Ah yes, the holidays.
It’s a time for family and friends to celebrate a jolly fat man in a red suit as he squeezes his way down chimneys with a reckless abandon for the possibility of getting roasted by the embers of burning winter yule log. It’s a time to sit around the table and enjoy a glass of creamed raw egg while children try to stay up late, all for the right to assemble things for absolutely no credit while attempting to stave off exhaustion before the inevitable pre-dawn wakeup.
The holidays are the best time of year, and while they never required oodles of gifts for me, I always felt that the well-lit, well-decorated scene of a family sitting around a table with a great meal is the best way to celebrate. It doesn’t matter what holiday you’re observing in that regard, and it transcends and navigates its way from one holiday to another.
With that in mind, let’s have some fun this week and wrap up the first half of the year at USCHO.com with a look at the Christmas wish list for the ECAC Hockey programs.
We can only hope that the jolly man fits his way down their respective chimneys, and on behalf of our entire staff, we wish you and yours the happiest and healthiest of holiday seasons as we prepare for the home stretch that starts after Jan. 1, 2023.
Brown: Liquid Schwartz
I might be dating myself, but does anyone else remember the scene at the end of Spaceballs when Barf opens the glove compartment and pours the Liquid Schwartz into the Winnebago engine? It immediately puts Lone Star’s ride into hyperspace, and he returns to Druidia to save Princess Vespa from a life spent with Prince Valium.
I’m pretty sure that movie would never get released in the modern era, but I’d like to think that Brown could really make some noise in the second half of the season if it hits the gas pedal in those first two January games against UMass and Merrimack. Both are on the road and are the precursor to a very manageable six-game homestand against Union-RPI, Dartmouth-Harvard and St. Lawrence-Clarkson.
The Bears have tools in all three phases and are starting to develop an offense around Ryan Bottrill, and the defense and goaltending are as steady as any team in ECAC. With a three-week long break between games, a well-rested Bruno squad could really damage UMass and Merrimack if everything comes together. There hasn’t been the full consistency yet, but a rebooted start to the second half could send the team flying into home ice consideration and possibly beyond.
Clarkson: Dan drops off the bandwagon
The preseason favorite to win the Cleary Cup opened the season with four straight losses, three of which were by one goal and two of which were in overtime. Another one-goal loss later happened against Union, and despite a five-game winning streak in November, the Golden Knights broke for the holidays with a road loss sweep to Princeton and Quinnipiac and a two-point weekend at home against Brown and Yale.
None of that really made sense, and it still really doesn’t add up for a team that’s seen literally every possible type of defeat along the way. A team that averaged nearly 30 shots per game last year posted 15 shots on goal in the loss to Mercyhurst, then lost to Union despite outshooting the Dutchmen by a 36-17 margin. A goalie with a 2.58 goals against average surrendered four goals in the first period against Princeton, and a 2-0 lead against Brown ended in a shootout loss before a comeback tie against Yale ended with the same outcome.
Everyone knows I love me some Clarkson, and I still think this is going to iron out in the second half of the season with plenty of time to clinch a top-four spot, which in turn opens the door for a run to and through Lake Placid. But maybe that’s the problem. I have a well-known curse (see also: I kept picking against Robert Morris in the second half of the 2013-2014 season, and the Colonials eventually won the Atlantic Hockey conference), so dropping me off the bandwagon might have the desired effect.
Playing .500 hockey isn’t the worst thing in the world, but it’ll be interesting to see what happens to Clarkson in its holiday tournament games in Milwaukee. Beating UMass would trigger some good juju, and I think coming east to play Holy Cross one week before the weekend at Harvard and Dartmouth could galvanize this team with a good-looking win. My only concern is the lack of home games at Cheel Arena, where the train whistle is still the loudest goal horn on the planet. Exactly one game against St. Lawrence is at home between now and February 10.
Colgate: A first-round bye
Colgate roared to life at the end of the first half of the season when it smacked Brown and Yale before sweeping the Dartmouth-Harvard weekend. Two non-conference losses to Niagara sat in between the sandwich slices of playing Ivy League ECAC teams, but those 12 points thrust the Raiders into the bulk of the conversation.
The seas are kind of parting for a Colgate run in the second half of the season. Clarkson has to complete makeup work on the road to catch the front four, and Princeton played more games to reach the same amount of points. The second half schedule is difficult, but it’s hard to envision someone catching the Raiders if they play January and February like they did at the end of December.
Cornell: Some attention
See also: Colgate. It’s basically the same thing, and with a 4-1 record at Lynah Rink, any road going through Ithaca could potentially end in the fabled gorges.
I don’t know why more people aren’t talking about Cornell. The Big Red smoked UConn in New York City before taking Harvard to overtime, and the defensive back line held Brown, Sacred Heart, Dartmouth, St. Lawrence, and Princeton to one goal or less. Quinnipiac didn’t exactly blow the doors off the Cornell defense, and the 1.8 goals per game allowed is better than any team in the country.
Cornell isn’t the top team in this league right now, but any conversation about Quinnipiac or Harvard needs to include the Big Red as a factor and a potential roadblock. The league is shaking down in a way that’s going to be difficult for anyone to catch them in the second half of the season, and asking a team to win twice in Ithaca is a tall order.
Maybe it’ll start with me in the second half of the year, but that pesky 12-year drought without a Whitelaw Cup could be in serious jeopardy.
Dartmouth: A home-cooked meal
Whatever finagling sent Dartmouth on the road for virtually the entire first half of its year had an inevitable drawback after the Big Green took five points from Yale and Brown at Thompson Arena. They lost both games at the Capital District before getting swept in Belfast, and returning home to play Colgate and Cornell laid a six-game gauntlet that stretched the team to its limit before playing UMass Lowell in early December in their third home game of the season.
It was a known hurdle to clear, but the good news is that despite the team’s record, Dartmouth plays almost its entire second half at home with an opportunity to still move into the league’s middle tier. The road trip to Brown and Yale carries the potential for two wins, and traveling to Dartmouth in January and February isn’t easy for any opponent. Maybe it’s obvious, but even Quinnipiac has a difficult road to Hanover since it’s the back end of a weekend that starts at Harvard.
Facts are on the ground that Dartmouth has an uphill battle, but glances within the numbers show how the margin really isn’t that large. Opponents are putting 30 shots per game on the Big Green’s net, but Cooper Black is still allowing less than three goals per game with a .904 save percentage. The penalty kill has only allowed five goals, and removing the six empty net goals brings the team’s differential down nearly half of a goal per game.
In ECAC talk, the Big Green are 11th in the standings, but that preseason breakout is still very much in play.
Harvard: A Crimson-colored speed bump in front of Quinnipiac
It’s kind of weird to consider the Crimson underrated when they’re ranked ninth in the country, but the late start to the Ivy League season meant top-ranked Quinnipiac had a head start at charging towards the top of the DCU/USCHO Division I men’s hockey poll. They’ve been every bit as good as Quinnipiac short of a couple of extra losses, but the refusal to acknowledge an 8-2-1 team in the same breath as a 14-1-3 season is mind-boggling.
Harvard has a home-and-home with Boston University and Northeastern on the horizon, and the Princeton-Quinnipiac weekend looms with the Tigers’ centennial celebration at Hobey Baker Rink, but if the Crimson come through that stretch intact, voters should probably take note of what’s happening in Cambridge.
Princeton: Rodney Dangerfield
Plenty of reasons exist for why Princeton doesn’t receive the same respect as any other team in the league’s top five. The Tigers required three more games than both Cornell and Colgate to reach 16 points, and their winning percentage skews deeper into the league’s race than the top four. Their situational numbers, including their goal ratio, poke holes in the notion that they might challenge their Ivy League counterparts in Ithaca and Boston, and their remaining schedule includes a trip to the North Country, a trip that requires a trip from a location just north of Philadelphia and Trenton to a spot closer to the Canadian border.
But isn’t that why we should believe in Princeton? Games against Colgate, Cornell, Clarkson, St. Lawrence, Harvard, RPI and Union mean the Tigers control their own destiny, and every single one of those teams has to play Quinnipiac before or after playing in New Jersey, and the dynamic of being the more overlooked team feeds the notion that Princeton is simply that – overlooked.
A team averaging nearly three goals per game on 30-plus shots per game deserves more, and Princeton’s 19 percent power play is better than than its standing in ECAC would imply. The fact that individual teams are probably better in certain areas only means that the Tigers are remarkably consistent, and in this league, playing consistent hockey is a great way to push and reach for better standings.
Quinnipiac: One King-Size Snickers
Seriously, what do you ask for when you have literally everything? The Bobcats are undefeated and untied in league play and are 14-1-3 overall. The fact that they aren’t No. 1 in the nation is probably the result of anti-ECAC bias by voters who love cycling the top spot among Big Ten and NCHC teams, and confidence in the Big Ten and Hockey East are at an all-time high.
The otherwise clogged mix at the top of the rankings keeps Quinnipiac out of the No. 1 spot, but I suppose any doubters will turn into believers if the run continues clear through an April trip to Tampa, though. In any event, if you’re hungry, grab a Snickers.
Rensselaer: More home games against Union
On October 28, RPI hosted and defeated Union in a 2-1 hockey game at Houston Field House and a sellout crowd of 4,700 fans. Kyle Hallbauer and John Evans both scored in the first two periods, and Jack Watson and Connor Murphy dueled in net in the third period of a game that pushed the Engineers to 5-1 on the season. Since then, though, RPI won just two games while beating Alaska at home in a shootout, and the team’s 2-6 conference record sits in a clumped pack fighting over the bottom half of the league.
Over half of the nine overall losses have been by a goal, including the Princeton game in the last weekend of the first half, so it’s a little hard to judge how good or bad that first half went. The high was unquestionably the Union game, and it showed the potential of how the Engineers can recapture a bit of the magic from an outstanding night at their own barn. Wins just need to start dropping, though it’s hard to favor anyone at this point, so maybe grabbing a couple of extra momentum swings along the way would go a long way.
St. Lawrence: Water bottles of Appleton Arena water
St. Lawrence is a very good home hockey team that went 7-3 at home in the first half of the season. It’s also a team that struggled on the road by going 1-5 in the first half of the season. In the end, the 8-8 team is averaging just about the same offensive numbers as defensive numbers allowed, though the lone exception is the power play, where the Saints are skating at 10 percent compared to a 23 percent opposing success rate.
The bad news is that the majority of games in the second half of the season are on the road. The good news is that none of them are truly long distances until the trip to Brown and Yale on February 3-4. The even better news is that the following weekend against Princeton and Quinnipiac is at home – which means the Saints don’t have to board the bus for two incredibly long road trips on consecutive weekends.
It feels like SLU is just kind of hanging around enough to really damage someone’s hopes while making a run at the top four. In all likelihood, someone is going to have to win at Appleton in the second half or in the postseason, and judging from the wins over Brown, Union and a sneaky good Colorado College team, that’s easier said than done.
Union: More home games against RPI
Remember a couple of minutes ago when I mentioned the RPI win over Union at home? The next night in Schenectady produced a 6-0 win for the Dutchmen and set the stage for the following weekend’s 3-2 win over Clarkson.
A later win over Dartmouth kept Union afloat and ahead of the aforementioned pack, but there’s still a need to separate entirely from Dartmouth, Brown, Yale, and, yes, RPI. The 2-0 loss to Princeton didn’t help (especially with those notes about how the Tigers can keep a top-four spot), but nothing else from the first half really indicates that the Dutchmen are doomed to a road game in the first round.
In fact, I’d argue that Union has more hockey left in its pistons than most ECAC teams, and the very quiet start to the season only cast some uncertainty over how to judge it. The bounce-back win over RPI was a huge statement, and the Dutchmen could make some serious noise if they recapture the magic from that win.
Yale: A copy of the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds
Yale found itself inserted back into the ECAC conversation with the way the first half ended, so the Bulldogs could really use a case of good vibrations when the second half restarts the season. The other half of travel partner Brown’s aforementioned second half home start, they haven’t played much hockey at Ingalls Rink, but fighting through the adversity on the road forged the roster together at a time when the season could have fallen apart.
It took a while for Yale to put everything together, but after struggling for the first month of the season, it really feels like the Bulldogs are primed to venture into the second half with plenty of makeup space. A lack of separation offered cushion for the team’s fall through the standings, and if Dartmouth, RPI, or Brown all falter, it’s not unreasonable to expect a second half run for home ice from a team that’s starting to gel within its offense, defense, and goaltending.
