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Youth is not what is causing the struggles of this team. by wearendhockey

And Jackson's teams here have never gotten better as players aged anyway. There were 10 or 11 freshman who played on the 2011 FF team, and those guys missed the tourney altogether the next season and never sniffed another NCAA win.

Nate Clurman is a freshman who was born in 1998 and will be old enough to drink when his freshman year ends. Michael Graham is a freshman and could buy a drink legally and then share it illegally with Clurman for the last 3 months. I assume virtually all of their non hockey classmates are much younger than them. This team also has 3 classes of players who have made the NCAA tournament (can't have more than that before the tourney rolls around), and 2 who have made a Frozen Four. Whatever is behind the mediocre year the squad is having is not due to their youth.

5 of the top 7 scorers on last year's UMD title team were freshmen and sophomores, and they had a sophomore in net who had about as much experience as a rookie as Morris, 2 games. 8 of the top 11 in scoring for DU in 2017 were underclassmen, including 3 freshmen. The surprise breakout team in the NCAA this season, Massachusetts, is led almost entirely by underclassmen. They play a freshman and a sophomore in net, and 7 of their top 8 scorers are freshman and sophomores. They routinely play 5 defensemen who are freshmen and sophomores. NCAA teams always rely on underclassmen producing and every year it seems like a freshman goaltender ends up in the running for a Richter award. Morris was basically as untested as any freshman last year and was the best player in the NCAA on many nights.

This team may yet decide to play like the experience they actually possess would indicate they are capable of. If they succeed it will probably be why. If they fail, it ain't because they're young.