Nadine Muzerall was an assistant coach for four teams that won national championships at Minnesota, including one that went 41-0. She’s already won a national championship as Ohio State’s head coach two years ago, and her team made it back to the national championship game last year.
Entering this year’s NCAA Tournament, Muzerall believes this 2023-24 Ohio State women’s hockey team is the most skilled team she’s ever coached.
“I did coach a team – I was an assistant – but they went undefeated. And I'm telling you, if we went toe-to-toe with them, I really still would choose this team today,” Muzerall said Friday.
Muzerall has good reason to be confident. Ohio State is the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament for the third year in a row. The Buckeyes have gone 32-4 this season, winning their second straight WCHA regular-season conference championship with a 26-2 record in the top conference in women’s college hockey.
What sets this team apart from the previous teams Muzerall has coached, she says, is its depth. The Buckeyes don’t have a singular superstar as they did for the past two seasons in Sophie Jaques, who won the Patty Kazmaier Award last year as the best player in women’s college hockey. But they have 14 different players who have scored at least 22 points this season, making it impossible for opponents to key in on stopping a specific player or line.
“We had a couple of strong lines when I was with the Gophers during that era,” Muzerall said. “Now, it's just honestly, what opponents say about us and what I recognize to the naked eye, you don't even have to be a skilled coach or hockey fan to see our first line to our fourth line is not much different.
“When you're going to play against us, what line or what player are you going to shut down to eliminate opportunities? That's what makes us unique is you can't shut down one or two key players because the next wave is just as dangerous. … Still very shocking no one made the top 10 (for the Patty Kazmaier Award), but we're going to use that as motivation, too.”
As confident as Muzerall is in her team, she knows winning a national championship never comes easily. The Buckeyes will have to win three straight games against three of the nation’s top teams, starting Saturday when they host conference foe Minnesota Duluth at the OSU Ice Rink (4 p.m., B1G+) for an NCAA quarterfinal game.
Ohio State is 5-0 against Minnesota Duluth this season, including a 5-0 win over the Bulldogs just last weekend in the WCHA Final Faceoff semifinals. But the Buckeyes also know the Bulldogs will be more motivated than ever to pull an upset with the season on the line.
“It's gonna be hard to try to beat a team for the sixth time and go 6-for-6,” Muzerall said. “We realize that, and we realize that their goaltending is very strong, and if they go with who we think (Éve Gascon), she had a great game against us last time (Ohio State faced Minnesota Duluth) and held us to just one goal with five minutes left. And so we're aware as much as they are aware of our tendencies. It'll be a good fight tomorrow night.”
Minnesota Duluth needed two overtimes to earn a 1-0 win over UConn in a first-round game at the OSU Ice Rink on Thursday night whereas Ohio State had a first-round bye, so the Buckeyes will have the advantages of both home ice and fresh legs. But the Bulldogs say they’re looking forward to having one more opportunity to get the win against the Buckeyes that’s eluded them all year.
“Not many people get the opportunity to take down the No. 1 seed,” said Minnesota Duluth defenseman Hanna Baskin. “We're looking to do everything we can here and it's an exciting opportunity for sure.”
Although Ohio State is playing in the NCAA Tournament for the fourth straight year, some of its players are in the tournament for the first time, as the Buckeyes added six transfers to their roster this offseason. Muzerall says that makes it important for the team’s experienced veterans who have been a part of their previous NCAA Tournament runs to provide steady leadership as the championship chase begins.
“Although we have a lot of skill, a lot of these young women have not been in this position before. I mean, for some of them, that was the first time they ever won anything, when we won the Julianne Bye Cup (regular-season WCHA championship trophy),” Muzerall said. “So I think that that's one thing that we have to understand is where the leadership in (senior captains Jenn Gardiner, Jenna Buglioni and Lauren Bernard) come from is you have been here. And that's a big weight captains have to carry is to elevate their excitement but calm their nerves at the same time so that they’re still able to perform under that pressure and not get too high or too low. You have to find that rhythm, and I think that they have the capability of doing it.”
“I think that's what makes us unique is you can't just shut down one or two key players, because the next wave is just as dangerous.”– Nadine Muzerall on Ohio State’s depth
Buglioni says the Buckeyes aren’t taking anything for granted going into Saturday’s game.
“I think just knowing that it's do or die,” Buglioni, a senior forward, said when asked how the team is preparing mentally to play Minnesota Duluth again. “Tomorrow is not guaranteed, especially with how many seniors we have on our team, like putting it all in that jersey for them. Knowing that tomorrow is not a guarantee and that we need to put our best product on the ice to try to make it to the next round.”
Gardiner says the Buckeyes are confident in their national championship chances but know they must take care of business one round at a time.
“I think we're all really confident, just given the season that we've had, but we know it's going to be a dogfight every single game,” Gardiner said. “And we kind of talk about the season being in three chapters: the regular season, the conference playoffs and then the national playoff. So I think that this weekend, it's basically a clean slate between us and Duluth and we're ready to go to work out there.”
Ohio State is coming off a 6-3 loss in last Saturday’s WCHA Final Faceoff final to Wisconsin, a team the Buckeyes could end up seeing again in the national championship game if they make it that far, but Muzerall says that defeat hasn’t shaken their confidence. What they learned from that loss, though, is that they need to play with that confidence every time they step on the ice now that they’ve reached the most important games of their season.
“Respectfully, we’re over that,” Muzerall said. “if you keep dwelling on the past, you're just getting inside your own head. It was nothing physical with us. It was mental. And I think we played a little more afraid to lose than go after them. And that was our learning moment. That's what we learned is it's our game to lose. We got to go out and act with a little more swagger that we are number one.”
Ohio State should get a confidence boost on Saturday from playing in front of a sellout crowd in their home arena, where the Buckeyes will play for the final time this season on Saturday before hopefully heading to Durham, New Hampshire, where the Frozen Four will be played next Friday and Sunday.
“It's my last game in this rink, so it's a bittersweet feeling, ending out my career in the OSU Ice Rink, getting to play my last home game,” said Gardiner, a fifth-year senior. “A lot of people wouldn't think that much of our rink, but it really is a special place. So I think just to have that home ice advantage, have our friends and family, have the band, have the support from our entire athletics department, it's going to be super special. And just having the home ice advantage, I think any team is at kind of a good advantage with that stuff. And we're really excited to not have to travel and just be in our own beds at night, and it's truly, it’s gonna be a good weekend.”
