October 26, 2022
by Adam Wodon/Managing Editor (@CHN_AdamWodon)
St. Cloud State players weren’t happy they were being overlooked in preseason polls. So far that chip on their shoulder has served them well.
Coming off a sweep at home of Minnesota State, with a pair of one-goal wins, the Huskies are the only perfect team in the nation at 6-0 (Penn State has an OT win and is also 6-0, while the Ivies haven’t started playing yet).
Those are the best wins to date, in a slate that’s included a pair of wins at Wisconsin, and a home-and-home sweep of St. Thomas.
Last season, the team was following up its trip to the NCAA championship game, and edged Minnesota Duluth for fourth in the always-tough NCHC. But things ended with a thud, getting swept at home by those same Bulldogs in the NCHC quarterfinals, then losing a first-round NCAA Tournament game to Quinnipiac.
So this year started with a lot of question marks, losing some key players, including goaltender David Hrenak. Still, the Huskies were picked to finish fourth in the league by the coaches, which ain’t bad. It was low enough for the veterans on the team to feel jilted, and let it fuel their start.
“We definitely felt like we wanted to prove some people wrong, and we believed what we had in our room,” SCSU forward Grant Cruikshank said. “I’m not going to say that’s where all of our focus was, but we definitely had it in the back of our mind that we wanted to do something special this year, (win a national championship is) something this program’s never done. We have high expectations. It’s a really special group, it’s a special culture, really special group of coaches and players and people surrounding the program.”
It has helped that the goaltending hasn’t missed a beat. It wasn’t really a weakness coming in, it was just an unknown. But between senior Jaxon Castor, who spent three years in Hrenak’s shadow, and junior Colorado College transfer Dominic Basse, the duo has been spectacular, putting up near idential numbers while splitting time. Basse has a 1.34 goals against average and .944 save percentage; Castor is 1.33 and .942, with each playing three full games.
There are five grad student players on the team, which have provided a big veteran presence. It has allowed highly-touted freshman like Adam Ingram and Grant Ahcan to work in slowly.
The biggest newcomer, along with Basse, has not been a…
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