Pre-Season Predictions: Part 3

Next up, Denver and CC...

Colorado College

Last season, CC finished 5^th place in the WCHA by two points and just missed the NCAAs.

Up front, the Tigers lose Polich and Cox. Perhaps a much bigger blow is that they will be without Kilpatrick until at least Thanksgiving, which may negatively impact their early season as he seems to be an important leader and playmaker. However, their other top three scorers are all back and they will gain two strong recruits in Steve Schultz and Tyler Johnson. Back on defense Lee Sweatt is gone, but there’s still enough depth and experience for CC to get by.

The big question will be goaltending. Zaba has graduated, and backup Drew O’Connell doesn’t have much to offer in the way of statistics or big game experience. He will likely be competing for the starting job with incoming freshman Richard Bachman.

If the Tigers can hammer out their goaltending issues early on, they could be pretty good this year. Assuming they get past a seemingly-suicidal opening stretch against Minnesota, New Hampshire and North Dakota with a 3-3 or even 2-4 record, they will be a team to keep an eye on.

Prediction: Somewhere between 4^th and 6^th in the league.

Denver

Denver completed the 06-07 season with a narrow claim to 4^th place in the league and just missed out on the NCAA tourney following a Wisconsin upset in the first-round of the WCHA playoffs.

The good news for the Pioneers is that even though Dingle left early, Trotter, Rakhshani, and Ruegsegger are all back for their sophomore seasons, and talented forwards like Tyler Bozak and Jesse Martin are on the way in. The bad news is that Denver suffers from a lack of depth on the blue line.

The Pioneers will be relying upon Mannino heavily in goal this season, and he has plenty of experience, though he has been unable to repeat his strong freshmen year performance when he helped Denver win a national championship.

DU’s predicament is similar to St. Cloud’s – the offensive prowess is there, so if the defense Denver has can get the job done and Mannino plays well, they should have a decent season. If Mannino gets left out to dry too much, there’s no telling what might happen. Bottom line – it’s probably something of a rebuilding year at Magness.

Prediction: Somewhere between 4^th and 7^th in the league.

Part 4 will conclude this pre-season analysis sometime next week, and I will also take a stab at actually ranking the teams.