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: Last week, Paula, you and Jim ended this column highlighting teams that had turned standings upside down in their conferences. So I thought maybe it would be good to dive in a little deeper on that topic.
Even though I’m kicking this week’s conversation off, I’m going to start where you often start and that’s in the Big Ten. Two teams are outperforming everyone’s expectations, Penn State and Michigan State. I’m not as surprised at the success Guy Gadowsky’s Nittany Lions have had so far, as Penn State has won the games they should win and have split with Minnesota, Michigan, and Michigan State in the league.
However, I am fascinated with Michigan State’s turnaround so far. Jim Connelly and I spoke a couple of weeks ago with Spartans head coach Adam Nightingale on our USCHO Spotlight podcast, but he didn’t reveal any big secrets about what has been the catalyst for Michigan State’s 11-4-1 record. Grad transfer Dylan St. Cyr has been terrific in net so far, which is not unexpected, but what else do you see contributing to Sparty’s fast start?
Paula: Everything that Nightingale does is from a player development perspective. I think we are seeing a new generation of collegiate and professional hockey coaches who approach the sport, the business, and their players very differently from the kinds of coaching that you and I encountered when we first began covering hockey decades ago. And this is certainly a different approach to coaching than what we saw when we were kids.
Nightingale brought in like-minded coaches in Jared DeMichiel as associate head coach. DeMichiel — who you remember from his RIT playing days, Ed — and assistant Mike Towns. And former MSU captain Brad Fast has returned to his alma mater as director of player development. That commitment to helping players reach their potential in college play and placing them in situations where they can be successful while developing them to play high-level hockey following college is part of what’s paying off now.
In addition to the new coaching staff, the Michigan State team is an interesting mix of newcomers and veterans. You mention Dylan St. Cyr, a goaltender who has settled into East Lansing very well, but there are other transfers who are contributing insight and experience as well. Grad transfer Miroslav Mucha transferred from Lake Superior State and has five goals in 16 games. Another grad transfer, defenseman Mike Underwood, is shoring up the blue line after four years with Clarkson — which, incidentally, is where assistant coach Mike Towns was most recently.
Then you have four freshmen accounting for 19 of Michigan State’s 58 overall goals, about a third. And there are talented upperclassmen who are hungry to see some success as Spartans — like seniors Jagger Joshua and Nicolas Muller and grad students Cole and Christian Krygier.
It’s the perfect mix so far. Sometimes with new coaches and an influx of new talent, a team can take some time to find its feet. The Spartans seem to have a kind of alchemy that goes beyond that new-coach bounce that benefits some teams. It’s like the perfect mix of ingredients.
You, Ed, have a first-person view of what’s going on with RIT, another team exceeding expectations in the early going. Atlantic Hockey is fascinating this year. Picked fourth, RIT is first. Picked first by a lot in the coaches’ preseason poll, AIC is third. Then there are two teams from whom coaches had low expectations who are putting together very respectable seasons — Mercyhurst fighting to recover from a pretty bad start to the season and Niagara solid out of the gate.
What do you make of Atlantic Hockey, especially RIT’s success so far?
Ed: Full disclosure: I see RIT a lot as their radio play-by-play voice, and I’ve seen them a lot for, um, decades.
So many things are going well for the Tigers, despite a stumble against Princeton on Saturday. Special teams have been stellar so far, with a power play clicking at a fourth-in-the-nation .286 and a penalty kill at .879, seventh in D-I. RIT sophomore netminder Tommy Scarfone is 10-1 — with his only loss a 4-3 season opener at Union on October 1 — with a .923 save percentage.
What really has been a difference for Wayne Wilson’s 11-3 Tigers is scoring from defensemen. The top pair of Gianfranco Cassaro and Aiden Hansen-Bukata each has 15 points in 14 games, with Cassaro tied for the team lead with seven goals and Hansen-Bukata leading with 13 assists. Last year’s Atlantic Hockey rookie of the year, Carter Wilkie, leads the deep squad of forwards with seven goals and 10 assists.
Niagara has been a pleasant surprise for the AHA in its 20th anniversary season. Goaltender Chad Veltri has been terrific with a .921 save percentage and a 7-1-1 record. The Purple Eagles are 4-0 out of conference, including an early-season road sweep of Omaha, and regulation and overtime wins last weekend over Colgate by identical 3-2 scores. Coach Jason Lammers’ Purps haven’t lost a game since October 22.
Atlantic Hockey is still going to have a hard time getting more than one team in the postseason, but if the league can get the current .356 non-conference winning percentage a bit closer to .400, there’s an outside chance.
While we’re talking eastern teams, let’s look at two teams shaking up the Hockey East old guard, Merrimack and Connecticut. Anyone watching over the last few seasons has seen the steady progress of the Huskies, but unless you were paying attention last year, you might have missed Merrimack’s ascent. I know it’s not your regular beat, but how about those two teams and that conference overall?
Paula: I am really high on Hockey East this year, and the first two months of play in that conference appear to be an extension of the progress that league made overall in 2021-22.
I loved the photo finish of last year’s Hockey East regular-season race, with Northeastern winning five of the seven games it played in the last 17 days of the regular season to stay one point ahead of Massachusetts and UMass Lowell for the Huskies’ first ever regular-season title — I mean, that was really one of the most exciting things to happen in all of men’s D-I hockey last season.
That Northeastern is two points behind Connecticut in Hockey East standings shouldn’t surprise anyone — nor should anyone be surprised by Connecticut or Merrimack, as you mention, as they each were among that tight top tier last season, when only six points separated first-place Northeastern from the three teams tied for fourth, including UConn and Merrimack plus Boston University.
I don’t know how things will shape up as the season continues, but we’re seeing a little of that glut at the top of the HE standings with pretty much the same teams from a year ago each vying for position.
I find it interesting that neither frontrunner has “Boston” in its school name. It’s part of the waxing and waning that I’ve been talking about here for a couple of weeks, and I don’t know how that plays out in terms of heightening the profile of the sport — the theory being that schools with name recognition attract the most attention — but I do love how interesting it is for fans of college hockey. If every conference were as tight as Hockey East, we’d have something even more special to promote.
Perhaps even more interesting than how things are developing within Hockey East is how strong the conference is in inter-conference play. While the Big Ten leads all D-1 leagues in nonconference play (.750), Hockey East is second (.623) and is the only conference against which B1G Hockey has a losing record (3-4-1).
Speaking of nonconference — as in no conference whatsoever — I’m liking the noise that Arizona State is making this season. They made a strong effort but fell short at home against Minnesota Friday but then beat the Golden Gophers in overtime Saturday. Dylan Jackson had the late third-period goal to tie the game for the Sun Devils and then BU transfer Robert Mastrosimone had the game-winner in the 3-on-3 OT.
The Sun Devils weren’t the only independent team to bring down a ranked opponent last week. Long Island earned its first win over a ranked foe when they beat Ohio State 3-2 Friday night in Columbus.
That was the Sharks’ second win of the season. The Sun Devils, though, have been around longer and are well on their way toward building something lasting, but I have to ask this question: how far can they realistically go outside of conference play?
What do you think we’re seeing happening there, Ed? And there are six independent teams — one fewer than the number that play in the Big Ten. How much of a problem is this for the sustainability of those programs?
Ed: Those teams need a home. Arizona State has shown that it can compete for an NCAA berth, but it needs a well-crafted schedule and near-perfect execution to make the tournament. That’s no small task, and I respect the outstanding job Greg Powers has done. With the new Mullett Arena, ASU has shown that it is ready to join a league.
Is that league the Big Ten? In the post-game press conference after its 6-5 OT loss to ASU, Minnesota’s Bob Motzko caused a bit of a laugh as he walked away from the podium when he was asked if the Sun Devils were ready for the Big Ten. That would be a perfect fit hockey-wise, but Arizona State is not a member of the Association of American Universities — a research university organization favored by the Big Ten.
LIU’s play over the last two seasons has shown that it could become a member of Atlantic Hockey, but I’m told that the membership is hesitant to allow them in without a permanent, and preferably on-campus home rink.
I am concerned for Alaska, Alaska Anchorage, Lindenwood, and Stonehill until there’s some reorganization. They can keep going for a while, but the lack of postseason opportunities and the struggle to put together a schedule could become a huge obstacle.
The success of ASU and LIU notwithstanding, it’s time for reorganization, as this column has discussed before.
But I also think that’s true of college hockey overall. We have teams that are not good fits for their conferences, either because of travel or competitiveness. Are you hearing rumblings of discontent about their situation from some programs as I have?
Paula: Ed, I haven’t heard rumblings about discontent but that is very likely because in covering the Big Ten this season, I haven’t had any interaction with coaches outside of the conference.
And let’s face it — the Big Ten isn’t likely to be a conference where the kind of grousing that you mention would be a factor. It’s competitive, its resources are considerable, and every team in the league with the exception of Notre Dame is a member of the Big Ten. And with the exception of Penn State, the footprint of the conference is pretty compact (in a relative, Midwestern kind of way).
What’s interesting about the speculation that the Big Ten would reject Arizona State on the basis of its lack of membership in the AAU is that Notre Dame is also not a member of the AAU — nor is Nebraska, and the Cornhuskers are Big Ten members. I wish I had some insight on all of that other than what is publicly known, but I don’t.
As for Motzko’s reaction to that question you reference, I don’t think that any individual coach in the Big Ten would be in a position to answer that. His laugh? Well, his team had just lost in OT. I don’t think there’s anything more to read into his response than that.
You and I and people like us have been calling for a discussion of reorganization in college hockey for a long time, and we’ve both known coaches who have been pretty vocal about it.
Look at what the last iteration of the WCHA did.
It was clear that those seven member schools who voted to leave didn’t want the hassle — including the unrealistic financial burden — of traveling to Alaska and Alabama. I’m certain that the decision to gut that conference and re-form the CCHA wasn’t done lightly, as doing so would potentially doom Alaska, Alaska Anchorage and Alabama-Huntsville. I, too, fear that both Alaska teams will go the way of the Chargers.
So, no, I’m not hearing any rumblings right now because from where I’m sitting, folks seem pretty content. Big Ten hockey would love another member or two — from current B1G schools.
The cynic in me, Ed, thinks that all of this is a bigger issue that no one associated with D-I men’s ice hockey wants to address right now. Rather than a wait-and-see attitude regarding newcomers LIU, Lindenwood and Stonehill, it appears to be more that D-I college hockey is stepping back to see whether or not these programs sink or swim.
I worry about programs that are geographically isolated. ASU, at least, has huge financial and local support — and teams like traveling to Tempe. LIU isn’t too isolated (but there is the problem of the on-campus rink). Stonehill is technically located within the Greater Boston Metro area.
I do not know how much longer the two Alaska programs will remain viable. Lindenwood concerns me, too. The D-I opponent nearest to St. Charles, Mo., is Miami University, about 350 miles away. The NCHC is the only geographic fit for the Lions, but will that happen? Huntsville is about 420 miles from Oxford, Ohio — a bus trip in the old CCHA days, and only 30 minutes longer than the trip that the RedHawks used to make to Big Rapids to play Ferris State. Shorter than their trips to Northern Michigan and Lake Superior State.
I hope I’m wrong, Ed, but I don’t think that any concrete steps will be taken toward reorganizing men’s D-I hockey — even to address the concerns of coaches whose teams are already parked in a league — in time to save the Alaska teams and perhaps one or more of the newcomers.
