Last season saw the Plattsburgh Cardinals return to the top of the SUNYAC standings with their championship run and trip to the NCAA tournament. While they lost a heartbreaking first round game to Norwich in overtime, this year’s team is positioned for even greater success based on the returning talent and commitment to the team approach to success on the ice.
“We don’t have a first line or a fourth line,” stated head coach Steve Moffat. “We like our depth and talent across all our forward group. We need to roll four lines if we are going to have success in our system of playing with pace. We expect our scoring to be by committee with lots of contributions from each line and so far in the early season we are seeing that balance.
One early contributor is first-year players Tio D’Addario who plays on a line with Ryan Butler and Luk Jirousek. D’Addario already has two goals and an assist in his first two games playing college hockey and earned SUNYAC Rookie of the Week honors to start the season.
“Tio has a lot of skill,” noted Moffat. “He has a good hockey IQ and is always learning and want ting to be a better player. It is early in the season and his career, but he benefits by playing with Ryan and Luk and we expect to see continued improvement in his game over the course of the season.”
Another area of strength for the Cardinals this season is their depth at the goaltending position. Sophomore Eli Shiller returns after a dynamic freshman season while junior Jacob Hearne and first-year Dominik Bovan add talent a depth that give the players and coaching staff confidence in whomever is manning the blue paint.
“It is the most important position on the ice,” said Moffat. We are very fortunate to have three very strong netminders who all get along well and push each other to be better. Jacob Hearne has only lost one game in the last two seasons while Dominik has come in and shown he is ready to play at this level. It is a great luxury to have good depth at the position which makes the coaching decision on who to play both difficult and easy at the same time.”
Plattsburgh opened the season with a pair of wins last weekend over St. Anselm and VSU-Castleton and open SUNYAC play with a road game against Morrisville on Wednesday, November 1. The schedule doesn’t get any easier after that with conference play and the annual LayerEight Tournament upcoming in November leading to the semester break.
“The focus gets very specific now with the conference games getting underway,” noted Moffat. “The SUNYAC is such a good conference and every single point matters so much with the depth of competition in this league. You can’t take any opponent for granted and it is important to get off to a good start here tonight against Morrisville to set the tone. We don’t play on the upcoming weekend so we can put everything out there tonight and get back to a regular practice schedule in advance of hosting Geneseo and Brockport next weekend. I think our guys are ready to play and we certainly want to be one of the teams competing for a championship again this season.”
The Cardinals will also play in their traditional Thanksgiving weekend tournament (now sponsored by LayerEight) and will host this year’s edition with Middlebury, Norwich, and St. Olaf from the west. December includes important home games with Cortland and Oswego before finishing the first semester on the road with Buffalo State and Fredonia.
“We know how good all our opponents are,” said Moffat. “We are very focused on improving our game as a team every day and competing hard every time out.”
