It has been an interesting first two weeks of the season for a Miami team in a unique spot both geographically and competitively.
Fourth-year RedHawks coach Chris Bergeron has no complaints over Miami being rooted to the bottom of the NCHC preseason poll, after his team’s 1-4-1 start to the 2021-22 campaign continued at pace toward a 7-27-2 finish.
So far, though, things seem to be looking up for the RedHawks this time around.
A 2-2 tie and 4-1 home win over Ferris State to open the season brightened the mood in Oxford, Ohio, as did Miami’s 3-1 upset win Friday at No. 15 UMass Lowell. Junior forward Joe Cassetti increased his goal streak to three games, and Swedish import Ludvig Persson’s 38 saves cemented Miami’s first three-game unbeaten streak since early in nearly four years.
Miami on Saturday picked up the RedHawks’ first regulation loss of the season — they dropped a shootout against Ferris State — when four consecutive goals, three in the third period, saw Lowell win the series finale 4-2. First goals of the season from Ryan Savage and PJ Fletcher couldn’t help Miami to what would’ve been its first road series sweep since January 2021 at Western Michigan.
Bergeron feels his team crossed off most of its to-do list for this group of RedHawks’ first four games, while also dealing with adversity as a couple of players missed time due to illness. A promising start might have even made preseason prognosticators reconsider their choices, but Miami would do well to keep a chip on its shoulder.
“For me, preseason polls talk about previous years, and we deserve to be where we are,” Bergeron said. “(Being listed eighth in the NCHC) is not what I want, and that’s not the expectation, but based on what we did last year, that’s what we get.
“I don’t know what the players think, and we don’t talk about it because we don’t want last year to have any effect on this year, but for me, I’ve always looked at it that people are going to base preseason expectations on what you did last year. Nobody knows about the upcoming year, and I don’t put too much into it, but I understand they’re necessary, and I hope that if the guys take anything from it, they get angry and want to do something about it.”
Miami is off this week ahead of another Eastern time zone trip Oct. 21-22 to Canisius. The RedHawks will bus to Buffalo, New York, whereas they flew to Lowell.
The Lowell trip was contractual from before Bergeron took over at his alma mater, and Miami will host Arizona State next fall and then visit Tempe in the fall of 2024. Going forward, though, the RedHawks’ general focus for nonconference scheduling is to stay reasonably close to home.
Yet, that appears easier said than done for the NCHC’s easternmost team, in a state with three Division I men’s hockey programs.
“When (conference realignment) came, it became more difficult for Miami,” Bergeron said. “That’s just the reality. I wasn’t here at that time, but I’m here now and, unfortunately, we don’t have Ohio State or Bowling Green on our non-conference schedule for the foreseeable future.
“That’s not a choice of mine. I think we should be playing both those teams home-and-home every year but, unfortunately, it’s not something we’ve been able to solidify, and when Western Michigan is our closest rival in-league, and that’s a six-hour bus ride, that makes it difficult, but that’s the situation we’re in, and we’ll make the best of it.”
After the Canisius trip, Miami begins its NCHC slate Oct. 28-29 at home to defending national champion Denver.
