Friday Morning Skate

The Mankato East/Loyola girls hockey team's tribute to Jack Jablonski.

Judging by the tweets from various Minnesota State players, they made it to Canton, N.Y., last night after a long day of travel (Mankato —> Minneapolis —> Atlanta —> Syracuse, N.Y. —> Canton, N.Y.) for this weekend's series against St. Lawrence.

(Meanwhile, PucKato is safely nestled back home where he'll be covering East High School basketball and Gustavus Adolphus men's hockey this weekend.)

It's the last nonconference series of the season for the Mavericks, who are hoping to get on the winning track against the Saints and build momentum for the second half of the WCHA season. Co-captain Tyler Elbrecht insists the team is not that far from being a winner.

Looking at some of the conference coverage from USCHO, neither the WCHA correspondents nor the ECAC writer have much confidence the Mavs can do that this weekend.

Going around the rest of the WCHA ...

Minnesota Duluth at Western Michigan: In a meeting of future NCHC mates, the Bulldogs will go to Kalamazoo, Mich., for the first time and will try to keep their No. 1 ranking and unbeaten streak (currently at 14 games) intact as they continue a long road trip.

RIT at Wisconsin: The Badgers, like MSU, will try to kick start a second-half surge after a tough first half of the season with a pair of nonconference games against Rochester Institute of Technology. The two teams last met in the 2010 Frozen Four semifinals.

Alabama Huntsville at Denver: While it's no longer a farewell tour, Huntsville's long and winding road of a schedule stops in Denver where, despite the potential return of their top two goalies, the Pioneers appear to have found a gem in their third guy, freshman Juho Olkinuora, who has been outstanding in 14 games this season.

Cornell at Colorado College: While lots of coverage around CC and other NCHC teams this week are looking toward 2013-14 with the announcement of the conference's first commissioner, there's still a year and half to go, including the Tigers' series this weekend against Cornell. CC could get a boost by having Jaden Schwartz back in the lineup after his stint in the World Junior Championship.

Notre Dame at Minnesota (Saturday): The Hall of Fame game should be a good one with No. 3 hosting No. 5. But it will also be a bittersweet one after the passing of the Irish's legendary coach, Lefty Smith. Smith was Gophers coach Don Lucia's college coach and ex-Gophers coach Doug Woog's high school coach at South St. Paul.

Clarkson vs. North Dakota at Winnipeg (Saturday): Now-nicknameless and logoless North Dakota will head north a couple of hours for a game that has the Manitoba natives on the roster pretty excited. (Going to Canada ought makes College Hockey Inc. pretty excited, too.)

Friday morning skate — welcome to the season

Mavericks captain Rylan Galiardi (Pat Christman photo)

Good morning! It's game day — for real this time, and the Mavericks are set to take on St. Lawrence at the Verizon Wireless Center tonight. Minnesota State will have its veterans who watched Monday's exhibition game out of the stands and onto the ice.

That veteran group includes senior captain Rylan Galiardi, who has embraced his leadership role. One of two Canadians on the team, Galiardi talked about bringing together a group of players from a variety of locales, including Minnesota (of course), Canada, Wisconsin, Illinois, Missouri, Massachusetts, Oklahoma Arizona and Alaska (am I missing anyone?)

Meanwhile, you can check out The Free Press' series preview here. Phil Cook will get the start in goal tonight, and all six defensemen have had college experience, but there's a freshman on each of the forward lines.

As for the Saints, according to the Watertown Daily Times, they are happy to get senior Sean Flanagan back from a serious hip injury suffered two seasons ago.

Eleven of the 12 WCHA teams are in action tonight. Here's a look around the leauge:

St. Cloud State is playing in Nebraska-Omaha's Maverick Stampede. The Huskies will play RIT and Clarkson, while the Red Mavericks get those teams in reverse order. The St. Cloud Time has several preseason stories on its Husky Hockey page, including a look at arguably the best 1-2 punch of any WCHA team in goal. ... While the tournament is a nonconference affair, this weekend officially marks the first time UNO is representing the WCHA. Read more about the Mavericks' start to the season and a Stampede preview here.

With coverage of the Twins, the Randy Moss saga and the Wild opener, the Start Tribune did find a way to squeeze in some news about the Gopher hockey team, which will host Massachusetts tonight. Minnesota captain Jay Barriball, who is a fifth-year senior after missing most of last season with a knee injury, feels like it's a slap in the face that the WCHA coaches picked the Gophers to finish fifth.

Denver is starting off the year with a home game against Vermont. For the Pioneers, expectations from the outside are high, but they have to replace a lot of departed talent, especially in goal where sophomore Adam Murray and a freshman will split time to try to fill the pads of Marc Cheverie.

Minnesota Duluth and Michigan Tech will be playing in the Superior Showcase, which matches up  the Lake Superior teams from the WCHA against those from the CCHA, Lake Superior State and Northern Michigan. Duluth will play at Lake State tonight and at Northern on Saturday, while Tech plays the opposite schedule. For The Bulldogs, goalie Kenny Reiter has emerged as the No. 1 goalie on a team that returns some great talent and is poised to be a top-three team in the conference. ... As for the Huskies, they will be trying to dig their way out of the conference basement this season. One player eager to help is Houghton native Blake Hietala, a walk-on forward.

Alaska-Anchorage is hosting the Kendall Hockey Classic and will kick things off with a nonconference game against WCHA-favorite North Dakota. Alaska and Air Force are the other two teams in the tournament. For the young Seawolves, playing the Sioux means the chance to start the season "with a bang" according to senior Tommy Grant. ... Meanwhile, North Dakota is giving a goalie not named Brad Eidsness the start tonight — meet Aaron Dell. Perhaps this as good a time as any to do that since Anchorage has its own worries in net.

Wisconsin gets to play in this year's Icebreaker in St. Louis, taking on Boston University tonight and either Holy Cross or Notre Dame on Sunday. The Badgers have been hit as hard as any team with offseason losses. Senior center Sean Dolan has become the team's leader almost by default, as last spring's chosen captains turned pro. Expect Wisconsin to have plenty of newcomers in the lineup this season.

Colorado College will open the season against Rensselaer (RPI), and the Tigers also have to fill some voids left not by early departure as much as by graduation. Their freshman class does include WCHA preseason rookie of the year Jaden Schwartz.

Off the beats, you can also read conference previews by INCH, USCHO and This is the WCHA.

Lastly, I would be remiss if I didn't mention that the Minnesota State women's hockey team will begin its season tonight at Mankato's All Seasons Arena against Niagara. The Mavericks are young and are led by a junior defenseman whose surname is quite familiar to followers of women's hockey in southern Minnesota.

If you made it this far on the post, be sure to check back later today for PucKato's live blog coverage of tonight's MSU-St. Lawrence game.