Now What?
Brett Larson bolts for Minnesota; mulling next options for St. Cloud State
The Minnesota Golden Gophers made it official today, hiring Brett Larson away from St. Cloud State to become its next men’s hockey head coach. Larson replaces Bob Motzko, who left SCSU to become Minnesota’s coach almost eight ago years to the day. While Larson’s name quickly emerged as a favorite to replace Motzko after the latter agreed to mutually part ways last week, and thus today’s news isn’t shocking, it’s nevertheless a stunning turn of events for both programs in the big picture. Larson’s reputation seemingly had taken a hit over the last three years at St. Cloud, failing to make the NCAAs in each of those seasons, compiling a below-.500 record and eighth- and fifth-place finishes respectively in the last two seasons.
There’s a lot to be said about whether Larson is the best candidate to take over Minnesota, but for SCSU fans, that discussion is secondary to the main task at hand: finding Larson’s replacement behind the Huskies bench. SCSU Athletics Director Holly Schreiner now faces her second head hockey coach hire in the last nine months, following Brian Idalski’s departure and Mira Jalusuo’s hiring on the women’s side in June 2025. Newly-installed SCSU president Gregory Tomso is suddenly thrust into the position of having to make his first major personnel decision — hiring what’s presumably going to remain the highest-paid St. Cloud State employee — just a few months into his tenure. Time is of the essence. The new-fangled chaotic nature of college hockey these days necessitate quick action, and so it’s appropriate to consider some possible candidates to be the next SCSU head coach.
The Frontrunner: Nick Oliver
While he might not have the best résumé of all of the top-grade names under consideration (see below), Nick Oliver is the logical favorite to land the job. He checks a lot of the boxes when it comes to contemplating the ideal candidate. Oliver is a graduate of SCSU and captained the Huskies in the mid-2010s, then went into coaching shortly after his playing career ended, serving on the SCSU staff as an assistant under both Motzko and Larson. As head coach of the USHL’s Fargo Force for one impressive season in 2022-2023, Oliver won USHL Coach of the Year honors while taking the Force to the Clark Cup championship series. Oliver then moved to Madison to become an assistant on Mike Hastings’ staff at Wisconsin and has played a key role in reviving the Badgers from their Tony Granato-era doldrums, making two NCAA Tournaments in three seasons. At 34, Oliver is the youngest of the candidates listed here, but it’s only a matter of time that Oliver lands a head coaching job at the NCAA Division I level. With his alma mater on the search currently, that time just might be now.
The Dream: Garrett Raboin
If the amount of check boxes that Oliver ticks off isn’t quite enough, there might be one guy that checks one more box, that of a candidate that has D-I head coaching experience: Augustana head coach Garrett Raboin. Like Oliver, Raboin captained the Huskies during his collegiate career, and also began his coaching career under Motzko at St. Cloud. “Rabs” moved to Dinkytown with Motzko in 2018 and then became Augustana’s inaugural head coach shortly after the Vikings announced their transition to Division I hockey. Since Augustana started play in 2023, Raboin’s reputation has only solidified, immediately making Augustana into a competitor both in the CCHA and nationally. Additionally, Raboin has become a mainstay of USA Hockey staffs for international play, serving as an assistant under both David Carle and Motzko for the last three World Juniors Championships. Raboin’s candidacy seems like a longshot, however, considering he reportedly declined an interview for the Gophers’ job, and Augustana AD Josh Morton seems to have signaled that Raboin finagled a contract extension as a result of Minnesota’s interest. Thus, Raboin figures to demand the largest payday if St. Cloud was going to take a run at him. SCSU’s financial woes are worthy of a deep-dive analysis, but to keep it succinct for the purposes of this discussion: Raboin’s likely too rich for SCSU’s blood at this point. Still, the school should at least give him a call.
The Splash: Matt Cullen
The former Husky needs no introduction, but in case you need one, Cullen spent two seasons in St. Cloud in the mid-1990s before launching a long and decorated NHL career, getting his number retired by the Huskies a few years ago. He’s been working as an assistant on Moorhead’s state championship-winning staff, and the Cullen name is again a hot topic of discussion in the hockey world due to the next generation of Cullens approaching college age. The boxes that Cullen checks aren’t as plentiful as the names above, and going from an assistant coach at a high school to a head college coach is not a career move frequently seen. But Matt Cullen isn’t your ordinary high school assistant coach. What Cullen lacks in head coaching experience he more than makes up for in name recognition and credibility. It would be an outside-the-box move for sure, and perhaps has the greatest range of possible outcomes: Cullen could knock it out of the park or swing and miss badly. But I think he’s an intriguing candidate, and hey, it would be a good reason for those young Cullens to change their minds about their college commitments…
The Lolz: Bob Motzko
If St. Cloud prizes a candidate with Division I head coaching experience, and unlike Raboin isn’t currently employed, there’s a recently cashiered coach available who [checks notes] apparently has some familiarity with St. Cloud State. While I think the chances of Bob Motzko returning to St. Cloud are close to zero, I don’t think those chances are literally zero. And while there’s still some resentment I harbor regarding Motzko’s departure from St. Cloud eight years ago, there’s a narrow scenario where I would be open to seeing a return play out. Motzko is about to turn 65 years old; his college coaching career is likely over. But if he were to coach anywhere else, I could see him being interested in serving as a short-term stopgap solution at his alma mater, presiding over a transition that includes a coach-in-waiting hired concurrently with Motzko. If Matt Cullen brings a risk as an unproven commodity as a college head coach, having Cullen work under Motzko for two years or so and then handing off the reins would provide some insurance to such a plan. The understanding would have to be that Motzko is doing this as a favor to SCSU — penance of sorts for the unsavory way he exited St. Cloud in 2018. Having made his bag in Dinkytown, he takes a below-market salary to shepherd a coaching transition at his alma mater, in the process hoping to restore some goodwill with a fanbase of which a significant faction undoubtedly is repellent to the idea of his return. Again, unlikely — but not out of the question.
The Junior Legend: Fred Harbinson
I’ve always been a fan of Fred Harbinson, longtime junior coach of British Columbia’s Penticton Vees. Harbinson has a St. Cloud State connection, having served an assistant under both Craig Dahl and Bob Motzko in the mid-2000s, before taking the Vees job in 2007. All he’s done in Penticton is win, taking first place in its division 15 times. Harbinson has continued to maintain a relationship with Huskies coaches, creating something of a pipeline of Vees who went on to play for the Huskies, including Joey Benik and Easton Brodzinski. The Vees’ current captain this season, defenseman Nolan Stevenson, committed to Larson and the Huskies earlier this winter (his status as a future Husky now in doubt, of course). What’s notably changed for Penticton is its “promotion” from the lower-Canadian-junior BCHL to the major-junior WHL, starting this season. One year into the higher level of competition, Penticton finds itself where they’ve usually resided under Harbinson: first place. Now with the WHL and other Canadian major junior leagues able to send its players to NCAA, a Harbinson hire would signal a commitment to the “new-school” approach of NCAA hockey and an aggressive willingness to recruit heavily from Western Canada. The biggest question might be if Harbinson would want to move on from Penticton. Even 20 years into his tenure, it feels he is still in the process of building Penticton considering its recent jump to the WHL. Perhaps he feels there’s still unfinished work to complete there. And at 54, Harbinson isn’t exactly a spring chicken. I’d be very excited to see Harbinson enter the chat, so to speak, but I’m fully acknowledging that it’s a longshot.
The Up-and-Comers: Brett Skinner, Rocky Russo, Ryan Ward
If any of the “name-brand” candidates above either pass on the job or for whatever reason aren’t available, the American junior ranks seem to be the next-best pool of coaching candidates for the Huskies to explore. There is no shortage of junior coaches that are building impressive résumés in the USHL as we speak. Brett Skinner, 42, tops the list in my opinion. A defenseman by trade, Skinner won two national championships with Denver in 2004 and 2005 before debuting as an assistant coach with the USHL’s Sioux Falls Stampede in 2017. After one season as the head coach of the NAHL’s Minnesota Wilderness, Skinner was tabbed to replace Oliver as Fargo’s head coach in 2023. Skinner followed up Oliver’s Coach of the Year season with one of his own in 2023-2024, leading the Force to a Clark Cup championship. Rocky Russo, 43, spent 15 years in the NAHL before getting the Lincoln Stars’ head coaching job in 2021. Russo claimed the USHL Coach of the Year in 2024-2025, leading the Stars (featuring current Huskies Yan Shostak and Tanner Henricks) to a division title. Ryan Ward, 40, has coached the Youngstown Phantoms since 2022 and has turned Youngstown into a perennial USHL power, winning two division crowns and winning the Clark Cup in 2022-2023.
If budget is a restriction for St. Cloud, and it no doubt is, any of these candidates or other junior-bred coaches would likely come with the lowest price tag. And selecting a coach from this bucket may mean the greatest short-term pain for the Huskies, as the threat of defections from the current roster may be maximal if one of the most-prized candidates can’t be landed. But using the example of Miami’s Anthony Noreen, himself a USHL Coach of the Year winner who racked up an impressive win-loss record at his time at Tri-City, a coach in this category might pay off in the long term even more than one of the sexy names. It would be a gamble to hire one of these types, but in my opinion it would not be the worst decision that could be made.
The Hard Passes: R.J. Enga, Eric Rud
In any coaching search, the current assistant coaches are almost by default prime candidates. And for understandable reasons: having had a hand in recruiting the active roster, they have the closest relationships with the players and figure to prevent a mass exodus of both currently rostered players as well as incoming recruits. With the Huskies, the two main assistants are R.J. Enga and Eric Rud. Both Colorado College alums, Enga came aboard following Oliver’s departure in 2022, and Rud after Dave Shyiak left in 2024 to take the Northern Michigan head coach job. Rud in particular has a long history with St. Cloud, serving as an assistant under Motzko from 2005 to 2010 and as head coach of the SCSU women’s program for five (mostly bad) seasons from 2014 to 2019. To me, neither option should be taken seriously as candidates to be the Huskies’ next head coach. To do so would be in the name of trying to retain the most current talent; but to what end, I ask? The last two years have seen bottom-half-of-the-standings finishes, and the way the top half of the NCHC appears to be trending, even if Larson was still on the job, it would be a stretch to predict a top-4 conference finish for the Huskies next season. Having players like Austin Burnevik and Barrett Hall come back for another year would be nice, but keep in mind they were both on the team in 2024-2025, when the team collapsed in the second half and finished next-to-last. Keeping as close to the status quo of the current staff in place would be a grave error in short-term thinking. I’d prefer to have to endure a steep rebuild for a year or two with a young and hungry USHL-bred coach eager to establish a brand rather than try to bridge a gap of mediocrity with either of these two coaches at the helm, who were frankly part of the problem the last two years. Hiring Enga or Rud would be the biggest mistake this administration could make.
***
Keep in mind, this list is the Substack equivalent of spaghetti on a wall. I do not purport to be a Huskies insider; I have no exclusive source of info that I’m tapping into and no insight as to what percentage any of these candidates have at getting the job. I’m merely an alumnus of the school and hardcore supporter of the hockey program who recognizes that this is a huge hinge point for SCSU hockey. Losing Larson can be considered a major blow, but I actually don’t think that this is a death knell at all. In fact, the timing (and economics) of Larson’s departure might work out to SCSU’s advantage. But that all depends on who the replacement is.
Your move, Holly.
Who’s your pick to lead St. Cloud State men’s hockey? Leave your comments below!