Look, the season's only two games old now that the Seawolves' Kendall Hockey Classic is complete, so can't draw too many conclusions about UAA because the sample size is tiny.
Still, some good things from the Seawolves so far.
Goaltending has not been an issue -- rookie Olivier Mantha stopped 27 shots in his college debut tonight, propelling the Seawolves to a 4-2 win over Wisconsin, which it should be noted played eight freshmen and two red-shirt freshmen (no other club is allowed to whine about its youth). Also, UAA red-shirt sophomore Michael Matyas was sharp in Friday's season-opening 3-1 win over Maine, stopping 18 shots.
Freshman have contributed goals -- Tad Kozun bagged two tonight and Austin Azurdia had one Friday.
Sophomore defenseman Chase Van Allen in two games looked better than ever. He had three assists in two games, several times turned himself into a one-man breakout on the rush and, this came as a bit of a surprise, was very good killing penalties. Now, if he would just shoot the puck more.
UAA's defense has looked good. Competent. Not flashy, but getting the job done. Freshman blueliner Jarrett Brown leads the club at +4 and Austin Coldwell checks in at +3.
Scott Allen scored a goal in each game and leads the team with nine shots on goal. The senior winger owns 34 goals in 99 career games. Senior winger Brett Cameron with an assist tonight collected his 50th career point in 112 games.
Also, the Seawolves have killed all 11 opposing power plays, and that includes two major penalties against them.
UAA only went 1 of 11 on its power play. Couple interesting moves by coach Matt Thomas on Saturday. During one power play, though on separate units, he used forwards Kozun and Hudson Friesen as defensemen on the man advantage. Kozun said he is accustomed to it because he played the point all last season on the power play in junior.
One last thing. The ceremonial puck drop before tonight's game was by former UAA defenseman Tim Molle, who is an Anchorage firefighter. He'll be inducted into the Seawolf Hall of Fame on Sunday along with basketball player Peter Bullock and runner/nordic skier/cyborg mountain-running god Eric Strabel. Was cool to see a slew of former Seawolves accompany Molle onto the ice.