2009-10 Season Outlook
There's a bit of "new car smell" to the Minnesota State women's hockey program these days.
Eric Means, a long-time assistant with the MSU men's hockey program, was named as the women's program head coach back in May and not long thereafter, brought in Jon Austin, Shari Vogt and Dean Williamson as assistants.
Then, along with the arrival of a completely new coaching staff, there's the departure of the program's all-time leading scorer with the graduation of forward Maggie Fischer. Fischer led the Mavericks in scoring three of her four years with the Mavericks and besides career points (109), she completed her MSU career holding school career marks for games played (141), goals (57), assists (52), game-winning goals (12), shorthanded goals (7) and shots (462).
That being said, the Mavericks should head into the 2009-10 campaign with some momentum. Although MSU sported a sub-.500 record last year, the Mavericks did win five of their last five games. And after losing the first game of a best-of-three Western Collegiate play-off series to St. Cloud State, MSU battled back to win the last two games to advance to the WCHA Final Face-off for the first time in the program's history. The Mavericks finished the year 12-19-5 on the season, but the 12 wins represent the fourth-most wins in the program's 11-year history.
Means will guide 17 letterwinners and six newcomers in his inaugural season with the program and is optimistic about the team's chances.
"I think there's a great core of players coming back led by a group of seniors that have had very good careers as Mavericks," said Means. "Last year's team finished on a good run at the end of the season and for the first time won a playoff series. We need to build on the momentum that we finished with last year."
Forwards
Led by senior forward Christina Lee (14-19-33), who led the Mavericks in scoring in 2008-09, the Mavericks the Mavericks return ten forwards off of last years's squad. Another pair of seniors in Kala Buganski (12-15-27) and Ashley Young (10-17-27) established career scoring highs as juniors last year and ranked third and fourth on the team scoring charts, respectively.
Other returning forwards include junior Nina Tikkinen (9-9-18), sophomore Emmi Leinonen (7-10-17), Lisa Edman (7-9-16), sophomore Moira O'Connor (2-2-4), senior Jenna Hewitt (1-1-2), sophomore Ariel Mackley (1-1-2) and sophomore Jenna Peterson (0-1-1). Newcomers amongst the forwards include Minnesota High School Player of the Year Lauren Zrust (Blaine, Minn.), Lauren Smith (Holy Angels) and Jamie Weiss (Hermantown, Minn.).
"I think we'll have great depth up front," said Means. "In Lee, Young, Buganski, Leiononen, Tikkinen and Edman, we should have balanced scoring amongst the top couple lines. We have some veterans in Hewitt and Clark and a few youngsters there in O'Connor, Mackley and Peterson who we expect will make some strides.
Defensemen
The MSU blue line boasts some seasoned players in seniors Holly Snyder (6-13-19) and Kathleen Rosso (2-5-7), along with underclassmen Jackie Otto (2-3-5) and Ariel Mackley (1-1-2). Otto played in every game as a freshman and Mackley missed one contest in her debut with the Mavericks. Freshman Erick Magnusson was a finalist for the state of Minnesota's Player of the Year Award last year as a senior and figures to see boatloads of action in her maiden season at MSU.
"Holly will be the player that is the leader of our d-corps," said Means. "Rosso, Otto and Mackley played a significant amount of time last year, so their roles will continue to grow. We lose Emilia Anderson, who was a good player for us last year as a freshman (MSU will get her back next year - Anderson is a candidate for this year's Swedish Olympic team). Then, we throw in some of the newcomers such as Magnusson, who will help in terms of immediate impact, potentially on the power-play. I like where we are with our defensemen right now, we'll see where we are by the end of the year."
Goaltenders
Junior Paige Thunder (7-8-2. 3.44 gaa, .880 sv%) was good down the stretch last year for the Mavericks, going 4-2-0 in her last seven appearances with a .904 save percentage and a 2.67 goals-against average. Sophomore Alli Altmann (5-11-3, 4.15, .867 sv%), saw action in 22 games in her first year with the Mavericks. Joining the two returning netminders are a pair of freshmen in freshmen Sydney Aveson (LA Selects) and Sarah Schneekloth (Marshall High School).
"It (the goaltending) ended strong last year with Page leading the team into the play-offs," said Means. "But, obviously it's a key area if we expect to get home ice for the playoffs. As everyone knows, in order to be successful, a team is going to have consistently good goaltending all year. That being said, we're going to have good internal competition here with four goaltenders on the roster."
The Schedule
The Mavericks have an exhibition game at home Oct. 2 against the Minnesota Whitecaps prior to taking on the University of Maine in a pair of road non-conference games to open the season Oct. 9-10. MSU starts WCHA action the following weekend (Oct. 17-18) at the University of North Dakota. Another conference road series follows with MSU traveling to Columbus for a series versus Ohio State.
"Outside of the fact we open with six straight games on the road, which not something you do every year, it's a decent schedule," said Means. "On the positive side, this does allow us to spend some time together. New staff, new ideas, maybe it'll be a good thing to be on the road with less distractions, where you can focus on the hockey.
"The league is the league. We've got some tough non-conference games with Mercyhurst, which returns essentially its entire team that played for a national championship last year. It's a challenging schedule. But with this being an Olympic year, the WCHA lose a number of players who will be playing with national teams from Canada, the United States and Sweden. I don't know that there will one dominant team like there was with Wisconsin last year and it leaves things a little more wide open in terms of where the teams are going to fall, standings-wise."
