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Katherine McGovern (17) moved up to center the first line and converted  a goal-mouth pass for a goal in both games of the sweep over MSU-Mankato. Photo credit: John Gilbert

Dynamic duo of Lara Stalder, left, and Ashleigh Brykaliuk will provide a test for Gopher defense this weekend. Photo credit: John Gilbert

UMD goalie Maddie Rooney stopped Mankato’s Lindsey Coleman during her first-game shutout. Photo credit: John Gilbert

So how good is this UMD women’s hockey team? Can the top Bulldog line score enough to carry the team? Can the team get it all together and return to the stature of legitimate WCHA contender, or will they be forced to spend another year in that purgatory-like slot that means beating the teams from the middle on down, but with little hope against the top two or three teams?

We’ll soon find out.

UMD hops on a bus and heads for Minneapolis this weekend, where the Bulldogs will face the Gophers – the traditional powerhouse and traditional rival, currently ranked No. 2 in the nation. To be in the middle of the pack in the WCHA means you must beat the teams below you in the standings, which allows you to absorb inevitable beatings by Minnesota and Wisconsin, and, in recent yearss, North Dakota.

The Golden Gophers are loaded, as usual, but after one full weekend, UMD is the only women’s WCHA team that is unbeaten and untied! UMD will confront the Gophers with the double-barreled attack of first-linemates Ashleigh Brykaliuk and Lara Stalder. Putting all their eggs in one basket is a decent cliche, but with the Bulldogs, it’s more like coach Maura Crowell is putting all all her goals on one line. There’s no right or wrong with such strategy, and with Brykaliuk and Stalder coming from wide off the boards at high speed and with great puck-skill, their playmaking can be game-breaking.

“Those players are as good as anybody in the country,” said Minnesota State-Mankato coach John Harrington, a former UMD star who later played on the 1980 U.S. gold medal team at Lake Placid’s Miracle on Ice, after UMD had won the first game of last weekend’s sweep. “We don’t have anybody like that. Most teams don’t. The only problem is, Minnesota and Wisconsin have half a dozen players like that.”

But last weekend, the WCHA form chart took a beating on “Upset Saturday” in the WCHA. Minnesota went to Bemidji and inflicted a 3-1 verdict on the Beavers; but coach Jim Scanlon’s Beavers came back and stunned the Gophers 2-0 in the rematch, getting an early goal and then hanging on until an empty-net tally at the finish. Wisconsin played Ohio State and won 3-0, but then were upset by a 1-1 tie in the rematch, although the Badgers won the shootout. North Dakota beat St. Cloud State 1-0 in their opener, but the Huskies stung UND 3-2 in the rematch.

Three upsets in the first full weekend of WCHA play? Astounding. Does that mean the reigning powers might have slipped a little, or that the mid-pack challengers are getting eager to move up? The Bulldogs appear anxious to find out.

The Bulldogs have gotten off to a strong start, thanks to seniors Brykaliuk and Stalder. Brykaliuk, who has arguably been UMD’s best player since her freshman days, is now a second-year captain. She opened fire early, with a hat trick in a 3-3 season-opening tie against No. 2 ranked Boston College, scoring a goal each time BC took the lead.

The next day, UMD whipped BC 5-2, with Brykaliuk getting only one goal.

Last weekend, the Bulldogs opened their WCHA schedule against Minnesota State-Mankato, a team that finished last a year ago without winning a single game in league play. As expected, UMD swept, and this time it was Stalder who took charge. The senior from Switzerland assisted on the first two goals in the 4-0 series opener, then scored a hat trick with one assist in the 5-1 rematch.

That output lifted Stalder to the 100-point plateau, and got her going on the second hundred. “It’s an honor, but no, I didn’t know,” said Stalder. “My teammates kept setting me up. I was just trying to score goals.”

The fact that Brykaliuk was fairly quiet on the other flank didn’t fool Harrington. “I don’t care if she didn’t get any points,” he said. “She’s out there winning faceoffs and making the plays that generate scoring chances.”

He meant Brykaliuk, but there is no doubt Crowell is also aware of the top-heavy nature of her team’s scoring. In the opening weekend against BC, Crowell had Katerina Mrazova centering Stadler and Brykaliuk, and that’s the way the pregame line charts read against Mankato, too. But Crowell did a little juggling, mostly moving second line left wing Katherine McGovern to top line center, and dropping Mrazova to the second unit.

The intriguing thing about the top line’s makeup is that Brykaliuk can be a dominant center, and Stalder, who started her UMD playing days as a hard rushing and hard-shooting defenseman, also can play in the middle. But there is some definite magic about the connection between Stalder and Brykaliuk.

“I don’t care where I play,” Stalder said. “I just love to win. Everyone loves to win.”

In the first Mankato game, Stalder assisted on Jessica Healey’s first-period goal and on McGovern’s tally to start a three-goal surge in the third period. In the second game, McGovern fed Stalder on the left side and she scored on her second try, then she came right back, with Brykaliuk catching a pass out from McGovern and feeding across to the left circle, where Stalder blasted a shot in for a 2-0 lead in the first 10 minutes.

Stalder and Brykaliuk conspired to set up McGovern for a goal midway through the second period, then, after the teams traded goals in the third, Stalder connected for her hat trick from the right edge at 19:49 to finish the 5-1 victory.

Maddie Rooney was near perfect in goal, stopping all 22 Mavericks shots the first night and stopping 23 of the 24 shots in the second game, with only JNordan McLaughlin’s shot from the slot getting through, with 4:08 remaining.

“It’s hard not to like our goal-scoring,” said Crowell, assessing last weekend. “We did a good job limiting goals-against, and were were perfect on the penalty kill all weekend. We maybe could do a better job of backchecking.”

Crowell said she wasn’t sure what she’d do against the Gophers. “In the first game I thought our first line was a little stale,” she said. “So I made a move in the third period and then we stuck with it today.”

The best part of the whole question is that it’s been a while since the Gophers have had to worry about stopping UMD’s explosive scoring.