One would assume that this year’s Rookie of the Year will be Maine goaltender Jimmy Howard. His .930 save percentage in league games leads all Hockey East netminders. While nonconference results don’t affect postseason league awards, the fact that his overall mark of .934 is second in the country is an attention-grabber.<\/p>\n
That said, who is likely to finish second? Forwards traditionally have the advantage, winning the award nine of the last 10 years. Only Boston University goaltender Ricky DiPietro in 2000 interrupted that streak.<\/p>\n
Unlike past seasons, though, when a Sean Collins, Chuck Kobasew, Darren Haydar or Brian Gionta posted point totals that just couldn’t be ignored, this year’s freshman forwards have not been factors in the scoring races. In league games, no rookie ranks in the top 17 scorers. The impressive Massachusetts trio of Chris Capraro, Stephen Werner and Matt Anderson follow soon after, but four goals in league games is not going to result in serious Rookie of the Year consideration.<\/p>\n
Other than Howard, goaltenders Bobby Goepfert (Providence) and Gabe Winer (UMass) have made huge contributions, but Goepfert has recently been supplanted by Nolan Schaefer and Winer’s stats don’t really make it over the hurdle.<\/p>\n
Which leaves defensemen. There are some good ones around the league, but the best, hands down, has to be Merrimack’s Bryan Schmidt. He ranks seventh in league scoring among defensemen, just two points out of third. And that’s as a member of the league’s next-to-last-ranked offensive club. With no disrespect intended toward the Merrimack forwards, there isn’t a Ben Eaves, Marty Kariya or Lanny Gare up front to make Schmidt’s assist totals grow. He’s tied for his team’s lead in goals and ranks third in the league among defensemen. He’s also an outstanding defensive player.<\/p>\n
“We thought he was going to be a good player when he came in, but I didn’t think he was going to be as good as he is as fast as he has,” Merrimack coach Chris Serino says. “I think he’s as good a defenseman as there is in the league. He’s strong. He moves the puck well. He can be a dominant player when he’s out on the ice. <\/p>\n
“He definitely should be on the All-Rookie team and he merits real consideration for Rookie of the Year for what he’s done for us. I can’t think of another rookie who’s done as much for his team. He plays on the power play. He kills penalties. He plays against the top lines. He definitely logs more ice time than any player on our team. He’s the complete package.”<\/p>\n
When Merrimack recruited Schmidt out of Tri-City (USHL) last year, it expected him to make some offensive contributions. But not at the level he’s delivered.<\/p>\n
“I’m not surprised in the fact that he ran the power play for his team in the USHL last year,” Serino says. “So we thought he could do it, but you just never know with a freshman. If somebody told me he was going to be our leading goalscorer, yeah, that would have shocked me. But if someone told me that [Ryan] Cordeiro and [Alex] Sikatchev were going to have three goals between them, that would have shocked me, too. You just don’t know.”<\/p>\n
It didn’t take long for Schmidt to convince his coach that he’d make a major contribution this year.<\/p>\n
“He doesn’t play like a freshman,” Serino says. “To be honest, when I knew he was something special was when we played at Michigan [in the second game of the year]. In the first shift of the game, we had some legs that were heavy with nerves. You could see it when the game started.<\/p>\n
“All of a sudden, out of nowhere, he’s rushing the puck, he’s handling the puck. I said to myself, ‘This kid is playing like he’s been in this environment his whole life.’ I remember saying to [assistant coach] John Mclean after the period, ‘We’ve got something special in that kid. You see the way he’s handling himself out there?’ He’s just played like that the whole way through.”<\/p>\n
The contributions even go as far as being a team leader despite being just a freshman.<\/p>\n
“He’s really taken over a leadership role,” Serino says. “We really didn’t have that last year. He’s a natural leader. The kids look up to him. He works his [butt] off. He’s always doing something extra to get better.”<\/p>\n
It makes you wonder if Minnesota coach Don Lucia is looking askance at his assistants, wondering how this Bloomington, Minn., native got away.<\/p>\n
It also makes you wonder if the 21-year-old will stay all four years, or even three years, since he’s an undrafted free agent. All it takes is one NHL team to make the proverbial offer he can’t refuse. (And to anyone who’d judge a kid who does so, remember one name: Willis McGahee. There are a lot of advantages to staying in college, but an injury like the one McGahee suffered is always a possibility.)<\/p>\n
Of course, players leaving with eligibility remaining is nothing new to Serino, whose team suffered decimating losses that prompted league coaches to make the Warriors a unanimous pick to finish last.<\/p>\n
“We’ve taken so many hits over the last three years,” Serino says. “I’d just like to keep a group of them together and see where we can go from there.<\/p>\n
“He’s a 3.5 GPA so education is important to him. The decision he’s going to have to make is not to leave before he’s ready because he’s made a huge jump this year and I think he can make another huge jump in the next couple years. <\/p>\n
“But when he’s ready to leave, I’ll be the first one to pat him on the back… and cry.”<\/p>\n
You’ve heard of the PWR (PairWise Rankings) and RPI (Ratings Percentage Index), but what about DUMBEST (Dave’s Unbelievably Moronic Barometer to Estimate Standings and Titles)? <\/p>\n
DUMBEST may well be, ahem, the dumbest thing to ever grace this column, but don’t be too quick to judge. It’s got lots of competition.<\/p>\n
That said, it’s a simply understood attempt to predict the stretch drive in Hockey East. (If this village idiot can understand it, then anyone can.) It just looks at winning percentages in league games and assumes that each team is likely to continue that percentage relative to its opponent. So if two teams with identical winning percentages face each other, then each would expect to come out of the game with 1 point for a tie. If a team with a winning percentage of 90 faced a team with a percentage of 10, then those numbers would point to the stronger team getting a predicted 1.8 points and the weaker one getting 0.2. <\/p>\n
(For the math majors out there, I’m assuming that a team would get (1 + (its winning percentage – opponent’s winning percentage)) points out of each contest.)<\/p>\n
No, I am not a geek.<\/p>\n
Admittedly, this is way too simple to do an accurate job of prediction. It doesn’t try to assess who’s hot and who’s not, what team has injuries or who matches up well with whom. It doesn’t even look at who the home team is. <\/p>\n
Hey, there’s a reason it’s called DUMBEST.<\/p>\n
That said, it can give a thumbnail view of each team’s chances, focusing on the relative difficulty of its remaining opponents.<\/p>\n
To begin with, let’s look at each team’s remaining opponents. The only nonleague game still left is Massachusetts-Connecticut so that won’t factor into DUMBEST. All two-game sets are home-and-home series with the exception of Maine’s. The usual abbreviations are used for each school to keep the listing compact. <\/p>\n
BC: MC (2), NU (2), UNH (2)
\nME: PC (2), @ UMA (2), BU (2)
\nUNH: NU (2), @ MC, @ UML, BC(2)
\nBU: UML (2), PC(2), @ME (2)
\nPC: @ ME(2), BU(2), UML
\nUMA: UConn (nc), ME(2), @ MC
\nMC: BC(2), UNH, @UML, @NU, UMA
\nNU: UNH(2), BC(2), MC, @ UML
\nUML: BU(2), UNH, MC, @PC, NU <\/p>\n
Now let’s look at each team’s current position in the standings, winning percentage and the winning percentage of its remaining league opponents.<\/p>\n
| Team<\/td>\n | Pts<\/td>\n | Win%<\/td>\n | Opp%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| BC<\/td>\n | 27<\/td>\n | 75<\/td>\n | 45.3<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ME<\/td>\n | 27<\/td>\n | 75<\/td>\n | 48.0<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| UNH<\/td>\n | 25<\/td>\n | 69<\/td>\n | 44.0<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| BU<\/td>\n | 20<\/td>\n | 56<\/td>\n | 49.0<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| PC<\/td>\n | 19<\/td>\n | 50<\/td>\n | 56.8<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| UMA<\/td>\n | 16<\/td>\n | 38<\/td>\n | 64.0<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| MC<\/td>\n | 15<\/td>\n | 42<\/td>\n | 50.7<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| NU<\/td>\n | 9<\/td>\n | 25<\/td>\n | 58.7<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| UML<\/td>\n | 8<\/td>\n | 22<\/td>\n | 49.7<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n Finally, let’s use DUMBEST to predict the number of points that each team is probable to earn in its remaining contests, based on pure past winning percentages. Note: all teams have six games remaining except Providence (five) and UMass (three). The following shows current points, predicted points over the remaining games and the final result.<\/p>\n
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