A year and a month after having the interim tag removed, Vermont coach Steve Wiedler is obviously focused on results, but it’s safe to say he’s not as obsessed as he might have been at this point in 2024.
“At the end of the day, you go home to your wife and kids and you gotta try to put as many wins on the board as you can,” Wiedler said on Friday night after his team’s 4-2 win at Merrimack. “Whereas going into this offseason and knowing that our staff would have a chance to run this program for a little while, you can get it way more culture based and focus on longevity.”
Thrown into the spotlight during the summer before the 2023-24 season after the abrupt dismissal of Todd Woodcroft, Wiedler admirably led the Catamounts to a 13-19-3 record, good for the No. 9 seed in the Hockey East tournament, where they lost 4-1 at Connecticut in the first round.
UVM signed Wiedler to a four-year contract in January 2024. The Catamounts currently are 11-14-3 overall (6-10-2 in Hockey East), only one game behind where they were after the same number of games last season.
Well aware that success for his program was not going to be instantaneous, Wielder said the Catamounts biggest improvement is in the culture department. He pointed to Friday’s win at Merrimack, where UVM clung to a 2-1 lead after two periods but added a pair of insurance goals in the third.
“We grinded out that win,” he said. “(Even) guys that are goal scorers to the guys that are maybe fourth line and play that role for us, it was all about winning.
“I think that’s the biggest step that our program has taken — our guys have bought in. They’ve bought in all the way and they care about the logo a lot. They’re pushing the program forward and it’s great to be a part of.”
Vermont got two goals and an assist in that game from team captain Joel Määttä, part of a four-point weekend that moved the senior forward from Helsinki into the team lead in scoring (8-14-22).
Wiedler said Määttä, a seventh-round draft pick by the Edmonton Oilers in 2022, is not only a solid leader for the entire team but acts as the “Pied Piper” for the club’s eight European players.
“He wears the ‘C’ for a reason, and he’s been unbelievable at it,” Wiedler said. “He just plays the game to our identities, hard. He really digs in, he cares about our program. (He’s) a great player and he’s really pushed the program forward in his four years.”
When the Catamounts return to Gutterson Fieldhouse Friday for the first of a two-game set against Boston College (currently No. 2 in the USCHO D-I men’s poll), it will be their first home game in more than a month. UVM went 3-2-0 on the preceding five-game road stretch over three weekends, which included wins at then-No. 18 New Hampshire and then-No. 9 UMass Lowell. Currently, Vermont sports a winning record (8-6-1) on the road this season.
“Having us go on the road for three weeks in a row was daunting,” Wielder said. “We were like, we gotta be ready for this stretch, and our guys have done an unbelievable job to respond to it. We’ve gone through everything in the last four weeks — the whole sickness thing, injury bug, playing really big-time opponents that are nationally ranked (and) our guys have responded. That’s the one thing about our group — they’re very resilient.”
With six games left in the regular season, Wielder has his team believing it’s capable of making some noise in both the Hockey East standings and tournament.
“Our guys have a strong belief in the locker room,” Wiedler said. “They want to represent our school and our university. I haven’t been with a group of guys that took that weight this seriously. They really do think they have the talent level and the buy-in to push the program forward and I believe in them. They care enough to get it done.”
