MSU women open season tonight.

The Minnesota State women's hockey team opens the season tonight (Friday) with the first of two home games against Lindenwood. Lindenwood is a new Division I team from the St. Louis area that had been a longtime club power before making the jump. The Lions opened their season a week ago in a lion's den, Wisconsin. The Badgers won 11-0 and 13-0 and outshot Lindenwood 60-11 and 72-3. So there's a good chance for the Mavericks to get a couple of wins under their belts to start the season.

As for MSU, this is the third season under coach Eric Means, and more than half the roster is now made up of his recruits. He certainly expects to see a turnaround this season and should. (Read my column from last week here.)

The big key will be goal scoring, a problem that plagued the Maverick women worse than the Maverick men a year ago. MSU was outscored 122-53 and shut out a whopping 13 times. While Means recruits like Kathleen Rogan, who led the team in scoring as freshman last season (12 goals, 9 assists), and Lauren Smith, who was second (4, 11), will be counted on, so will pre-Means players like Emmi Leinonen (pictured), the Finnish national team member who, according to her coaches, has had her best fall yet. The senior, who was left off the Finnish Olympic roster in 2010, has the ability to be a go-to goal scorer, Means said. In her first three years at MSU, Leinonen has 20 goals and 23 assists in 95 games.

"She's got the hockey sense," Means said, "and she can shoot it. She's got to score for us."

Senior defenseman Ariel Mackley is a back as team captain. Senior D Jackie Otto and senior forward Moira O'Connor are the alternates. Senior Alli Altmann is back in goal, along with sophomore Daniell Butters.

While catching the likes of Wisconsin, Minnesota Duluth and Minnesota is always a tall task, there's no reason why the Mavericks can't pull themselves up to better compete with North Dakota, Ohio State and Bemidji State for that final top-half spot in the WCHA standings.

Tonight's game is at 7:07 p.m. at All Seasons Arena. The second game of the series is at 3:07 p.m. Saturday.