Vegoe’s Top 20

Minneapolis, Minn. — Last season ended with Denver winning its 11th national championship title, the most of any men’s college hockey team. The Pioneers have two more titles than Michigan’s eight and three more than North Dakota’s eight. Denver’s head coach David Carle has led his program to three of those titles with eight years experience behind the bench–he also was on the bench on Jim Montgomery’s staff in 2017. Those three titles have him tied for fourth on the list of men’s hockey head coaches with the most titles behind Michigan’s Vic Heyliger who leads with six and Denver’s Murray Armstrong and Bowling Green/Boston College’s Jerry York who each have five. It’s hard not to peg the Pioneers the favorite again.

Carle has found lots of different ways to win titles over the years, but last year’s win might have been one of his most unlikely. Denver was ranked 11th in a late January USCHO Poll with a 14-11-2 record coming off being swept by Western Michigan and were forced to turn to a goalie that was once committed to Tennessee State when Quentin Miller went down to injury. Of course the Pioneers went on to win the rest of their games last season including a thrilling come from behind win in the national title game where they were outshot 30-15 by Wisconsin.

Will Denver have enough to win again this year? They lost their top two leading goal scorers Eric Pohlkamp and Rieger Lorenz to pro contracts, but they returned Hicks between the pipes, plenty of veterans and added two phenomenal major junior players in Ryan Lin and Daxon Rudolph late in the recruiting process. NHL teams have frequently called on Carle to gauge his interest, but he’s ready to run it back for more titles in college hockey.

I’ve got a couple other NCHC teams high in my poll with North Dakota, Minnesota Duluth and Western Michigan at spots No. 4 through No. 6 as they all have impressive rosters going into this season, but it’s hard to ignore the recruiting riches Michigan and Michigan State continue to hoard. 

Wolverines head coach Brandon Naurato led his team to the No. 1 overall seed in the 2026 national tournament and their third Frozen Four in four years, but once again they were bounced out in the national semifinal. Michigan this year will be led by a couple high profile first round junior forwards in Michael Hage and Will Horcoff and have a pair of high end freshmen defensemen in Cam Reid and Landon DuPont. If goaltender Jack Ivankovic can stay healthy this year for a tournament run, then DraftKings favorites will be dangerous.

If Michigan’s roster of five — likely six first round picks after DuPont goes high in 2027 — is impressive, then Michigan State’s roster of nine first rounders is must-see hockey for NHL prospect fans. Spartans head coach Adam Nightingale had nine players selected in the 2026 NHL Draft which was the most selections of any college hockey team this off-season, although Nikita Klepov did elect to sign his NHL deal late in July. Deploying this kind of talent will still be a massive challenger for Nightingale as while he’s led Michigan State to 25-win, 26-win and 26-win seasons the past three seasons, they’ve yet to make a return Frozen Four appearance since 2007.

The first eastern teams to make this poll show up after the aforementioned NCHC programs with Quinnipiac at No. 7, Providence at No. 8 and UMass at No. 9. These three teams are the favorites in the ECAC and Hockey East this year and are led by three of the most successful coaches in college hockey. Greg Carvel will be in his 11th season coaching the Minutemen, Nate Leaman will be in his 16th year coaching the Friars and Pecknold will begin his 33rd season behind the bench of the Bobcats this fall as the longest tenured coach in college hockey. Quinnipiac doesn’t have the flashy draft picks of the western teams ahead of them in the poll, but they do have all-ECAC players Ethan Wyttenbach and Elliott Groenewold and have been a tough tournament team at the end of the year. The Friars were tabbed by league coaches as the top team in Hockey East and return eight of their top ten scorers from last season. The Minutemen were tabbed second by coaches in Hockey East, but first by the Hockey East Media and had the most players named to the All-HEWBA preseason team with three Jack Musa, Francesco Dell’Elce and Larry Keenan.

Burying the lede for GopherPuckLive readers is putting Minnesota at No. 10 in the pre-season poll. New head coach Brett Larson didn’t hold back reshaping his roster with transfer portal players and he’ll have one of the most experienced rosters Gophers fans have seen take the ice. Minnesota lacked depth on the blue line last year, so adding All-American Evan Murr from Minnesota State, Tanner Henricks and Finn Loftus from St. Cloud St., Tarin Smith from Everett and Axel Löfgren from Fargo will be a big boost. Larson also grabbed a third Huskies player from his previous spot to help the forwards in Austin Burnevik. The biggest win though for the new coach was likely convincing Brodie Ziemer and LJ Mooney to stay with the maroon and gold. Both players were pursued by other programs, but Larson managed to retain them.

The bottom half of the opening top twenty include big conference teams No. 11 Wisconsin, No. 12 UConn, No. 13 Boston University, and No. 14 Boston College. Each of these teams have big talent returning, but also significant question marks as well. It seems like this year with the influx of older recruits and high end CHL talent will test every college hockey team and there will be good teams that struggle.

Rounding out the poll include No. 15 Michigan Tech, No. 16 Dartmouth, No. 17 Minnesota State, No. 18 Bowling Green, No. 19 Sacred Heart and No. 20 Miami. These programs will clearly have some chances to make noise with the non-conference schedules and it’s looking like there could be nearly 35-40 teams that could deserve votes headed into the season. The margins are thinner than ever these days as the talent gap is shrinking across college hockey.

The road to the Frozen Four Washington D.C. starts in less than two weeks — it’s one of the longest in college athletics and just making it to regionals in Hartford, Loveland, Fargo and Springfield will be an accomplishment this season.