WINONA, Minn. — You’ll have to forgive Saint Mary’s University women’s hockey coach Duncan Ryhorchuk if he seems a little preoccupied of late.

If he happens to keep checking over his shoulders while you are holding a conversation with him, cut him a little slack — he’s not being rude, just a bit cautious.

After all, when you are the coach of a team that has participated in two straight national tournaments and is the defending MIAC playoff champion, you might as well spend your days walking around with a big red target on your back.

And Ryhorchuk doesn’t want anyone sneaking up on him.

“When you have had the type of success that we have had the last couple of years, everyone is gunning for you,” said Ryhorchuk, whose team placed third in the AWCHA national tournament in 2001 and qualified for the NCAA’s first-ever Division III national tournament a year ago. “When we play most of the other teams in the conference — St. Thomas or St. Ben’s, Concordia, Bethel … — they are going to want to knock us off, so we have to make sure we are ready to play every night.”

One team the Cardinals will certainly be gunning for this season is defending regular-season conference champion Gustavus.

The Gusties swept the season series against Saint Mary’s (winning 3-0 and 4-3), but lost to SMU in the conference tournament title game (2-1), before knocking SMU out of the national tournament with a 2-0 victory.

“I think that Gustavus and Saint Mary’s are probably still the teams to beat (in the conference),” admitted Ryhorchuk. “But the gap between us and the rest of the conference is much smaller. The conference is going to be much tougher, top to bottom.”

And in order for the Cardinals to remain in the MIAC’s catbird seat — and keep that target on their backs — they are going to need encore performances from some of their top players, and breakout performances from some of their supporting cast.

“We lost some of our top players (to graduation), but we’ve also got a lot of talent and experience returning,” said Ryhorchuk, who is without the services of four-time all-MIAC selections Mo Hayes and Missy Westergren — two of six players gone from last year’s 21-6-1 team. “We’re going to need to find some players to try and fill the void (left by those graduated seniors), but the core of the team is still there.”

And what a core it is.

Not only do the Cardinals return a two-time All-American goalie in Missie Meemken (St. Cloud, Minn. / 23 GP, 1.82 GAA, .934 save percentage) and a solid defensive corps led by Monica Deringer (Brooklyn Park, Minn. / 1 goal, 8 assists, 9 points), but they also return five of their top six scorers — including team-leaders Emily Kearns (Hopkins, Minn. / 32 goals, 18 assists, 50 points) and Christy Hicks (Bloomington, Minn. / 15 goals, 15 assists, 30 points).

In other words, opponents may be gunning to shoot down SMU, but the Cardinals are fully loaded to return fire.

“Last year, our goal at the start of the season was to get back to the national tournament,” said Ryhorchuk, whose team ended the regular-season with eight straight wins, before beating St. Thomas (5-3) and Gustavus (2-1) in the MIAC tournament. “Obviously, getting back to the national tournament again is one of our goals. But this year, we don’t want to just get there — our goal is the Final Four and playing for a national championship.”