Wacky WCHA Stat of the Day

Poster SJHovey did some interesting research about the number of games played by WCHA defenseman.

Here's the list of the total games played by defenseman for each team.

1. 418 Minnesota
2. 404 SCSU
3. 385 Wisconsin
4. 349 CC
5. 345 Minn. St.-Mank.
6. 338 UAA
7. 318 UMD
8. 311 Mich. Tech
9. 259 UND (including Robbie Bina's 63 games, though he may miss the season)
10. 123 Denver

To give those numbers some sense of perspective, WCHA teams play anywhere from 37-43 games per year. Assuming they dress 6 defenseman each game, that means each team has 222-258 games played by defenseman each year. By my estimation, a little more than that would be considered average for a team to be returning.

Those certainly aren't pretty numbers for Denver, especially when you consider that if Matt Carle were to turn pro also, they would only have 50 games played, 42 of which come from sophmore Andrew Thomas. Denver will probably have to call upon forward Adrian Veideman to move back to defense and provide some leadership and experience to such a young group.

All in all, I don't know that these numbers mean too much. I think there are a couple conclusions we can draw from it though. First, while everyone is expecting the Gophers offense to be very good, they should also have a very experienced defense. Second, St. Cloud has a very experienced defense that they should be able to rely on since they won't be able to score many goals. Third, Wisconsin can no longer be considered a young team. Now that they have talent and experience, they should be a dangerous team.

Finally, I think that everyone knew North Dakota and Denver would be young on the blueline this season, but I don't think anybody really expected them to be this young. I think both teams have tremendously talented players coming in to fill those spots, but regardless of how talented they are, it takes the majority of defenseman the better part of a year to adjust to the college game. Both of these teams are really going to need to rely on their scoring power, and good goaltending to guide them through the first part of the season.