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 Trefzger: Each college hockey season begins with its share of upsets and perhaps an equal tally of upstart teams.
First, one of those surprise teams.
No. 8 Augustana at 7-0-1 certainly has caught my attention, especially after the Vikings’ 12-0 shellacking of Northern Michigan on Friday to start CCHA action. Except for the Ivy League programs, which are just underway, Wisconsin is the only other team without a loss.
Garrett Raboin’s Vikings were picked fourth in the preseason coaches poll. They have sweeps of Omaha and Ohio State, and a win and tie against No. 6 Minnesota Duluth.
Jack, since you cover the CCHA closely for USCHO, maybe you can explain what the league’s coaches might have missed, and what is making Augustana so successful out of the gate.
Jack Hittinger: Well, I can’t speak to what the CCHA’s coaches missed about Augustana, but if you will allow me to toot my own horn for a moment: The Vikings DID finish third in the CCHA’s preseason media poll, and I will note that yours truly may or may not have been one of the two people who gave them a first place vote.
Having said that, I believe it’s possible that the reason why the Vikings ran relatively under the radar is because they lost CCHA goaltender and player of the year Josh Kotai to graduation. Perhaps people thought that without his extremely commanding presence in the net, they didn’t trust whoever came in to replace him. To which I say: Fair enough.
However, I think it’s also possible some people forgot that the Vikings returned almost their entire defensive corps, most notably Hayden Hennan, Easton Young and Owen Baumgartner. I think their presence has allowed the Vikings to open up a little more offensively, which we can see with players like CCHA leading goalscorer Leonid Bulgakov and Nace Langus, both of whom are on pace to blow past their points totals from last year.
Regardless, if any coaches missed the Vikings before they certainly aren’t forgetting about them now. It’s still early, but I think it’s safe to say Augustana is one of the two or three frontrunners for the MacNaughton Cup, along with Michigan Tech and Bowling Green.
But I wanted to ask you a little bit about another team that is surprising a lot of people in the league you cover. Army was picked to finish seventh in the AHA preseason coaches poll but following an opening-weekend loss to Union, have won five in a row, including an upset of Quinnipiac and a shutout sweep of RIT last weekend. Are these Black Knights for real? And what are they doing well that people should take notice of?
Ed: I saw No. 19 Army West Point up close and personal over the weekend, and Zach McKelvie’s Black Knights are the real deal.
It’s easy for people to point to JJ Cataldo in goal as a big part of Army’s success. The junior earned his seventh and eighth career — and first back-to-back — shutouts over the weekend. That’s the most career goose eggs among active goalies in the NCAA this season.
RIT didn’t challenge Army much on Friday, but the Saturday win came against analytics suggesting the Tigers should have scored two or three goals on Army. Cataldo’s positioning, ability to track pucks through traffic, and quick glove are elite.
You’d miss the complete story if you stopped there. Army’s top line of Nils Forselius, Ben Ivey and Jack Ivey move the puck well and has real size in the 6-foot-3 and 6-4 twin brothers from San Diego. Brent Keefer had two goals, including the OT game-winner at Quinnipiac, and Nik Hong continues to be a scoring and physical presence.
Special teams have been key for the Black Knights. They’re 7 for 20 (35 percent) on the power play and have killed off 80 percent of opponents’ chances.
Army has a rivalry series this coming weekend at Air Force, which is a test in any season. In his postgame radio interview after a 3-2 loss at Robert Morris, Air Force coach Frank Serratore avoided locker-room fodder when he called Army “the hottest team in the country.”
The NPI says Army has the 10th hardest schedule in D-I hockey so far. Meanwhile, Wisconsin, this week’s new No. 1 in the USCHO D-I men’s poll, ranks 54th. The Badgers put up gaudy numbers in a weekend sweep of Notre Dame. Is Wisconsin the complete package, or are they feasting on a weaker schedule so far?
Jack: I’d say Wisconsin is the complete package and then some. I caught a little bit of their series against Minnesota State last month, and although the Mavericks aren’t quite the powerhouse they were in years past (especially when current Badgers coach Mike Hastings was behind the bench) it’s very difficult for any team to go into Mankato and dominate the Mavericks quite as thoroughly as Wisconsin did that weekend.
What has stood out to me for the Badgers has been their offensive prowess. They don’t seem to have one guy or one line who is eating up all the goals; rather it seems like a scoring-by-committee approach that has worked well in the past for Hastings. I believe Jim Connelly referred to it as “a Mike Hastings system on steroids” on the most recent USCHO podcast and I think that’s a perfect description. The Badgers are 11 for 27 on the power play (40.75 percent) and while it’s true that six of those came on Saturday against Notre Dame, even without that game they’d still have a percentage most coaches would kill for.
They’re also getting great goaltending from both Alexis Cournoyer and Daniel Hauser, who have split time pretty evenly thus far.
Of course, you mentioned strength of schedule and Wisconsin’s is No. 54 so far. But they take on Minnesota and Ohio State in the coming weeks, so I guess we’ll find out more about how good they actually are the deeper they get into the meat of their conference schedule.
As we talk about strength of schedule, we know that’s a big factor in calculating the NPI. And I’m going to bring this up with the caveat that it is early, and there are some teams that have only played a game or two, but I’m going to do it anyway: Does it surprise you that there are so many ECAC teams in the top 10 of the NPI (Union, Quinnipiac, Dartmouth) and not a single Hockey East team? Again, I know this will change as the games continue to be played, but to me it seems to speak to the fact that there just aren’t that many great teams that are legitimate Frozen Four contenders in Hockey East this season, and there might be two or three in ECAC.
Ed: I guess the easiest explanation is the number of games played so far. Dartmouth — plus Yale and Princeton just outside the top 10 — have perfect records so far after one or two games. So their win percentage boosts their NPI. Union and Quinnipiac have good quality win bonuses bolstering them. Still, the ECAC has a nonconference winning percentage of .489, which will tend to drag a few teams lower if that doesn’t improve in the remaining non-ECAC schedule.
Meanwhile, we’re seeing the opposite from Hockey East. That conference is at .563 outside the league. As the teams in that conference play each other more, that winning percentage will buoy their NPI. No. 13 Boston University especially has a chance to lift itself with two games this weekend at No. 3 Michigan State.
So I wouldn’t get too worried about Hockey East right now. The teams that find success in conference will rise to the top. Just how many remains to be seen, but I could see three or four in the NCAA tournament.
The league that is running away with nonconference numbers is the NCHC at .653. That should significantly help the NPI as that league gets deep into conference play. The only conference against which the NCHC has been underwater is the Big Ten. That said, the NPI does feel a bit scary for the NCHC right now, with only Minnesota Duluth and a resurgent Colorado College in the top 10, and only one other team inside the selection bubble, Western Michigan at No. 12.
The Broncos visit North Dakota this weekend, in what might seem like a desperation series for the 4-3-0 Fighting Hawks.
Meanwhile, if you don’t mind me circling back, what about Augustana at No. 14 Michigan Tech for a weekend series? That should tell us a lot about your top CCHA team vs. the coaches’ pick.
Jack: Yeah, I think that’s one weekend everybody who follows the CCHA had circled when the preseason polls came out this summer. Adding to the intrigue is the fact that the Vikings have never won a game in two trips to Houghton — they’re 0-4, which includes an overtime loss to the Huskies during Winter Carnival last season. I’m not sure how much we’ve talked about Michigan Tech in this TMQ column this year, but there’s a reason why so many people picked them to win the league. They’re a darn good team with a great goaltender in Owen Bartoszkiewicz and a bunch of great offensive players like Elias Jansson, Max Koskipirtti and Noah Reinhart. They had the week off following a road split with Ferris State so it will be interesting to see how much the rest helps them against an Augustana team that hasn’t yet had a bye week.
Looking at the rest of the college hockey landscape this weekend, I see a few other series that look like they’re going to tell us a lot. We’ve already mentioned Wisconsin-Minnesota and Boston University-Michigan State, but I’m looking at a couple games back east that could also give us some clarity.
First, we have UConn-Providence. Providence has looked pretty good so far and I’m not worried about them after a loss to Quinnipiac, but UConn is 3-4-1 and it seems like they haven’t been able to find any consistency. They have two good wins (against Colorado College and BU) but both of those were in overtime; they split both of those series and were nearly swept last weekend at Merrimack.
The other games I’m intrigued by involve the Ivies. Quinnipiac and Princeton both play Cornell this weekend, while Dartmouth hosts Brown and Yale. I always find it so interesting how little time the Ivies get before they’re thrown right into the fire of conference play, but I suppose it also forces them to play hard right from the jump. There’s no time to be timid. Cornell split with a very good Sacred Heart team at home last weekend, and play two more very good opponents this weekend.