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DULUTH — Minnesota Duluth enters the 2026-27 men’s hockey season with more experience, more high-end talent and higher expectations. Scott Sandelin’s message to the Bulldogs is considerably simpler: Prove it.
UMD opens its season this weekend against Long Island at AMSOIL Arena with a veteran roster, six returning defensemen, one of college hockey’s most intriguing forward combinations and legitimate reason to believe it can again compete among the better teams in the NCHC and nationally.
But after a month of practicing against themselves, Sandelin wants his players thinking less about what they might become and more about what they must earn.
“Certainly again, it's another year, you're optimistic, right? Certainly carries a few more this year, probably carries a little higher expectations, which is good, but guys are ready,” Sandelin said during his regular Wednesday morning presser. “I don't know what it's going to look like, but they're ready. It's been a long month and they're chomping at the bit to play somebody and get the season going. And you need those games to measure all the things that you need to measure during the year, where you're at, what you need to get better at, who's where, all those things. So I just don't want our guys to expect that things are going to happen. We got to go work for things to happen. That's going to be the whole year.”
That is the challenge Sandelin sees entering opening weekend.
The Bulldogs return a substantial portion of a team that finished last season believing it was playing some of its best hockey. They have proven players throughout the lineup and the unusual possibility of opening the season with brothers Max, Zam and Victor Plante playing together.
There is plenty to like. There is also danger, Sandelin believes, if confidence becomes assumption.
“You got to go work,” Sandelin said. “It's a different year. It's a different group in some ways. It's nice to have a lot of returners, a lot of guys that are key components to our team that are back and are certainly hungry. I think the whole group was disappointed the way the year ended. We felt we were playing good hockey, but it's a new year and you got to have that same mentality of going out and really working for what you get.”
That standard extends throughout the lineup. Even with a team considered capable of competing among college hockey’s stronger programs, Sandelin repeatedly returned Wednesday to the same point: UMD must prove everything again.
“Nothing's going to be handed like college hockey, our league, everything is some really damn good teams right now,” Sandelin said. “And I'm just excited that we have a group that's being considered in that mix, but we got to go prove it. We got to go work.”
The most closely watched development this weekend may be the Plante line. Putting three brothers together on a Division I college hockey line is rare enough. Doing it with the offensive ability UMD believes it has in Max, Zam and Victor makes the experiment one of the most intriguing storylines surrounding the Bulldogs.
Sandelin intends to give the combination a chance but is not committing to keeping any line together simply because it looks good on paper.
“I mean, I think it doesn't happen very often where you get three brothers playing on the same team,” Sandelin said. “Obviously we're going to give them a chance together early. How long that stays together, we'll dictate that. But yeah, I think just want them to go and play and each one of them be themselves.”
For Victor, especially, Sandelin wants the emphasis on playing rather than trying to match whatever expectations might come with joining his older brothers.
“Zam and Max have a little more history together and for Victor, it's just going and being him and playing and not worrying about trying to live up to anything and just he's a good hockey player,” Sandelin said. “He's getting better every week. But again, when the rubber hits the road here and we get into real games and we'll find out.”
Sandelin expects considerable experimentation throughout the opening month: “I think there's going to be a lot of mixing and matching potentially through this first month for sure until we kind of see what we like.”
Max Plante enters the season carrying particularly significant expectations after the success he already has had, but Sandelin said the returning forward appears prepared for the attention.
“He has a plan on what he wants to do as far as things he wants to get better at,” Sandelin said. “So he's really focused on that. He's focused on winning, number one. He wants to win here before he leaves, but he's also got two or three things that he really wants to get better at.”
More important to Sandelin is that Plante should not have to carry the Bulldogs by himself.
“I said a couple weeks ago, I think there's certain guys you want to see be different. Max's look different in a good way,” Sandelin said. “And his ceiling's already high.”
Then Sandelin offered perhaps his strongest statement about why Plante returned and what the coach believes about the roster surrounding him.
“When he was thinking about going, if we didn't have the supporting cast, I would've told him to go,” Sandelin said. “If I didn't feel like he had the group around him to help compliment him, I think for him coming back and having to feel like he's got to be that guy every night would be very difficult. He probably wouldn't see him here right now, but he's around a really good group and I don't feel like he feels like he has to be that guy every night.”
That depth is particularly noticeable on defense. UMD returns six defensemen, giving Sandelin an experienced group in front of what remains an unsettled goaltending situation.
“On paper, it looks great. Again, we got to go perform,” Sandelin said. “We had All American and a defensive defenseman of the year last year in our league. And obviously we got three other guys that really kind of grew through the year, especially Brady and Seeps as newcomers to our team.”
Sandelin likes the variety available on the blue line — size, physical play, puck movement and offensive ability — but again cautioned that personnel alone does not create a dependable defensive team.
“But I like our group,” Sandelin said. “I think it's a much easier start with having... I'll just use Brady because Brady was new last year and Seeps. Those guys kind of know now what to expect. The other guys have been around, but much like our forwards groups or whoever we put together, they got to go and got to work together. They got to work in conjunction. They got to build chemistry and sometimes that takes time.”
Goaltending may take time to sort itself out, too.
Sandelin said UMD does not enter opening weekend determined to establish a No. 1 goaltender immediately. Performance, competition and time will dictate how the position develops.
“I don't really go in there with that plan,” Sandelin said. “I think whoever plays Friday, I hope plays well and wins and I hope kind of same thing Saturday, right? And just because they lose doesn't mean they're going to come out. We haven't really determined whether there's going to be a rotation or not and how long it's going to be. I think you just let that play out.”
Sandelin wants competition within the position without allowing that competition to fracture the group.
“I just want that group to be supportive,” he said. “No matter who's in there, be supportive of whoever's in the net so that they all can continue to grow.”
And if one goaltender eventually claims the job?
“Can anyone grab it? I don't know. I don't know. I really don't.”
For now, Sandelin is far more interested in seeing how the entire team responds to actual competition.
The Bulldogs have spent a month installing systems, evaluating combinations and practicing special teams. Sandelin said the intensity increased this week as the opener approached, but he knows there will be imperfections.
“We talked about that Saturday when we practiced and just this week we need to really raise the level a little bit,” Sandelin said. “And I though they've done that through the first few days here, but I can tell they're all excited to just get the season going all the time.”
The objective against Long Island will be deliberately uncomplicated.
“Try and keep the game as simple as you possibly can early for this first game and try and play a simple, hard, direct game and try and get to what we want to do or at least some of the things we want to do to be successful every night.”
Sandelin is not placing much emphasis on studying Long Island’s previous season. Rosters change too much, particularly in modern college hockey, and UMD has never played the Sharks.
“I don't look at any film from last year,” Sandelin said. “We haven't played them. They're different. I'm like, "Caleb, what did you guys do?" This is all about just us.”
That makes opening weekend more than the start of another schedule.
It is UMD’s first opportunity to determine whether the expectations surrounding this team can begin becoming something more tangible — and Sandelin’s first chance to see whether a talented, experienced group understands the standard he has been preaching throughout September.
The lines may change. The goaltending picture may take time. Special teams will evolve. Mistakes are inevitable.
The one thing Sandelin does not want changing is the mentality. The Bulldogs have talent. They have expectations. Now they have to earn everything else.
“I always say it every year,” Sandelin said. “You're going to see some good, you're going to see some ugly, and I hope there's more good than ugly.”
