Huskies to write their own story

As freshmen Garret Raboin and Ryan Lasch got their first taste of the NCAA Tournament.

That year Husky hockey notched 22 wins thanks in large part to the freshmen Lasch.

Lasch had 39 points on the season, but the Huskies were upended in the first round of that NCAA tournament losing 4-1 to Maine.

As sophomores they were once again disappointed, as they could not take home an NCAA tournament victory.

As seniors, they are hoping to change that this season.

“It’s definitely some motivation, in the fact that this  is your senior year and you want to go out on top like that,” Lasch said.

Raboin is thinking along the same lines.

“I think every year were going in it looking to win, but seeing as it’s the last time around definitely has a different tone to it than it has the last three years,” Raboin said.

SCSU head coach Bob Motzko looks at it a little differently.

“They’ve had three cracks at the NCAA tournament been in it twice, and to say they have opportunity to play in it three out of four years, there is not a lot of players that have that opportunity in college hockey,” Motzko said. “I think that’s our goal right now, find out how good we can be, move forward and become a very good WCHA team and if we do that it takes care of our business.”

Before their season opener against the Red Hawks of Miami (Ohio), the Huskies played an exhibition match against the University of Lethbridge at the National Hockey Center.

They came out with a win besting the Pronghorns 4-3 thanks to two goals from highly recruited first-year player Ben Hanowski.

“He’s very talented, obviously in his first game he gets to show off his offensive talents and gets a couple goals. I wish I could sit here and tell you it’s going to be that easy all year, but our league is just not that way,” Motzko said. “He’s awful talented and he’s a hard worker to match that and a terrific kid and were just looking forward to him having an outstanding freshmen season.”

Scoring the other two goals for the Huskies in the game was junior Brian Volpei. The victory did a couple of things for the Huskies according to their coach.

“I think its just one step to get started and that’s the big thing, were able to pull the jerseys on and maybe get some of the nervousness out, get on the rink,” Motzko said.

Raboin and Lasch are fitting into their leadership roles quite comfortably.

“I Just try to bring energy to the rink everyday, try pass on things that I’ve learned in my three years here so far that might help make the road a little easier to travel for the younger guys,” Raboin said.

“We have some confidence you know knowing we have an older group from last year. If we put some wins together here that’s always going to improve our confidence,” Lasch said.

They both agree though that the young guys are still going to be key, they hope they will follow the lead of the seniors.

“They got some talent you know, they came in they were working hard for us early in the fall during the lifts and everything and you can see their hard working paying off for us out on the ice, so hopefully they can keep up the hard work,” Lasch said.

Raboin echoes Lasch’s optimism about the new guys.

“I think they are coming along well, Raboin said. “We know they are going to contribute for us, and they are good guys, they are falling into some roles on the team and I think they are going to do a nice job for us.”

The team this year is missing what they thought would be a large part of their success—goaltender Jase Weslosky. 

“Jase Weslosky played a lot of minutes for us, and so those minutes are up for grabs,” Motzko said. “We really like our goaltending right now, with Dan Dunn returning in his junior year; these guys are going to battle hard, were going to throw them in there and replace those minutes.”

“We’re fine with the situation that we’ve got right now, we’ve got good goaltenders and they are going to battle out for the job this year and it’s going to be exciting to see,” Lasch said.

Raboin thinks that this year’s team is different than any other he has played on.

“I think were going to be our own team. It’s not going to be like any other teams, we are unique in the players we have, were going to write our own story,” Raboin said.

The Huskies hope that story includes an NCAA victory.