Beavers Look to Carve Out Spot in Muddled WCHA

by Christopher Boulay/CHN Writer (@chrismboulay)

In a conference that reliably has tiers of competition from year to year, there’s a clear and obvious top group in the WCHA this season. Both Minnesota State and Bowling Green are projected to be far and away the two best teams in the conference, likely leaving the rest of the group to fight over home ice in the conference playoffs.

The coaches know it, and have spoken about it during the offseason. While the games need to be played, and injuries and underperforming or overperforming can change the narrative, the goal is the fight for third, and to a lesser extent, to guarantee home ice come March.

Bemidji State has as good of a shot as anyone in the conference to make this happen. The Beavers return most of their impact players, and the ones they lost from last year, such as defensemen Justin Baudry and Dillon Eichstadt, can be absorbed with a bit more offensive output and growth in the back.

Last season, Bemidji finished 15-17-6 with a 13-11-4 WCHA record. Despite the above .500 record, the Beavers had to travel to Sault Ste. Marie, Mich., to face a talented Lake Superior State squad in the WCHA quarterfinals, dropping both games to end the season on a sour note. Despite the disappointing end to 2018-19, there were multiple aspects of Bemidji’s play last year that can be built upon for this season.

One of the most comfortable spots Bemidji coach Tom Serratore has is in net. Considering the performances last season, it would seem logical that the job would go to Zach Driscoll, who had a .909 save percentage over 27 games — a much larger sample size than Henry Johnson’s .916 in 14 games. However, Serratore refused to name a starter when asked multiple times during September. This suggests he will give both goaltenders a look during the first half of the season.

“I’m comfortable. We like our freshman goaltender (Michael Carr), too,” Serratore said. “Don’t think that he’s not a factor, either. But at the end of the day, Driscoll is the guy we played at the second half of the year last year. He’s the guy we leaned on. But every year (is different). It’s called competition and competition is healthy.”

Whether someone comes out of the battle and wins the job outright, or Serratore decides to alternate netminders each weeknight, the Beavers still have one of the most enviable goaltending situations in the conference.

Goaltending will need to be successful from the get-go, because the defense will be in an adjustment period. Absorbing the losses of defensemen Baudry, Eichstadt and Dan Billett will be a challenge, but this is an opportunity for some younger players to step up on the blueline and make a significant difference.

Bemidji likely won’t need to worry about goal scoring, with the vast majority of it returning. Senior forward Adam Brady, along with juniors Charlie Combs and Aaron Miller, could take steps forward this season. Sophomore Owen Sillinger could also build off of his 10-19-29 campaign from last year. Even strength should be the bread and butter of the Bemidji attack, but the offense will need to mature from last season.

“We like our offensive production,” Serratore said. "Even last year, it was the most five-on-five goals we had in a couple years, but our power play let us down. The years before that, our power play delivered for us and our five-on-five offense let us down. But we really like where we’re at five-on-five, but we do need a shot in the arm on our power play. (...) Your power play production is what gets you over the hump offensively. We still feel we’ve got good ingredients on our power play.”

Last year, Bemidji’s power play was just 53rd in the nation — 14 percent leaves much room for improvement. However, with the loss of the aforementioned key defensemen, there is more pressure to get that power play number up. On the penalty kill, the Beavers’ 85.5 percent ranked 11th in the nation, and that will probably drop considering these blueline losses.

The season doesn’t get off to an easy start. The Beavers host St. Cloud on Oct. 11-12, and then travel west on Route 2 to face North Dakota on Oct 25-26. With so many conference games in the WCHA, teams have limited nonconference matchups, making it all the more urgent to perform well.

“We all know it’s challenging. We all look at the schedule,” Serratore said. “You can really set the pace with how you play early (on) — good and bad. They are important games from a nonconference standpoint. We want to do well, not only for ourselves, but for our league. We also want to establish ourselves as we get into league play.”

In addition, to those matchups, Bemidji will face Minnesota and either St. Cloud or Minnesota State in the reborn Mariucci Classic to complete the nonconference schedule following the winter break.

There’s no pressure on Bemidji to perform this season, just more of an opportunity to be successful. Serratore’s team hasn’t won a WCHA playoff series since 2016-17, when it defeated Northern Michigan in the quarterfinals. The Beavers also won the regular-season title that year. With Northern Michigan and Lake Superior State expected to take steps back, the team has a great opportunity.

“Bowling Green and Minnesota State, when you look on paper, we’re all chasing them,” Serratore said. “I don’t think there’s any question. They’re both going to be home ice. But I think those last two spots, it’s reasonable for a lot of different schools. That’s exciting. There’s just a lot of parity right now.”

Few teams around the country will be as battle tested before entering conference play as the Beavers. Now it’s time for them to take advantage of that conference parity and be a threat this season.

