“I was just making easy plays, not trying to make the difficult plays,” Welch says. “[I was] just jumping up in the play when the time was right and just kept having fun.”
THE SEASON AHEAD
Maintaining that form asks little from Welch aside from playing to his natural strengths. An offensive-minded blueliner, Welch will look to return to the basics that garnered nationwide praise in the first place.
At its simplest level, that means peppering opposing netminders and punishing those who try to do the same to Dov Grumet-Morris.
“I’d say getting the puck to the net and getting through traffic [are my offensive priorities],” Welch said. “On the flip side, not letting guys get to the net, and not letting the puck get to the net. I think those are two things extremely tough to do but can obviously have a really, really positive or negative impact on the game.”
The greatest challenge for Welch, though. may not be realizing those goals, but staying on the ice—and out of the penalty box—for long enough to do both well enough to garner All-American attention.
Welch is, well, notorious for his time spent in the sin bin. And while his reputation among detractors as a malicious player or a “goon” is certainly not warranted, new rules emphases this year figure to work against his strengths.
At 6’4, 212 lbs., Welch is a physical defenseman regularly relied upon to set the tempo with an opening shift hit and maintain that style of play for 60 minutes.
Of course, the definition of contact to the head penalty naturally works against such a tall defenseman, particularly when defending a shorter forward. And this year, renewed focus on enforcing clutch and grab infractions forces a player like Welch—a banger along the boards who admittedly doesn’t mind using his stick to slow struggling opponents—to unlearn more than three years of successful tactics.
While one game does not a season make, Welch hasn’t made the transition seamlessly, whistled four times in the season opener against Brown.
“It’s a whole different game this year,” Welch says.
Not to worry though. Welch knows a thing or two about struggling early, and this time he only has the rest of the season to bounce back. No matter what setbacks he faces, he won’t be settling for a lifetime of those painful memories.
—Staff writer Timothy J. McGinn can be reached at mcginn@fas.harvard.edu.