Can Gophers women’s hockey supplant Ohio State, Wisconsin this season?

The Ohio State and Wisconsin women’s hockey teams together have won the last five Frozen Fours, met each other in the last two championship games and now occupy the top two spots in this year’s preseason poll, too.

Has a reconfigured Gophers team matured and improved enough to join the party again?

“We’ve been there,” said coach Brad Frost, whose teams last won the Frozen Four in 2015 and 2016 and was runner-up to Wisconsin in 2019. “They’re really hard to win. You need a lot of things to go right. First, you need the horses, but then you need a lot of things to go right after that. But we feel like we’ve got a chance this year.”

Ten players – three transfers and seven freshmen – are new to a team that went 27-10-2, lost in overtime to Wisconsin in the WCHA Final Faceoff semifinals and in four unforgettable and heartbreaking overtimes to Clarkson in the NCAA tournament quarterfinals. Minnesota played on all season after losing PWHL-bound Taylor Heise and Grace Zumwinkle from the season before.

The Gophers open their season Friday for a two-game series at Connecticut, which last year won both the Hockey East’s regular season and playoffs and lost to UMD in the NCAA tournament.

Minnesota does so with a roster thick with veteran forwards up front – including senior Abbey Murphy – and young but talented defense that’s anchored by prized freshman recruit Chloe Primerano, just 17 years old. She and her fellow freshman blueline partner Gracie Graham played together in high school in British Columbia.

“I love it here,” said Primerano, who’s aimed at playing for the Canadian national team. “It took a lot of thought picking a school. I thought about how great the environment is here with the coaches and the players. Also, the school is amazing. I’m going to get a good education here.”

Frost praised Primerano’s “incredible passion” for the game and calls her “incredibly gifted” with great feet, fantastic offensive ability and vision. Murphy called her “a stud” whose arrival has been long awaited.

WCHA coaches picked Primerano as their preseason Rookie of the Year pick.

“She’s got something special, and we’re looking forward to it,” Murphy said.

Up front, Murphy’s 33 goals in 39 games tied Wisconsin’s Kirsten Simms for most in the nation last season. Now in his 18th year as Gophers coach, Frost noted Murphy’s growth offensively and defensively, calling a “super dynamic” forward who “plays with an edge.”

“She shoots the puck off the pass, she one-times the puck almost better than anyone I’ve seen,” Frost said. “She just cares about the team.”

Murphy up front and Gophers Nelli Laitinen, a Finnish Olympian, on defense were voted by league coaches to the preseason All-WCHA team.

“The way Nelli plays, she is very quiet,” Frost said. “She just does everything really, really well, and she was voted all-WCHA, which is a big deal.”

Senior goaltender Skylar Vetter started 21 games last season with a 12-7-2 record and is back in goal, as is freshman recruit Hannah Clark, a gold medalist on Canada’s 2023 U18 World Championship team.

Frost acknowledges his team started to change its identity and style of play last season, from Gophers teams that always were skilled but not always difficult to play against.

“We have to be a team that plays fast, that swarms and is incredibly tough to play against,” Frost said. “I think we’re going to be a fast, aggressive team that hopefully has the ability to not just put the puck in the net, but keeps it out as well. We have to redefine our identity a little bit and get back to what’s successful.”