Puck Drop Tour third stop: St. Cloud State

After stops in Duluth and Bemidji, the inaugural Puck Drop Tour of Minnesota took a southerly turn Wednesday, dropping down 150 miles from pine to prairie and arriving in the Granite City to check in with St. Cloud State's men's and women's teams at the Herb Brooks National Hockey Center.

The information I've gathered on the tour will appear in Puck Drop newsletters from Oct. 7-11 to preview the 2019-20 season. But here's a brief look at the latest stop:

In the House that Herb Built, transition will be the theme of the 2019-20 for both Huskies squads. For the men, that comes in the form of a team that lost five of its top six scorers from last season and welcomes 10 newcomers. For the women, it's a new coach at the helm – longtime assistant Steve Macdonald, who takes over for Erik Rud, now an assistant for the men's team at Miami (Ohio). And change includes the Huskies' home rink, which has a new weight room among improvements.

Men's coach Brett Larson enters his second season in St. Cloud looking to patch holes from a program that won back-to-back NCHC regular-season titles and earned the NCAA's No. 1 overall seed, only to be bounced by American International last spring in the West Regional in Fargo.

After going through offseason conditioning, captains' practices and the NCAA-allowed four-hours-per-week skill sessions, the Huskies are eager to get the season started. "It's the time of year where you're looking forward to playing someone else,'' said Larson, whose team hosts Alberta in an exhibition on Oct. 6 before starting the regular season Oct. 11-12 at Bemidji State. "Guys are sick of competing against each other and want to play somebody in a different-colored jersey.''

Facing an opponent might help remove some of the sting of the last season's sudden ending. For all the Huskies did well – the Penrose Cup title, the No. 1 ranking for most of the year and an undefeated home record -- NCAA results have a way of sticking with a team.

"The last two years we've come up a little short in the last game,'' senior defenseman and captain Jack Ahcan said. "It's just more wood on the fire for us – just competing harder in practice because we know what it takes at the end of the year.''

"Everybody's got to step it up a little bit,'' senior forward Nick Poehling said. "… Everyone's really impressed with the freshmen. They've got a lot of skill.''

St. Cloud State's women's team, which plays Regina in an exhibition game on Friday before opening the season against Ohio State, will try to improve on last season's 10-25-2 mark. Macdonald believes he has the team to do so.

"Anytime there's transition, there's that anticipation of what it's going to look like,'' Macdonald said. "We're really excited about this group. We believe it's the deepest and most talented group we've had.''

That starts in net, where senior Janine Adler and junior Emma Polusny are, "two of the best goaltenders in the country,'' according to Macdonald. Adler, a two-time member of Switzerland's Olympic team and a bronze medalist in 2014, sported a 2.63 goals-against average and .935 save percentage last season. Polusny was on the roster for the gold medal-winning U.S. team in this year's world championship.

For the Huskies to improve their record, they'll need to score more goals than they 1.8 per game they averaged in 2018-19. Macdonald believes that will come with 15 upperclassmen returning. "They're really driven and very focused right now,'' he said. "They're very committed to building a culture that they want. … You can see they're really soaking in what we're saying.''

The Puck Drop Tour will visit Mankato on Thursday, where I'll check in with a loaded Mavericks team that's picked to win the WCHA and is expected to be an NCAA contender.