New Wisconsin men's hockey coach Mike Hastings focused on building culture, relationships

MADISON – Statistics don’t tell the whole story, but for the Wisconsin men’s hockey team, they say a lot.

Last year the Badgers ranked sixth out of seven teams in Big Ten play in scoring and their goals-against average was the league’s worst by a wide margin. Those numbers alone provide insight into why UW was the conference’s last-place team by a large margin.

It marked the seventh time in the 10-year history of Big Ten hockey the Badgers finished in the bottom half of the conference. Four times they were last.

Mike Hastings was hired away from Minnesota State last spring to shake the program out of those doldrums. The question as the team prepares for the start of the season, is where does he start?

The answer goes back to Hastings’ days as a player at St. Cloud State.

“I found as a player a long time ago I was more comfortable when I had time and space and so part of what we’re trying to do is make sure we take away as much time and space when we don’t have (the puck) and then trying to push the pace when we do have it in a way that we’re connected whether that’s from our end to the neutral zone to the offensive zone,” he said. “Really (we're) just getting habits down and working on our dailies so that our day can turn into a week, a week into a month.”

That aggressive style perfectly reflects a hard-charging coach who turned Minnesota State into a perennial NCAA Tournament team that reached the Frozen Four twice and played for a national championship in 2022.

It is also a perfect culture builder. What better way to establish what is required from the team than to play a style that pushes the envelope on both ends of the ice?

“(We’re) really putting the expectations out there, trying to show what we’re looking for and also take advantage of what these guys have done before we got here,” Hastings said. “The cupboards aren’t bare here.”

“Heart and discipline. Those are two things we’re preaching right now.”

In addition to assessing the talent in his ranks, Hastings has been able to experience the extent of the athletic department’s resources while diving into building connections with a roster that didn’t know him seven months ago.

Meanwhile, his players have sized him up and started to employ some of his messages.

When Badgers players describe their new coach, it's a picture of a coach who has been direct and honest in personal dealings, and intense when it comes to handling the business of the day.

“Heart and discipline. Those are two things we’re preaching right now,” senior forward Mathieu De St. Phalle said. “Two building block things foundation-wise we can get going coming into the games next weekend.”

The Mike Hastings era begins Oct. 7-8 with a series against Augustana at the Kohl Center. The series is the first of three weeks of non-conference competition before the Badgers begin Big Ten play at Minnesota, Oct. 26-27.

There is plenty of optimism at this time of year, but outside of Madison, it's a wait-and-see approach on the Badgers.

In the preseason poll of conference coaches, Wisconsin was picked to finish fifth out of seven teams, ahead of Penn State and Ohio State. No Badgers were among the 18 voted on to the preseason all-conference list. Every other team in the league had at least one player selected.

Wisconsin's top two scorers from last season, sophomore Cruz Lucius and senior Mathieu De St. Phalle, return, as do four of the team's top six.

“I see a group of young men that want to get better,” Hastings said. “They’re willing to do the work. We’re just trying to break down some barriers on how hard you have to work to be successful every day and trying to develop those habits so that we can build a day into a week and so on.”

Mike Hastings has history of outperforming expectations

Outperforming expectations is nothing new to Hastings. In 2012-13, his first season at Minnesota State, the team went 24-14-3 after going 12-24 the year prior. That was MSU’s first winning season in four years and its highest win total since 1986.

This season he’ll bring to the ice 12 newcomers that included four transfers. There are also 13 National Hockey League draft picks, the most for the program since the 1993-94 season. Nine of those draft picks are forwards, including sophomore Charlie Stramel, who was selected in the first round by Minnesota in June.

Hastings points to that position as the strength of the team.

“I think Mat De St. Phalle has done a great job at establishing what it is to go to work every day,” Hastings said. “You look at a young guy like William Whitelaw, who’s come in and made an immediate impact not just because of his abilities to shoot a puck and how much he likes to score but really his excitement for the game. We’ve got to drag him off the ice at times.”

Focus on building relationships

In addition to setting a tone on the ice with the style of play he wants to employ, Hastings set a tone off the ice by focusing on building relationships and connections.

To that end, Hastings has spent more time in the office than usual, leaving more of the work on the recruiting trail to his assistants.

"It shouldn’t be about hockey all the time," he said. "How’s family doing? What’s going on in school? How’s the adjustment? Those types of things. Different settings."

Ultimately, however, coaches are judged by their record and Hastings is excited to add to the buzz on campus created by the football, volleyball, men's basketball and women's hockey programs.

What does a successful Year 1 look like for Hastings?

"The end result is going to be what our journey is," he said. "Wins and losses. I don’t want to look at this as we have to get so-and-so record-wise. Never been that way. I don’t want to change that. We’re going to learn from all the experiences. If we win our first one, the reset has to happen immediately. If we don’t win our first one, the reset has to happen immediately."

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Mike Hastings setting bar of expectations for Wisconsin men's hockey