The Gophers women’s hockey team heads into Friday’s home opener versus Maine ranked third in the nation in this week’s polls. Being pegged third in the country would mean parades down University Avenue and seven-figure contract extensions if it was bestowed upon Minnesota’s football or men’s basketball teams.

At Ridder Arena, being called the third-best team in the nation — behind conference rivals Wisconsin and Ohio State — is what, in large part, prompted a coaching change last spring.

All smiles when he met the media this week after starting his Gophers coaching career with a 2-0-0 record following a sweep at Bemidji State last weekend, Greg “Boom” May knows well the sky-high expectations at a program with six national title banners, but none since 2012.

For May, 41, all of those expectations are secondary to the immediate challenge.

“There was so much stuff that I liked about us,” May said, looking back at 5-2 and 5-3 wins in Bemidji. “Honestly, it was maybe even surprising in a positive way this early in the year. We had a ton of sustained offensive pressure.”

The offense came from seemingly everywhere versus the Beavers — more than a dozen Gophers got their first points of the season — and that will need to be the way it works for Minnesota, at least early on.

For the few years, Olympic gold medal-winner Abbey Murphy was the marquee attraction in maroon and gold. Now she’s a member of the PWHL’s Seattle Torrent, and May acknowledged that filling that hole gap with one player is far-fetched at best.

“I don’t know if there’s another one (like her) in the world, honestly,” May said of Murphy, the second overall pick in the PWHL draft last summer after scoring 40 goals (in 31 games) in her final collegiate season.

“We’ve got some pretty special players — incoming players here and returning players as well — but it’s definitely going to be by committee this year, which I’m excited to see.”

Former Minnetonka standout Ava Lindsey is the team’s top returning scorer, and after two games likes what she has seen from the “offense by committee” idea.

“We’ve kind of spoken about the depth on our team this year. We have four lines that can produce, four lines that can score,” said Lindsay, who had 15 goals last season.

They will need all that and more as May’s first team strives to be better than “merely” third in the nation.

Minnesota faces Maine at 6 p.m. today, then is host to Bemidji on Sunday at 2 p.m. Both games are at Ridder Arena and can be streamed on B1G+.

Briefly

The Gophers will be without defensive star Chloe Primerano, who is with Team Canada for their training camp in advance of the IIHF Women’s World Championship in Denmark next month.