cheslock will be attending their camp, while captain Lucas Wahlin heads to the Colorado Avalanche’s camp. A CCHA Player of the Year finalist, Wahlin will lead the Tommies’ offensive attack, while Cheslock will be a key member of the blue line.
“Lucas is our driver,” Blasi said. “I mean, anybody that’s watches us play can attest to that he drives the bus. So, he’ll continue to do that. He’ll be a three-year captain now, and he’s very comfortable in that role. I think on the backend adding Nick Williams gives Chase another older guy with experience, that’s won a championship and has been in the national tournament. I think Mason Poolman and Cole Miller are older now, and Carson Peters is a senior. I think there’s some good depth and some good leadership there so that Chase doesn’t have to do it on his own. It’s probably more by committee there, so we feel good about that.”
Now that the Tommies are entering Year 5 of The Process and are now full members of Division I, the approach this season is a little different.
“We feel like we’re we belong now, and our focus will be winning a championship and doing it our way,” Blasi said. “Doing it within our process, and true to our identity, and in our culture. We’re still in this building process. These things don’t happen overnight, so there’s still a building mentality, but we feel like we’re getting closer right. So, nothing really changes in terms of our process. Our process is just enhanced and it’s faster. It’s bigger, it’s stronger, it’s more detailed. It’s a little bit more, I don’t even know the word for it, but it’ll have a little bit different purpose. So, the blueprints, we’re not gonna mess around with that. It just gets better and better as we as we move through the years, and that’s a credit to the guys.”