Campus Ice: Denver wears the bullseye, Michigan State has my ballot

Eight days until the sport I'd watch over any of the others drops a puck for real, and I've already made up my mind about the preseason poll: the 15 voters who didn't pick the defending champion are the ones paying attention.

The champs earned the No. 1 line. Denver went to Las Vegas as the fifth-best team in the NPI, came back in the third period against Wisconsin on April 11, won 2-1 and hung an 11th banner. Three titles in five years is a program, not a run.

But 35 of 50 first-place votes for a roster that hasn't skated a competitive shift with its freshmen is a voter reaching for the comfortable answer.

Look at where the other 15 went. Michigan State got seven, Michigan got six, North Dakota got two.

Michigan finished last season as the NPI's No. 1 team at 29-7-1, and the math still says that's the best résumé in the country, while the Spartans won the Big Ten. Neither of them got a parade, which is the entire argument for this season being wide open, and I'm buying it.

Here's my call, eight days early: Michigan State is the team I'd take to win it in April. The Spartans won the Big Ten regular season with most of the country looking at Ann Arbor, and they don't carry the bullseye Denver does. Write it down so you can throw it back at me in March.

Weekend slate: opening weekend, Oct. 2-3, ranked by what's at stake.

1. Minnesota at No. 19 Michigan Tech. The Brett Larson era starts on the road in Houghton, in a barn where visiting teams go to feel small. The Gophers were 11-22-3 last year, which is how a program ends up moving on from Bob Motzko, and they open at No. 14 anyway.

Larson brought two NCHC titles and a national-final trip from St. Cloud, and he gets no honeymoon: Duluth two weeks later, North Dakota at home Oct. 22-23. A split in Houghton is a perfectly respectable weekend; a sweep the wrong way and the No. 14 evaporates by Monday.

2. No. 1 Denver at Alaska Anchorage. The champs open against Eric Rud's Seawolves, and every team in the country wants to be the one that makes the Pioneers look ordinary before Michigan visits Magness Arena in week three. Anchorage won't be that team, but 60 minutes there tells you which freshmen the champs trust.

3. No. 15 UNH at No. 7 Quinnipiac. The best player in the East opens at home. Ethan Wyttenbach led the nation at 1.53 points a game as a freshman, 59 points on 25 goals and 34 assists, and he's the reason the Bobcats are my ECAC pick over Dartmouth.

New Hampshire got picked ninth of 11 by the Hockey East coaches, which makes this the weekend's cleanest upset window.

4. No. 16 Boston University at Alaska Fairbanks. BU was the preseason darling of the East a year ago and finished 17-17-2. The coaches put the Terriers third in Hockey East, one point ahead of BC, which is about as close to "prove it" as a poll gets. Two games in Fairbanks is a decent place to start proving.

5. No. 10 UMass at Colorado College, Maine at Holy Cross, Bowling Green at Michigan. Three tune-ups with one trap in them, and the trap is the one at altitude.

NPI watch: the number that picks the field doesn't exist yet, so October is about not digging a hole.

Two things to remember from last spring: the NPI gave Michigan's 29-7-1 the top line and still sent the 5-seed home with the trophy, and a sweep of a weak team can cost you, because the opponent's strength is baked into every result.

Denver's Anchorage trip carries more downside than upside in the math. That's the tournament math we signed up for.

The coaching note: Tom Serratore told Bemidji State this month that his 26th season is his last. He's 416-397-108 with six regular-season conference titles, three tournament titles and a 2009 Frozen Four out of a program most of the country couldn't find on a map. Associate coach Travis Winter, a Beaver defenseman from 2005-09, takes over in 2027-28.

That's the right kind of succession, and a farewell tour through the CCHA is a reason to watch a Bemidji game on a Friday in January.

Two more seats worth knowing. Rob Rassey, the former Michigan assistant, took over at Harvard in June, and the Crimson's ceiling in a Quinnipiac-Dartmouth-Cornell league depends on how fast his system sticks. And Larson's old job at St. Cloud went to Nick Oliver, an alum, so the state of Minnesota has two first-year head coaches this fall.

Prospect watch: Max Plante, Minnesota Duluth. The Hobey Baker winner put up 52 points in 40 games and could have signed with Detroit, who drafted him in 2024, but he's back for a third year instead, because younger brother Victor arrives in Duluth and older brother Zam is already there.

Three Plantes on one roster, and a Hobey winner chasing the one thing he hasn't won. Timeline: Detroit gets him in the spring, after the Bulldogs take a real swing.

That's the read heading into opening weekend: Denver wears the bullseye, Michigan State holds the ballots I trust, and the Gophers discover in Houghton what kind of year they're having. Eight days.