Sandelin & Minnesota-Duluth Take Aim At A 3rd Straight National Title

Sandelin & Minnesota-Duluth Take Aim At A 3rd Straight National Title

Scott Sandelin and Minnesota-Duluth are aiming to accomplish something that hasn't been done since the 1950s.

Oct 2, 2019 by Tim Rappleye
Sandelin & Minnesota-Duluth Take Aim At A 3rd Straight National Title

The first polls of the college hockey season are out, with defending champion Minnesota Duluth the consensus top team in the country. No surprise there, yet should Scott Sandelin’s Bulldogs actually finish the season as No. 1, they will have done the unimaginable in today’s day and age — three-peating in college hockey. 

The Bulldogs’ coach says his guys don’t fear greatness. 

“It’s not something we’re going to run away from,” Sandelin said last week. “I know our guys want to have another opportunity to get back there and do that.”

The feat has been accomplished once before — in hockey’s stone age, when Vic Heyliger’s Michigan Wolverines turned the trick from 1951-53. That was during the Truman administration when only four teams made the NCAAs. Heyliger’s Wolverines were so dominant that they won actually five national titles over six seasons, something unfathomable today. Since the 1950s, five clubs have had a shot at three-peating, and five have failed. According to the experts, each year the odds are getting steeper.

American Hockey Coaches Association (AHCA) executive director Joe Bertagna says there are two major reasons why it’s been 67 years since the Michigan three-peat. 

“The player-movement is a problem, and I think there is a financial element to this as well,” Bertagna said. “There’s so many people investing so much money to be good at what they do. They’re paying these coaches so much, having huge staffs so they can just focus on coaching. The recruiting is professionalized. One rink is more spectacular than the other. The stakes are so high — they don’t want to see this investment not return something. 

“It’s difficult for dynasties to be built when you’re going through players,” continued Bertagna, addressing the pink elephant in the room. “The inability for the so-called powers to keep their players: BC, BU, Michigan, and Minnesota.” 

Not one of those four iconic programs even made the 2019 NCAA Tournament, let alone added to their collection of championship banners. A big reason is that they are all primary destinations for NTDP studs, players who rarely spend enough time on campus to grow into champions.

“The defection factor doesn’t help anyone,” said TV analyst Dave Starman, an insider of both UMD and its conference the NCHC, the league that’s generated the last four national champions. “Losing Mikey Anderson is a big loss, (and) they lose a great captain in Parker MacKay. I’m not ready to hand them [UMD] the title.” 

Starman thinks that playing in a supreme conference represents yet another hurdle to UMD’s quest for immortality. 

“They play in a league that cannibalizes itself. You give a piece of skin to get the puck and a chance. The NCHC just eats itself alive in the second half.”

Former Minnesota coach Don Lucia disagrees. His Gophers won consecutive national titles in 2002-03 playing in the old WCHA, a conference that won five consecutive national titles in the early 2000s. He thinks playing in a super-league can be an asset. 

“You might get nicked up a little bit,” Lucia said. “But the competition helps.” 

Lucia’s bid for a three-peat was stopped by none other than in-state rival Duluth in the 2004 NCAA quarters. 

“They had our number that year,” said Lucia, who still laments the loss of top defenseman Paul Martin and goaltender Travis Weber very late in the offseason. 

His captain from that juggernaut, Grant Potulny, shares the pain of the Gophers failed bid: “We wish we could have had another kick at it with Paul and Travis.” 

It’s been 14 years since a team had a shot at winning a third straight national championship, and Starman acknowledges that UMD still has plenty of assets. 

“Scott Perunovich coming back is a big gain, and they have a group that’s played together for a while,” Starman said.

That group also includes College Hockey News Preseason All-Americans Dylan Samberg (D) and Hunter Shepard, a goalie who, according to Starman, “has ice water in his veins.”

Duluth has been to three straight championship games, narrowly losing the 2017 title tilt to Denver before going on to win the next two. 

“I’m still trying to wrap my head around the fact that we’ve been in three finals in three years,” Sandelin said. 

In that three-year stretch of single-elimination tournament play, the Bulldogs survived seven one-goal victories, four of them in overtime. Starman tried to make sense of Duluth’s penchant for winning the nail-biters.

“When you’re good, you make your own luck,” Starman said. “They defend well, they’ve got goaltending, and their centers are so good down low. They manufacture offensive chances through playing the game the right way: place and race. Pucks to the net and go hard; pass off pads; traffic in front. Like that double-overtime win in the Frozen Faceoff — they earned that damn thing.”

And what about the Sandelin factor? 

“A very grounded guy,” Bertagna said. 

“The bigger the game, the calmer he is,” said Starman, who sees greatness behind the Bulldogs bench. “Sandy gets the nod over a lot of coaches you put on Mount Rushmore. His teams have won because they’re teams, not because they have superstars.”

The time for offseason speculation is now over. Sandelin leads his Bulldogs into battle on Saturday, taking on Alberta in an exhibition, and from then on the games are played for keeps. UMD begins their impossible dream, trying to paint over the record book in indelible ink. 

“Winning once is hard enough,” said Potulny, now head coach of Northern Michigan. “Twice is even harder because you get everybody’s best game. For them to win again would stand up for a long time before anyone could reach that level, if not ever.”


Author Tim Rappleye just released his latest book: Hobey Baker, Upon Further Review (Mission Point Press). He can be reached on Twitter @TeeRaps.