A happy and hearty holiday season to you and yours in the college hockey world.
I’ve found through the years that holiday and semester break is well-placed for a college hockey season that rumbles through the fall and early spring with an unsurpassed pace. We spend our weeks in October and November in the same rush to the weekend that exists ahead of postseason tournaments, so waning games ahead of exams and holidays is a great time to sit back and relax during a season stamped by a cheery man in a big red suit.
This week wraps up our first half coverage, and while we’re nowhere near the ending of college hockey season, I wanted to look back at the start of the season and identify trends along the ECAC fault lines. Consider this a halfway-point preview of our end-of-year reflection where I get to look back and count my prediction missteps.
It’s worth noting that this is all coming from a 10,000-foot viewpoint, so it’ll likely lack the full details of a team-by-team preseason preview breakdown. Instead, we’re mostly looking at what teams have done exceptionally well and where they might look to improve – again, without reasoning for what might got them or get them to those points – for the new year.
Without further ado:
Brown
Predicted Finish: Ninth
If the playoffs started today: 10th
Biggest Thing I Got Right So Far New and emerging players definitely added some thump to the Brown lineup. All three of my key additions – Brian Nicholas, Charlie Gollob, and Ivan Zadvernyuk – are among the team’s top scorers in one way or another, and Tyler Kopff and Max Scott are developing into top-flight and top-line talent. Goalie Lawton Zacher produced one of the team’s longest shutout streaks, and one weekend’s worth of work in January could erase the four-point gap separating 10th from fifth.
For the second half: Brown is legitimately well-positioned for a fast start to January, and the Bears are a threat to jump into the top half of the league if the offense continues to add scoring.
Clarkson
Predicted Finish: Seventh
If the playoffs started today: Third
Biggest Thing I Got Right So Far: The program’s master class in changing its coaching leadership resulted in zero negative impacts at the start of the season, and Jean-Francois Houle enters the holiday season as a leader in ECAC’s coach of the year race clubhouse.
For the second half: Clarkson’s power play is in the top-half of the league, but operating just under 19 percent situates the Golden Knights near the national average. Expect someone to jump forward in goal scoring on a team averaging a right-smack-in-the-national-middle average on offense. For reference, Ayrton Martino and Ryan Richardson scored around a quarter of the team’s 53 goals, and the next six skaters each have four goals – or 52 percent of the total offense in the first half.
Colgate
Predicted Finish: Fourth
If the playoffs started today: First
Things I got right: Colgate’s leadership and additions created a perfect blend for a first half breakout, and a strong defense is way better than the goals against average implies. Remove Penn State’s seven-goal game and the team’s goals against average drops by a full one-third of a goal. Remove the five goals from the overtime win over Sacred Heart, and it drops to a near-equal 3.2 goals allowed. Also, for those keeping score, those are non-conference games.
For the second half: Mike Harder was very honest about the team’s injury woes in the first half. Once the team starts getting healthier, expect the Raiders to have some growing pains before a strong finish.
Cornell
Predicted Finish: First
If the playoffs started today: Fifth
Things I got right: Cornell has a roster capable of competing at the highest levels of college hockey, and the start of the year drew comparisons to some of the best ECAC teams of all-time. Three goals per game is just ahead of the national average,
For the second half: Ian Shane (joke’s on me, I thought he graduated) is hard-pressed to replicate the numbers that had me arguing towards a Richter Award last year, but there’s no way he sticks to an .896 save percentage for the entirety of the season. He’s still the goalie who held Quinnipiac and Princeton to two combined goals before Thanksgiving.
Dartmouth
Predicted Finish: Third
If the playoffs started today: Fourth
Things I got right: Dartmouth isn’t going away. The game against Boston College featured two top-5 teams in the Pairwise Rankings at the time, and the Big Green already own wins over Quinnipiac and Cornell with a “tie” (shootout loss) against Colgate. The power play is easily best in the country, and the penalty kill is good enough to provide the team with some lopsided special teams.
For the second half: The consecutive losses to St. Lawrence and Clarkson didn’t help, but retaining the trademark consistency from October would go a long way to maintaining a heading in a league marked by a demolition derby of chaos.
Harvard
Predicted Finish: Fifth
If the playoffs started today: Eighth
Things I got right: Harvard won’t stay down forever, and the transition to a new era is built around how well the nucleus can help younger players. Junior Casey Severo made a jump in the first half with five goals (he had eight during last season’s 32-game campaign), and Mick Thompson’s output matches Ben MacDonald.
For the second half: Aku Koskenvuo’s numbers skewed a bit after surrendering eight goals to UMass and Notre Dame, but his combination with Ben Charette is going to steal a game somewhere along the line. For many of us in the Boston area, the first two weekends in February sure look like a golden opportunity.
Princeton
Predicted Finish: 11th
If the playoffs started today: Sixth
Things I got right: Nothing. I made a valid point by saying, “Princeton returns enough pieces to make an interesting run at dark horse contender status,” but I messed the entire thing up by saying the league would force it into the bottom half. Maybe that happens, but the Tigers are in sixth at Christmas.
For the second half: Princeton absolutely sweeps Cornell and Colgate because that’s how these things usually work, and a four-point or five-point weekend at Harvard and Dartmouth keys a run at the top-four into February.
Quinnipiac
Predicted Finish: Second
If the playoffs started today: Second
Things I got right: Almost everything. Turnover finally caught up to Quinnipiac at the start of the season, but once the Bobcats got rolling, 16 league points out of a possible 18-point stretch led them right back to the top.
For the second half: The wolf is back in the hen house, and the numbers are aligning for a major run in the second half. What’s especially scary is the amount of depth emerging from the team’s top seven skaters. Nobody has more than seven or less than four goals, which means 67 percent of scoring could come from anywhere.
Rensselaer
Predicted Finish: 10th
If the playoffs started today: 12th
Things I got right: The right returners positioned RPI for early season wins, and that split against Clarkson and St. Lawrence proved how the Engineers could easily slip into the home ice conversation as the year progresses. Four straight losses and dropping five-of-six is more about playing two games against Maine ahead of the Quinnipiac-Princeton road trip with Princeton on Saturday than a dig at this team’s makeup.
For the second half: I’d really like to see some early wins in January. Making the Yale-Brown trip in the aftermath of a one-off game against New Hampshire seems like a good way to gain momentum ahead of the trip to the North Country, and the brutal stretch of Cornell-Colgate-Princeton-Quinnipiac-Dartmouth-Harvard-Colgate-Cornell doesn’t show up until the end of the year, so there’s ground to be made, especially early.
St. Lawrence
Predicted Finish: Eighth
If the playoffs started today: 11th
Things I got right: Longer road trips to the North Country are coming in February after the Saints have had to travel to eastern New England. Considering St. Lawrence is 1-5-1 on the road compared to a 4-4 record at home is an indicator of things to come for teams heading to the Canadian border in winter – but even that one win was against Dartmouth.
For the second half: I’m holding firm on St. Lawrence. Nothing can be accurately predicted until teams have to travel into northern New York’s winter.
Union
Predicted Finish: Sixth
If the playoffs started today: Seventh
Things I got right: Union barreled out of the gates with a number of key wins, and the Garnet Chargers rode the last bit of Messa magic to a 5-2-1 home record before getting swept by Vermont.
For the second half: I feel like Union’s season goes in one of two directions based on how the numbers react. If an offense scoring 3.2 goals per game and allowing 3.0 goals per game stops scoring or allows more goals, the Garnet Chargers will drop. If the offense kicks into another gear – which is doable – or starts cutting into its goals allowed, the team moves up. If both numbers improve or stabilize or get more inconsistent, the team stays where it is.
Yale
Predicted Finish: 12th
If the playoffs started today: Ninth
Things I got right: Yale managed to get through unforgivable parts of its schedule in ninth place with an offense averaging less goals than last year. Surviving trial by fire to play for home ice? That’s opening the door for a second half run.
For the second half: A second half run. I still love this team’s potential, and when the Bulldogs are good, they’re really good. It’s been fortunate that four of the tough losses were non-conference games, but taking two points from Cornell and a win against St. Lawrence opens the door for factoring into the parity that’s significantly more inevitable than past years. I really like Yale to potentially win the CT Ice after getting through Sacred Heart in the first round.
