Each week during the season, we look at the big events and big games around Division I men’s college hockey in Tuesday Morning Quarterback.
ED: As we were wrapping up recording our latest episode of Weekend Review, Jim and I decided to touch on some real positives so far this season, seeing as how sometimes we can veer into doom and gloom in this space.
I’d like to begin with Dartmouth’s torrid start and some superlatives that go with it.
The Big Green is the only undefeated team in ECAC Hockey, both in conference play and overall, and just wrapped up a two win weekend in the league’s travel partner system against St. Lawrence and Clarkson. It was the first North Country sweep for Dartmouth since 2017-18. But even more impressive is its 6-0-0 record, which Dartmouth had not started with since the 1957-58 season.
Like the other Ivies, Dartmouth had to recover and regroup after not playing during the 2020-21 season. Head coach Reid Cashman had taken the job in 2020 but had to wait another year to hit the ice. It has taken a while for those six teams to overcome that year off.
The No. 13 Big Green has outscored opponents 26-7 in those first six games, with sophomore defenseman Hayden Stavroff already notching seven goals, including a hat trick in the season opener vs. Stonehill. Freshman Nathan Morin has also tallied a hat trick – last Friday against St. Lawrence – and goalies Emmett Croteau and Roan Clarke have been stellar sharing the net.
I know there are still 23 more regular-season games for Dartmouth, but this is a terrific start to the campaign.
What’s a feel good story so far for you, Jim?
JIM: You just touched on one of my favorite early storylines here, and I’ll echo the fact that seeing Ivy League schools back competitive – Dartmouth is joined by Harvard, Cornell and even Yale in all starting fast this season. And given where each of those programs were after COVID, their success is a bright light for this early season.
But for me, to this point, the story I still love out of the gate is Miami.
That program had hit rock bottom, coming off a three-win season a year ago season-year head coach Anthony Noreen proved immediately that this would not be another doormat season for the RedHawks. They had past three wins by October 11 and, though things have cooled off a bit for Miami in NCHC play, a 7-3-0 mark at this point certainly classifies as “feel good” to me.
I’ve also enjoyed watching Union’s start in the ECAC. I had somewhat high hopes for Josh Hauge’s team after a 19-win campaign a season ago. But at 8-2-1, Union just completed a sweep of Hockey East opponents UMass Lowell and New Hampshire by a combined score of 13-1. Surprisingly, the Garnet Chargers are just 2-2-0 in league play. But this feels like another team that is going to be making a case for the NCAA tournament come March.
Speaking of, Ed. And I know it’s early to talk about the NCAA tournament and its field this early, but with the NPI replacing the PairWise this season for the NCAA’s selection criteria for its postseason, I’ve glanced a few times over the last couple of weekends. And one thing is clear: if we weren’t supposed to look at the PairWise before Thanksgiving because the math doesn’t make sense, we may need a bigger buffer for the NPI. Listen, things haven’t been easy out of the date for many other the traditional powers, but right now Western Michigan, Boston College. Quinnipiac, Boston University and Maine are all among the teams outside the bubble right now.
I am confident things will change as more games are played and many of the teams were know are strong will make their way inside the NPI bubble. But it does have me shaking my head looking at the NPI this early.
ED: I suppose we can put having the NPI instead of the old PairWise into the category of good news, since the PairWise and RPI criteria had been massaged and manipulated over the years to create a result to match more closely what the NPI actually produces.
But it’s not going to show it yet. The NPI (and the PairWise before it) were never meant to be a snapshot of how a team is doing right this very moment, but how a team matches up against everyone else in an entire body of work. In other words, after the season is over. As we get closer to the end of the season, we can see where teams are in terms of qualifying for the NCAA tournament. But it’s going to be a little while longer.
Why? It’s because one part of the NPI hasn’t kicked in yet, and that’s to remove wins against teams that lower your NPI score. I suspect that’s a big part of why the rankings don’t yet make sense: no team has hit the minimum number of weighted wins required before those wins are removed. Wins are weighted 0.8 for a home win and 1.2 for a road win, and an overtime win is then multiplied again by 0.6.
One issue this causes is that a team that plays a lot of nonconference weak opponents early at home will still have wins counted that hurt their NPI until they’ve played enough games so that home wins x 0.8 + road wins x 1.2 is greater than 12, allowing those wins that hurt a team’s NPI to start being removed.
So give it a couple of weeks and teams who have wins over weak opponents will start to have those games removed from their record for NPI purposes and things will begin to make more sense.
We could probably go into more detail, but that’s probably enough for most of us.
If it were up to me, nobody would publish an NPI before, I don’t know, January 1? But I’ve got zero say in it.
I hope that helps our readers. I know it helped me to write it down like that. (If it’s still confusing, it’s enough to know that once more games are played, the cream will float to the top.)
Did I leave anything out?
JIM: Yes sir, you did a heck of a job explaining to our readers something that very brilliant people often can’t explain. To that I say job well done!
I am going to go back to our podcast recording, and one topic that came up were rookies. This has been quite a season to watch the new faces – some young, many not-so young. You, Derek and I surmised that it is likely that a former Major Junior player, in their first year of NCAA eligibility, will likely provide our Tim Taylor winner, given to the nation’s top rookie.
But then I began looking at some of the names of the top rookie scorers and remembered that Vaclav Nestrasil at UMass has certainly opened eyes in Hockey East. I will see him play in person this Thursday when they travel to Providence. But Nestrasil feels like the only major USHL rookie who is performing well.
I guess this shouldn’t be surprising, but it does show that there has quickly become a divide between CHL rookies and first year players coming from the USHL. Are you surprised?
ED: I guess I’m not surprised, but I don’t know if one season is enough to define a trend. However, it’s interesting to look at. It could only be a one-year or short-term divide.
We’ve discussed before that we’ll see two types of players coming in from the CHL. First will be young, top-tier, NHL-first-round types, and the other will be 18 or 19-year-olds who will be 19 or 20-year-old freshmen in the NCAA. That’s probably a pattern much like the BCHL or USHL.
In the conversation I had with College Hockey Inc.’s Sean Hogan a couple of weeks ago, he suggested that the previous history of divergent paths will now become just one.
“It’s minor youth hockey, junior hockey, wherever that is – the USHL, the CHL, the BCHL – NCAA hockey, and then professional,” Hogan said. “So for some players, that will be 20 years old in college hockey, and some players will have opportunities at 18 and 19.”
Where players play junior hockey may end up less of an issue with all leagues eligible and with most top-tier players going through at least one year in college hockey en route to the NHL.
Since we started out on a good news note, my good news is that I’m going to experience the Friendship Four in Belfast next week, broadcasting for RIT, who is joined there by Sacred Heart, Miami, and Union. When the field was announced a year ago, only Sacred Heart seemed to be doing well. But Union is on a tear, Miami has been revived, and RIT turned around what was a dismal season last year into being one of the surprise teams of 2025.
You’ve been to this great tournament. What makes it so special?
JIM: I will tell you that I am jealous. Ireland, and Northern Ireland (County Armagh, to be specific), are my family’s roots. And I was able to call the first Friendship Four for the eventual champion, UMass Lowell.
The experience in beyond anything you can imagine in college hockey. The players will get to immerse themselves into the culture, meeting locals and participating in gym classes at the local elementary schools. They will also experience a first-class, well-run event. No other event, other than a Frozen Four and a Stanley Cup for me, has come close. I don’t have the experience of many, but Belfast was and will always be memorable. I need to get back!
The field suddenly has become like a play-in tournament for the NCAAs. All four could make it and it’s likely one will. But it is crazy to know that this tournament in Belfast will hear as many NPI references as conference tournament weekend. Some coaches say they play in-season tournament to experience playing two games like the postseason. That’s really coming true for Belfast.