College Hockey Series of the Week: No. 5 Minnesota State vs UMass

Story posted October 1, 2021 in CommRadio, Sports by Jacob Cheris

College hockey finally begins this Saturday. Non-conference play is finally back and fans are back in the arenas.

The defending national champions UMass Minutemen will take on the No. 5 Minnesota State Mavericks.

The Minutemen are still going to be one of the best teams in the nation. They are still going to be led by fifth-year forward Bobby Trivigno, who led the team with 34 points, which was also seventh in the nation.

They did lose Zac Jones, though, the leader of their defense core. However, the defense for UMass will still be very good on the back end as they still have Matthew Kessel and Colin Felix, but Jones’s departure will be felt early on.

Fifth-year goaltender Matt Murray will be taking the next step as the No. 1 goaltender.

He went 10-4-0 last season with a .917 save percentage and a 1.97 goals-against average, through 14 games.  Murray will be taking over the reins of Filip Lindberg.

On the other side of the spectrum, the Mavericks are led by fourth-year forward Julian Napravnik. He was terrific last season with 28 points.

Minnesota State did lose a fair amount of talent in the offseason. Dallas Gerades, Walker Duehr, Jake Jaremko and Todd Burgess all graduated. All four of those players were big contributors to the offense.

A big plus for the Mavericks is the return of Reggie Lutz. He led the team in goals along with Duehr and Napravnik. All three players had 10 goals.

The story of this season for the Mavericks will be fourth-year goaltender Dryden McKay.

McKay is three shutouts away from breaking Ryan Miller’s shutout record for the most in NCAA history. Last year was the second year in a row he had 10 shutouts. The Downers Grove, Illinois, native currently has 24 career shutouts.

This series is going to be low scoring. Both teams are well disciplined, well coached and play shutdown defense.

Last season, both groups were first and second in goals against per-game. Minnesota State was first only allowing 1.64 goals per-game, and the Minutemen were second, allowing 1.66 goals per game.

However, the offense for both of these teams are significantly weaker.

Depth scoring will be a key contributor in this series. Both recruiting classes are filled with talent, so the freshmen will have a big role in this series.

The Mavericks will be gunning for the Frozen Four once again. They lost to St. Cloud last year in a tough 5-4 matchup.

The series will be played in front of a sold-out crowd at the Mullins Center, where UMass will raise its championship banner.

Prediction:

Game 1: UMass 2-1
Game 2: Minnesota State 3-2


Jacob Cheris is a third-year majoring in broadcast journalism. To contact him, email jacobcheris19@gmail.com