WCHA Coaches Poll Released

The Grand Forks Herald released this year's WCHA Coaches Poll. Here's how the league's 12 coaches voted:

Don Lucia couldn't vote for his own team, so Minnesota was essentially the unanimous choice for first in the league. The only real difference between the coaches' vote and the media's vote last week is that coaches are a little more confident in what St. Cloud is bringing to the table by placing them fourth instead of sixth.That's pretty remarkable to have two sets of voters essentially agree on the placement of 11 out of the 12 teams.

Both the coaches and the media selected Nick Bjugstad and Rocco Grimaldi for individual awards. For player of the year, the coaches gave votes to Ben Hanowski and Matt White, neither of whom received votes in the media poll. For rookie of the year, Mike Reilly received the second most votes from the coaches while the media went with higher drafted players like Jordan Schmaltz and Brady Skjei.