LetsGoDU

Hunger hits the ice for fired-up Pioneers

By Mike Chambers
Denver Post Staff Writer
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With a program-record 11 NHL draft picks on the roster, University of Denver hockey coach George Gwozdecky sees additional motivation to wear the Pioneers sweater with pride this season.

The beginning of the NCAA season always is an exciting time at DU - there are short-term goals, reputations to uphold, All-Americans to produce and another national championship in sight.

But because of last season's failure to reach the NCAA Tournament and a shot at a third consecutive national title, there is a redemption factor that will begin to be measured this weekend in the opener at Miami (Ohio).

Gwozdecky said the Pioneers will treat the first of 10 nonconference games as a playoff game, knowing that their 4-7 record outside of Western Collegiate Hockey Association play last season ultimately doomed them.

As well, there is a home-ice advantage to create for the 2007 NCAA Tournament West Regional, which is at the Pepsi Center. DU is assured of playing at the four-team regional if it qualifies for the 16-team field.

"There is no question that it's an exciting idea that the West Regional will be played right in our backyard, and if there is one thing that we learned last year is how important our nonconference record is," Gwozdecky said. "Last year our nonconference record is why we didn't make it.

"We finished (tied for) second in the (WCHA) and, although some good things happened during the year, it was those nonconference games that really came back to bite us. We know how important those games are."

Gwozdecky has a healthy mixture of veterans and newcomers. Seven seniors, led by captain and defenseman Adrian Veideman, should help ease the transition of seven freshmen, five who were drafted by NHL teams.

Freshmen Rhett Rakhshani, Tyler Ruegsegger and Keith Seabrook should help immediately. Rakhshani and Ruegsegger, who grew up in Lakewood, have been listed among the country's top 15 incoming forwards, and Seabrook was a second- round selection of the Washington Capitals.

That trio replaces former All-Americans Gabe Gauthier, Paul Stastny and Matt Carle, last year's Hobey Baker Award winner and regarded as the best DU player in 30 years. Gauthier graduated, and Stastny and Carle left early to sign NHL deals with Colorado and San Jose, respectively.

Those three accounted for 44 percent of DU's points last season, but the trade-offs with the freshmen aren't quite fair without considering the improvement in other areas. Goaltending figures to be the team's biggest strength, with senior Glenn Fisher and junior Peter Mannino battling for the No. 1 job - opposed to the platoon arrangement they had in the past two years - and seven of eight blue-liners back.

The forward corps features junior Ryan Dingle, who led the team with 27 goals last season, and redshirt freshman Brock Trotter, who had five points in five games before his season ended a year ago with a severed Achilles tendon. The remaining 12 forwards are generally unproven, but senior Ryan Helgason, juniors J.D. Corbin and Geoff Paukovich and sophomore Patrick Mullen are expected to have big seasons.

Veideman said despite the key losses, the squad that will open Friday is already "just as good or better than the team we had last year."

His assessment stems from hunger.

"Last year definitely left a sour taste in our mouths, (especially) with the upperclassmen," Veideman said. "We got together in the offseason and decided that wasn't going to happen again. We have to do whatever it takes to get back to where we were the last couple years. We didn't know how it was to lose, and we didn't like it."