Men's Ice Hockey | October 04, 2017
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THIS WEEK
Western Michigan opens the 2017-18 regular season with a home-and-home series against state rival Ferris State. The Broncos host the Bulldogs on Friday at 7 p.m. and then head to Big Rapids for another 7 p.m. showdown.
BROADCAST INFO
Friday's game can be watched on NCHC.tv, while Saturday's game can be seen on WCHA.tv. Both games will be live on the Bronco Radio Network, with Friday's game on 96.5 FM and online at z965fm.com. Saturday's game will be joined in progress after the WMU football game concludes.
LAST WEEK
WMU opened the season with an 8-2 win over Wilfrid Laurier in its annual "Border Battle" exhibition game. Seven different Broncos lit the lamp, led by junior forward
Colt Conrad's two.
After giving up a short-handed goal, WMU responded with four-straight goals to take a 4-1 lead into the second period. Conrad got things started with a power play goal, followed by Cam le,
Corey Schueneman and Conrad again to close out the period. Wilfrid Laurier took one back early in the second period to cut the lead to 4-2 but
Aidan Muir pushed it to 5-2 after tipping in a shot by
Paul Stoykewych. Freshman
Josh Passolt, sophomore
Dawson DiPietro and freshman
Brett Van Os all scored in the third period. Sophomore goalie
Ben Blacker made 17 saves in the win.
The Broncos outshot the Golden Hawks 50-19 and went 4-for-8 on the power play.
AT A GLANCE: FERRIS STATE BULLDOGS || 0-0-0
• THE SERIES: WMU leads the all-time series 78-51-13 and have been dominant over the past seven years. The Broncos are 12-0-3 in the last 15 against their rivals to the north and 11-0-3 under head coach
Andy Murray. Western Michigan's last loss to Ferris State came in game one of the Central Collegiate Hockey Association Quarterfinals on March 11, 2011.
• SCOUTING THE BULLDOGS: Ferris State finished in fifth place in the WCHA last season after going 12-12-4 in conference play and 13-9-5 overall. FSU was also just picked to repeat in fifth in the WCHA Media and Coaches polls.
Forward Corey Mackin returns for his junior year and earned Preseason All-WCHA honors. Mack finished second on the team in scoring last season with 26 points on 13 goals and 13 assists. The Bulldogs lost their top scorer, Gerald Mayhew, and his 35 points to graduation. Jared Van Warmer, another departed senior, was the third-leading scorer with 23 points on nine goals and 14 assists. Mitch Maloney heads into this senior season after 12 goals last year and the top-scoring defenseman, sophomore Joe Rutkowski, returns after tallying 20 points on two goals and 18 assists.
Last season Ferris State split time in net between Darren Smith and Justin Kapelmaster and both return this season. Kapelmaster had the better numbers of the pair with a 10-4-3 record, a .930 save percentage a 2.22 goals against average.
Last seasons' team went 30-for-190 (15.8 percent) on the power play and 168-for-201 (83.6 percent) on the penalty kill.
UNDER NEW LEADERSHIP
For the first time in three seasons, the Western Michigan hockey team will have a new captain. Senior defenseman
Scott Moldenhauer takes over for three-time captain
Sheldon Dries. Dries, now with the AHL's Texas Stars, was one of just two players in program history to wear the "C" for three seasons.
Moldenhauer isn't a stranger to leadership. He served as an assistant captain during his sophomore and junior seasons. Assisting him this season will be fellow seniors
Neal Goff and
Aidan Muir. For both, it is their first time wearing a letter at Western Michigan.
A TALL TASK
Western Michigan will be tasked with replacing 74 goals, or 56 percent of its scoring, that will be missing from the team this season. Sixty of those goals came from four players:
Matheson Iacopelli (20),
Sheldon Dries (16),
Griffen Molino (15) and
Frederik Tiffels (9)
Of WMU's 59 returning goals, 33 belong to junior
Colt Conrad (13),
Wade Allison (12) and
Hugh McGing (8). Junior defenseman
Corey Schueneman is the top returning goal scorer from the blue line with five.
GETTING YOUNGER
Of the 27 Broncos on this season's roster nine are freshmen and seven are sophomores. The 16 underclassmen is up from the 14 from last season.
HOME SWEET HOME
When it comes to non-conference games for the 2017-18, the Broncos have to leave the state of Michigan just once. The lone departure from their home state is a game on Dec. 28 at Bowling Green. WMU does play two other road games in non-conference play this season, but those are at Ferris State (Oct. 7) and at Michigan State (Oct. 20). Western Michigan hosts the Bulldogs to open the regular season on Oct. 6 and then host the Spartans on Oct. 21. WMU also welcomes Clarkson (Oct. 13-14) and Colgate (Nov. 24-25) to Lawson Ice Arena this season.
OLD FRIENDS
As part of WMU's non-conference schedule, Western Michigan plays six games against its old friends from the Central Collegiate Hockey Conference. WMU plays Ferris State, Michigan State and Bowling Green in a home-and-home series.
