Lucas Punkari
With a season-opening game Oct. 12 against the visiting Ohio State Buckeyes edging ever closer, University of Minnesota-Duluth Bulldogs’ forward Joe Basaraba is chomping at the bit to get his third NCAA hockey campaign underway.
“Thing have really been starting to get rolling here lately,” Basaraba said.
“We’ve been skating and working out as a team for a few weeks now, along with doing a lot of team bonding, to try and get ready for the upcoming season,” he noted.
“Everything is starting to shape together and I think it’s going to be a special year,” he added.
The 20-year-old Basaraba, who alternated between left- and right-wing during his sophomore season, and the rest of the Bulldogs were hoping to repeat as national champs at the start of last season after claiming in the first-ever title in program history in April, 2011 over the Michigan Wolverines.
However, despite racking up a 25-10-6 record that left them in second place in the WCHA standings behind Minnesota, UMD fell short in its quest after losing 4-0 to the eventual national champion Boston College Eagles in the quarter-finals.
“It was obviously very disappointing that we didn’t come out on top, but I think that we take a lot of good things out of last season,” Basaraba remarked.
“Although we came up short to a good team in Boston College, we broke a school record for most games without a loss with a 17-game streak and Jack Connolly won the Hobey Baker Award as the best player in the country,” he noted.
After registering five points in 36 games during his freshman season, Basaraba saw an increased role during his sophomore campaign, which included having Connolly as a linemate for a number of games.
With more playing time, Basaraba netted seven goals and added nine assists in 40 games to finish the season with 16 points, which put him second among sophomore scorers behind J.T. Brown.
“I think the most important thing for me last year was just building confidence and learning to play my style of game without holding back,” Basaraba said.
“For someone to come in as an 18-year-old freshman like I did is something that doesn’t happen that often, so it was tough to make that adjustment coming out of high school,” he admitted.
“But now that I’m well-grounded and school is going well, I think bigger and better things are coming up this year,” added Basaraba, who is majoring in management.
During the off-season, Basaraba also attended the Florida Panthers’ prospect camp for the second-straight year, where he got to showcase his development to the team that picked him in the third round of the 2012 NHL entry draft.
“They are a first-class organization and I just can’t say enough good things about them,” he enthused.
“[General manager] Dale Tallon has done a great job in building up the team quickly.
“And while you usually don’t think of hockey with Florida, the fan base and what they have to offer down there is just awesome.
“It was the middle of summer and they still had people going to the rink to see us, and hopefully sooner than later I’ll be putting on that Panthers’ jersey,” Basaraba remarked.
In addition to scoring a goal in the final inter-squad game of the Panthers’ camp, the Fort Frances native also developed a strong bond with Jonathan Huberdeau, who won a Memorial Cup title with the Saint John Sea Dogs in 2011 and was selected third overall in that year’s draft.
“Me and Jon have become pretty good buddies,” Basaraba smiled.
“We roomed together during the week at camp and we ended up getting together in Montreal for a weekend shortly afterwards, and we still keep in touch.
“He’s a great player and he’s going to be an all-star in the NHL, so it’s been pretty cool to hang out with him and to see him progress,” he added.
The 2012/13 Bulldogs’ lineup will be a different-looking squad compared to the last two seasons, with the program’s top three scorers in Connolly, Brown, and Travis Oleksuk all graduating from the collegiate ranks, leaving some holes that will need to be filled.
“We lost a lot of big guns up front and on the back end, and we have nine freshman coming in,” Basaraba noted.
“But the new guys we have coming in are all great guys,” he said.
“And just like any other year, the guys moving into a junior and senior role will have to pick up the slack and become the leaders of this team to help play a big role in how the team plays.
“For myself, it’ll be great to move into that bigger role,” Basaraba conceded.
“But I just want to make sure that I continue to play and get better at my own game,” he stressed.
This season also will mark the final time the Bulldogs will be a member of WCHA.
Come next fall, they’ll be joining the new National Collegiate Hockey Conference (NCHC) with current WCHA members Colorado, Denver, Nebraska-Omaha, North Dakota, and St. Cloud State, along with CCHA schools Miami (Ohio) and Western Michigan.
“It’ll be quite an exciting year in that sense,” Basaraba said.
“It’ll be the last year of the current WCHA lineup before all of the changes happen with the teams moving to different conferences, so it’ll be great to win the regular season there before hopefully moving on to the national championship,” he noted.
