Men's Ice Hockey | March 13, 2019
Trust the process…trust the process.
The seniors on Western Michigan University's hockey team kept telling that to themselves when the Broncos won just eight games in 2015-16, their first season in Kalamazoo.
That process of head coach Andy Murray and his staff has paid off over the past three seasons as the Broncos have been ranked among the top 10 in the nation in each of those seasons. Another way to show it works is that WMU will be hosting a first-round National Collegiate Hockey Conference playoff series this weekend for the second time in the past three seasons.
No. 3 seed Western Michigan (20-13-1) will play No. 6 Colorado College (15-17-4), starting with Friday and Saturday night games at 7:05 p.m. at Lawson Ice Arena. If a Sunday game is needed in the best-of-three series, it will also be at 7:05 pm.
The other series this weekend are eighth seed Miami (11-21-4) at No. 1 St. Cloud State (27-4-3), No. 7 (9-22-3) Omaha at No 2 Minnesota-Duluth (21-11-2) and No. 5 North Dakota (18-15-2) at No. 4 Denver (19-10-5). The winners move to St. Paul, Minn., for the Frozen Faceoff.
The Western Michigan seniors are defenseman Corey Schueneman, forwards Jade McMullen and Colt Conrad and goaltender Trevor Gorsuch. This class led WMU to a third-place finish in the NCHC, tying a program-high record since joining the league in 2013.
This is also the first senior class since the class of 1997 to have two 20-win seasons in their four-year career.
''It's funny to look back and see what's happened to us,'' McMullen said. ''The team stuck together and continued to get better each and every year and that came with recruiting and with players stepping up and filling their roles.
''That first season was pretty disappointing, but you talk about trusting the process all the time.''
The process couldn't have been better on display than this past weekend when the Broncos traveled to Miami of Ohio in a series where WMU needed to win two games to insure a first-round home playoff series. It was the seniors who showed the way.
''All the seniors have been playing well and you don't have to look any further than this last weekend,'' WMU head coach Andy Murray said. ''Trevor was outstanding in goal, giving up just two goals in two games in a series we needed to win to have home ice and move up to number three in the standings, which is tough to do.
''If our league gave out a gritty player of the week award, it would have gone to Jade. He played really hard, was physical, he hounded loose pucks and played with energy. Corey was picked as the top defenseman of the week in our league and Cole was picked as the offensive player with seven points.
''That's what you want from your seniors. There is talking leadership and leadership by example, and what we had was leadership by example.''
Conrad continues to have an outstanding season, having 10 goals and 26 assists, good for 36 points, which is second in the NCHC. Gorsuch is one of the league's best goaltenders. Conrad, Schueneman and McMullen have played in every WMU game this season and Gorsch has been in 29 games.
Colorado College is also on a hot streak, having swept Denver this past weekend. The Tigers and Broncos split their only series this season, played at Colorado. Western's loss in that game was an ugly 8-2 affair.
''We set a record that weekend, negatively, for turnovers,'' Murray said. ''We need to manage the puck better and make sure we're feeding our offense and not theirs, with turnovers.
''It's going to be a battle of willpower this weekend and our seniors now get to play two more games in front of the best fans in college hockey.''
For Schueneman, the series this weekend is all about balancing emotions.
''You have to play excited and at a high energy, but it has to be a focused energy and play as fast as you can, as excited as you can, but that it's within the system and with the guy next to you,'' he said. ''We only have a handful of games left, so empty the tank this weekend.''
This weekend seemed so far off for the seniors when the Broncos went 8-25-3 overall in 2015-16 after losing several key players to the NHL.
''That first season was tough and not what you wanted in your first year,'' Schueneman said. ''It was more downs than ups, but we got through it and realized we don't want to go through that again.''
Back came the Broncos in the 2016-17 season to earn a home playoff series and they beat Omaha in three games.
''It will help having the experience of a home playoff series two years ago,'' Schueneman said. ''We know what we have to do and we have another series in front of the (Lawson) Lunatics.''
And another series to trust the process.
