The University of Minnesota Duluth will officially open its 2007-08 preseason hockey camp this Saturday (Oct. 6) with a pair of practices -- 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. -- at the Sports and Health Center Arena on the UMD campus. The Bulldogs will have just six days to prepare for their 2007-08 season opener, a non-conference clash with Lake Superior State University on Oct. 12 at the Duluth Entertainment and Convention Center.

2007-08 BULLDOG OUTLOOK



Early defections were something the University of Minnesota Duluth hockey program hadn’t had to deal much with since the turn of the century.



That all changed, however, last spring, when a pair of All-Western Collegiate Hockey Association first teammers and the centerpieces of a highly touted 2005-06 recruiting class – left wing Mason Raymond and Matt Niskanen -- elected to trade in their final two years of college eligibility for the bright lights of the National Hockey League. Raymond, who signed on with Vancouver Canucks (he was their second round draft pick in 2005), topped the 2006-07 Bulldogs in scoring and racked up more points on the power play than any player in the WCHA. Niskanen, the Dallas Star’s No. 1 pick two years ago, ranked sixth among all NCAA blueliners in regular season scoring and was the league’s No. 2 point-producing defenseman.

Both Raymond and Niskanen will make their NHL debuts later this week.



But despite the loss of this uber-talented sophomore tandem, not to mention the graduation of record-breaking goaltender Josh Johnson and reigning team goal-scoring leader Bryan McGregor, the 2007-08 UMD cupboard is still far from bare. And, rather than bemoaning about “what might have been”, the 17 returning lettermen and eight newcomers who comprise the 64th edition of Bulldog hockey are collectively setting their scopes on the future. That includes aiming for a return to the Western Collegiate Hockey Association’s higher-rent district as well as to the NCAA playoffs.



Up Front: Not only were Raymond’s 46 points last winter the most by a Bulldog since Junior Lessard hit the 63-mark on his way to receiving the Hobey Baker Memorial Award in 2003-04, but he also had a hand in more of his team’s goals -- 44.7 percent -- than any other WCHA skater. (His 14 goals on the year were only surpassed by McGregor, who scored 16 times to go with 12 assists while finishing as the club’s third leading scorer). Instead of banking on another Raymond coming along, the Bulldogs will count on a collection of proven collegiate commodities to do their heavy lifting offensively this winter. Among those is senior center Matt McKnight, who was injured for nearly a third of the 2006-07 season which ultimately took its toll on his scoring harvest (a career-low nine points in 29 outings). McKnight, the Bulldogs’ first repeat team captain in 29 years, will be joined on the front lines by another pair of grizzled veterans in junior center MacGregor Sharp, and senior right winger Mike Curry. Like the Bulldogs who finished the season by going unbeaten in 10 of their final 16 games, Sharp played some of his best hockey down the stretch. The Red Deer, Alberta product used that late-season spurt (he marked in the scoring column in nine of the last 13 outings) to place fourth on the Bulldog scoring charts with 11 goals and 16 assists for 27 points – all career highs. Curry, who appears primed for a breakout season, eclipsed personal bests one year ago for scoring (14 points) while sporting the team’s best plus-minus figure (+4). In addition, junior wingers Michael Gergen, Nick Kemp, Andrew Carroll and Matt Greerare also expected to make larger contributions to the Bulldog scoring coffers this winter. Gergen, a second round National Hockey League draftee with a boatload of talent, had 16 points to his credit as a sophomore, a noticeable decrease from the previous winter when he tied for the team goal scoring lead with 14 tallies. Kemp rebounded from a couple of early-season ailments (which sidelined him for seven games) to place eighth among his puckmates in the points department (12) while Carroll, a 2007-08 alternate team captain who put up an impressive 23 points as a rookie, never really seemed to get on track last season (just three goals and five assists in 36 games). Greer, meanwhile, concluded his second year in a Bulldog uniform with eight points on four goals and four assists and was a +2 on the season. The return of sophomore centers Jordan Fulton (3-7=10) and Drew Akins (7-3=10) should give the Bulldogs added depth and stability at the forward position.



On Defense: With two members of its 2006-07 regular cast gone – Niskanen and reliable fifth-year senior Ryan Geris – the Bulldogs will look to the likes of senior alternate team captain Travis Gawryletz (0-5=5) as well as juniors Josh Meyers, Jason Garrison (1-2=3), who managed to appear in just 18 games during an injury-plagued sophomore season, and Jay Cascalenda (1-2=3) to pick up a lot of slack on the blueline. In terms of generating offense, Meyers has shown to have the greatest upside of any Bulldog defenseman, having closed out 2006-07 with 11 goals -- the most by a UMD blueliner in six years – and 24 points. Sophomores Trent Palm (1-0=1), the co-recipient of UMD’s Most Improved Player Award last year, and Chase Ryan (0-1=1) round out the list of holdovers.



In Goal: Perhaps no one in the WCHA did a better job of protecting his club's net from last February on last season than UMD’s Josh Johnson. When all was said and done, he had not only carved out Bulldog single-season records for both goals against average (2.14) against average and saves percentage (.942) but career marks in both of those departments as well (2.71 and .905). With Johnson now out of the picture, the battle for the Bulldogs’ starting goaltending assignment is expected to be an extremely spirited one and two of the combatants will be Alex Stalock and Nate Ziegelmann. The highly mobile Stalock (he picked up assists on four Bulldog goals last season) was named to the WCHA All-Rookie Team after pacing all first-year league netminders in virtually every statistical category including overall appearances (23), starts (22), minutes (1363:30) and saves (560) while rolling up a 5-14-3 record. He manned the UMD goalmouth in every minute of the club’s opening 10 games -- the first Bulldog to do that in 12 seasons -- and posted a 2.54 goals against average and a .904 saves percentage during that stretch before splitting time with, and eventually giving way to Johnson. Ziegelmann, one of four seniors on the 2006-07 roster, didn’t see any action last winter after coming to the Bulldogs’ rescue in the waning stages of the 2005-06 season (he allowed 2.41 goals a game and posted a .921 saves percentage during a season-ending five-game stretch).



Special Teams: Improving special teams play was a major point of emphasis for Scott Sandelin and UMD coaching staff in 2006-07 and the Bulldogs responded to that challenge by sporting the nation’s sixth most efficient power play (21.2 percent compared with a 15.6 figure the previous year). Although Raymond and Niskanen had a lot to do with this marked turnaround (they placed 1-2 in the WCHA in power play points), Meyers also inflicted plenty of damage as nine of his 11 goals last year came while UMD had the man advantage. If adequate replacements can be found for Raymond and Niskanen, such as Michael Gergen and a healthy Jason Garrison at the left point, there is no reason not to duplicate what they did a year ago on the power play. The same can be said for the penalty kill which, buoyed by McGregor and his team-leading three shorthanded tallies, ranked fourth in the WCHA (84.6 percent) after coming in at No. 8 in 2005-06.



New Faces: A promising ensemble of eight recruits – almost one third of the UMD’s entire 2007-08 roster -- will debut with the Bulldogs this season and all have the capabilities of making an immediate splash. They include forwards Rob Bordson (Cedar Rapids of the United States Hockey League), Cody Danberg (Nanaimo of the British Columbia Hockey League), Justin Fontaine (Bonnyville of the Alberta Junior Hockey League), Mike Montgomery (Southern Minnesota of the North American Hockey League) and Kyle Schmidt (Alaska/NAHL), defensemen Evan Oberg (Camrose/AJHL) and Chad Huttel (Hermantown High School) and goaltender Kenny Reiter (Fairbanks/NAHL), the younger brother of former University of Alaska Anchorage puckstopper Kevin Reiter.



Coach Sandelin Says: “I thought for the final month and a half of last season, we were a pretty darn good hockey team. I saw a lot of growth and improvement and that to me, although we lost a few key players, is encouraging when looking ahead to this year.



“I believe there are some capable guys who can take charge offensively and help make up for those losses. Scoring will most likely be done by committee. We are going to need more players, especially the experienced ones, to score 10-plus goals this season. I think Michael Gergen is one of those guys. Andrew Carroll, MacGregor Sharp, Matt McKnight, Mike Curry and Nick Kemp are certainly others. On defense, even in the absence of Matt Niskanen and Ryan Geris, I feel we still have enough guys like Travis Gawryletz, Josh Meyers and Jason Garrison back there who’ve played a lot of minutes and can provide us with leadership.



“Talking with our captains and older veterans, it’s apparent that we want to be one of the best-conditioned and hardest-working teams in the WCHA. We also want to be much more disciplined and avoid taking lazy penalties.”