The Minnesota Golden Gophers' 2024-25 season will officially get underway on Friday evening as the Gophers open their season against the Air Force Falcons in the 2024 Ice Breaker Tournament.
The tournament taking place at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada features the Golden Gophers, Air Force Falcons, UMass Minutemen, and Omaha Mavericks. The winner of the Gophers and Falcons matchup on Friday night will take on the winner of UMass vs Omaha while the losers will also battle each other on Saturday.
Air Force Falcons
Minnesota will open their season on Friday night against the Air Force Falcons. While it will be the season opener for the Gophers, the Falcons got their legs under them last weekend with a two-game series against Arizona State, splitting the series. After an 8-1 defeat to open their season, the Falcons bounced back with a 4-3 win in the second game to avoid an 0-2 start.
Only two Falcons found their shots hitting the back of the net this season in forward Clay Cosentino (3 goals, 1 assist) and center Brendan Gibbons (2 goals) though seven different Falcons did record points in the series.
The Falcons will hope to improve this season on a 18-19-1 record from last season, a season in which they struggled in non-Atlantic Hockey play, going 3-9-0 in non-conference matchups.
They'll be led by long time head coach Frank Serratore, who has a career 505-528-108 coaching record including 326-273-80 at Air Force. The Falcons this season will look for their first NCAA Tournament appearance since the 2017-18 season.
One storyline to watch will be the goaltending situation, as neither goalie had an outstanding performance in the opening weekend. Guy Blessing got the nod for Game 2 after relieving Carter Clafton in the opener.
The Falcons this offseason did see the departures of a few notable players including left winger and center Will Gavin who led Air Force with 19 goals last season, he was second on the team in total points with 36. Forward Parker Brown (8 goals, 13 assists), defenseman Luke Rowe (6 goals, 23 assists), and forward Brian Adams (2 goals, 6 assists, +7) are among other notable losses.
Key returners include defensemen Chris Hedden (8 goals, 29 assists), forward Clay Cosentino (10 goals, 18 assists), forward Austin Schwartz (10 goals, 9 assists), left winger Mason McCormick (6 goals, 9 assists), forward Holt Oliphant (10 goals, 4 assists), forward Andrew DeCarlo (5 goals, 9 assists), and center Brendan Gibbons (7 goals, 5 assists).
While there is plenty of offensive production returning for this Falcons team this season, their defensive play and goaltending is highly questionable. Last season, Air Force's team save percentage of .887 ranked 56th in the nation and through the opening weekend, it doesn't appear much improvement has been made.
Minnesota fans should feel quite confident in the Gophers picking up a season opening win on Friday night.
UMass Minutemen
Already off to a 1-0 start this season, the Minutemen opened their season last wekeend against Bently University with a 5-4 win. The Minutemen were led in that game by Calgary Flames 2023 third-roujnd pick, Aydar Suniev, a 19-year old, 6-foot-2, 198 pound forward out of Russia. In the win, Suniev had a a hat trick.
The Minutemen this season will look to make the NCAA Tournament for the fifth time in the last six seasons only missing the tournament during the 2022-2023 season in that timespan. They of course are fouryears removed from a national championship in 2020-21 and were the national runner ups in the 2018-19 season.
Expected to get the start in net will be Michael Hrabal, who played in 30 games last season for UMass, going 16-12-1 with a 2.59 GAa and .912 save percentage.
The Minutemen lost quite a few players from last year that will be hard to replace including their top two defensemen in Scott Morrow and Ryan Ufko, who both are starting their professional careers in the AHL. They also said goodbye to several other key defnesemen in Samuli Niinisaari (3 goals, 9 assists), Aaron Bohlinger (3 goals, 5 assists), Sebastian Tornqvist, and Elliott McDermott also left the program this offseason.
From a forward perspective, the Minutemen were not nearly hit as hard sayig only goodbye to Taylor Makar, who after totaling nine points a year ago transferred to Maine this offseason. Lucas Vanroboys (3 goals, 5 assists), and Liam Gorman (1 goal, 3 assists) also have departed the Minutemen.
The good news for the Minutemen is that seven of their eight top goal scorers from last season include Jack Musa (12 goals), Aydar Suniev (12 goals), and Ryan Lautenbach (10 goals). With that, goalscoring should not be an issue for UMass this season.
Omaha Mavericks
The Omaha Mavericks are coming off a strong 2023-24 campaign in which they went 23-13-4 in which they reached the NCAA Tournament but ultimately were knocked out by the Golden Gophers in the regional semifinals at the Denny Sanford Premier Center in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
The Mavericks are led by head coach Mike Gabinet who is now in his eighth season leading the program. He enters this season with a 117-114-16 record overall.
This offseason, the Mavericks had to say goodbye to several key contributors from last year including left winger Jack Randl (13 goals, 13 assists), center Ty Mueller (11 goals, 15 assists), right winger Matt Miller (7 goals, 13 assists), defenseman Joaquim Lemay (5 goals, 13 assists), and forward Nolan Sullivan (7 goals, 9 assists) among others.
Despite those losses, the Mavericks return plenty of top players from last season including the talented Ludtke brothers. Tanner Lutke, a third round pick of the Arizona Coyotes (now Utah Hockey Club) in 2023 returns after leading the Mavericks with 11 points and 17 assists in 40 games played. His brother, defenseman Griffin Ludtke returns after four goals and 23 assists.
Other key contributors returning this season include LW Zach Udahl (13 goals, 12 assists), LW Brock Bremer (8 goals, 12 assists), F Jimmy Glynn (9 goals, 6 assists), D Jacob Guevni (3 goals, 10 assists), and D Noah Ellis (0 goals, 3 assists), a Vegas Golden Knights sixth round pick in 2020.
Notably, the Mavericks return primary starting goalie Simon Latkoczy who was 19-12-3 last season with a .913 save percentage and a 2.69 goals against average. Backing up Latkoczy will be Will Craig, who did not see the ice last season and Swedish goalie Kevin Reidler, an Ottawa Senators 2022 fifth round draft pick.
The Mavericks played one game ahead of this season, an exhibition contest against Wisconsin last weekend. The Badgers came out on top with a 3-2 win in overtime. In that loss, forward Tyler Rollwagen, entering his third year with the program scored both of the Mavericks goals in the game. He enters this season with 12 career points in 71 games played.
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