Depth to go deep? Gophers hockey team hopes so

The recommitments from elite skaters aren't enough for senior assistant captain Seth Ambroz to guarantee any hardware.

The last time the Gophers celebrated the return of all their stars, they fell short of their ultimate goal.

"We do have a lot of guys back and a lot of scoring comes back, but at the same time we still need to be able to play," Ambroz said. "We just gotta try and find that chemistry between everybody right away, early on. And going on the road right away will be a tough test for us to see where everyone is at. It's a whole new year, so there's gotta be a different mind-set."

This year's roster looks a lot like the 2012-13 Gophers; that squad's top players had returned, and Adam Wilcox was in the net. The marquee names were supposed to assure a second consecutive trip to the Frozen Four, but instead the team broke down in the postseason, losing to Colorado College in the Final Five semifinals and to Yale, the surprising eventual champion, in overtime in the first round of the NCAA tournament.

This year's top-ranked team plans to rely on something different, starting with Friday's opener against in-state rival Minnesota Duluth at the Ice Breaker Tournament in South Bend, Ind.

"I think the biggest difference is coming in and knowing that we don't have to rely on just a couple guys," senior forward Travis Boyd said. "We're going to have a full team of players that can make things happen this year.

"Looking back at that [year], we had a couple star players, and I'm not saying we don't have good players this year, but I just think overall we have more depth than that year. … This year we go three lines deep."

"We had a load coming back [in 2012-13]," coach Don Lucia said. "But we weren't a real deep team, and [that] ultimately cost us. We were a two-line team and didn't get any scoring beyond that."

Last season's first line of Sam Warning, Kyle Rau and Hudson Fasching remains intact, if the coaching staff keeps the trio together. The second and third lines return combos of Ambroz and Boyd, and Taylor Cammarata and Justin Kloos. Connor Reilly, Vinni Lettieri and Leon Bristedt will battle to fill out the top three lines.

The fourth line will be built around experience with veterans Christian Isackson, A.J. Michaelson, Ryan Reilly and 21-year-old Swedish freshman Robin Hoglund.

The blue line will be protected by proven talent in Mike Reilly, Brady Skjei, Ben Marshall, Michael Brodzinski and Jake Bischoff. They could be challenged by a big-bodied and agile freshmen class of defensemen.

"[The goal is to] be a team like we were last year," Lucia said. "I think that was the depth of our team last year, and that ultimately allowed us to have the type of year we had. Offensively, we were the type of the team where we had so many different scorers each night. We didn't have to rely on the same one or two guys each night. … Hopefully, we can have that type of team again this year, and win with depth more so than with star power."

Lucia made sure to remind his players that rankings don't mean much. He pointed out that only one of last season's conference favorites won their regular-season title, and that preseason No. 2 Miami didn't even make the NCAA tournament.

Jason Gonzalez • 612-741-6844