Each week Doug Woog sits down with Minnesota Hockey Journal editor Greg Anzelc to discuss the all of the great WCHA action.

FINAL WCHA STANDINGS:
1 North Dakota
2 Denver
3 Wisconsin
Colorado College
5 Minnesota
6 St. Cloud State
7 Minnesota Duluth
8 Minnesota State
9 Alaska Anchorage
10 Michigan Tech

When you look at the finish of the season for Minnesota, the importance of a single point is magnified. They always say that a point in October is just as important as a point in March, and this held true for Minnesota as one tie or another win would have made the difference in getting into the NCAA Playoffs. Minnesota just didn’t have their typical season and only had one sweep all year, against St. Cloud. Minnesota had the talent to get to the tournament but just fell short in a few key categories. That was sort of the nature of the league this year as no team really sustained anything from start to finish. From a sheer talent standpoint Wisconsin had some high end talent and came into the season with high hopes but started extremely slow. Jamie McBain, Ryan McDonagh and John Mitchell are all high end talent players for the Badgers and will be difference makers in coming years. Looking around the league, Denver got beat up by injuries this season and that was the difference down the stretch for the Pioneers. CC was picked to finish at the top, but they were just too soft and didn’t have the grit to get it done. Another team that had an interesting year is Anchorage who played well but just didn’t get the goaltending they needed to make a move. The Seawolves were the most improved team in play, but just couldn’t move up in the standings. Rounding out the bottom, Tech just could never get anything going and had bad luck with injuries.

When dissecting Minnesota’s season, there were a few key factors that popped up after the first of they year. Goaltending became the surprise hot topic after the holidays as nobody expected Alex Kangas to struggle as he did. Coming into the season there was hype on the top players that started when Ryan Stoa decided to come back and Aaron Ness was receiving a lot of attention for what he could bring to the blue line. On paper with Mike Carman, Jay Barriball and Jordan Schroeder it looked to be a great team up front. On defense there were some questions and at the end of the day some of the players just didn’t play up to potential. Overall there just wasn’t a lot of progress for some of the players and that hurt when some of the guys weren’t able to step up in key situations. The special teams were a highlight of the season but Minnesota struggles in five on five situations, they needed more pop. Looking ahead to next year the jury is out on whether or not Stoa will come back. If some other players decide to leave, look for a potential domino affect. Minnesota needs to bring in someone to provide some punch next season on a roster that right now looks a little thin. The question is who is going to be the core group for the high end guys and who are going to be the difference makers. The defense will get bigger next year, but they still won’t have the senior maturity. How that goes, the team goes.

NCAA predictions:

This is the first time in a while that a lot of traditional powerhouses (Minnesota, Boston College) didn’t get into the tournament. This was definitely a peculiar year.

West Region:
Denver vs. Miami
Tyler Bozak is back in the lineup for the Pioneers and that will give them a boost after Tyler Ruegsegger injury last weekend took him out of the lineup and really disrupted the flow for Denver. Rather than a team in rhythm they were playing like a tire was flat. They are still more skilled and deeper than Miami however.
THE CALL: DENVER

Princeton vs. UMD
UMD has some quick forwards, is solid on defense and they are a ‘don’t give up a goal’ type team as their forwards come back and play both ends of the ice. Stalock still has to be beaten but Princeton doesn’t have the depth and high end firepower to do it.
THE CALL: UMD
Champion: UMD

Northeast Region:
BU over OHIO STATE
UND over UNH
Champion: BU

East Region:
Air Force over Michigan
Yale over Vermont
Champion: Air Force over Yale

Midwest Region:
Notre Dame over Bemidji
Cornell over Northeastern
Champion: Notre Dame over Cornell