The Grand Forks Herald had its 36th annual Grand Forks Herald
WCHA preseason coaches' poll
1. (tie) Minnesota (5) 74
1. (tie) Wisconsin (3) 74
3. UND (2) 66
4. Denver 55
5. St. Cloud St. 48
6. Minn. Duluth 45
7. Colorado College 37
8. Michigan Tech 19
9. MSU-Mankato 18
10. Alaska Anchorage 14
Beauty Contests
Player of the year
Brian Elliott, G, Wisconsin, 6 votes
Jonathan Toews, F, UND, 2
T.J. Oshie, F, UND, 2
Rookie of the year
Erik Johnson, D, Minnesota, 4 votes
Kyle Okposo, F, Minnesota, 3
Alex Stalock, G, Duluth, 2
Brock Trotter, F, Denver, 1
Goon's Analysis
I personally I don't have a problem with this poll(drum roll please). It's pretty much a given that the Wisconsin Badgers were going to get the pre-season number one spot after winning the NCAA title last season. Also, since the Gophers won the McNaughten Cup last season before doing nothing else the rest of the season, should be logical selection at number one. Also, I say let these teams have the kiss of death, when ever someone is picked to finish in the top spot of the league they end up finishing further down the list. I am all for UND flying under the radar this season for a change.
It is not much of a stretch to say that the Golden Rodents have probably the best recruiting class on paper in the NCAA. I know we can also say that NCAA titles are won on the ice and not in some stupid meaningless poll. Games are also not won on paper. But I digress, Wisconsin will be a top five team but will have trouble scoring goals as Thee Wisconsin Hockey Blog addresses the issue.
Wisconsin Hockey Blog pretty much sums it up:
Joe Pavelski, 56 pts. Robbie Earl, 50 pts. Adam Burish, 32 pts. Tom Gilbert, 31 pts. Ryan MacMurchy, 25 pts. And there you have it - the 5 top scorers on the team, worth a combined total of 194 points. The production will be hard to replace, and it's also the reason that the defending national champions are not considered to be serious players in the WCHA title race this year.
Frankly, that offense is going to need to come from someplace. The highest returning scorers on the team are senior Ross Carlson (23 pts), sophomore Jack Skille (21 pts), and junior Kyle Klubertanz (21 pts). Those three guys are going to have to step up their offense to probably around 100 points or so combined in order to give the Badgers the top of the lineup juice they need to stay competitive. That's about a 50% increase over what they had this year.
This should be a very good season as finally we can talk about something else beside what CHN and INCH worthless polls.
The coaches haven't been all that great at picking things over the years but they actually did a very good job last year. They almost picked things exactly right (the top five were almost perfectly predicted). The only glaring mistake they made was they had UMD at #6 and SCSU at #9... and reality was SCSU finished #6 and UMD finished at #9. The coaches deserve some props for their choices last year.
ReplyDeleteI like the picks. I also like not being number one.
ReplyDelete