Now in his 10th year at Minnesota State, coach Mike Hastings has won more hockey games in that decade than any other Division I coach. The morning before his club’s rare loss at Ferris State this past Friday, Hastings sat down with RinkRap’s @TeeRaps to talk about his pride in being part of Minnesota’s elite coaching fraternity, his superstar goalie Dryden McKay, the Maverick’s king of recruiting, and how every CCHA team poses a threat this season. 

FloHockey: You have repeatedly claimed that there are no easy wins in the CCHA. You haven’t lost to Ferris State in recent memory. Do you consider them a threat? 

Hastings: When you come to this building, when the puck drops you better be ready to play. Things can happen in bunches here, if you give up one, it can turn into two in a hurry. It’s hard enough to be successful within our CCHA league, [it’s important] to play with a lead instead of behind.

Let’s widen the scope to the state of Minnesota. You’re part of an elite group of Division I coaches. Are you proud to be part of that Minnesota coaching fraternity?

Since I’ve come to MSU, there are a lot of guys I consider not only peers, but friends. I’ve worked with Tom Serratore [Bemidji]; Bob Motzko was at St. Cloud when I first got there as a player. Bob and I have stayed tight- when he was at St. Cloud and me being an alum. You look at Brett Larson now being there, Scott Sandelin [Duluth], his son Ryan now being here at MSU. One, you’ve got the friendship piece, and two, the respect for the programs and how they run them. The state of Minnesota had a good run last year. As far as prideful, [I’m] very proud of the programs that are within our state, ours included. Hopefully all those programs can continue to have success.

Championships are won in increments. You made a big step last year by getting to the Frozen Four. Do you believe in the long haul, that these individual steps are necessary to reach your ultimate goal?

You learn from experience. As a coach you always wish you could hand that to a player, but it doesn’t really work that well. They have to go through it, experience it, positively and negatively. I think the experience that the group had that came back from last year, hopefully they can draw on that. We’re going week-by-week here, early in the season. Right now the guys are doing a great job controlling what they can control.

Last week you gave your assistant Todd Knott a lot of love for recruiting Dryden McKay onto the MSU campus in the first place. What does Todd represent in terms of the MSU hockey family?

When I arrived at MSU, convincing Todd to stick around and be the recruiting coordinator was probably the best decision I’ve made since I’ve been at MSU. He’s a selfless human being, an incredible family man, and his work ethic is unquestioned. He’s going [to] be a head coach soon, he deserves that opportunity.

Todd’s currently on one of those wild and woolly recruiting road trips. If you had to stick a pin in the globe, could you tell us where he might be now?

(Laughs hard) I kinda let Todd do what Todd does. 

Is he going to rent a car and go 3,000 miles?

Those things change daily, what might be most important on the recruiting trail might change by Friday morning. There’s an ebb and flow there, we talk multiple times daily along with [assistant coach] Paul Kirtland, stay in touch, make sure we’re doing the things we need to do bring quality people and quality players to our program.

Your SID Paul Allan and I are old school sports fans, we love tracking historic numbers. What struck me is that the record 27th shutout that Dryden came up with last week was in his 105th game. Some people might say he had an extra year to break Ryan Miller’s record, but McKay set the record in the exact amount of games that Ryan played in his career, the same 105 games.

First of all I want to give you credit for unearthing that, because I had no idea.

There will be no asterisk next to Dryden’s shutout record.

I’m not sure if you talked to Dryden about it. He’s worried about other things. I think it’s a special accomplishment by a special young man. He’s showing our two freshmen goalies what preparation is before and after practice, before and after games. Showing them how to walk the walk instead of talking. There will be a time in his career when he gets to look back at some of the things that he’s accomplished, which I think he’ll be very proud of. He’s the type of young man that looks through the front of his windshield, not the rear view mirror.

You’re coming off a Frozen Four year, and everyone in Mankato is looking for you to advance another step or two in the postseason. Is it a challenge for you to ignore that postseason and stay in the precious present?

I’ve been blessed with a lot of really good leaders that have come through our program. They’ve done a good job of looking at what today is and crushing that as much as they can, then moving on to the next one. We’re relying on the experience of Reggie Lutz, Jack McNeely, Wyatt Aamodt, Dryden McKay, Julian Napravnik, guys that have been around and understand you can only control so much in life. Tomorrow will be better if you do a good job today.