We’re only days out from the start of the season meaning it’s time for my yearly preview article! For those that are new here: every season I use a model I created to predict the standings for the ECAC. Then, I go through those predictions and preview every team, giving my own commentary and opinions. I did an evaluation of the model’s performance last year recently, linked below.

Model Explanation

In the past, I’ve been asked for more details on how the model works, so I figured that’s a good way to start this preview. There are two parts of the model, offense and defense, used to project goals per game and goals against per game. It’s actually a pretty simple model overall.

On offense, every player has a projected points per game number. This is created by taking each returner’s points per game from the season prior and factoring in some projected progression based on the article I wrote below as a follow-up to my evaluation of last season.

After doing the returners, I project the incoming freshmen. I created a projection model for incoming freshmen based on their junior league and scoring rates awhile ago, but as I said in my evaluation article, I found that it has drifted more and more over time. This offseason, I recalibrated it, and I included the CHL leagues now that we have a season of data for them. Lastly, for incoming transfers, they are split into two buckets. The first is if they barely played at their previous stop. If that happens, that data is pretty much useless, and I just pretend they are a freshman and use their junior hockey scoring. If they did play though, I treat them as if they are a normal returner, and I will include an adjustment based on the conference. For example, Hockey East is better than the ECAC, so I will slightly adjust their projected scoring to be higher to factor that in. Without getting into the nitty gritty of it, I have found those projections to be pretty accurate over the years.

Once every player has a projected points per game, I create a projected lineup with the highest projections, and then I convert that lineup into a projected goals per game for the team.

The defense is a little bit more complicated. First, in net, it’s really tough to get it right, and I’ve found that’s been the hardest part to model. Usually, the model misses come from getting the goaltending wrong. For returners, we project their performance using up to 3 years of data, weighted by recency. Newcomers work the same way as it does offensively. Freshmen have a projection model based on junior hockey performance. Transfers get treated as freshmen if they barely played. Otherwise, their college hockey data is used and adjusted for conference.

After the goaltending, I try to project the quality of the defense by using returning players’ defensive impacts. I use +/- compared to the team’s average to try to model defensive impact, and then, the defensive quality is weighted by who is returning and their individual impacts. I’d honestly love to use better metrics than +/-, but that data isn’t publicly available.

With those calculated, the model generates the projected goals against per game for the team. Then, I just sort the teams by their projected overall goal differential!

1. Quinnipiac (Last Year: 1)

This year’s Quinnipiac team is the best team the model has ever seen, and it’s not close. Honestly, I have no idea how they are not getting more hype nationally because they would be on my shortlist of teams to win the national championship this year. The offensive projection is the highest the model has ever put out based on the returning and incoming talent, and the defense should be improved after the changes Quinnipiac made in net.

Key Losses: D Will Gilson (28 points in 37 games), F Jeremy Wilmer (13 points in 15 games), D Charlie Leddy (7 points in 29 games)

Key Returners: F Ethan Wyttenbach (59 points in 40 games), F Antonin Verreault (40 points in 40 games), F Markus Vidicek (35 points in 40 games), F Mason Marcellus (34 points in 38 games), F Chris Pelosi (34 points in 35 games), F Aaron Schwartz (29 points in 39 games), F Andon Cerbone (22 points in 40 games), D Elliott Groenewold (20 points in 40 games), D Braden Blace (20 points in 33 games), F Matthew Lansing (18 points in 40 games), D Graham Sward (16 points in 40 games), F Tyler Borgula (14 points in 29 games)

Key Newcomers: D Parker Alcos (WHL), G Rorke Applebee (Lake State), F Dylan Edwards (OHL), F Gabriel Frasca (OHL), D Jan Golicic (QMJHL), G Christian Kirsch (OHL), F Alex Kostov (OHL), F Jack Stockfish (Holy Cross), D Andrew Strathmann (North Dakota)

Offense

Returning Offense Rank: 1

Recruiting

Overall

Total Rank: 3

Average Rank: 1

Freshmen

Total Rank: 3

Average Rank: 1

Transfer

Total Rank: 3 (out of 9)

Average Rank: 2 (out of 9)

Overall

Forwards Rank: 1

Defensemen Rank: 3

Total Offensive Rank: 1

I have never seen a key returners list be so long in my time doing these, and that’s what propels Quinnipiac’s projected offense up to such high levels. The only key players that they are losing offensively are Will Gilson on the blue line and Jeremy Wilmer, who missed most of the season anyways.

First, Quinnipiac returns their 7 highest scoring forwards who all had at least 20 points. Ethan Wyttenbach is back after leading the nation in points as just an 18 year old and should be a dominant force in college hockey this year. Pelosi and Vidicek give them a dynamic 1-2 punch at center, while Verreault, Schwartz, Marcellus, and Cerbone add skill on the wings. Lansing and Borgula would be in the top 6 for most teams in the league, but on Quinnipiac, they might be relegated to the 4th line.

That’s just returning forwards too. The recruiting class is once again the best in the ECAC by average quality with numerous players who project to make big impacts.

Starting with the freshmen, Dylan Edwards was 9th in the OHL in scoring last season with 87 points. Alex Kostov got drafted after being passed over in the previous 2 drafts after he had 55 points in only 47 games. Lastly, Gabriel Frasca had 54 points in the OHL. Those 3 are all capable of varying levels of immediate contributions, but it’s unclear where they will fit in the lineup with all the returning talent.

Jack Stockfish is also coming in from Holy Cross after a 35 point season. He’s an outstanding 2 way center with size, and will no doubt slot into the lineup. Like the others though, it’s hard to know exactly where he will fall in such a loaded lineup.

On the blue line, Groenewold returns as the best all-around defenseman in the ECAC after putting up 20 points in 40 games and an insane +39 rating. Sward had 16 points and will return in a key role in the top 4. Blace had 20 points in limited time on the 3rd pairing.

For the newcomers, Andrew Strathmann saw limited ice time at North Dakota, but he is a very talented NHL draft pick who was outstanding in the USHL prior to college. Parker Alcos and Jan Golicic are two other NHL draft picks coming in from the WHL and QMJHL, respectively. Both have great size but can also move the puck well. They should be pretty good right away.

I know I just listed a ton of players without going super in-depth on them individually. Quinnipiac just has so much talent that I can’t go in-depth on the individual players without making this insanely long. To put into context how the model views them, it predicts they will score 5 goals per game. Obviously, that will not happen, but this is still easily one of the best forward groups in the country with starpower and depth throughout the lineup.

Defense

Projected Defensive Rank: 3

Quinnipiac is also expected to be elite defensively. They are ranked 3rd by the model for defense, but teams 1-3 are all super close together in the defensive projections. There’s not really a meaningful difference there.

Quinnipiac did lose 4 defensemen, but the model is not really concerned about those losses. Logan McCutcheon and Drew Hockley both barely played, and Gilson’s defensive impacts weren’t good last year. His impact was pretty much entirely offensive. The only key loss defensively was Charlie Leddy. He was a very good defensively minded defenseman, but since the other 3 don’t rate as big losses here, Quinnipiac shouldn’t miss a beat playing their usual system.

In the net, there was a ton of turnover, which was likely by choice after both goalies struggled last season. Matej Marinov had been rock solid in each of his first two seasons, but he fell back to a 0.898 SV%. Dylan Silverstein had numbers that looked good with a 0.912 SV%, but given the strength of Quinnipiac’s defense and how few chances they allow, it’s not actually that good.

Both goalies left in the offseason. To replace them, Quinnipiac got Rorke Applebee from the transfer portal after two great seasons at Lake State. He had a 0.907 SV% as a freshman and a 0.914 SV% as a sophomore, and considering how leaky Lake State’s defense was, these are both very good seasons. Last season, CHN had him ranked 14th in the country in goals saved above expected with 10.6 GSAx. I think he will be the primary starter in net.

The other goalie coming in is Christian Kirsch from the OHL. He had a solid season for Kitchener last year and helped lead them to the Memorial Cup. He should compete with Applebee for the starting role, but he’s a little bit raw. With Applebee being proven at the college level, he probably has the edge. Both of them should be pretty solid though, and that upgraded goaltending should have Quinnipiac’s defense back with the elite in the country.

There are literally zero question marks surrounding this Quinnipiac roster. They return a ton of talent and brought in a lot of talent to supplement it. One of their only weaknesses last season was a lack of size, and the players they brought in really help address that. Defensively, they lost very little, and they brought in even more talent than they were losing on the blue line. They upgraded in net, which was the biggest weakness last season and shores up the most important position. This is the clear #1 team in the ECAC and will be among the best teams in the country. They have a real chance at a national championship.

2. Dartmouth (Last Year: 2)

Dartmouth had a breakout year last season with their first NCAA tournament appearance since 1980 and an ECAC championship. They ended up as the #6 overall seed in the NCAA tournament but lost in the first round to Wisconsin. This year, they return basically their entire roster, and they should be a lock for the NCAA tournament as a result.

Key Losses: F Cam MacDonald (22 points in 34 games)

Key Returners: F Hayden Stavroff (48 points in 35 games), F Hank Cleaves (40 points in 35 games), F Nikita Nikora (25 points in 35 games), D CJ Foley (24 points in 35 games), D Colin Grable (20 points in 35 games), F Jack Silverberg (16 points in 35 games), F Nathan Morin (15 points in 29 games), D Eric Charpentier (13 points in 35 games), D Tim Busconi (12 points in 35 games), F Jason Stefanek (12 points in 26 games), D Cooper Cleaves (10 points in 30 games), G Emmett Croteau (0.922 SV%)

Key Newcomers: F Jesse Allecia (QMJHL), D Matthew Desiderio (Brown), G Sebastian Gatto (OHL), D Ryan Harvey (BCHL), F Drew Stewart (USHL), F Grant Young (USHL)

Offense

Returning Offense Rank: 2

Recruiting

Overall

Total Rank: 7

Average Rank: 5

Freshmen

Total Rank: 6

Average Rank: 4

Transfer

Total Rank: 9 (out of 9)

Average Rank: 4 (out of 9)

Overall

Forwards Rank: 2

Defensemen Rank: 1

Total Offensive Rank: 2

Dartmouth returns a ton of talent this season, which will make them a formidable team in the national landscape. The only key player leaving is Cam MacDonald after graduating, but I think Dartmouth did more than enough to replace him.

Starting off with the returning ECAC Player of the Year, Hayden Stavroff scored 29 goals last season to lead the country and turned down NHL offers to return for his junior year. He will once again be one of the top players in the country and a dynamic goal scorer. Hank Cleaves is Stavroff’s center with great size, two-way play, and passing ability. He had 40 points last season, and he returns as the second part of Dartmouth’s dynamic duo at the top of the lineup. Outside of those top two, Nikita Nikora returns for his senior year with a proven track record of scoring after 3 seasons of 20+ points.

One of Dartmouth’s weaknesses last season was a lack of scoring depth beyond those top 3 scorers, but I think that won’t be a weakness this year with all the young players returning in those depth roles who should take steps forward. Jack Silverberg and Nathan Morin had 16 and 15 points, respectively, last season, and this season, they should be able to take steps forward more in the 20 point range. Jason Stefanek could also be in that range. He only had 12 points last season but missed a decent chunk of time due to injury. Andrew Clarke, Ryan Schelling, and Brock Cummings had 12, 11, and 11 points, respectively, as freshmen last season, and they all can take steps forward to give Dartmouth more scoring depth. All of the players mentioned in this paragraph were either freshmen or sophomores last season, which is why they are all expected to take steps up to help augment Dartmouth’s scoring depth.

For the newcomers, there’s a few that should provide immediate impacts. Jesse Allecia had about a point per game in the Q last season, and he’s capable of playing in the middle 6 right away if he can earn a role over all those returning players. Grant Young had 28 points in 43 games in the USHL last season, and he should contribute in the bottom 6 right away.

The most important incoming forward though is Drew Stewart. He had over a point per game for Muskegon in the USHL last season as one of their top centers, and I think he’s capable of immediately sliding into Dartmouth’s top 6 behind Cleaves.

On the blue line, Dartmouth returns all the key players from last year’s run. CJ Foley returns as one of the top defensemen in the ECAC with a track record of producing well and winning his minutes. Eric Charpentier is one of the best shutdown defensemen in the league and has a little bit of offense to go with it too. Colin Grable had a huge breakout year last year, coming out of nowhere to score 20 points and a crazy +30 rating. Those 3 will all return to the top 4.

Outside of them, Tim Busconi and Cooper Cleaves were very good further down the lineup. Cleaves is the brother of top line center, Hank Cleaves, and his size, youth, and ability led to him being selected in the 3rd round of the NHL draft despite playing down the lineup. Busconi is a solid two-way defenseman who scored the game winning goal in OT to win the ECAC championship.

I think they will probably be the bottom pairing because Dartmouth’s only transfer portal addition is Matthew Desiderio coming over from Brown after their coaching change. He had a pretty solid freshman year there and has a great track record from his play in the USHL. I think he’ll slot in as the final defenseman in the top 4.

It’s a pretty loaded blue line with all the really good returners plus Desiderio coming in, and the model actually rates it as the best in the ECAC above Quinnipiac. It’s not more talented than Quinnipiac, but it’s older and more proven.

Offensively, Dartmouth is pretty loaded up all around to make another run this year. They return tons of top end talent and depth throughout the lineup, which will only continue to develop, and their incoming class has a few players who should be key contributors right away.

Defense

Projected Defensive Rank: 1

Dartmouth will be one of the best defensive teams in the country this year, much like last year. They have the best returning blue line in the league, which should at minimum maintain their elite level of chance suppression and shot suppression, but it’s certainly possible that it improves too. Returning all top 6 defensemen and then adding a top 4 defenseman from another ECAC team will do that!

Then, in net, Dartmouth will be totally set. Emmett Croteau finally broke out with a 0.922 SV% and returns for his senior year where he will be locked in as the #1 goaltender. He ranked 16th in the country in goals saved above expected with 8.11.

Should he falter for any reason though, I love incoming freshman Sebastian Gatto. He had a 0.916 SV% with London in the OHL last season, which was good for 5th in the league. London is also one of the best programs in the entire CHL, which only gives more confidence in his abilities. I think he is actually capable of pushing Croteau right away, but it’ll be Croteau’s net to start and presumably throughout the year. Gatto is great insurance behind him though, and he will take the mantle up in the future.

Overall, Dartmouth is projected to be an NCAA tournament lock by the model, and it actually has them rated so highly that I think they are a darkhorse national championship contender. I wouldn’t put them in my top 5 contenders or anything, but they have the ability to be in the mix. The only real question mark is if their depth scoring can improve this year through the development of the young players and newcomers. It’s worth noting that Dartmouth had a 12.8% shooting percentage last year too, which was 2nd in the country, and it’s possible that falls down too. That’s been consistent for Dartmouth under Cashman though, so I think that’s just them prioritizing quality over quantity at a system level. Regardless, it would take a disaster for them to miss the tournament, and if they can play up to their potential, the rest of the country should watch out.

3. Cornell (Last Year: 3)

Cornell had a really good season last year, reaching 11th in the NPI, but got blown out by Denver in round 1 of the NCAA tournament. The model views them very highly with all the talent coming back, but there is one major question mark remaining. They should be an NCAA tournament lock either way, but it’ll determine their ceiling this season.

Key Losses: F Jonathan Castagna (34 points in 34 games), D Hoyt Stanley (15 points in 34 games), G Alexis Cournoyer (0.915 SV%)

Key Returners: F Ryan Walsh (33 points in 33 games), F Caton Ryan (30 points in 34 games), F Charlie Major (27 points in 32 games), D Xavier Veilleux (26 points in 34 games), D George Fegaras (21 points in 34 games), F Aiden Long (20 points in 34 games), F Jake Kraft (18 points in 34 games), D Luke Ashton (11 points in 34 games), D Michael Fisher (8 points in 33 games)

Key Newcomers: F Charles Arend (USHL), F Coco Armstrong (WHL), F Brad Gardiner (OHL), D Ryland Randle (USHL), G Mathis Rousseau (Maine), F Ivan Zadvernyuk (Brown)

Offense

Returning Offense Rank: 3

Recruiting

Overall

Total Rank: 4

Average Rank: 4

Freshmen

Total Rank: 4

Average Rank: 5

Transfer

Total Rank: 8 (out of 9)

Average Rank: 1 (out of 9)

Overall

Forwards Rank: 3

Defensemen Rank: 4

Total Offensive Rank: 3

While Cornell did lose Castagna early to an NHL contract, he was the only important loss up front, and they did well to replace him as best they could.

Still, they return Ryan Walsh for his second year as the captain, and he will once again be one of the top forwards in the ECAC and slot in as the top line center. Caton Ryan also returns after an outstanding freshman year with 30 points, and with his youth, he should have a good step forward too. Charlie Major returns after his 27 point campaign last season too, and those three should make up a dynamic trio on the top line.

The other key forwards returning are Aiden Long and Jake Kraft. Long had a pretty good 20 point freshman season and should slot right into the top 6 at LW. Kraft is a proven, steady middle 6 player who can provide good depth scoring. It’s also possible Gio DiGiulian takes a step forward after putting up 14 points and 9 goals as a freshman last season.

For the newcomers, Ivan Zadvernyuk is transferring from Brown, and he is the replacement for Castagna at center. He had 22 points in 30 games for Brown last year and is a skilled center with great size. He should fill that void as the second line center behind Walsh, although his penchant for taking really dumb penalties could get him in trouble with such a disciplined program. Brad Gardiner is the highest projected freshman after a 65 point OHL season. He’s capable of sliding right into the top 6, but with Cornell’s talent and depth, he might be on the third line to start. Charles Arend had a great USHL season, but he probably starts in the bottom 6 due to Cornell’s depth. Same with Coco Armstrong after his WHL season.

The forward group for Cornell looks very good because Walsh, Ryan, Major, and Zadvernyuk give them a lot of top end talent, and they also should have the necessary depth between Long, Kraft, DiGiulian, Gardiner, Arend, and Armstrong.

On the blue line, Veilleux returns after an outstanding 26 point freshman season. He was immediately one of the best defensemen in the ECAC and played 24 minutes a night, and he should only keep getting better and better with how young he is. George Fegaras has had very good career for Cornell so far, and he returns for his senior year where he’ll likely be the #2 to Veilleux after 21 points last season. Luke Ashton is more of a defensively minded defenseman, but he has some offensive upside too. I think he will build on his 11 points from last year with more ice time and continued development.

There’s only two incoming defensemen, both freshmen, but they both expect to slot into the lineup. Ryland Randle had a great year in the USHL, and while he doesn’t have the size of typical Cornell defenseman, he’s a really good player who gives their blue line a bit of a different look. Cole Tuminaro doesn’t have much offense to his game, but he will find his way into the lineup given his size and defensive abilities that led to him being drafted.

Despite the loss of Castagna and Stanley, Cornell has enough firepower in the lineup to again make the NCAA tournament. I actually think the lineup all-around is better than last year’s, and it’s pretty comparable to Dartmouth in terms of the model’s projection. They should have no issues scoring this year.

Defense

Projected Defensive Rank: 2

Cornell’s defensive structure pretty much always guarantees that they will be a top team defensively, regardless of the personnel. That remains true for this upcoming season, but there are still plenty of reasons to like them outside of that.

The only key loss on the blue line is Hoyt Stanley, but the model doesn’t view it as that big a loss defensively. While he played a ton of minutes last season, his defensive impacts in terms of +/- were not that good. The other regular they lost was Jack O’Brien who was solid on the 3rd pairing but very replaceable. The rest of the defensemen return, which includes 3 of the top 4, as I mentioned in the offense section, and that will keep the quality of their defense high.

The real issue and biggest question mark for Cornell is in net. They lost Alexis Cournoyer to the transfer portal after a great freshman year with a 0.915 SV%. Cornell went out into the portal and got Mathis Rousseau from Maine to replace him. The model does not have much faith in him, and to be honest, I’m not sure I do either. Last season, he had a 0.896 SV% despite playing for a Maine team that was pretty strong defensively. His goals saved above expected was -4.54 on the season, which ranked 130th in the country. I also am not sold on his track record prior to Maine. He played in the QMJHL for a long time, and his numbers his final year there were just okay with a 0.906 SV% and a 0.903 SV% split between two teams. While his numbers were better prior, he was on one of the best QMJHL teams those years, and he’s undersized to boot.

The two backups who are returning are Justin Katz and Erick Roest, and both have not seen a single minute of NCAA action. If Rousseau falters, there is no backup plan. A counterargument is that you could argue that Cournoyer wasn’t even that good when you factor in the quality of Cornell’s defense. Despite a 0.915 SV%, he only had 1.02 goals saved above expected, which was 51st in the country. If Rousseau can give them even average goaltending, he likely will have pretty solid numbers, and that should be good enough with the quality of the defense.

The goaltending question mark is what keeps Cornell below Dartmouth in the rankings even though they are quite close. If Rousseau can be that guy for them, they could surpass Dartmouth to get 2nd. Overall, he will determine their ceiling. The model likes Cornell so much that if he gives them good goaltending, they could be a darkhorse national championship contender. As it stands right now though, they’re rated a tournament lock with the talent and defense they have as long as he’s not disastrous. Can they be more than that? It’ll be something to watch.

4. Union (Last Year: 5)

Union was pretty good last season, rising up to 26th in the NPI, and they were in contention for a first round bye the entire year but fell just short to Princeton. Their puck possession system was very good, and they had a lot of offensive firepower. However, this is the first ranking that I disagree with the model. Union lost a lot of talent in the offseason, but they’re still rated highly because they return a ton of depth scoring. The returning scoring is rated too highly in my opinion because Union beat up on a weak non-conference schedule and inflated their offensive numbers, and they didn’t play nearly to that level in conference play. They should still be pretty solid, but I’d personally have them a little lower.

Key Losses: F Ben Muthersbaugh (36 points in 36 games), F Brandon Buhr (36 points in 35 games), F Parker Lindauer (34 points in 37 games), F Colby MacArthur (32 points in 35 games), F Nate Hanley (22 points in 36 games)

Key Returners: D Tyler Dunbar (33 points in 37 games), F Lucas Buzziol (27 points in 37 games), D Etienne Lessard (24 points in 37 games), F Alex Laurenza (19 points in 32 games), F Riley Brueck (17 points in 36 games), D Will Felicio (13 points in 33 games)

Key Newcomers: F Tommy Cronin (Alaska), F August Falloon (Minnesota), F Nathan Free (WHL), F Gavin Garry (USHL), F Luke Garry (USHL), F Elliot Gulley (USHL), F Lefty Markonidis (USHL)

Offense

Returning Offense Rank: 6

Recruiting

Overall

Total Rank: 2

Average Rank: 3

Freshmen

Total Rank: 2

Average Rank: 3

Transfer

Total Rank: 1 (out of 9)

Average Rank: 3 (out of 9)

Overall

Forwards Rank: 4

Defensemen Rank: 2

Total Offensive Rank: 4

From the list of key losses and key returners, it should be obvious why I’m skeptical of the model. Union loses its top 3 scorers and 4 out of their top 5 with only Tyler Dunbar returning from that group. For the forwards, they lose 5 out of their top 6 with only Lucas Buzziol returning.

That being said they do have some talent returning. Buzziol had 27 points last season. Alex Laurenza had a solid freshman year with 19 points. Riley Brueck had 17 points and should be able to take a step with more ice time. Connor Smith had 12 points in only 30 games and will likely be a lineup regular this year. Drew Sutton, Troy Pelton, and Jacob Jeannette all had decent results in very limited ice time.

For the newcomers, it is a pretty good recruiting class overall between the transfers and freshmen. The Garry twins both had about a point per game in the USHL last season and should play key roles immediately. Elliot Gulley had 51 points in the USHL, and Nathan Free had 53 points in the WHL; both should slot into the lineup right away. Tommy Cronin transferred in from Alaska after 16 points in 18 games as a freshman. August Falloon barely played at Minnesota, but he was solid in his final USHL season before going there.

That’s a good amount of talent coming in, and that talent combined with the returners that Union does have is why the model still likes the forward group. I want to go a little deeper though to explain why I’m skeptical of it.

First, as I mentioned before, Union played an extremely weak non-conference schedule that really inflated their numbers. Their scores were:
1-1 vs Army
5-2 at Mercyhurst
5-3 at Mercyhurst
3-2 vs Niagara
6-0 vs Niagara
7-1 vs Lowell
6-0 vs UNH
8-1 vs Sacred Heart
2-3 vs Miami
5-1 vs Alaska
3-2 vs Alaska
5-4 vs RPI

That works out to 4.67 goals per game. In conference play, they averaged 3.23 goals per game. That’s a huge difference, and it got reflected in the stats for their players too.

For the returners I mentioned, Buzziol only had 14 points in conference play, Laurenza had 10, Brueck had 8, and Smith had 3. All of these players at least put up half their production against the weak competition in non-conference play. This also applies to the defensemen too. Tyler Dunbar only had 15 points in ECAC play, and Etienne Lessard only had 12.

Second, based on the projections, two of the three players on their top line are projected to be Laurenza and Tommy Cronin, and I have questions about them outside of the schedule strength last year. For Laurenza, he was a healthy scratch at times last year despite his ability to put up points, and only 4/19 points were goals. If the staff didn’t have full belief in him last year, and he can’t really score goals for a team that lost all its best goal scorers, why should I think he can make that jump? For Cronin, he only played 18 games due to injury, so it’s possible that his scoring would have regressed with a full season of play. Even if not, he also only had 4 goals out of his 16 points, and his track record before Alaska wasn’t good. In his final year of junior hockey, he was not able to hold down a spot in neither the USHL nor BCHL and ended up back in the NAHL. I don’t believe he’s a top line player like the model is projecting based on his limited time at Alaska.

To be clear, I don’t think Union will be bad offensively, and they should still be pretty solid. I just think the model is overrating the offense and team in general with all of this.

Defense

Projected Defensive Rank: 5

Union had a solid defense last year, and it should be solid this year as well. They return 5 out of their top 6 defensemen, and Nick Young doesn’t register as that big of a loss. Tyler Dunbar should be their best all around player not just because of his offense, but he also has pretty good defensive impacts. Etienne Lessard had decent defensive impacts for a freshman especially considering his lack of size, while DJ Hart had good defensive impacts in limited ice time. He will look to shoulder more responsibility this season.

In net, Cameron Korpi returns after an underwhelming season last year with a 0.899 SV%. He had a solid freshman year at Michigan and was good in the USHL before that, so I would imagine he bounces back. If he doesn’t though, Union also returns Brayden Gillespie who had a 0.915 SV% in limited time last season behind Korpi. With his performance, I imagine that Korpi won’t have too long of a leash should he struggle out of the gate.

Overall, Union could definitely finish 4th with the talent they have on the roster. Doing that will require their key players to perform better in conference play and all the newcomers to adapt quickly. Even at their ceiling though, I can’t see them coming close to catching the top 3, and at best, they probably land at 20th in the NPI. With how the model is overrating their numbers though and only pretty small gaps between teams 4-6 in the model, I think they don’t wind up in 4th. I’d put them 5th or 6th.

5. Clarkson (Last Year: 8)

Clarkson was very inconsistent last season due to its youth. They had the talent and ability to beat anyone with wins against Penn State, North Dakota, and a sweep of Quinnipiac in the ECAC playoffs to reach Lake Placid. They also could lose to anyone though with losses to Canisius, RIT, and Alaska. After ending the year on a high note and with a lot of that young talent returning this season, they should make a move up the standings.

Key Losses: F Ryan Bottrill (36 points in 38 games), F Erik Bargholtz (20 points in 38 games), D Tristan Sarsland (16 points in 38 games), D Matthew Mayich (15 points in 34 games)

Key Returners: F Owen Van Steensel (25 points in 38 games), F Remi Gelinas (21 points in 38 games), F Jared Mangan (20 points in 38 games), F Justin Cote (19 points in 38 games), D Tate Taylor (19 points in 37 games), D Ty Brassington (16 points in 38 games), F Jace Letourneau (13 points in 26 games), F Adrian Misaljevic (4 points in 6 games)

Key Newcomers: D Michael Craig (Robert Morris), D Axel Dufresne (QMJHL), G Ben Gaudreau (ECHL), F Sebastien Gervais (OHL), F Alex Pharand (OHL), F Hayden Reid (OHL), F Tyler Wallace (RPI), D Nikolas Young (USHL)

Offense

Returning Offense Rank: 5

Recruiting

Overall

Total Rank: 5

Average Rank: 6

Freshmen

Total Rank: 7

Average Rank: 6

Transfer

Total Rank: 4 (out of 9)

Average Rank: 5 (out of 9)

Overall

Forwards Rank: 6

Defensemen Rank: 5

Total Offensive Rank: 5

Clarkson isn’t quite at the level to return to the NCAA tournament, but they will definitely be improved. The young talent returning this season is a big reason why. First, Van Steensel, Gelinas, and Cote all return after putting up 20+ points in their freshman year and should be mainstays in the top 6. Jared Mangan also had 20 points in his sophomore season and should join them in the top 6.

Outside of those 4, Luka Sukovic, Talon Sigurdson, and Jace Letourneau were all in the teens in points, and I expect all of them will slot into the lineup probably in 3rd line type of roles. Getting Adrian Misaljevic back healthy will be huge for Clarkson as well. He had 4 points in the first 6 games of the season before missing the rest of the year due to injury. If he had been healthy, he would be mentioned with the other 3 freshmen above, and I think he’s in line for a great year. On a similar note, I’m very curious where Mikael Huchette will fit in the lineup after he missed all of last season due to injury. He was pretty good in the QMJHL and USports before landing at Clarkson.

For the incoming forwards, they all project more as 3rd line or depth type of players, which is why their recruiting rankings are probably lower than you would expect. The best newcomer is Tyler Wallace coming in from RPI where he had 18 points last season. He will probably do about the same for Clarkson this season and should be somewhere in their middle 6. Gervais, Pharand, and Reid all project as pretty good bottom 6 players, and they will be competing with guys like Mael St-denis, Shawn O’Donnell, and Conyr Hellyer for spots in the lineup. Clarkson’s forward depth is excellent this season, and they have no shortage of options at the top, middle, and bottom of the lineup.

On the blue line, Clarkson does lose Tristan Sarsland who was excellent over the course of his career there, but they return Tate Taylor. Taylor will move up to the #1 role now that Sarsland has graduated, and I think he will do quite well there. Clarkson also returns Ty Brassington after he had 16 points last season.

While they also lost Matthew Mayich (who everyone in the hockey community is thinking of and praying for) after an excellent freshman year when he entered the portal and went to Arizona State, Clarkson did pretty well with who they bring in, which I think will help mitigate that loss on offense. Michael Craig transferred in from Robert Morris after 3 great years there and should immediately slide into the top 4. Nikolas Young had 42 points in 61 games in the USHL last season, which is excellent for a defenseman, and I think he will make an immediate impact. Axel Dufresne comes in from the QMJHL after 4 years there, and I also expect he will make an impact right away.

I really like the makeup of this Clarkson offense. There’s talent and depth at both forward and defense, and all the key contributors coming back were younger players who should still be on an upward trajectory.

Defense

Projected Defensive Rank: 7

Defense will be the question mark with this Clarkson team. They fell from 2.23 goals against per game 2 years ago to 2.92 last year. The model is projecting them to be about the same this year overall.

The model has Mayich as a huge loss for the defense. Last season, he was the only defenseman who had a positive +/- rating, and it wasn’t very close. He had a +13 while the next highest was a -1. That discrepancy means that Clarkson is getting dinged a lot for that loss in addition to the loss of Sarsland. It honestly might be too harsh here, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it turns out to not be an issue because of the quality defensemen Clarkson has coming in. I’m just explaining why the model sees it that way.

In net, the model is not totally sold either. It doesn’t have the goaltending as bad, but it’s not rated as good either. Shane Soderwall returns as the starter, but he only had a 0.905 SV% last season, which is below average for a starting goalie. I do think he was a little better than that indicates since he saved 2.92 goals above expected for the year, which was 38th in the country. He’s definitely not bad, but Clarkson will look for him to take a step to being above average.

Behind him, I’m not really sold either. If we’re being honest, any backup they have will be better than Keenan Rancier was last year, so it’s not a big deal. However, their backup will be Ben Gaudreau coming in from the ECHL. Gaudreau has played the past 2 seasons in the ECHL with a career 0.900 SV% at that level. While that’s not bad, it’s not good either, and it doesn’t really inspire confidence that he’s more than just a reliable backup, which is what the model rates him as. Maybe it’s wrong, but the NCAA is, on average, better than the ECHL.

Overall, Clarkson should be taking a jump up the standings this year with all the talented young players returning and plenty of depth. I really like the roster on paper. If the defense and goaltending can improve, then watch out. Even without that though, I personally think they end up higher than Union and get to 4th place in the league.

6. Harvard (Last Year: 6)

As I mentioned in my piece reviewing last season, Harvard did not take the step I was expecting due to their top players all regressing. This year, it’s hard to know what to make of them. As always, they have a lot of talent and a very good recruiting class. Ted Donato stepped down though. It’s already hard to know how that talent will fare given the struggles the past few seasons, and a new head coach just makes it that much tougher. With how close 4-6 are in the model, I could see them landing anywhere in that grouping.

Key Losses: F Philip Tresca (19 points in 30 games), F Casey Severo (18 points in 34 games), D Ryan Healey (12 points in 34 games), D Mason Langenbrunner (10 points in 32 games)

Key Returners: F Mick Thompson (27 points in 33 games), D Matthew Morden (20 points in 34 games), F Heikki Ruohonen (19 points in 28 games), F Richard Gallant (18 points in 34 games), D Lucas St. Louis (11 points in 33 games), G Ben Charette (0.910 SV%)

Key Newcomers: F Niles Benson (USHL), F Justin Graf (USHL), G Rudy Guimond (QMJHL), D Alex Huang (QMJHL), F Joseph Salandra (OHL)

Offense

Returning Offense Rank: 7

Recruiting

Overall

Total Rank: 10

Average Rank: 2

Freshmen

Total Rank: 5

Average Rank: 2

Transfer

Total Rank: N/A

Average Rank: N/A

Overall

Forwards Rank: 5

Defensemen Rank: 8

Total Offensive Rank: 6

Harvard’s offense definitely has a higher ceiling than this if Rob Rassey can get the young players to progress more than they had been under Ted Donato. Mick Thompson returns as the leading scorer after a 27 point season, though he did have 32 points the year prior. Heikki Ruohonen was an excellent two way center as a freshman, and he should take a step forward this year and be Harvard’s top line center. Richard Gallant had 18 points as just an 18 year old freshman, and he should also take a step forward.

After those 3, there are some question marks at forward, but the talent is there to answer them. Ben MacDonald fell from 16 points to 10 points and battled injuries last season. If he can have a bounce back year, that would really help the offense. Harvard, on paper, is missing a second line center, and if MacDonald can fill that void, that would be huge. I also have my eyes on Michael Callow and Aidan Lane. Callow is talented, and he had a very good finish to last season after dealing with injuries most of the year. I wouldn’t be surprised if he has a breakout year. Lane is even more talented, but he was very young as an 18 year old freshman last year. He also didn’t have a full year of junior hockey before enrolling, so it was always going to take him time to get acclimated to college hockey. I’m a big believer in his skill and upside.

For the freshmen, Niles Benson and Joseph Salandra project to be bottom 6 players to start. Justin Graf is one of the best incoming freshmen in the ECAC though. He had 55 points in 52 games in the USHL last year and was selected in the 4th round of the NHL draft. I expect he will earn a top 6 spot right away.

On the blue line, Matthew Morden returns as the #1 defenseman after a breakout year with 20 points and great defense to go with it. Harvard also returns Lucas St. Louis who has proven himself to be a solid top 4 defenseman. Alex Huang is the best incoming defenseman in the league by far after his 70 point season in the Q last year. He should play big minutes on the top pairing immediately.

I think Harvard’s biggest issue this season though is the depth on the blue line. After those 3, the next best defenseman is Drake Murray. While I don’t think he’s bad, he only played in 24 games last season, and I do not think he is top 4 quality. After him, it gets even worse. Donato Bracco really struggled as a freshman last year. He has a lot of talent coming from the NTDP, but he needs to make some major strides in order to be counted on consistently in the lineup. Lastly, I’m just not a believer at all in any of Sean Keohane, Matthew Biotti, James Mackey, or David Hejduk.

The writeup should make it clear why Harvard ranks where they do offensively. They have questions around their secondary scoring at forward, and they have issues with their defense corps after the top 3. The talent is there to be better than expected in those areas though, and it’ll be up to Rassey to get that performance out of them.

Defense

Projected Defensive Rank: 6

Harvard should be solid defensively this season because of their goaltending even if their blue line is questionable. Everything I said about the defensemen in the offense section also pretty much applies here. I don’t have faith in any of the players outside of the top 3 barring Murray and Donato taking major leaps forward. This dings their defensive projection for the model.

However, the goaltending should be very good for Harvard this season. Ben Charette returns after two solid seasons with a 0.909 and 0.910 SV%, respectively. He can be a solid starter if relied upon. However, I actually think he’s going to get usurped this year. Harvard is bringing in Rudy Guimond from the QMJHL where he was outstanding the past two years. Two seasons ago, he had a 0.940 SV%, and last season, he had a 0.922 SV% while playing 50 games. This was the second best save percentage in the league, and the player in first only played 14 games. Based on his track record, I think he can beat out Charette and be among the top goalies in the league right away. This projected goaltending brings Harvard’s defensive projection back up to a solid level in spite of the defensemen.

Overall, Harvard definitely has the talent to end up higher than this. With the tight grouping of teams in the 4-6 range, they could find their way into the top 4. Where they land in the standings will come down to getting development from the players in the middle and bottom of the lineup to give some quality depth.

7. Colgate (Last Year: 7)

Colgate took an expected step back last season due to a lack of talent and poor defensive structure. This year looks to be about the same middle of the pack type of season. There appears to be limited secondary scoring, and the defense seems like it’ll struggle again.

Key Losses: F Simon Labelle (28 points in 37 games), D Michael Neumeier (23 points in 37 games), D Jacob Napier (11 points in 35 games)

Key Returners: D Isaiah Norlin (28 points in 37 games), F Ryan Sullivan (26 points in 36 games), F Max Nagel (26 points in 27 games), F Jack Brandt (18 points in 34 games), D Josh Niedermayer (10 points in 27 games), D Brett Merner (7 points in 18 games)

Key Newcomers: F Braiden Clark (OHL), D Nathan Larioza (BCHL), F Tobias Ohman (USHL), F Luke Shcherbyna (WHL)

Offense

Returning Offense Rank: 8

Recruiting

Overall

Total Rank: 6

Average Rank: 9

Freshmen

Total Rank: 8

Average Rank: 8

Transfer

Total Rank: 7 (out of 9)

Average Rank: 9 (out of 9)

Overall

Forwards Rank: 9

Defensemen Rank: 6

Total Offensive Rank: 7

Colgate lost a couple of its top players, but they return enough that they should be decent offensively. They also were hurt last year with some injuries to key players, and having those players healthy will be helpful.

Simon Labelle graduated from the top of the lineup, but Max Nagel and Ryan Sullivan return after pretty good years with 26 points each. Nagel, in particular, should be excellent as he was producing at a point per game level but couldn’t play the full season due to injury.

There’s not much returning behind those two, however. Jack Brandt had 18 points, but he’s not the type of player that I see making a big step forward. Tyson Doucette and Easton Wainwright had okay freshmen years with 11 and 10 points, respectively, but they will need to take major jumps to help Colgate offensively.

There’s a trio of newcomers who look like solid pickups to varying degrees, but the issue is that they will likely be forced to play higher up in the lineup than they should be. Tobias Ohman is the best incoming player after he had nearly a point per game in the USHL last year. He’s a shifty and skilled player with the puck. However, I have questions about how his game will translate. He is absolutely tiny, and he could get pushed around in a physical league like the ECAC. The other two project as 3rd line type players. Braiden Clark left Providence and played for London in the OHL last year where he was just okay. He definitely has some talent, but his scoring track record the past couple of years has not been there. Luke Shcherbyna comes from the WHL where he had a good but not great year.

This lack of depth really hurts Colgate offensively, but they are helped a lot by having some capable puck movers on the back end, even after the departure of Michael Neumeier and Jacob Napier. Isaiah Norlin returns after he had 28 points in 37 games. He should make an All-ECAC team again this season. Josh Niedermayer is also back and should have an expanded role. He had 10 points in 27 games with 3rd pairing minutes. With top 4 minutes, I expect he’ll put up even more points. Having Brett Merner back healthy will be helpful too. He was on his way to a solid season last year, but he missed half the year due to injury.

Nathan Larioza could contribute as a freshman too. He had nearly a point per game in the BCHL last year, but he left midway through the year to go to the USHL. He wasn’t nearly as productive in the USHL, but I think with Colgate’s lack of depth after those top 3, he could earn some minutes right away.

It all comes out to an average offensive projection. The lack of secondary scoring and depth at forward is the big issue, but if they can find a few breakouts there, Colgate could be sneaky good offensively.

Defense

Projected Defensive Rank: 8

Colgate will be weak again defensively, and they will likely be around the same ballpark as last season. Jacob Napier had the best defensive impacts on the team, and losing him definitely hurts. Funny enough, Neumeier’s loss actually helps the defense in the eyes of the model because his defensive impacts were terrible. He was a -28 in 37 games last year, and he handedly was losing his minutes. I don’t actually think he’s addition by subtraction, but the model doesn’t have a way to determine that. Luke Malboeuf had solid results in his depth minutes as a reliable, stay-at-home defenseman. It all evens out to be about the same defensively.

In net, there are major question marks. Reid Dyck returns, but he struggled as the starter last year with a 0.897 SV%. He saved -2.9 goals above expected on the season, which was 110th in the country. Colgate was supposed to bring in NHL draft pick Matthew Minchak, but he ended up going back to the OHL. They had to replace him with a walk-on type in net, so they also don’t have depth at the position and will be forced to rely on Dyck.

Overall, Colgate’s offense will have to be the strength of the team, but with the lack of depth up front, it will be tough in that department unless the blue line can really carry the load. The defense doesn’t look to have much hope barring a lot of improvement from the returning defensemen or Dyck performing much better than last year. Personally, I’d have Colgate a little lower than this with their question marks.

8. Princeton (Last Year: 4)

Princeton came out of nowhere last year to make a huge leap up the standings on the back of a veteran lineup with lots of development from those players. It was a great team, but nearly all the best players were seniors and have now graduated. While there is some returning talent, the drop off is quick and steep, and there does not appear to be enough talent to keep Princeton that high in the league.

Key Losses: F David Jacobs (36 points in 34 games), F Jaxson Ezman (26 points in 34 games), F Brendan Gorman (22 points in 34 games), D Tyler Rubin (16 points in 30 games), D Nick Marciano (11 points in 34 games)

Key Returners: F Kai Daniells (39 points in 34 games), F Jake Manfre (26 points in 34 games), D Kai Greaves (14 points in 34 games), G Arthur Smith (0.913 SV%)

Key Newcomers: F Jake Gudelj (WHL), F Shaan Kingwell (OHL)

Offense

Returning Offense Rank: 10

Recruiting

Overall

Total Rank: 12

Average Rank: 12

Freshmen

Total Rank: 12

Average Rank: 12

Transfer

Total Rank: N/A

Average Rank: N/A

Overall

Forwards Rank: 12

Defensemen Rank: 12

Total Offensive Rank: 12

Princeton lost nearly all of its talent with only the 10th most returning scoring in the league. They lose half of their top 6 with Jacobs, Ezman, and Gorman all gone after pretty good years. On the blue line, they lose 4 of their top 5 scoring defensemen. That’s a lot of key players to lose.

There are a few really good players returning. Kai Daniells was one of the most dangerous forwards in the league last season, and he will have to lead the offense again in his senior year. Jake Manfre broke out with 26 points, and he’s a very good player who will have to score a lot as well.

The issue is that the drop off after those two is absolutely massive. The next best forward is Julian Facchinelli who only had 10 points last season. Going from 26 points to 10 for the 2nd best forward to the 3rd best forward is very bad and shows a lack of scoring throughout the lineup. Fachinelli and Luc Pelletier, who had 11 points last season, will have to take huge steps forward in order for Princeton to have enough firepower offensively.

The only two incoming freshmen at forward are Jake Gudelj and Shaan Kingwell. Gudelj had a solid year in the WHL last year, but he projects as a bottom 6 type player to start. Kingwell had a similar year in the OHL and has the same projection. They will both have to play higher up in the lineup though. Kingwell has some potential in my opinion. He’s only 19, and Princeton is bringing him in a year early. He’ll have the opportunity to earn a key role right away though and fast-track his development.

On the blue line, Kai Greaves returns after posting excellent two way results last year in the top 4. He will be their top defenseman. After him though, there’s absolutely nothing offensively. Ian Devlin had 5 points last year, and Chris Reiniger had 4 points. None of the incoming freshmen defensemen have any track record of production in junior, even though there are 4 newcomers. Barring some offensive breakouts there, the defensemen can’t really be counted on offensively.

The offensive picture for Princeton is pretty destitute. Outside of the top 3 players, there’s practically no scoring projected, and it’s going to be tough for them. Even with a bunch of breakouts, I can’t see them getting anywhere close to the offense they had last year.

Defense

Projected Defensive Rank: 4

The defense, however, looks very good, and it will keep Princeton competitive this season. Even though they lose Rubin who had excellent defensive impacts, Marciano and Ma didn’t have great defensive impacts. Greaves was very good defensively and so was Ian Devlin. Devlin was pretty good in limited minutes last year, and he should play a larger role this season.

Even though the incoming freshmen don’t have much offense, they all profile as stay-at-home defensemen, which will presumably help as well even though that’s not factored into the model.

The cherry on top is returning goalie Arthur Smith. Smith finally broke out last season with a 0.913 SV%, and he returns for his senior year where he will be the clear #1 in net. They will need him to deliver a similar performance with the lack of run support they’ll have, and I expect he will. I’m pretty confident that with the returning defensemen, Smith, and Ben Syer’s defensive system that Princeton will remain very good defensively this year.

Overall, Princeton is going to be playing a lot of low event and low scoring games this year. They have the worst projected offense due to the lack of returning scoring and the league’s worst recruiting class. However, their defense should be pretty good, and I think that’ll stop them from slipping all the way to the bottom 4. Placing them 8th feels right.

9. RPI (Last Year: 9)

RPI enters year 2 of its rebuild under Eric Lang with an extremely young roster that will see lots of freshmen getting minutes right away. There was lots of roster turnover this offseason as the staff looked to bring in their guys. The model has them staying in 9th due to the youth, but I think they will finish a little higher than that after bringing in the top freshman class in the league per both Neutral Zone and Puck Preps.

Key Losses: F Luciano Wilson (22 points in 34 games), F Tyler Wallace (18 points in 35 games)

Key Returners: D Thomas Klassek (18 points in 34 games), F Filip Sitar (17 points in 35 games), F Rainers Rullers (16 points in 35 games), D Kazimier Sobieski (12 points in 35 games), G Nate Krawchuk (0.909 SV%)

Key Newcomers: D Grayson Burzynski (WHL), F Jordan Gavin (WHL), F Luke Goukler (USHL), D James Guo (OHL), F Caleb Hadland (WHL), F Harrison Lodewyk (WHL), G Ethan McCallum (WHL), D Ryan Michael (WHL), D Simon Motew (Maine), F Brendan Ross (Providence), F Leo Serlin (OHL), F Ben Yurchuk (Merrimack)

Offense

Returning Offense Rank: 11

Recruiting

Overall

Total Rank: 1

Average Rank: 7

Freshmen

Total Rank: 1

Average Rank: 7

Transfer

Total Rank: 2 (out of 9)

Average Rank: 6 (out of 9)

Overall

Forwards Rank: 10

Defensemen Rank: 7

Total Offensive Rank: 9

RPI only loses two key players at the top of the forward lineup. The reason they only have the 10th most returning scoring is because they largely turned over the bottom of the roster to make room for all the incoming freshmen. For the key returners at forward, Filip Sitar and Rainers Rullers are both young, two way centers who should take a step forward this year offensively, but right now, they only project to score at middle 6 rates. RPI will need more improvement than that.

The high quality recruiting class will likely fill in most of the forward lineup. The model has these recruits ranked lower than Neutral Zone or Puck Preps because the vast majority of the recruiting class is from the WHL, and the production of WHL players last year didn’t translate as well as the other CHL leagues. As a result, I think that a lot of these freshmen are likely underrated by the model, and I think they will perform more in-line with the Neutral Zone ratings, which are based on in-person viewings. The recruiting would also have rated even better if Shane Smith and Josh Evaschesen didn’t defect at the last minute in August.

For those incoming forwards, Brendan Ross and Ben Yurchuk come in from the portal after not getting much ice time at Hockey East schools. Ross had a good freshman year at Alaska, and he was one of the top players in the AJHL before college. He should rebound and play a much bigger role for RPI than at Providence where he struggled to crack the lineup. Yurchuk was good in the USHL prior to going to Merrimack and should also see a bigger role for RPI.

The freshmen all look solid as well. Jordan Gavin is the former #2 overall pick in the WHL draft, and he comes to RPI after putting up 58 points last season. He’s in line for the top 6 right away. Luke Goukler had 31 points in the USHL last year, and he should make an immediate impact on the 3rd or 4th line. Caleb Hadland was another former first round WHL pick, and he had 44 points last season and will be an immediate contributor. Harrison Lodewyk should contribute in the bottom 6 after having 40 points in the WHL. Lastly, Leo Serlin had 41 points in the OHL last year, and he also looks like he can contribute in the bottom 6.

The issue with RPI’s forward group is that there’s a ton of depth, but there is pretty much no high end talent right now. The returners I mentioned plus Jagger Tapper, Ian Scherzer and Matthew Buckley all look like middle 6 type players. None of the freshmen really project to be studs right away (Evaschesen and Smith would have really helped here), so even though there’s a lot of quantity there, the quality isn’t high enough.

The blue looks better with some good puck movers. All-ECAC Rookie team defenseman Thomas Klassek returns and should build upon that season at the top of the lineup. Kazimier Sobieski also returns and has some good offensive abilities.

The recruiting class also looks excellent on the defensive side and will add much needed support for those two. Starting with Grayson Burzynski, he was one of the top defensemen in the WHL last season with 58 points in 59 games and will immediately play a big role in the top 4. He is one of the top incoming freshmen in the entire league. James Guo had a very good year in the OHL and also looks capable of playing top 4 minutes right off the bat. Simon Motew barely played last season at Maine, but he had a good track record of play in the OHL and USports prior to Maine. He should provide some steadiness on the 3rd pairing. Lastly, Ryan Michael had 33 points in the WHL last season, and he is also capable of contributing offensively.

Overall, RPI is just a young team with a lot of talent that looks kind of similar to Clarkson last year in some ways. They will have a lot of freshmen playing key roles right away, and they have a ton of offensive depth that they can roll out. If some of their younger players can breakout or any of the freshmen take the ice time and produce a lot, RPI could do some damage.

Defense

Projected Defensive Rank: 9

Since RPI turned over nearly its entire defense corps, they rate on the lower end here too. RPI actually has the least returning defensive impacts in the league, which is what keeps their projection low. Sobieski struggled defensively last season in #1 minutes that he probably was not quite ready for yet. Klassek faired a little better but wasn’t anything to write home about defensively either.

The defensive decline projected from all that talent gets balanced out by the goaltending room, which projects to be quite strong. Nate Krawchuk returns after a good freshman year with a 0.909 SV%, and he finished the season playing absolutely lights out. He projects to be the starter in net once again.

However, he will be pushed by Ethan McCallum who the model likes a lot. McCallum had a 0.907 SV% in the WHL last season, which was 6th in the league. He should be a very good college goalie, and he is capable of beating out Krawchuk although he will probably start out as the #2. If he is the backup, he’s a luxury to have as the #2. This is definitely one of the better goaltending rooms in the league.

Overall, I think RPI finishes a bit higher than this. I already mentioned how I think the model is a little low on the recruiting class due to the WHL translation from last season. I also think it’s a bit low on the defensive side. Even though RPI lost the most from their back end among all teams in the league, the reason for that was they were turning over their roster, and the defensemen they bring in are better than the ones who left. With the youth on the roster, I don’t think they’ll be in the top 6, but I foresee a similar season as Clarkson last year. The talented and young roster will probably be inconsistent with ups and downs, but they will be playing their best hockey at the end of the year and a tough out in the playoffs despite being a lower seed.

10. Yale (Last Year: 10)

Yale enters year 1 of the Jeff Hamilton era with some young offensive talent but a pretty bad defense, which is what keeps their projection low. I don’t think it’s out of the question that Yale outperforms this if they can find good goaltending and better defense, but it’ll be tough to do that under an entirely new staff.

Key Losses: F David Chen (24 points in 31 games), F Tyler Wallace (18 points in 35 games)

Key Returners: F Ronan O’Donnell (23 points in 28 games), F Donovan Frias (21 points in 31 games), F Micah Berger (18 points in 31 games), F Iisai Pesonen (13 points in 28 games), D Rhys Bentham (11 points in 31 games)

Key Newcomers: F Alex Assadourian (OHL), F Kyle O’Leary (USHL)

Offense

Returning Offense Rank: 4

Recruiting

Overall

Total Rank: 11

Average Rank: 11

Freshmen

Total Rank: 11

Average Rank: 11

Transfer

Total Rank: N/A

Average Rank: N/A

Overall

Forwards Rank: 8

Defensemen Rank: 9

Total Offensive Rank: 8

Yale only loses 2 out of its top 15 scorers and returns 84.3% of its point production, which is great and bodes well for its offense this year. Leading scorer David Chen did graduate, but the rest of the lineup returns.

Ronan O’Donnell had 23 points in 28 games last season, and he projects to be close to a point per game this season. He’s likely the best forward at the top of their lineup. Donovan Frias and Micah Berger are both good forwards too, and the three of them should give Yale a pretty dynamic top line.

After those three though, Yale will be relying on a bunch of players to take steps forward and provide more secondary scoring. David Andreychuk, Iisai Pesonen, James Shannon, Zach Wagnon, and Will Richter all had between 10 and 14 points last season. The model does project progression now, but they will have to outpace that projected improvement to give Yale enough secondary scoring.

There’s only 2 freshmen expected to make immediate impacts, and they both have bottom 6 projections. Alex Assadourian had a solid year in the OHL, but he switched to the USHL mid-season and really struggled. Kyle O’Leary played the full year in the USHL and had a solid year with 33 points. With all the returning forwards, I don’t expect either will be super high in the lineup.

On the blue line, Rhys Bentham returns as the top defenseman after 11 points in 31 games last year. Hughie Hooker had 9 points in only 26 games, and Owen Forester had 8 points in only 24 games. Both of them will have to up their games in bigger roles. All 3 need to produce more as the top defensemen in the lineup. Dylan Hunt could also take a step forward after 8 points in 31 games as a freshman.

Despite all the returners, Yale still is about average in their offensive projection. The lack of secondary scoring is the biggest factor, and the players I listed will all need to step up. The other main issue is there are no real high scorers in defense corps despite having some solid players back there. If the returning players can develop on that end too, Yale would be in good shape. Those are two question marks though.

Defense

Projected Defensive Rank: 11

Despite the offense having a decent outlook, the projected defensive performance keeps Yale pretty low in the projections. Yale was awful defensively last season, allowing 3.71 goals per game, and they don’t project to be much better this year.

Only Owen Forester had a positive defensive impact on the blue line last year. Most of the returners were in the negatives in +/-, and I’m not sure how much improvement can be counted on there. If all these returning players can be more reliable defensively, which is a big if, Yale is still starting from such a low spot on defense that it wouldn’t rise enough to make them a competitive team.

The bigger issue is in net. The top two goalies are Noah Pak and Jack Stark, and neither can be counted on to be the #1. Starting with Pak, he has the higher model projection because he wasn’t totally awful last year, but he still only had a 0.902 SV%. His freshman year, he had a 0.872 SV%. Stark was great as a freshman with a 0.919 SV%, but he has been awful since that year. Last year, he had a 0.871 SV% and was among the worst goaltenders in the country. This is one of the worst goaltending rooms in the league, and the defensive projection reflects that.

Overall, Yale is probably one of the most likely teams to outperform their projection due to the sheer number of returners. If their players can take big steps forward to improve their offensive depth and defensive capabilities, they can compete for home ice. It would need to be big steps though, and I’m just not sure they have that in them.

11. Brown (Last Year: 12)

Another Ivy with a new coach at the helm, Brown lost all of their best players this offseason during the coaching change. Tom Upton arrives in Providence looking to rebuild Brown the same way Reid Cashman has rebuilt Dartmouth. They don’t have the talent to be competitive this year, but the model projects the defense to be good enough to keep them out of the basement.

Key Losses: F Ivan Zadvernyuk (22 points in 30 games), F Ryan St. Louis (15 points in 30 games), D Matthew Desiderio (12 points in 31 games)

Key Returners: F Ben Poitras (18 points in 31 games), F Andrew King (11 points in 20 games), D Ethan Mistry (6 points in 31 games)

Key Newcomers: F Matteo Danis (WHL), F Cullen Emery (USHL), F Griffin Erdman (Northeastern), D Marco Senerchia (USHL), G Devin Shakar (USHL)

Offense

Returning Offense Rank: 12

Recruiting

Overall

Total Rank: 9

Average Rank: 10

Freshmen

Total Rank: 9

Average Rank: 10

Transfer

Total Rank: 6 (out of 9)

Average Rank: 8 (out of 9)

Overall

Forwards Rank: 11

Defensemen Rank: 11

Total Offensive Rank: 11

Brown’s lack of talent jumps out right away when the top projected forward only had 18 points last year. While Poitras is a good player who excites with his speed and skill, it is worrisome when a player of that level is the top forward on the roster. Behind him, Andrew King returns after showing some productivity in a limited role last year. It might have been an aberration given his lack of scoring in junior, but hopefully for Brown’s sake, it was not. Brian Nicholas is another key returner. As a freshman, he had 25 points in 28 games, but he really struggled last year with only 13 points in 31 games. Brown really needs a bounce back from him.

Brown does have some good incoming players who will help out their scoring. Griffin Erdman has the best projection after scoring 15 points in limited ice time with Northeastern last season. With a much larger role at Brown, he should be pretty good in the top 6. Matteo Danis had nearly a point per game in the WHL, and while he projects as more of a middle 6 type to start, he will likely play in Brown’s top 6. Lastly, Cullen Emery had a good year in the USHL and is a well-rounded forward who should make an impact on the 3rd line.

On the blue line, there’s really no offense to speak of after Desiderio and Pineau transferred out. The top offensive projection among all the defensemen on the roster belongs to Marco Senerchia who had a solid year in the USHL (but not anything to write home about), and he’s projected for only 8 points. Similar to the forwards, if your top offensive defenseman is only projected for 8 points, it’s going to be a difficult time scoring. The rest of them are either stay-at-home types or just don’t really have a whole lot of skill.

There’s just overall a general lack of talent across the roster, and it’s tough to see Brown scoring a lot. There’s some players with potential at the top of the forward lineup. Upton will have to develop those guys as his foundation and then add a lot of talent to the roster in the coming years as he begins his rebuild.

Defense

Projected Defensive Rank: 10

Brown has some big question marks defensively as well. Ironically, the model has them improving on that side after losing Desiderio and Pineau. The two of them had a -20 and -18 rating, respectively, both the two worst on the team. Since those defensive impacts were pretty horrendous, the model views it as addition by subtraction. Even though the case was likely just that they were out of their depth with the quantity and difficulty of their minutes, those are still really bad results.

Ethan Mistry returns as the top defender on the roster. He has consistently posted good defensive results at Brown despite contributing little offensively. This season, he should continue to do well there for Brown, and I expect he will also take on a bigger load with Desiderio and Pineau gone.

The goaltending is another big question mark for Brown. Freddie Halyk returns after losing the starting role last year to Tyler Shea. He struggled a lot with a 0.881 SV%, but prior to Brown, he had some decent results at Denver. Can he get back to that level? We’ll have to see. The model doesn’t really believe in him after last year.

Brown also brought in Eli Pulver from the transfer portal after he really struggled at Wisconsin last season. He had a 0.867 SV% in 12 games there, but before going to college, he was excellent in the BCHL. He had a 0.923 SV% in his BCHL career with nearly 100 games played. There’s clearly some potential there although skepticism is certainly warranted.

Lastly, the goalie with the highest model projection is actually incoming freshman Devin Shakar. While his projection isn’t very good, he was okay in the USHL last year, especially given his situation. He had a 0.888 SV% with the Omaha Lancers, one of the worst teams in the league. They had an incredibly leaky defense, allowing more than 34 shots against per game. All things considered, he didn’t do too bad, but he still projects more as a reliable backup than a starting level goalie.

Overall, Brown’s talent will hold them back, but their defense should be enough to keep them out of the basement. If the blue line can improve in terms of how much they give up, and Brown can find an answer in net between those 3 goalies, they can outperform this ranking. I still can’t see them getting higher than 9th though at the absolute highest.

12. St. Lawrence (Last Year: 11)

St. Lawrence has a lot of young returning talent to build off of after another year in the bottom 4. However, the defense was the worst in the country last season, and they are running back the same goaltending group and most of the same defense corps. The defense is again projected to be very bad as a result and is the reason they’re projected for last.

Key Losses: F Tyler Cristall (31 points in 34 games), F Rasmus Svartstrom (24 points in 34 games)

Key Returners: F Cayden Casey (24 points in 35 games), F Cooper Pierson (20 points in 34 games), F Filip Juricek (18 points in 35 games), F Sam LeDrew (18 points in 32 games), F Isaac Tremblay (16 points in 33 games)

Key Newcomers: F James Fisher (Northeastern), F Ihnat Pazii (OHL), F Luke Posthumus (OHL), F Jake Rozzi (Ohio State), F Owen Tylec (USHL)

Offense

Returning Offense Rank: 9

Recruiting

Overall

Total Rank: 8

Average Rank: 8

Freshmen

Total Rank: 10

Average Rank: 9

Transfer

Total Rank: 5 (out of 9)

Average Rank: 7 (out of 9)

Overall

Forwards Rank: 7

Defensemen Rank: 10

Total Offensive Rank: 10

Despite losing Tyler Cristall and Rasmus Svartstrom, St. Lawrence actually has a pretty solid forward group due to tons of players returning from last year’s team. They return 8 out of the top 10 scorers and 12 out of the top 15.

Cayden Casey returns as the top line center after a 24 point season last year. Cooper Pierson, Filip Juricek, and Sam LeDrew all return for their sophomore years. They all had very good freshman years with between 18 and 20 points. Isaac Tremblay had 16 points last year and should play a role in the middle 6. Those players all project to be pretty solid. After those players, there’s also a bunch of depth players returning too.

Those players make up the core of the lineup, but there’s a few good newcomers that will play key roles too. Jake Rozzi had 12 points at Ohio State as a freshman before fighting injuries last year and only getting 10 games. He should have an expanded role at SLU, and he has a good track record going back to the USHL. I think he will end up playing in their top 6. Luke Posthumus comes in after a very good year in the OHL with 57 points. He projects to make an immediate impact in the middle 6. Lastly, Ihnat Pazii and James Fisher both have bottom 6 projections, which helps add to the forward depth of the group. Add it all up, and SLU has a pretty decent forward group with some good top 6 players and some depth too.

The blue line is where their offensive projection gets hurt though. They return their entire top 4, but none of those players surpassed 8 points. The good thing is that 3 of them were freshmen, so if those players can take big leaps forward, St. Lawrence’s offense could be getting underrated by the model. None of the incoming defensemen have good offensive projections either. The best one is William-Charles Bishop who transferred in from Clarkson. With an increased role, he could provide more offense than he did at Clarkson, but he’s right in line with the others.

Defense

Projected Defensive Rank: 12

The defense is again expected to be one of the worst in the country, which is why SLU falls below Brown in the projections. While they do return the entire top 4, they lose Babbage and Bandu whose defensive impacts were better than the rest of the team (even though they still weren’t good). That hurts them since the top 4 all had very poor defensive impacts with 3 of them at -15 or worse on the season.

St. Lawrence is projected to have weak goaltending too. Cameron Smith returns after he had a 0.903 SV% last year and took hold of the starting job. Even factoring in the defensive struggles though, that’s still a bad mark for a starter. They should improve simply by starting him in the majority of games because Mason Kucenski was one of the worst goalies in the country last year. Smith isn’t good enough though for that to drastically improve their defense. They will need the defensemen to take big leaps in terms of their ability to prevent chances.

Overall, St. Lawrence’s offense will probably be below average, but it has the potential to surprise if the defensemen take larger steps forward. Since the team was so young last year, they also could all improve a lot more across the board than the model is giving credit for. The defense will have to improve drastically in order to compete for home ice though. I think the model is a little low on SLU here given how young they were last year and how their offensive ceiling is definitely higher than Brown’s. I feel like they have a wider range than the other teams down this low in the standings because they have more offensive talent and depth. It’ll be interesting to see where they end up.

Final Model Rankings

1. Quinnipiac

2. Dartmouth

3. Cornell

4. Union

5. Clarkson

6. Harvard

7. Colgate

8. Princeton

9. RPI

10. Yale

11. Brown

12. St. Lawrence

My Rankings

1. Quinnipiac

2. Dartmouth

3. Cornell

4. Clarkson

5. Harvard

6. Union

7. RPI

8. Princeton

9. Colgate

10. Yale

11. St. Lawrence

12. Brown

Model Tiers

Quinnipiac
————————-
Dartmouth
Cornell
————————-
Union
Clarkson
Harvard
————————-
Colgate
Princeton
RPI
————————-
Yale
Brown
St. Lawrence

All-League Predictions

1st Team

Jr F Hayden Stavroff, Dartmouth

Sr F Kai Daniells, Princeton

So F Ethan Wyttenbach, Quinnipiac

Sr D Tyler Dunbar, Union

So D Xavier Veilleux, Cornell

Sr G Emmett Croteau, Dartmouth

2nd Team

So F Antonin Verreault, Quinnipiac

Jr F Hank Cleaves, Dartmouth

Jr F Chris Pelosi, Quinnipiac

Jr D Isaiah Norlin, Colgate

Sr D CJ Foley, Dartmouth

Jr G Rorke Applebee, Quinnipiac

3rd Team

So F Caton Ryan, Cornell

Sr F Ryan Walsh, Cornell

Jr F Max Nagel, Colgate

Sr D Matthew Morden, Harvard

Jr D Elliot Groenewold, Quinnipiac

Sr G Arthur Smith, Princeton

All-Rookie Team

F Drew Stewart, Dartmouth

F Justin Graf, Harvard

F Luke Garry, Union

D Alex Huang, Harvard

D Grayson Burzynski, RPI

G Rudy Guimond, Harvard

Awards

Player of the Year: So F Ethan Wyttenbach, Quinnipiac

Goalie of the Year: Sr G Emmett Croteau, Dartmouth

Rookie of the Year: Fr D Alex Huang, Harvard

Thanks for reading! I’m excited for the season to begin this week, and we’ll be able to start seeing how the ECAC does in non-conference play!

You may not see a younger defensive unit in all of the ECAC next year, but that may turn out to be the best possible thing for RPI as a program. As Trevor Russell, Gunnar VanDamme, Gustavs Ozolins, Jimmy Goffredo, Lucas Lemieux, and Matthew Jovanovic headed for the door, there was a mountain of playing time up for grabs. It’s hard to argue that the writing wasn’t on the wall, as the staff lined up 3 blue-chip recruits who couldn’t return to juniors and would surely be expecting to play immediately. These three talented freshmen — Burzynski, Michael, and Guo — will join last year’s standouts Kaz Sobieski and Thomas Klassek to form the core of the Engineer D in 2026-27. Three right-shot defensemen, Landen Hilditch, Simon Motew from Maine, and Logan Heroux from Ferris State, and late summer add Guerin Slezak, will round out the core and likely vie for the final regular spot. The group is young, but incredibly talented with a chance to be the real driving force for success over the coming years.

Standout Returners: Kaz Sobieski and Thomas Klassek

From night one of last year’s regular season, Sobieski and Klassek firmly planted themselves on the top pairs and were the catalysts of the Engineers’ unit. It was very important to retain them both as they are each on a path to being all-league caliber players. Klassek made the ECAC all-rookie team with an offensive onslaught in February, where he was defender of the month. He deserves a lot of credit for coming right to the NCAA without a stop in North American juniors, as the transition is often pretty difficult. It seemed like the American game started to slow down for him in the 2nd half, hopefully inspiring confidence in him that will carry over this fall.

Sobieski’s overall offensive output ended up trailing Klassek’s just barely, but he was more heavily relied upon and generally the more dependable one. Kaz had the best all-around numbers of RPI’s defensemen last year by a wide margin and found his rhythm in college hockey. I expect him to quarterback the top PP unit once again and find himself firmly on the top pairing again. Now Sobieski and Klassek didn’t pair together, presumably because they are both offensively minded and better complemented by other players. Whether this will be the case again remains to be seen, but frankly I’m not sure it matters much. Make no mistake about it, these two will make this unit go and be the ones RPI has to lean on for leadership and stability.

Freshman Re-Enforcements: Grayson Burzynski, Ryan Michael, James Guo & Guerin Slezak

Coach Lang once quoted an old college hockey adage to us on one of our podcasts, saying “The best time to play a freshman defenseman is when he is a sophomore.” Well, given that he has 9 defensemen right now and 4 are freshman, that’s going to be hard to go through on. While Coach’s joke holds equal parts truth as it does humor, he’s not bringing these three CHL guys in to play immediately without a reason for it. All three players are very, very talented recruits, rated 4-stars or better by Neutral Zone, each with over 150 games of CHL experience. The blueprint is simple: Expedite their development to build an elite defensive unit in the 2-3 years that follow.

Grayson Burzynski is one of the 3 Brandon Wheat Kings coming from Western Canada to Troy. He has a case for the most prolific defensive recruit in the past decade, which I don’t say lightly. His 4.25-star Neutral Zone rating is the best of the class and it’s reasonable to project him onto that top pair with Sobieski. He has the size, skill, and IQ to make a big difference for RPI once he is acclimated to the college game.

James Guo has a unique calling card as he comes to RPI. As we’ve covered prior, Guo’s team in Saginaw went to the 2024 Memorial Cup finals with NHLers Michael Misa and Zayne Parekh on the roster. The OHL is historically a better league and its players translated the best production wise in year 1 of the NCAA’s CHL inclusion. This boosts Guo’s stock a bit, which was plenty high already given the caliber of his past 2 seasons (73 points in 125 games). I think his two-way game will translate extremely well and he has a real case for top-4 minutes right away.

Ryan Michael is probably the most adept defender of the group, known for his IQ and penalty killing prowess. Michael put together a really solid offensive season though with 3-30-33 in 67GP this year. He was a multi-year captain player in the WHL and certainly has that “hard skill” that Lang covets. I have no concerns about his game translating and think that RPI only carrying 3 left-shot defensemen tells you everything you need to know about how they feel about him.

Guerin Slezak was a mid-summer add and figures to play a depth role in year 1. Slezak missed all of last season with injury after captaining Cedar Rapids of the USHL the year prior. He’s a defensive specialist and has potential as he gets back to health but probably finds himself behind a few guys on the depth chart to start.

Right-Side Depth: Simon Motew, Landen Hilditch, and Logan Heroux

I think Simon Motew will earn the final spot on the right side to open the season. Motew played sparingly at Maine last year but posted very good years in USports and the OHL before. It’s unclear what happened at Maine, maybe the competition jump was just too much. But Motew has some pedigree, and with a year of NCAA experience now, he looks poised for a breakout at RPI.

Logan Heroux comes over from Ferris State for a change of scenery and chance to earn a bigger role. Heroux’s production dropped off from his promising freshman year, and he’ll be looking to regain that form at RPI. He does bring a lot of game experience to a very young group, which will help his case for playing time.

Last is Landen Hilditch, who played very well in February when Trevor Russell went down last season. Hilditch plays a steady yet unexciting game and by all accounts is an excellent leader. I think you know what you’re getting with Landen, he’s going to give you some size, physicality, and reliability when he plays. He’s got some competition on the right side but figures to get a good bit of run in a 3rd-pair role.

The Engineers have a really promising defensive core that could develop into something very special. We talk about the Quinnipiac model and how Eric Lang built his best AIC teams with great puck-moving defensemen. This is the group of guys he has handpicked to do it with, and while there might be growing pains with the youth, I think they’re going to get really good. We’re less than 2 weeks from having hockey. Let’s go red.

When I decided I was going to model player progression for my ECAC prediction model, I had to choose the proper way to do that.

Age curves are nothing new to hockey. From fans arguing that their career bottom 6 forward can breakout at age 26 to Dom Luszczyszyn’s fantastic work applying it to his projection models, it’s a constant debate of trying to correctly predict how players will perform in the future.

College hockey doesn’t have anything like that, not yet at least, with its niche (but awesome, I must add) fan interest and a lack of data available publicly. The general thought has always been that rising sophomores will improve the most with that improvement gradually dropping as the years go on. That’s definitely true generally. When it came to trying to model it though, I thought that I could do better than just going based off of class year by using the player’s actual age. That’s how the NHL age curves work, and it’s more specific. I figured it would be more accurate to say that an 18 year old freshman moving to his sophomore year would improve more than a 21 year old freshman.

I decided to move forward with that theory for modeling player progression and figured I could mess around with various options if it didn’t look good. However, those other options were not necessary at all as the age-based progression turned out to be very clean data.

I used the past 4 years of data from 2022-26. I’ll just explain the data a bit before breaking it down. First, age is defined by a player’s birth year and is based on the start of the season. A 17 year old for this upcoming season would be any ‘09, an 18 year old is any ‘08, etc. Second, I only included players who played in NCAA D1 at both ages in the data. Points per game difference is the average change in points per game from year 1 to year 2 at those ages. The percentage difference is just turning that into a ratio by dividing year 2 by year 1. Lastly, the final 2 rows are not really relevant. Assuming no redshirts or extra years, even an overager starting at 21 years old would end their career at 24 years old. The only reason those two rows even have data is from COVID granting everyone an extra year of eligibility. The 24→25 row is basically exclusively players who started college at 21 years old who decided to play a 5th year instead of going pro. The 25→26 row has a sample size of two players who only got 6 years because they had a redshirt year, and then, they had the COVID year on top of that.

For the data itself though, it works out extremely neatly, much more than I thought would. To me, that validates using age for progression rather than the class year. Unsurprisingly, the younger the player is the more they improve in point production from year to year. The improvement is also pretty moderate in general. While there are certainly numerous players who take huge leaps forward, a player is only going to improve by a few points a year on average. Those big leaps forward get averaged out by the players who regress and don’t produce as much.

One thing I wonder if the data would show is if the improvement is different for different tiers of players. In other words, I think elite players would probably show much more improvement than a middle of the lineup player, and a middle of the lineup player would show more improvement than a bottom of the lineup or depth player. For now, I think this is good enough to use as a simple model for my ECAC projections. In the future though, I will probably do something like that to further improve.

That’s all I’ve got for you; I wanted to keep this one pretty short!

Ever since I started following college hockey, I’ve witnessed numerous rebuilds executed by great coaches. Starting from a low point, they manage to build up their programs with incremental gains every year until reaching varying levels of relevancy. These rebuilds all follow essentially the same pattern for the first 5 years:

Year 1 - suck

Year 2 - turn over the roster and the coach brings in “his guys”, improved team but inconsistent (and usually young)

Year 3 - first year of being good and competitive

Year 4 - a bit of stagnation but still a good and competitive team

Year 5 - the peak

Sometimes years 4 and 5 are reversed, but that’s the general pattern. There’s numerous programs in the past decade with new coaching hires who have generally followed this pattern, and we’ll be going over their results to show the type of season to expect from RPI. First, here’s our examples that we’ll be using as a baseline:

Atlantic Hockey

Bentley (2023-Present), Andy Jones

Holy Cross (2021-2026), Bill Riga

AIC (2016-2021), Eric Lang

CCHA

Augustana (2023-Present), Garrett Raboin

St. Thomas (2021-2026), Rico Blasi

ECAC

Dartmouth (2021-2026), Reid Cashman

Princeton (2024-Present), Ben Syer

RPI (2017-2020), Dave Smith (including first 3 years before COVID derailed the rebuild)

Union (2022-Present), Josh Hauge

Hockey East

Maine (2021-2026), Ben Barr

UMass (2016-2021), Greg Carvel

Merrimack (2018-2023), Scott Borek

Independent

LIU (2020-2025), Brett Riley

NCHC

Miami (2024-Present), Anthony Noreen

Now, let’s start breaking down the numbers and metrics. I’ll also be discussing the progression of the programs to try to contextualize the numbers as best I can.

Wins

First, the simplest metric: wins. How many games did the program win in year 2 of the new head coach? One thing that I’ll also be including though is the improvement from year 1 to year 2 in addition to the raw number.

I think the improvement is arguably just as useful as the raw win total. While all of these rebuilds started from a low point, there is still a lot of variance in that starting point. Some of the ones included were starting from absolutely nothing and were among the worst teams in the country year 1. Others had a little bit more to work with, so they weren’t totally horrible year 1. That context matters.

On average, the programs improved by 6 in the win column and finished with 14 wins. Eric Lang’s AIC rebuild was a little higher than that at 7 wins improvement and 15 wins. This rebuild is an important one to look at specifically for context because he is bringing a similar blueprint from AIC over to RPI.

One interesting thing about the data is that the ECAC programs didn’t tend to do as well. Dartmouth is actually the only program that managed a worse 2nd year than 1st year. Even without them included though, the average would be only 4 wins of improvement. I don’t think this is really indicative of a trend showing that ECAC programs are tougher to rebuild though because Princeton and Union were two of the programs who were starting from a higher place with double digit year 1 wins.

The best programs from year 1 to year 2 were Miami, UMass, and Maine with 15, 12 and 8 wins of improvement, respectively. Those would be the high end standard, but they are unlikely to be replicated by RPI this year.

Why do I say that? Well, my biggest takeaway from this data was that it’s a lot easier to have big win increases when you are starting from lower. The biggest increases came from programs with single digit wins in year 1. When you’re starting from practically nothing, there’s nowhere to go but up. Usually these teams are a bit below .500, but starting so low means that the lower programs improve more to get to that point.

Programs starting out with double digit wins would be getting to 20+ wins with that type of improvement, which just is not very realistic in year 2 of a rebuild, even though many got close to it. The programs who started out with double digit wins capped out at 7 wins of improvement with Bentley. They averaged 5.2 wins of improvement.

Standings

Another good marker of improvement is how much the program is moving up in the conference standings. It helps place the program among its peers.

The average standings improvement was about 2 spots in the standings to 7th place. AIC moved up exactly that many spots in year 2 of Lang’s rebuild there and wound up in 8th. The best programs in this category once again included UMass and Maine, but Princeton also was right there with them with 5 spots of improvement. Once again, the ECAC was a little lower than average due to Dartmouth, but without Dartmouth, they’d be right in-line with the average.

I don’t have too much to add here. I think 4 or 5 spots of improvement is unrealistic. Anything below that is plenty realistic though and would be in line with the average.

Pairwise/NPI

This is the most valuable piece of data in my opinion. The Pairwise (formerly) and NPI (now) both are rating systems that factor in strength of schedule alongside a team’s results in order to determine the NCAA tournament field. That makes it the best data point to use in terms of where the programs stood nationally.

The best programs here are all the same ones mentioned before (Miami, UMass, Maine, and Princeton) with Bentley also joining the list. These teams all rose a whopping 20+ spots in the rankings.

The average team wound up rising 12 spots and at around 40th in the rankings. At AIC, they improved 10 spots to 44th in the rankings. Rather than giving you my opinion just based on my data, I want to contextualize all these performances to paint a deeper picture.

Categorizing the Programs

Looking at the recruiting and roster construction of each of these programs for year 1 to year 2, each one clearly breaks into one of the following categories.

1. Big and high quality freshman class

2. Veteran laden team, either inherited or built through the portal

3. Big and not as high quality freshman class

4. Balanced

Pasted below is the recruiting and roster info of each program for year 2. The recruiting class rankings come from Neutral Zone, and I included both the overall ranking and the ranking based on the average star level. Then, you can also see how the roster was built based on the other columns. First, how many underclassmen (Freshmen and Sophomores) and upperclassmen (Juniors and Seniors) make up the top 5 scorers and top 10 scorers on the roster are included. Second, I include the year of the primary starter in net. Including the years of the key players on the roster gives you an idea of how young or old it was, and I will add additional context from looking at the rosters. This will be relevant when we breakdown the blueprint of the programs.

Highly Successful

I’m defining the highly successful year 1 to year 2 programs as the ones who improved 20+ spots in the pairwise/NPI.

Bentley was a veteran heavy team with 4/5 and 7/10 top scorers being upperclassmen in addition to the starting goalie. Most of the upperclassmen were acquired through the transfer portal from bigger programs where the players were not getting much ice time. Bentley ended up rising 22 spots in the pairwise to #22, driven by these players, and they got into the NCAA tournament by winning the Atlantic Hockey championship.

Princeton was a veteran heavy team as well. Zero freshmen were in the top 10 scorers; all 4 in the top 10 were sophomores. Out of the 6 upperclassmen, 5 of them were seniors as well. Since Princeton cannot use the portal as an Ivy League team, they likely will not be continuing their ascent under Ben Syer this coming season, but it has been a successful rebuild thus far for sure. They likely will just be taking a different path than the usual 5 year plan.

While based on the numbers, you would probably think that Maine was balanced and leaning veteran heavy, I would argue they fall into the first category. They had a large, quality freshman class, but a lot of them just didn’t fall into the top 10 scorers. For 11-17 on the scoring list, 6/7 of those players were underclassmen, 5 of them being freshmen. Most of them just played depth roles to start out. Given their recruiting rankings and that roster context, they fall into the first category.

UMass absolutely falls into that category as well. All 5 of their top 5 scorers were freshmen! Even 9 out of the top 10 being underclassmen is absolutely nuts. John Leonard, Mitchell Chaffee, Oliver Chau, Mario Ferraro, and lastly, some guy named Cale Makar formed the nucleus of the team that would lose in the national championship the following year. UMass had by far the best recruiting class on the list and fall into the large and high quality freshman class category.

Miami had the biggest jump of all programs here as they won a whopping 15 more games and jumped 30 spots in the rankings. They were another team in the big, high quality freshman class category. Most of their scoring came from underclassmen including 3/5 top scorers being only freshmen. It truly was an impressive season from them, and I’d bet that they take another jump this season with the core established.

Successful

I’m considering any program going up 10-19 spots as “successful.” This meant they took a good sized jump, but it wasn’t too crazy of a leap.

AIC went fully into the large freshman class strategy. While unfortunately the Neutral Zone rankings for them are no longer up, I can pretty much guarantee that they would have been high in the overall rankings due to a big class. They would not have been very high in the average rankings though since AIC was largely not able to get quality recruits (making Lang’s success there all the more impressive). This strategy resulted in all 5 top scorers and 9/10 coming from freshmen and sophomores, which is crazy, and it set the stage for big years down the road.

St. Thomas was in just year 2 of being D1 after moving up from D3. They went fully into bringing in a ton of freshmen as evidenced by their top 10 recruiting class ranking but only 41st in average. Their scoring was heavily tilted towards that youth with all 5 of their top 5 scorers being freshmen! These players all formed their foundation going forward as St. Thomas continued rising up.

Just Okay

Any program that improved less than 10 spots in the pairwise/NPI is in this category. All but 1 of these rebuilds are not really comparable to RPI this year. Almost all of these programs took a more balanced approach, while only Union and Merrimack were different from that.

Holy Cross was mostly a balanced team. They leaned slightly veteran but had some key underclassmen who became core players for the future teams that rose up under Riga. You’ll find that all the teams that fall into the “balanced” category were just okay in terms of results. Going hard into either a veteran heavy team or a high quality and big freshman class always yielded the best year 2 results.

Augustana was also in the balanced category but leaning slightly towards youth. For them, it made sense to go more balanced because they were in year 2 of a brand new program starting from scratch. They built the program with a combo of incoming freshmen recruits and a lot of transfer portal usage. This makes sense because you wouldn’t want a crazy imbalance of class years starting up. For their improvement though, it meant they only slightly improved from the year prior, but they were still solid overall. It set the stage for a good year 3 this past season.

Dartmouth was the only team to actually get worse from year 1 to year 2. I remember it being a surprise because I thought they were going to have some improvement heading into that year. They didn’t have a big freshman class nor a quality one, but generally, they were still pretty youthful from the freshman class the year prior. They’d fall into a similar category as Augustana as a balanced team that leaned towards youth. Their issue overall was really just that all the players they returned from year 1 didn’t really improve in year 2. It took another year of development for Dartmouth to really start blossoming.

RPI had some moderate improvement from year 1 to year 2 under Dave Smith. I’d say they were balanced but slightly veteran heavy. While 4/5 and 6/10 top scorers were upperclassmen, they did have a lot of freshmen playing immediately too, including star goalie Owen Savory. The top players were mostly upperclassmen, but the top 10 scorers included future core pieces like Ottoville Leppanen, Ture Linden, Jakub Lacka, and Kyle Hallbauer in addition to Savory in net.

Union was very much veteran heavy with zero freshmen in the top 10 scorers, and only 3 underclassmen total. They are really the only veteran heavy program to not improve a lot in this deep dive, which is surprising. A lot of these older players continued developing well in the following year, while Union effectively used the portal to fill in the gaps.

Merrimack had a top 10 recruiting class going into year 2, and it was also high in quality, comparable to Maine and Miami. Out of their top 10 scorers, 6 were freshmen and 8 were underclassmen. The results say they only went up 9 spots in the pairwise, placing them in this group, but this is one of the few cases where I feel that’s misleading. I think they would have been right up there with those teams had it not been for disastrous goaltending. Merrimack ended up with a 0.871 team SV%, which was by far the lowest in the country. They split the net between two freshmen, Troy Kobryn and Jere Huhtamaa, who both really struggled. Kobryn and Huhtamaa were not the answers in net for Merrimack’s rebuild. After combining for 40 games played as freshmen, they combined for only 7 games played the remainder of their careers. Simply put, Merrimack missed in recruiting at goalie with those two, and they moved on quickly. It hurt their second season under Scott Borek even though they figured it out long term.

LIU improved in year 2 behind a veteran heavy team built mostly through the transfer portal. Since they had started from nothing the year prior, they had a huge freshman class that season, so they kept the class small in year 2. While LIU didn’t have a pairwise in their first year to look at for official placement, they ended up at 53 in their second year, and there were only 61 programs in 2020-21. It would’ve been impossible for them to improve 10+ spots, so they are in this group.

Applying this to RPI this Season

You may have guessed where RPI falls in this year. All the teams in the big and high quality freshman class category had top 15 recruiting classes overall and had top half of the country classes by average. RPI is #14 overall and #22 by average in the Neutral Zone rankings. The categories breakdown like this (NZ ranking/NZ average ranking):

Big and high quality freshman class

Maine (13/31)

UMass (3/14)

Merrimack (7/29)

Miami (14/29)

RPI - under Eric Lang (14/22)

Veteran laden team

Bentley (60/44)

Princeton (51/52)

Union (53/51)

LIU (47/51)

Big and low quality freshman class

AIC (N/A)

St. Thomas (8/41)

Balanced

Holy Cross (42/53)

Augustana (30/23)

Dartmouth (46/48)

RPI - under Dave Smith (29/47)

This breakdown shows the results for year 2 pretty clearly based on strategy. Across the board, balanced teams had the least improvement in year 2. Big freshmen classes with low quality generally had solid improvement but nothing too crazy. Veteran heavy teams didn’t necessarily improve as much as big freshmen classes with high quality, but they were more successful because they all started from a better spot with an average of 14 wins and 43rd in the pairwise/NPI year 1.

The best strategy, at least for year 2, is obviously the big and high quality freshmen classes. It should make us feel very good that this is clearly the strategy Coach Lang has chosen to go with given these results from other programs. The fact that RPI’s recruiting class is arguably the second best on this list (if you go by average quality) is even more of a bonus.

Let’s now set the expectations based on these similar programs (and including AIC as a proof of concept for Eric Lang specifically).

First, in wins, the comparable programs averaged 9.25 wins of improvement from year 1 to year 2. Simply put, that’s not happening; RPI is not getting to 20 wins this year. I think it’s fair to say that Lang got the most out of last year’s team in order to get 11 wins, and the other programs all started in the single digits for wins. They had a lot of runway to grow. AIC improved by 7 wins, and that’s probably the high end of improvement for RPI this year. Merrimack only improved by 2, and I’d say that’s probably around the floor given that they were only that low because of horrendous goaltending.

Their actual win totals are more useful here in my opinion. Those come out to be 9, 15, 17, and 18. AIC also had 15. That 15-18 range is right where I expect RPI to land.

The standings aren’t super useful to look at in this case because none of these programs play in the ECAC, but we will still take a quick look. Their placements were 6, 7, 8, and 10 with AIC landing in 8th as well. That 6-8 range is where I expect RPI to land too, and that seems reasonable given the talent on the roster and the state of the ECAC.

Lastly, the NPI is where we look, and here the improvement totals actually are relevant because RPI is coming from a similar range as the others. They averaged a whopping 20.5 spots of improvement and #36.25 in the rankings. That is within the realm of possibility, but I think that would be on the higher end of outcomes. AIC started in the same #54 spot as RPI and improved 10 spots to #44, which is probably the floor. For the others, you have 30, 22, 21, and 9 spots of improvement. You can rule out 30 for RPI this year; I just cannot see that big of a jump happening. I’d say 22 spots of improvement is probably the ceiling based on my gut feeling. The comparable programs’ placements in the pairwise/NPI were #30, #33, #36, and #46. Again, my gut feeling is that RPI isn’t quite as high as some of those teams despite the quality of the recruiting class. I’d expect the 35-40 range.

Overall, RPI is clearly on the right path in the rebuild given the data and the strategy taken. I’m very optimistic for the future of the program with Eric Lang at the helm, and this is shaping up to be an exciting year with lots of young talent getting acclimated to college hockey.

With the quality of the recruiting class, it would be fair if you’re more optimistic than I am based on the data. However, I don’t think the expectations should be that high as that kind of improvement would be a huge jump. I’d prefer for more cautious optimism as the program still has a long way to go and a lot of work to be done before becoming relevant.

My predictions:

16 wins (+5)

7th in ECAC (-2)

39th in NPI (-15)

With the whole team having already reported to Troy for the new year, the RPI Engineers made one last call up north of the border for their final piece of the roster. Due to two unexpected decommits at the last minute, the staff found themselves in desperate need of a body with few places to turn. What they found in Serlin though, is a highly intelligent player with room to grow into his raw skill. Serlin is coming off his best year in the OHL and enters a situation at RPI where he can play right away.

Game Breakdown

Leo doesn’t play the game with a ton of flash, but what shines through on tape is his intelligence. He is more of a playmaker at heart and is the type of guy that always makes his teammates look better. He really found his scoring touch last year in Guelph, posting more than double his point total of each of the prior seasons.

The shot is real effective, and I think he has more runway to unlock it as his game develops further. The next leg of development for Leo’s offensive game will be getting to places on the ice where he can get his shot off, because the game IQ is clearly there.

Leo’s game is just really well-rounded. He’s quick, he plays with tenacity and works incredibly hard in all 3 zones. He was extremely effective as a penalty killer, and I think he is a very natural fit in RPI’s bottom 6 while the rest of his game develops further. He’s willing to make contact below the goal line and forechecks with a lot of effort. His game might not have the highest offensive flash and ceiling as a few others in the class, but Leo should force his way into the mix with the jam he brings to the lineup.

So Where Does the Roster Stand?

RPI (finally) dropped the official roster last week. Oh, by the way, I hope the Hurricanes-esque uniform graphic are the new home threads, because those are sweet. But that’s beside the point.

With the late departures of Shane Smith and Josh Evaschesen and the arrival of Leo Serlin, the Engineers are set with 28 guys. There should be a ton of competition for time throughout training camp, with only a handful of guys likely already locked into their roles. Candidly, we thought there was a bit of a glut of left wings that would be competing for time when the two aforementioned recruits were expected. Now, expect guys like Ian Scherzer, Caleb Hadland, Ben Yurchuk, and Luke Goukler to establish roles and stick in the lineup.

The forwards are harder to project, but my best guess at tiers is as follows:

Likely Top-6: Rainers Rullers, Filip Sitar, Jordan Gavin
Competing for Top-9: Matthew Buckley, Brendan Ross, Ian Scherzer, Luke Goukler, Ben Yurchuk, Caleb Hadland, Jagger Tapper
4th-Line Types: Alfred Lindberg, Ethan Bono, Harrison Lodewyk, Leo Serlin, Brad McNeil, Mat Bourgault.

And then the defense, which I’d be very surprised if it didn’t start out like this:

Burzynski-Sobieski
Klassek-Guo
Michael-Motew
Hilditch

Challenge me in the comments if you disagree, but that’s the way I see it to start. There should be plenty of competition for roles as camp gets underway and I can’t wait to see the team hit the ice next month. Congrats to Leo and his family, we’re excited to see him suit up in the Cherry and White!

In part 1, I examined the recruiting and on-ice formula for success for small schools. What I purposely left out is the resources aspect and how that plays into recruiting and roster retention. I didn’t leave it out because it’s not important (in fact, it’s the opposite), but because I wanted to keep it narrowed to specifically the traditional parts of a hockey program. First, let’s go over the basics of the recent changes that have fundamentally changed college athletics.

NIL (Name, Image, and Likeness)

NIL essentially just means that players can now make money using the fact they’re student-athletes. Beforehand, they were not allowed to star in commercials, do autograph signings, etc. For the past few years, they have been able to do that.

However, what this ended up turning into in actuality is groups of donors, called collectives, paying players to play for the school. The collective essentially acts as a proxy for the school to pay the player. This has now mostly changed though with the introduction of the House Settlement, which allows schools to just pay the players directly. There is definitely supplemental NIL in addition to the direct payments, especially in football and basketball, but the method of money going to players doesn’t really matter as much as the amount.

House Settlement

The house settlement is a settlement to an NCAA lawsuit that led to a number of changes in college athletics. For a full breakdown of it, here’s a good article that lays it out. For a more college hockey focused breakdown, Mike McMahon did an excellent job there as did CHN in their recent report on the money in college hockey. Schools can opt in to the settlement and the rules that follow, but they don’t have to.

There are two main parts to the settlement. The first is increasing the scholarship limit from 18 to 26 while also implementing a 26 player roster cap. This is just an increase to the maximum number of scholarships to 26, but a program doesn’t have to fund that full 26. The second is allowing schools to revenue share with players in the athletic department with a maximum of about $20 million for the entire department.

Most college hockey programs don’t have that kind of money at their disposal. The top spenders are going to be the P4 schools who have somewhere from $500k to $1 million to play with each year for their roster budget.

This example from BC shows how they distribute their revenue sharing budget. Hockey obviously falls into the 5% of everything else, and they will only get a portion of that.

Per CHN’s report on the money that I linked before:

The Big Ten schools and Boston College are ready to play in the big pool, with budgets anywhere from $500,000 to $1 million. It’s not clear if Notre Dame is doing that yet for hockey, but will need to.

Not all of that will necessarily come from rev share, by the way, since those big schools need to spend so much on football programs. But a lot of it could come from the rev share pool, with some still supplemented by the NIL collectives.

Whatever the case may be, the overall pay package to players, if you add it all up, will be in that high range.

Most schools won’t have nearly that much to play with though. The baseline for competitive programs is in the $200,000 to $300,000 range, depending on the conference the program is in. A Big Ten team probably needs $500k minimum, but for the other conferences, the requirement to be competitive won’t be that high. Also from CHN’s report:

"If you want to be competitive, the standard is going to be around $250,000," said one athletic director.

In the grand scheme of college athletics, where some college football rosters are allegedly totaling $40 million, that’s not a crazy amount needed! Now, let’s get into specific aspects of the formula, and how the money ties into it.

Recruiting

Believe it or not, throwing money around doesn’t actually impact recruiting nearly as much as you would think.

A caveat to that is the high-end blue chip prospects. A program definitely needs a healthy amount of money available to be able to pay them right off the bat. The going price for a first round NHL draft pick is at least $75K and usually $100K+. The better the prospect, the more money required. Everyone has heard of the alleged $700K price tag for Gavin McKenna from Penn State. Porter Martone was allegedly in the $250K range for Michigan State last year. Could these numbers be inflated by media and the game of telephone? Absolutely. The point remains though that these prospects command money and a lot of it.

That doesn’t really matter for the small schools though because they were never competing for those types of prospects anyways. You don’t need the top NHL first round picks to win as Brad Schlossman laid out well here and as I said in part 1. Small schools are not landing blue chip prospects and have not been for well over a decade now. They have to land the older players and a handful of late round NHL picks. So how does the money impact the recruiting of these players?

The answer is truthfully not that much. Since these players are not the top prospects, the price tag isn’t as high, and that makes them easier to recruit and land. Going back to RPI, I’m not at liberty to discuss specifics, but there are incoming freshmen who turned down NIL/rev share money from bigger programs during their recruitment.

For the players not being offered full scholarships, the school cost can be a factor though. Using the Minnesota State and Quinnipiac examples from before, Minnesota State cost of attendance is about $37.5K while Quinnipiac’s is about $81.8K (my god). If a prospect is offered a half scholarship at both, that’s a major difference in the out-of-pocket expenses, assuming no academic aid or financial aid also helping with the cost. That definitely matters, and it’s likely more of an impact for these types of prospects where NIL/rev share money isn’t playing much of a role. The small schools that offer a lot of financial aid (like the Ivies) or academic aid can help mitigate the disadvantage in the athletic scholarships and direct player funding.

With the CHL opening up, there’s also more talent available than ever before, and the big programs don’t have enough spots on their roster to take all of them. As a result, lots of the older players don’t need to be given money beyond their normal scholarships. For the players that do want to be paid extra, a lot of schools move on because there’s enough talent available in that same tier that they can get a player at a similar level without money.

While money will certainly help any small school in recruiting, it’s not necessary to follow the recruiting strategy of older players. RPI currently is ranked as the 13th best incoming freshman class in the country by Neutral Zone, and they’re ranked 22nd by average quality of recruit. They did this without any money at their disposal to pay players.

Player Development

This is where there’s a big impact from paying players. The ability to pay players alongside no restrictions for the transfer portal has created a year-to-year free agency where any player can leave at any time for any reason. Tampering is rampant, with agents and schools in contact as early as December discussing transfers. There’s no such thing as planning rosters for 2-4 years out anymore; the only future planning that can take place is for the following season.

It’s the wild west, and the new landscape of paying players adds directly to it. A small school who develops a young forward now might lose them early after putting up 30 points as a sophomore. A big school will come along, offer them $50K to transfer and play on their second line, and off they go. It doesn’t matter that they were happy and playing a top of the lineup role; more often than not, they are taking that offer.

A lot of people say this is a lack of loyalty and an issue with today’s players, but I disagree and think that’s a short-sighted way of looking at it. Think about it like this. These players are usually between 21-23 years old, sometimes even older, and they very likely do not have a long-term NHL future. At best, they might have a career in the AHL or Europe. For those players, $50K for a year while still in college is a lot of money. If we were all in that same situation, I don’t think we would behave any differently.

It’s worth noting that programs can still invest in development facilities. Players want to play pro, even if that’s at the AHL level. If a program invests in strength and conditioning facilities, hockey development areas, and nutrition, and they also create an environment where players are treated as pros, that matters. Consistently sending players to pro hockey, even at just the AHL level, is huge. Players want to be developed into pro hockey players, and these details are still important for achieving that. The money matters a lot, but it isn’t the only part of the equation.

In part 1, I mentioned needing an elite coach to execute the formula. While that’s true, not even an elite coach will consistently overcome this money gap while developing players. Can they win a battle here and there to keep a player from transferring? Absolutely, and that happens frequently. Sutter Muzzatti had offers with NIL money from big programs to transfer after both his freshman and sophomore years that he turned down to stay at RPI with the old coaching staff. He only entered the transfer portal after the coaching change. As the old adage goes though, you can win the battle but lose the war. That’s going to be the case for any small school without the ability to pay players.

This easily is the biggest wrench in the plan for small schools competing. If they lose the really good older players that they have developed before they are upperclassmen, they are not going to be able to compete on the national stage.

How Do the Small Schools Compete?

The unfortunate reality in today’s landscape is that you need a budget to pay players. It’s the answer that no one wants to hear because everyone wants to believe that small schools can compete without it, but that’s no longer the case. My part 1 laid out the on-ice formula for competing, but the issue is that without money, schools can’t consistently retain the players that they develop to execute that formula.

The lucky thing that I mentioned before is that the money in hockey really isn’t that much compared to football or basketball. A budget of about $250K can keep you competitive, and overall, that’s not too much! The way I see it, there’s a couple of different ways to reach that budget in terms of donations. The first is the traditional yearly donations being scraped together from alumni. A $20 monthly donation from a group of 1,000 alumni gets you to $240K yearly. In the grand scheme, that’s not a lot of people, but obviously, that is easier said than done to find a group like that.

There’s another less traditional way to do it, but in my opinion, it is the better way to set up your budget. I think an endowment fund is the better way to operate if a school can get it set up. An endowment fund of about $5 million gets the school to the $250K yearly budget as the typical endowment uses about 5% annually of the funds and lets the rest grow. The benefit to this is it sets it up in perpetuity because the other 95% of the fund compounds and grows, so the 5% can permanently fund the player budget. If you have a mega donor, it also combats the donor fatigue because it’s just a one time donation.

This is extremely similar to the C. Lloyd Bauer endowment for RPI’s head coach position where the endowment pays for the yearly salary for the coach, as an example of how it can be set up. The difficulty with setting up an endowment like that is finding the donor with the money obviously. At an Ivy League school or tech school like RPI, it’s certainly easier than other small schools, but it is hard to get at any school. There are plenty of other ways to get creative and have the money, but these are the two main ways that come to mind.

One interesting creative path that the Ivies and others are attempting is setting up paid summer internships for their players as a form of this. CHN mentioned this in their report, and I’ve also heard about this through some sources as well. The thought process is that programs can use their vast alumni networks to set up their players with lucrative summer internships that pay them. This passes the Ivy League rules because it is a true summer internship, and setting it up through alumni connections is no different from how most normal internships work anyways. It’s pretty normal networking, but now it is with college athletes. I believe RPI and other programs with great academics have been working on setting this up too to try to find ways to compete in the money space.

If a small school does find the money, the way to manage it is pretty straightforward to me. They pretty clearly do not need the money to recruit older talent given the wealth of talent available now. RPI’s incoming class is evidence enough of this. Once they develop those talented players, they should use the money to retain them. If they can match those offers from big schools, they can likely keep the players, which allows them to continue with the talent and systems play needed to compete nationally. They still won’t keep every player; sometimes the alure of a big program with all the resources and brand recognition is too much to overcome regardless of the money. However, it shifts the balance from losing most top players and only keeping some occasionally to keeping most top players and only losing some occasionally. It’s a whole lot more manageable.

One arguable advantage for RPI and the Ivies is the top notch education. They can lean into recruiting good students who care about their education, and it can help with player retention. There is a reason that the ECAC consistently is one of the better conferences in terms of players transferring out. The double edged sword is that it definitely limits their player pool. RPI has lost plenty of players over the years because of transfer credits not being accepted, players not wanting to go to such a difficult school, and so on. Is it worth the trade-off? With today’s expanded player pool and the issue being more slanted towards retention rather than recruiting, it probably is.

The resources required to win have always been a debate in college hockey going back decades. The resources included have evolved over time, whether it’s paying players, having top notch development facilities, and on as you go back further and further in the timeline. It has always been agreed upon that a school needs a supportive administration to tackle the various shortcomings, whether it’s getting help from admissions to get players admitted into the school (something the Ivies, RPI and many others always have to deal with), getting the necessary funding needed for the program’s budget, etc.

If you want to come out of this feeling hopeful, small schools have always found ways to stay afloat throughout the decades despite whichever “resource” is the current hot topic. There also have always been at least a few who have managed to compete nationally with the best resourced programs in every era of college hockey. Maybe this one turns out to be no different, but there’s no doubt that the freedom for players to leave whenever they want for whatever reason when money is so accessible has created the most daunting challenge that the small schools have ever seen.

After the COVID year that saw 8 of the 12 teams in the ECAC take a full year off, people in the media thought there was absolutely no way to predict the standings for the 2021-22 season with any level of confidence. I disagreed with this. We knew generally how good the returning players were, even if we couldn’t predict how players would improve. We also know about how good incoming players are based on the junior league they played in and how they performed in that league before enrolling in college. It was this basis that sparked my idea to create a model to predict the standings, and I went ahead and did that.

The results immediately were great. The model was highly accurate and won a USCHO ECAC standings prediction contest that season. Over the years, I’ve made some small tweaks here and there, but I have noticed some consistent blind spots in the model that it has gotten wrong. Before we get there though, I wanted to do a retrospective of this past season and how the model did.

Quinnipiac

Projected Finish: 1st

Actual Finish: 1st

What I Said

Overall, Quinnipiac profiles as a national championship contender this season. They are projected to be the best team in the league by far with an elite offense and a similarly elite defense backed by the best returning goalie in the league. The only weakness is inexperience on the blue line, and that’s nitpicking to find an issue.

What Actually Happened

I was pretty spot on with Quinnipiac minus the goaltending situation. Throughout the year, they were a top 10 team, and they were also one of the best teams in the country in terms of puck possession and scoring chances.

The goaltending was the only weakness as both Matej Marinov and Dylan Silverstein struggled, which was unexpected. Marinov had a 0.913 SV% as a freshman and a 0.928 SV% as a sophomore. In the year before arriving at Quinnipiac, he had a 0.917 SV% in the USHL. Needless to say, it was a big shock that he dropped all the way down to a 0.898 SV% last season. Silverstein had a 0.912 SV% in limited time, but even that is not great behind the strength of Quinnipiac’s defense. This was the big miss by the model, but honestly, I don’t think it was foreseeable by the model given Marinov’s pedigree prior to the year.

Overall though, that didn’t hold the model back from getting it right with Quinnipiac since everything except the goaltending was exactly as predicted.

Clarkson

Projected Finish: 2nd

Actual Finish: 8th

What I Said

Overall, Clarkson has a lot of talent and depth, which should put them near the top of the league and in the mix for the NCAA tournament. However, they still have plenty of question marks. The forward group is extremely young and is full of CHL players. How will they adjust to the NCAA? If it’s not well, they could be in trouble. While it’s not as youthful, a similar question exists on the defensive side.

Lastly, and probably most importantly, the situation in net has major question marks. Can Soderwall transition well from D3? If not, can Rancier regain his Minnesota State form or was he just bolstered by their strong defensive system and his UVM play is more representative of who he is? Is Avakyan as good as his NAHL play suggests or did he just play well in a weak league and his WHL form is his true level?

I think Clarkson is probably a year or two away from being a no doubt NCAA tournament team again. This year though, I do agree with the model that they’ll overcome the youth question marks due to their talent, and that Soderwall will transition well enough in net to make them a strong team that either just barely makes the NCAA tournament or is just outside the field. They’ll be an interesting team to watch for sure.

What Actually Happened

Clarkson’s youth did indeed up being a big problem. They proved to be a talented but mercurial team. The highs were extremely high: wins over Penn State and North Dakota. The lows were arguably just as low though with losses to RIT and Canisius. At the end of the season, they did come together to play their best hockey and upset Quinnipiac in the ECAC Quarterfinals to earn a Lake Placid berth. However, there’s no doubt here that this was a miss by the model.

A couple things went wrong: the youth on the team and some injuries. First, the youth didn’t adjust as smoothly as projected, and I was rightly skeptical of the model assuming they wouldn’t miss a beat considering the number of freshmen slotted into key roles right away. Clarkson was actually solid offensively at 2.92 goals per game, and considering that Adrian Misaljevic and Mikael Huchette both missed practically the entire season (Misaljevic got 6 games and Huchette didn’t play any), they didn’t end up too bad there.

The real issue causing the model difference was the defense being well below expectations. The model projected the defense at 2.20 goals against per game, but they ended up at 2.92 goals against per game. Even though they were losing Trey Taylor and Kaelan Taylor, the model liked the returners enough to not project too much of a fall off, and the freshmen were expected to not be too high in the lineup. It also thought the goaltending with Shane Soderwall coming in would be comparable to the goaltending with Ethan Langenegger. Neither happened though. The defense went from 24.6 shots against per game to 26.7 shots against per game. In net, they dropped from a 0.909 team SV% to a 0.891 team SV%. While the freshmen defensemen weren’t in the top 3 in ice time, they were 4-6, and clearly that had an impact. Obviously, the goaltending wasn’t nearly as good either.

The frustrating thing with Clarkson is I kind of saw it coming. The biggest gap in the model has always been that I didn’t build in player progression. This meant that the model has long overrated teams with really large and high quality freshman classes while underrating teams with a lot of returning scoring. Clarkson fell very clearly into the former, but I’ve always just regarded it as an acceptable gap. I don’t think that any longer.

Cornell

Projected Finish: 3rd

Actual Finish: 3rd

What I Said

Overall, I have to agree with the model. Cornell doesn’t look to have the scoring talent that they have typically had in recent years, but it should be good enough. The real strength of the team should be the defense, which will keep them a top team in the league. I expect them to easily make it into the top 4 on the back of the defense. Nationally, I see them as a team that will probably be on the wrong side of the NCAA tournament bubble, but if they can outperform the offensive projection with guys like Castagna taking a step forward, they have a chance to slide into the NCAAs.

What Actually Happened

I was pretty spot on with Cornell overall. The defense was outstanding at 2.03 goals against per game, which was 3rd in the country. I was skeptical about Cornell offensively, as you can see, because I thought they had too many players who projected as middle of the lineup forwards rather than top of the lineup. As I said though, guys like Jonathan Castagna taking steps forward could make them an NCAA tournament team.

That’s exactly what happened. Castagna led the team with 34 points, Charlie Major developed well and took a step forward with 27 points, and Caton Ryan surprised with a 30 point freshman season to fill the gaps at the top of the lineup. With the needed offense at the top of the lineup, they were able to make the NCAA tournament, and they finished exactly where the model had them in the ECAC.

Harvard

Projected Finish: 4th

Actual Finish: 6th

What I Said

Overall, Harvard’s defense projects to keep them from truly regaining status as a top 20 team in the country. Their losses on the blue line keeps their projected improvement from the model pretty mild there, and while Charette was a solid goaltender as a freshman, he doesn’t project to be a great one yet. The offensive talent and model projection on that side means that their improvement should definitely bring them back into the top 6 of the league, and I agree with the model that it will carry them back into the top 4.

What Actually Happened

Harvard did jump into the top 6, but only at 6th place. They did not jump back into the top 4. The reason why was actually very straightforward, which I’ll get to. First though, the model got the defense right. It was about average, and Charette was solid but not great.

The main issue was not only a lack of player development, but all the top of the lineup players for Harvard actually performed significantly worse than the year before. A big factor driving Harvard’s offensive projection was their returning players. Mick Thompson had 32 points, Casey Severo had 28 points, Joe Miller had 23 points, and Ben MacDonald had 16 points. Every single one of those players dropped, and most of them dropped significantly. Thompson had 27 points, Severo dropped all the way to 18 points, Miller only had 12 points, and MacDonald only had 10 points. None of the incoming freshmen or other returning scorers stepped up enough to fill that gap even though there were a few with nice seasons. Unlike Clarkson, I don’t think this miss was really foreseeable. The defense was spot on, and the offense missed because all of the top players significantly regressed. That’s not really predictable for anyone.

Union

Projected Finish: 5th

Actual Finish: 5th

What I Said

Overall, Union’s combination of good offense and defense, without being elite in either, has them projected to be 5th. As I said at the beginning though, this looks like a good team, and they should be in contention for a top 4 spot. The model has them extremely close to Harvard, and I could see it going either way.

What Actually Happened

I’d say this was mostly accurate on Union’s part, although the team they were neck and neck with for 4th was Princeton and not Harvard. Union is a little bit tough to judge by the numbers because their strength of schedule was SO weak that it heavily inflated their numbers overall. They had 3.78 goals per game offensively and allowed 2.65 goals per game defensively to lead to 22 wins, yet they didn’t even sniff the NCAA tournament because of how weak the schedule was. They finished 26th in the NPI.

For ECAC-only numbers, they scored 3.23 goals per game and allowed 3.09 goals per game. Both those are pretty in line with what was expected. The offense was a bit better while the defense was a bit worse than the model predictions. Overall, Union was pretty clearly a hit by the model.

Dartmouth

Projected Finish: 6th

Actual Finish: 2nd

What I Said

First, the defensive production lost on the blue line is a lot. Only RPI, who got ravaged in the transfer portal after their coaching change, lost more defensive production. Dartmouth lost both John Fusco and Ian Pierce as mentioned in the offense section. This may not seem like a lot, but it’s the quality of their play that matters here.

John Fusco was excellent defensively in addition to his offense and represents a huge individual loss. Ian Pierce didn’t play the full season due to injury, but his defensive impacts were also quite good. The model may be overrating the defensive impacts of only two players, but they are big losses without a doubt.

The other main flaw for Dartmouth that none of the other top 6 teams have is in the goaltending department. I was high on Emmett Croteau last year despite his struggles at Clarkson, but last year, he was below average for Dartmouth. He has enough of a track record now that the model is going entirely off of his college play instead of including the very good USHL pedigree. And that college track record has not been good. If he can breakout, Dartmouth can for sure make me look silly, but he has yet to show a high enough level of play at the college level.

All of this results in a projected 0.31 drop in goals against average, which puts them in the bottom half of projected defenses in the conference. They will need improved goaltending and some defensemen to step up defensively to mitigate the losses there in order to outplay that projection.

Overall though, they are still very much in range to get into the top 4. They are not very far behind Union and Harvard in the projections, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they can be better defensively than expected. They’ll be a pretty competitive team once again.

What Actually Happened

I wouldn’t say the model was totally off base on Dartmouth despite ending up as the #2 team in the league. I was right when I said that Croteau could improve and make the model projection look silly. That combined with a couple of other factors were where Dartmouth was able to outperform the model.

First, Dartmouth’s player development was outstanding and far beyond the typical growth. Both Hayden Stavroff and Hank Cleaves doubled their scoring output to put up monster years. Those are obviously the main two and the most important ones, but there were others too.

Tying into player development a little bit, the defense did not actually decline at all. Despite losing Fusco and Pierce, Dartmouth did not miss a beat there. They went from 23.6 to 24.0 shots against per game, so they were still at around the same level of great defense. Eric Charpentier took another step defensively and was a dominant shutdown force for the Big Green. Colin Grable came out of nowhere to score 20 points in 35 games and had a +30 rating showing outstanding ability in both ends. The year prior, he only appeared in 19 games with 1 point and an average of 6:42 of ice time per game. That’s just an insane leap.

As I mentioned before, Croteau also took a big leap going from a 0.903 SV% to a 0.922 SV%, which was the biggest factor defensively.

I don’t think there was any single “miss” here by the model. There’s no way to predict that level of player development, and sometimes, you just have to tip your cap to the players and coaching staff for succeeding to that extent. The goaltending was a little bit more predictable, but it’s tough to blame the model for being skeptical when Croteau had not performed to the level of a good D1 starter prior to the season. All of these factors just combined to make Dartmouth not only a top ECAC team, but a top 10 team in the country.

Colgate

Projected Finish: 7th

Actual Finish: 7th

What I Said

Overall, Colgate needs to find some top end players to keep their performance from last year. They have managed to do this before and prove the model wrong, so it’s certainly not a foregone conclusion. I’m definitely skeptical though. The bigger issue in my eyes is that the defense projects to be below average and without a true #1 goaltender. That limits their ceiling a lot in a league where a lot of the middle teams are improving.

What Actually Happened

I’d say this was pretty on the money in terms of what happened. There were a few players who were close to being top end players but weren’t quite there. If Nagel had stayed healthy during the season, he probably would’ve qualified, but he missed a decent chunk of time. The biggest surprise in terms of top end players was the way Michael Neumeier struggled in his #1 minutes with a -28 rating despite having 23 points. Even with playing 27 minutes a night against tough matchups, a #1 should not be struggling to that extent. Lastly, the goaltending was indeed a struggle with both Andrew Takacs and Reid Dyck hovering around a 0.900 SV%. They landed right where they were predicted.

Brown

Projected Finish: 8th

Actual Finish: 12th

What I Said

Overall, Brown’s defense should keep them competitive this year even with the offseason losses. The offense has enough top end talent to score more than most of the bottom of the league teams even though the depth is pretty dire and will really hurt them. I think people are being a little too harsh on Brown after the offseason, and the model doesn’t have them that much behind Colgate. It’s possible they could surprise people even though their ceiling is probably limited.

What Actually Happened

Brown ran into similar issues as Harvard did with their top players regressing and not playing at anywhere near the level that was needed of them. Ryan St. Louis went from 29 points to 15 points, and Brian Nicholas went from 25 points to 13 points. Their talent was already lacking significantly with zero depth to speak of, and it was expected that those two would carry the load offensively. With those two falling that much, it meant their offense had practically zero firepower despite Ivan Zadvernyuk taking a jump up to 22 points. That was a major issue.

The other main issue was the huge drop in the team defensive play. The model projected Brown’s defense to be slightly above average like it had been the year before, but it totally fell off. They went from allowing 30.5 shots per game to allowing a whopping 36.8 shots per game. That’s a massive difference over one year, and it’s particularly confusing because Brett Bliss was the only real loss on the blue line.

Those were both massive gaps from the model predictions, and it led to Brown dropping all the way to 12th in the league. Similar to Harvard, I don’t believe it was predictable, and sometimes teams are just going to surprise in one direction or the other.

Princeton

Projected Finish: 9th

Actual Finish: 4th

What I Said

Overall, Princeton is a really vanilla team. They lack offensive talent and will struggle to score. The defense should be solid though and keep them competitive in most games. It is what keeps them in 9th above the other bottom teams in the conference. They have the potential to surprise if enough of the younger players step up, but they look to be a pretty plain team that will play a lot of low scoring games.

What Actually Happened

This was a miss by the model that should have been more predictable to me than it was. Princeton had the 4th most returning scoring in the conference, and they were not losing any key forwards up front. On the blue line, they were losing their #2 defenseman, but returning everyone else. Even though they were returning a lot, I looked at the players coming back who were solid but unspectacular and just didn’t see enough talent.

I should have realized though that the players would continue to take steps up. Usually, I feel that I’m pretty good at recognizing that and factoring it in mentally even though the model doesn’t, but I missed on that with Princeton. The model missing on that since it doesn’t factor in player progression makes a ton of sense. This is one that feels obvious in hindsight and again exposes a major blind spot of the model.

Now, even if the model did factor in player progression, Princeton still would not have been predicted to finish 4th. Like Dartmouth, their players and staff deserve credit for the big leaps a lot of players took. However, I’m positive that they would have been at least a little higher and not as big of a miss, and that’s still important.

St. Lawrence

Projected Finish: 10th

Actual Finish: 11th

What I Said

Overall, it’s really tough to see St. Lawrence rising out of the bottom 4 this year. Even with some pretty significant defensive improvement projected, it’s only enough to raise them to 10th. Offensively, they just don’t have the talent to really compete in the league and look like the worst scoring team in the ECAC.

What Actually Happened

The model was pretty much correct on St. Lawrence. The offense ended up being slightly better than expected due to the emergence of a lot of young players in the lineup, but it was only a slight difference. That improvement was counteracted entirely though by the defense not actually improving. It was the worst defense in the country in part because their 0.877 team SV% was also the worst in the country. Overall, there’s not too much to write about here because the model was right that they lacked talent, and the defense was even worse than projected (which was pretty bad!).

RPI

Projected Finish: 11th

Actual Finish: 9th

What I Said

There’s always some unknowns with a new head coach, but the first year in a new head coach’s rebuild is pretty much always a tough year. Even some of the recent successful rebuilds, such as Maine with Ben Barr, started out with single digit win seasons. Maybe Lang can buck that trend with so much turnover defensively and a new defensive system in place, but I think it’s unlikely to expect a team with so many new faces to vastly improve immediately on defense. Overall, RPI’s depth should have them competing in most games, but the roster needs a lot of work in future years as Lang takes the reigns.

What Actually Happened

This was also pretty spot on. RPI lacked scoring ability with the top scorer putting up 22 points, and then it fell to 18 for the next highest scorers. The depth was solid and usually allowed them to stay competitive within games. The defense still struggled with an entirely new system and a ton of young players seeing a lot of ice time, but it ended up being a bit better than expected. At the end of the season, the team really started coming together to execute the defensive system, and Krawchuk found consistency as the #1 in net. That allowed RPI to surpass the projection by a little, but ultimately, the model was right about the lack of talent in the first year of a rebuild with Eric Lang.

Yale

Projected Finish: 12th

Actual Finish: 10th

What I Said

Overall, Yale has a nice, young core to build around, but they still lack scoring talent and will struggle in that department. They need to do a better job recruiting to surround that core with better pieces. Even with big jumps from the young players, it will not be enough to be more than a below average offense. Defensively, Yale will need Stark to return to his freshman year form to have success, and their ceiling as whole pretty much lies with him.

What Actually Happened

This was another team the model was spot on about. The offense was below average despite having some nice young players on the roster. Defensively, Stark did not recover and once again struggled a lot. They ended up turning to Noah Pak to start more as a result, and while he was better, it still was not good. The defense was in the bottom 10 of the country. Honestly, the reason that Yale was 10th and higher than the model prediction had nothing to do with Yale being better than expected. It was pretty much solely because Brown and St. Lawrence were worse than expected.

Classifying the Teams

Breaking down the teams into categories, here’s how I see it.

Hits
Quinnipiac
Cornell
Union
Colgate
St. Lawrence
RPI
Yale

Unpredictable Misses
Harvard
Dartmouth (went back and forth on this one but the areas they outperformed weren’t really predictable by a model)
Brown

Predictable Misses
Clarkson
Princeton

Overall, it’s pretty good, but the predictable misses do have me kicking myself.

Tweaks Coming

In the past, I’ve avoided trying to model player progression because I wanted to make a robust model taking into account numerous data points. I tend to be a bit of a perfectionist. What I have realized though is that even a simple player progression model would be effective and better than not doing anything. As they say, “perfect is the enemy of good.”

Additionally, while my initial freshman projection model was fairly accurate, I have noticed it drift further from reality the past few years. Considering the model was trained on data from about 2016 to 2020, it makes sense that it would drift. This resulted in freshmen consistently being overrated in terms of how they will perform immediately.

Initially, I was okay with it when I realized it because I figured this would counteract the lack of player progression included in the model. However, very large freshman classes for a team with not much returning scoring or very small freshman classes for a team with a lot of returning scoring would clearly not even out. This is exactly how it played out with Clarkson and Princeton.

I refuse to let these obvious (and fixable) blind spots exist any longer though. Stay tuned for an upcoming post about player progression with my research findings there. I will also re-calibrate the freshmen projections to make those accurate in present day. This should elevate the model’s performance from good to great. These updates will be included in the model for the upcoming season, and I’ll describe them more in-depth when I do my yearly ECAC preview.

A few weeks ago, RPI picked up a commitment from ‘06 Defenseman Guerin Slezak to complete their blue line. Slezak is a left shot listed at 5’10” and 187 LBs who has been with Cedar Rapids in the USHL for the last 3 years. He was previously committed to Princeton and originally supposed to spend another year in the USHL due to injury issues. He tore his ACL in the 2025 playoffs and then tore it again in November when he was due to make his return. The likely reason that he is moving on from Princeton is due to the new 5 in 5 rule that starts the eligibility clock at 19 years old and then allows players up to 5 seasons of play. If Slezak went back to junior hockey for another season as an overager, he would only have 3 years of collegiate eligibility. By enrolling now, he gets 4 years.

Slezak missed all of this season due to his injury, but the season prior, he had 3 goals, 8 assists, and 11 points with a +12 rating in 61 games. The past 2 seasons, he also served as the captain of the Roughriders, showcasing his exemplary character and leadership. On the ice, Slezak profiles as a defensive defenseman. He has a strong stick, which allows him to separate players from the puck. His defensive positioning is always very good to prevent passes to the slot area and stop scoring chances. He is a well-balanced skater who keeps a tight gap and forces opponents to the outside. Lastly, he is very safe with the puck and rarely makes mistakes or turns it over. Overall, he will add safe and reliable play in his own end.

Slezak will join the Engineers this fall and slot in as the 9th D to start behind Hilditch and Heroux as he comes back from his injury. He will provide valuable leadership and character in the locker room while being a safe option in a depth role on the blue line. I’m excited to see him at RPI soon. Congratulations to Guerin and his family!

A mid-summer recruiting flurry saw the Engineers nab the last 2 pieces to its ‘26-’27 roster, including Chicago Steel forward Luke Goukler. Goukler is a very well-regarded recruit and former Merrimack commit who came available late in the cycle. My best guess is Merrimack wanted him to do another year in the USHL, whereas RPI can offer the chance to compete for minutes in the top-9 immediately. It makes all the sense in the world for Lang, who is eager to put as many young players as he can into intense competition. Goukler’s the type of kid you want to pick up, flexing strong USHL production, a brief stint with NTDP, a Central Scouting ranking, and elite prep numbers. I’m confident that RPI’s tight checking system will harden his game enough to be a very impactful ECAC player.

His Speed and Skill Pop

Goukler’s biggest asset is undoubedtly his speed, which I think matters more given the circumstances. The ECAC is a tight checking league; it always has been. Guys that lack physicality get pushed around. But Goukler’s game is effective because he is excellent in small spaces, and his explosive skating gets him to those spots.

Look at how fast he pounces on a pocket of open ice, and before you know it the puck is in the net. He hasn’t fully reached his potential and rounded out his game in my view, but he’s intriguing to me because that skill is hard to teach. Lang is an elite player developer, and I’d rather see him nab prospects that have this ability and rely on his experience to help them fill in the gaps.

If you watch any of these clips, watch this one. Look at how quick he is getting out into open ice and making something out of nothing.

The Shot is Good but Can Be Developed

That last clip illustrates how Goukler really can tuck it under the cross bar with ease. He doesn’t need long to get the shot off and his release is super quick. However, I think his game slightly skews on the pass-first side, which is why the goal scoring production hasn’t been crazy. I think he’s at his best when he lets it rip and would love to see him do it more.

Miscellaneous Thoughts

It’s hard to really see how good his game IQ is without a full slate of tape to review. I think he has more physical skill/traits than most recruits I’ve watched, but the biggest factor is always the brain. If he can process the offensive game, I think he gets really good.

He needs to add weight. While he’s good in small spaces, puck transportation is essential to his game and he needs the strength to not get knocked off it. I think he will be one of the biggest beneficiaries of the college weight room regiment. His game should look way different at 6’0 & 195 lbs than at 5’11 & 177 lbs.

Luke had a 6th round ranking from Central Scouting in 2024 and went undrafted. He played games for NTDP and developed with the Steel, two of the most prominent junior hockey organizations in the world. It’s not lost on me that Merrimack sniped a recruit from RPI at this time a year ago and now it’s seemingly come full circle. He’s got some development to do, and it might not happen immediately, but I do think Goukler can get really good. Another strong 4-star pickup from the staff, who seems entirely focused on adding youthful talent to this team. Welcome aboard Luke!

Hockey season is right around the corner, and RPI once again rolls out a roster smattered with new faces. 15 new Engineers will join the squad to be exact. This deviates a bit from the build through the draft, roster continuity approach that was promised, but I think it was necessary for quite a few reasons. We’ve spoken at length about the quick turnaround time for roster assembly last offseason, leading to a mix-and-match portal cycle. Second, this was a transformational recruiting year for the program. On our offseason pod, I equated it to uncovering a gold mine and needing to grab as much value as you possibly could. Thus, a lot of new faces, which gives us plenty of fodder to pontificate about, which is just about all we can do this time of year! Let’s look at how this roster shapes up and assess what seem to be the obvious strengths, question marks, and unknowns.

The Highs

Forward Depth

To borrow a baseball analogy, last year’s forwards had a lot of doubles, but Lang and Schneider went swinging for the fences up front this offseason. The 6 forward recruits are very high end and all of them have the chance to be top line or top 6 players at this level. Yurchuk and Ross have a history of scoring and the talent to thrive in the ECAC. Sitar, Rullers, and Scherzer proved they can produce here last season. I think McNeil and Bourgault are the only two guys who won’t see time on the scoring lines, and that is absolutely nothing against their games. It just goes to show that RPI has an abundance of forward talent that will be competing neck-and-neck for ice time. Iron sharpens iron, so this competition should be exactly what Lang wants to expedite player development.

Centers

Just like Dave Smith, Lang likes to recruit centers. Lots of them. Once again referencing baseball, centers are like shortstops, who have incredibly high game IQ and can play anywhere. Sitar and Rullers are a real good 1-2 punch, and from there you have options. Lodewyk won draws at nearly a 65% clip in the WHL, and I am sure he will stick in the middle. Lindberg, Scherzer, Yurchuk, Smith, Evaschesen, and Bono all have spent time at center. Lang has no shortage of options.

Emphasis on Hard Skill

I think it’s really easy to recruit a highly skilled team or a hard-working team. But I think it’s really, really hard to build a team that does both. RPI’s secret sauce is going to be building it like Cornell, Quinnipiac, and other teams that thread this needle so well. This team is building the right way and consistently adding talented players that are hard to play against. I think this year will be our first glimpse of what this looks like inside the new system.

A Very Athletic Defense

Take one look at Eric Lang’s best teams at AIC and you’ll realize that he loves athletic defenseman that can quickly break the puck out. This asset drives his system’s transition game and helps his teams get opponents stuck on their heels. He is starting to pull this together here, with a combination of quick skaters and skilled puck handlers. Michael, Guo, and Burzynski all have this in their game which will pair nicely with the returners in Sobieski and Klassek.

The Holes

It’s still super early to project how this thing comes together, and I think it’s actually a very well-rounded group. But for the purpose of the exercise, here would be my question marks on paper.

Defensive Depth

I think the defense is fun and exciting, but it’s young and could yield a variety of results. I thought last year’s unit was about as safe as you could get, with Sobieski and Klassek the bright spots, surrounded by a group of steady but unexciting veterans. 4 of those guys departed, making way for 3 freshman and likely one of Simon Motew or Landen Hilditch to take the final full-time role. I’m on the record saying that if this group can be retained and developed, it will be a top 2 defensive unit in the league in 2027-28. In the meantime? There might be some growing pains for a unit of guys in which none of the players have more than 1 full season of NCAA hockey under their belt.

Who are the go-to guys once again?

I love the depth on this team and think they will roll out 4 lines that can produce goals. I do think though, that they again lack players that opponents will be circling on the line charts. This is incredibly understandable; Lang needs some time to recruit and develop them. And we have also seen freshman step right into that role before, even as recently as Sutter Muzzatti, Tyler Hotson, and Felix Caron. I just think their goal is going to have to be to score with depth and wear teams down with effort until some of the freshmen have grown into true scoring threats.

It’s a very, very young team

RPI is slated to bring in 11 freshmen, which to my math will easily be the most in the ECAC. Only Ethan Bono, Alfred Lindberg, and Brad McNeil are slated to leave the program come next spring, which sets this team up to be very youthful. My view is as follows: This is clearly by design, as Lang felt there was more talent in juniors recruiting than the portal and it fit his program building culture better. He clearly knows this team will be inexperienced but thinks this approach will yield a more exponential success in years to come than recruiting solid, but safe 23-year-old transfers will.

The Unknowns

Goalie Development

Nate Krawchuk came on incredibly strong by the end of the 2026 campaign. For a kid originally recruited by the last staff and not given the starting role initially, it’s hard not to grade his freshman season an unequivocal win. How much is in the tank though? Can he be a top 3 or 4 goalie in the ECAC? Can Ethan McCallum push him in year 1? McCallum was good not great last year in the WHL but was invited to Toronto’s camp a few weeks ago. Krawchuk struggled to give them back-to-backs down the stretch despite having the hot hand. I think this young duo is formidable and has lots of potential, but how far can they take the Engineers in 2026-27?

How will all the WHL recruits translate?

This will be year 2 of the CHL-to-NCAA transition, and year 1 produced mixed results to say the least. Hockey pundits are still fleshing out their definitive league rankings, with most grouping the OHL and USHL as tier 1, with the WHL a close 3rd.

Year 1 CHL Translation

For a team with 8 WHL recruits slated to come in, the data illustrated in this piece disappoints me just a bit. It’s still very early and will take years to truly rank the recruiting prowess of each junior league. But, as this data suggests, you can expect all the point-per-game recruits coming in to produce roughly 0.37 of their point total last year. Only time will tell what leagues are most desirable to spend most of your recruiting time in. But for now, RPI’s high reliance on the WHL being a reliable feeder will be something to monitor.

Parting Thoughts

I tried to call it as fair as I could in this exercise, as I genuinely think RPI is close to great things under Lang despite still being in transition. This roster is young with only 3 seniors, but it is inherently more Lang’s which should excite fans. All of these players are here for a reason, most were recruited by this staff now, and most will be a part of his first true core of talent here. Even if the Engineers are a year away, expect this season to be much more revealing of what Lang’s program will look like.

RPI’s last 2+ decades have created lots of questions about what the program’s ceiling is and whether the program can realistically compete in this new era of college athletics. I wanted to write this article to layout if RPI can compete nationally with all the changes to the NCAA, if so, how they can do it. However, before even getting to all those changes and their impact, the way to win generally as a program is important to go over. This also isn’t just applicable to RPI; it’s the same for every small school out there.

What I (and many others I assume) have discovered over the years is that there’s a clear recruiting and on-ice formula that small schools have to follow in order to compete nationally. This is the formula that Quinnipiac has been following to be a top program nationally the past 5 or so years, and it’s also the one that Minnesota State followed under Mike Hastings during their excellent run. These are the two main examples I use since these are the two programs that I feel perfected the formula, and that’s why Quinnipiac was able to win it all while Mankato made it to the title game (and had a 3rd period lead that they gave up).

What this article won’t be focusing on is the recent NCAA landscape changes and the effect of that. Those matter a lot, and there will be a follow-up article (a part 2 if you will) about how you follow this recruiting and on-ice formula as a small school while disadvantaged by those rules. For this article though, let’s breakdown the recruiting and on-ice system.

Part 1: Recruit Top Older Players

At a school like RPI or even Quinnipiac, you’re not getting top prospects who are top NHL draft picks. When Brandon Pirri came to RPI, it was an entirely different era. That’s not going to happen again barring RPI getting a major upgrade in facilities and the ability to pay players, and even then, it is quite unlikely.

It is possible to get some mid to late round picks, and I’d say your ideal roster has a handful of these players. Quinnipiac brought in Elliott Groenewold as a true freshman last year and Ethan Wyttenbach this year, as examples, and usually has somewhere around 5-6 draft picks on the roster. Minnesota State had Nathan Smith on the roster when they made it to the National Championship in 2022. Cornell had Morgan Barron on their excellent 2020 team and has typically had a handful of mid to late round picks on the team. There’s plenty more examples, but you get the idea.

However, the majority of your roster is going to be made up of older players who have played at least 2-3 years of junior hockey (even a lot of their drafted players fit this bill and didn’t enroll until 19 or 20). They still have talent and skill, just not as much, but they are older and more experienced. Traditionally, these have been players that are playing multiple years in the USHL or BCHL.

These are players like Zach Metsa and Ethan De Jong on Quinnipiac’s national title team. Both are skilled, good players who played leading roles on that team, but they’ve both primarily only played in the AHL to this point with Metsa only just now getting NHL games. For Mankato, they had Ryan Sandelin and Julian Napravnik among the leaders of that national runner-up team in 2022. Those are just a few examples, but both programs have been littered with these types of players that come to college older, develop and become excellent college players, and then top out in the AHL or European leagues most likely.

Obviously, you also have to do a good job developing these players once they get to campus, but you can’t compete for national championships without great players. You have to recruit the players and then develop them. It has been a big challenge finding and keeping players of that caliber, even when they’re older, for small schools in the past.

However, it has now become a whole lot easier. With the rule change to allow CHL players to play college hockey, there is more talent than ever before to recruit. All 3 major junior leagues in Canada are high quality leagues. The consensus is the WHL and OHL are both on par with the USHL, if not better, while the QMJHL is a bit below. They’re all high quality leagues and clearly in the same ballpark talent wise. Not every player in the CHL will play college hockey, but the talent pool is nearly doubled from this. That’s huge for any small school. There’s so much talent that it’s going to introduce more parity as more schools recruit these talented older players that are now available from more than just the USHL and Junior A in Canada.

That’s why during the coaching change last year, I kept mentioning the ability to recruit the CHL as incredibly important for the next coach. With RPI’s location and league, they should be able to thrive at recruiting the CHL. They need to recruit players that contribute in these leagues and are coming in after 2-3 years in order to compete. While the staff ended up shifting to the WHL instead of staying more local with the OHL and QMJHL, the point is that the quality of these leagues are all stellar, and you need great players to compete. Good players come from everywhere, but most of the good players will be in the USHL, OHL, WHL, and QMJHL.

This is the most important part of the formula. You can’t win without good players, no matter how good your scheme and system are.

Part 2: Play a Strong Puck Possession Game

Puck possession for these small schools has to be the bread and butter for how they play on the ice. While still talented, they don’t have these high-level, blue-chip NHL prospects. Those prospects can break open a game by themselves by dangling through the defense and beating the goalie, or cutting to the middle and ripping one under the bar. They can create scoring chances from nothing, so the blue blood teams with more of these players don’t need as strong puck possession to score and control the game.

Small schools don’t have that luxury. While the older talent is still good and can score pretty well too, it’s a different level. They need sustained possession in the offensive zone to take over games and win a lot. Even more importantly, when you have the puck a lot, it means your opponent doesn’t have it and can’t score.

Quinnipiac has been absolutely elite in this regard during their reign, and Minnesota State was the same way under Hastings. They both were consistently top 5 in the country in close corsi percentage, which is a great measure of puck possession. For those that don’t know, corsi is just a measure of all shot attempts, and the percentage of shot attempts a team has is roughly how much possession they’re controlling. Close corsi is adjusted for score effects and only takes into account when the games are close at even strength. This is because teams that are losing in games tend to start throwing everything at the net in desperation, and it often skews the numbers, especially as it gets later in the game.

Both schools have been absolutely elite at possessing the puck, and that’s a big part of how they both have consistently been national championship contenders.

Part 3: Defend the Slot

This falls under puck possession to a certain extent, but I do think it’s distinct enough to mention separately. A hallmark of the Minnesota State teams were the way they defended the slot and made their goalies’ lives easier. Quinnipiac is the same way. Both teams have had good goaltenders, but their numbers have been a lot better than their talent level because of how well they defend. Call it the Dryden McKay effect. He would consistently have shutouts making less than 20 saves because of how good the defense was, and he had great numbers for his entire career because of it despite having only an ECHL career in the pros to date.

Both programs particularly have defended the slot well and prevented high danger chances. Only allowing around 20 shots is outstanding defending on its own, and out of those shots, very few of them would be big scoring chances. This smothering defense has been a trademark of these teams, and it is shown by their extremely low expected goals against numbers.

Expected goals is a measure of shot quality. Every shot has a chance of going in, but obviously shots taken in the slot or near the net have a much higher chance of going in than a point shot. Using historical data, every shot is assigned a percentage chance of going in based on the location and situation. That percentage is the expected goal value for that shot (e.g. a shot with a 30% chance of going in is worth 0.3 expected goals). You can sum up those expected goals over a game, season, etc. to see how well a team is playing in terms of earning or allowing dangerous shots and scoring chances. Quinnipiac and Minnesota State have consistently been elite in expected goals against per game, meaning they defend at a high level.

Both teams have had those elite suppression numbers lead to outstanding results in the actual goals department too.

To be competitive on the national stage as a small school, the team defense has to be elite at preventing dangerous scoring chances and keeping the puck out of the net. The recruiting from part 1 even plays into this because the older and stronger players make it more difficult for the younger, more skilled players to get to the dangerous areas. Defending the slot is a huge part of the blueprint.

Part 4: Control the Neutral Zone

The final piece to the puzzle is the neutral zone and transition play. Controlling the neutral zone is extremely important for any team in general because that’s what drives the rest of the game. The most dangerous opportunities come in transition and off of turnovers. Being able to generate off the rush and defend the rush is a big part to keeping the possession and game tilted in your favor, so a lot of this ties into the previous topics. I thought it was still worth mentioning though.

Think of it this way: if a team can enter the zone with possession, they’re able to start their offensive zone sequence immediately and look to attack the net. Since not all players on the other team are back in their own zone yet (typically), that also means there is more time and space to work with. If they are forced to dump it in, they start the sequence without the puck and have to spend the time and energy winning races and puck battles to earn possession before attacking. The time spent doing this also means that typically all the players on the other team are now back in the zone, which takes away space. If a team can do this well offensively while preventing it defensively, it’s pretty much always going to lead to good possession, chance generation and chance suppression.

Looking at controlled zone entries per game, the trend is clear here too. Controlled zone entries are zone entries either through stickhandling or through passing because the team is entering the offensive zone with control and possession.

Typically, the most skilled teams tend to be the best here, so it’s not totally shocking that the two programs were typically more in the 6-10 range rather than top 5. They’re not recruiting the blue-chip prospects with elite skill as noted earlier, but they’re still getting the talented older players with a good skill level. Then, they play to their system perfectly.

Unfortunately, data is not available for preventing controlled zone entries on the defensive side, but given everything we have analyzed, I’d be willing to bet that it would look similarly excellent. Both programs have controlled the neutral zone to tilt the possession in their favor and help contribute to also generating and preventing dangerous scoring chances.

The Formula

The formula for competing nationally with the chance to win a championship is clear. You need high-level recruiting of older players, great player development, and a system that effectively prioritizes puck possession, defending the slot, and controlling the neutral zone in order to maximize that talent. It sounds a whole lot easier than it is, and there’s a reason that ECAC, CCHA, and Atlantic Hockey programs are hardly competitors on the national scene. The coaching needed to execute this has to be elite; it cannot only be very good. Both Mike Hastings and Rand Pecknold are unanimously top 5 coaches in the sport for a reason.

They are elite in all of these areas. Recruiting, player development, and systems execution are all areas where they excel, and a small school coach cannot afford to be missing in even a single area. That’s hard to do; even really good coaches in college hockey tend to be slightly behind in at least one area. It takes a truly elite coach to excel in all of them and build a nationally competitive program. For the RPI fans, I think Eric Lang is one of these rare caliber of coaches after what he was able to do at AIC, winning 4 straight league titles for NCAA tournament berths with ZERO resources. Building them up to do it once or twice is one thing, but the ability to keep them there for so long is truly astounding. His accomplishments there were genuinely unreal.

The good news if you’re a small school fan? The blueprint is obvious, and I can practically guarantee you that every single coach at a small school is trying to replicate it. With the plethora of talent available now because of the CHL, it has never been easier to execute on the recruiting front of this. The depth of talent means there will be increasingly more parity in the sport. After that? It’s a matter of player development and system execution. Personally, I don’t think the small schools are dead. I think we will continue to see at least a couple per year with a legitimate shot at winning it all like a Quinnipiac or Minnesota State. The biggest blocker to there being more small schools competing is the transfer portal and ability to pay players. Stay tuned for part 2 for how small schools will have to navigate that in this new era of college sports.

A month ago, RPI picked up a commitment from ‘07 forward Kieran Witkowski. Witkowski is a LW for the Brampton Steelheads in the OHL after being selected as a 2nd round pick in the 2023 OHL Draft. This season, he had 14 goals, 20 assists, and 34 points in 62 games, which led the team in scoring. Brampton was in a rebuilding year and missed the playoffs after losing many talented players. Next year, they should be more improved, and Witkowski will be one of their top players and leaders.

Witkowski profiles as another speedy, competitive, and skilled forward that the coaching staff has frequently sought out. He plays with pace and uses his speed to get to the net and scoring areas. His speed also allows him to carry the puck through the neutral zone and create zone entries. He is a north-south player with a high compete level that adds energy to his team every shift. He is a great forechecker who regularly wins the puck back to keep possession for his team. Witkowski also can create offense through his playmaking and shot. He plays on the flank on the powerplay “where his puck movement and one-timer allow him to excel.” He’s got a pretty well-rounded skill set, and his main area to improve before getting to Troy is improving his processing ability to make quicker and better decisions with the puck to create even more offense.

Witkowski will return to Brampton in the OHL next year where he should play a leading role for them and wear a letter. He should improve to a near point-per-game level or even better and continue playing a clear top 6 role with power play time. This will be great for his development, and he will come to RPI in 2027 ready to make an immediate impact, likely in a 3rd line type role given how young this year’s team is and the amount of talent that is expected to return. Long term, Witkowski has top 6 potential on the wing. I’m very excited to see how he develops until he enrolls at RPI. Congratulations to Kieran and his family on his commitment!

Shane Smith’s late April commitment to RPI is big for the program in nearly every way. It’s the cherry on top to an absolutely outstanding recruiting class put together by the staff, one that has earned commitments from six 4-star or better recruits. After the surprise departure of Tyler Wallace, RPI needed another big body in the top 9, and they’re getting just that in Smith. Smith is a big, physical power forward with an excellent shot. He has a knack for the net, which culminated in 33 goals this year in the WHL. Shane brings a lot of junior hockey experience, and his combination of size and skill should be exactly what the Engineer offense needs. Not only is he very talented, but Shane also won the 2026 WHL Humanitarian of the Year, showing that he is an extremely high character kid to add to the program.

Elite Scoring Ability

Smith can absolutely rip it. I could sit here describing it, or you can just see it for yourself in this video.

In all seriousness, RPI’s forward group is littered with playmakers, but it badly needed a guy that can bury chances. Last year’s team really lacked players with this skillset, and Wallace’s departure only made matters worse. Gavin, Hadland, and Yurchuk are all pass first players, which makes Smith’s role really necessary and easy to define. Smith was the missing cog in the wheel, and his scoring and physicality should sew this unit together nicely.

Smith’s offensive game isn’t only about his wrist shot though, he has a genuine willingness to go to the most contested ice and score greasy goals. In the WHL, he excelled on the powerplay nearly everywhere. He has the size and physicality to play in front of the crease but has stick skill to go with it that allows him to play on the half wall and score on a one-timer.

High Compete and Physical Tools

Smith plays a very well-rounded game, which makes me confident that he’ll be a standout college player. I think his forechecking is really good and he consistently hunts pucks in the offensive zone. Despite having a college ready frame at 6’2 and 205 lbs., Smith has above average speed too. He’s not necessarily going to win a foot race, but he can really use his speed off the rush and to get into high percentage scoring areas.

I don’t think there is anything more frustrating than a big-bodied player that doesn’t use his physicality. Smith isn’t an enforcer by any means, but he certainly uses his force to push guys off of pucks and win battles along the boards. This physicality is what really pushes his game over the top, as the combination of speed, size, and shooting makes his offense a lot to handle.

Smith’s game is so well-rounded that there are nearly no weaknesses to clean up. At times his defensive game lacks a little intensity, and he lacks explosive skating, but those are nitpicking. Shane might not be an all-league type at RPI, but he projects as a very, very dependable top 6 guy for RPI.

2026 WHL Humanitarian of the Year

I’d be remiss not to give Shane his credit for the work he has done off the ice. This graphic is from his nomination, but Shane was actually selected as the recipient of the award this spring. Smith’s niece suffers from CMV, so Shane donated $25 to the Canadian CMV Foundation for every point he scored in the 2025-26 campaign. His contributions have been truly incredible and are a testament to the character he possesses.

Article on Shane's Work

Smith brings an incredibly well-rounded game to RPI and has a real knack for the net. Shane can play center, but with RPI’s wealth of centreman, I expect him to start on the 3rd line LW. Congratulations to Shane and his family, and we look forward to seeing him in Troy soon!

About a month ago, RPI picked up a commitment out of the transfer portal from right shot defenseman Logan Heroux. Listed at 6’2” and 206 LBs, Heroux comes from Ferris State where he served as the 6th D for them the past two seasons with an average of 13 minutes a game. His first season at Ferris State, he had 14 points, but he dropped down to 4 this year. Prior to Ferris State, Heroux had two good seasons in the NAHL with 76 points and a +56 rating combined across them.

Heroux plays a mature style with a diverse skill set to fill a variety of roles. Offensively, he is excellent on the breakout and was described as “a breakout machine” by Neutral Zone. He “easily carried the puck and sucked forecheckers to him before passing the puck off. He used his partner well and hit the center over and over.” He has some skill in the offensive zone as well and loves firing the puck on net. Defensively, he uses his size to clog lanes and keep a good gap. Overall, his well-rounded skill set will let him play any type of role and in any situation.

Heroux will arrive at RPI this fall with two years of eligibility remaining. He projects as a depth defenseman who can play in all situations and fill in up the lineup if injuries hit. He will compete with Hilditch for the 7th D role and provides a bit more offensive upside than Hilditch while Hilditch is stronger defensively. They will probably mix and match the two of them depending on the opponent and situation. Heroux provides experience and stability on the backend, which will be important for a very young Engineers team this season. Congratulations to Logan and his family!

At the end of March, RPI picked up a commitment from ‘06 Goaltender Ethan McCallum. Listed at 6’4” and 202 LBs, McCallum is a 3 year WHL veteran who played for both the Saskatoon Blades and the Penticton Vees this season. Between the two, he had an overall 0.907 SV%, which was tied for 5th in the league among qualified goalies.

McCallum is a big, athletic goalie with very quick lateral movement and the ability to make highlight reel saves. He does a good job staying square to shooters and controlling rebounds. His ability to see the puck through traffic is also impressive. The main thing for McCallum to improve is his angles; he can tend to be deeper in his crease because of his size, but that will be taken advantage of by more skilled players. He can also overcommit sometimes and could use some improvement with his reads. Overall though, McCallum is a high quality goalie due to his size, athleticism, and rebound control. He has all the physical tools needed, and the areas of growth are mental with his angles and reads, which can be developed with more reps.

McCallum will enroll at RPI this fall and add a quality goalie to tandem with Krawchuk. While Krawchuk has definitely earned the net to start the year, McCallum is good enough to push him and compete with him for the #1 spot during the season, especially since Krawchuk did struggle with back to backs at times. It will likely start out with Krawchuk as the 1A with the majority of the starts and McCallum as the 1B, but it’s not an open and shut case for the season by any means. It’s easy to envision the two of them locking down the net for years to come, and that is now a very stable position for the Engineers. I’m excited to see McCallum in net for RPI this fall! Congratulations to Ethan and his family!

Eric Lang’s transfer portal recipe is starting to feel pretty obvious to anyone paying attention: find highly skilled East Coast players who were just a step away from a major role on a successful team. Former Merrimack Warrior Ben Yurchuk fits this to a tee. Yurchuk played for the Chicago Steel prior to Merrimack and has been a high-skill, point producing type of player everywhere he’s gone. He found himself just on the outside of the Hockey East champ’s scoring lines and thus came available in the portal. Lang has been on a quest to find some natural skill to complement some of the tight-checking types he had in the locker room last year. Yurchuk has it, it’s just going to be about slowing the ECAC game down enough to utilize it.

Elite Hands and Natural Skill

After watching his tape from MC and the Steel, I left pretty convinced that he’d be playing at BC or BU if he were 5 inches taller. Yurchuk’s speed, hands, and IQ jump off the page immediately upon turning on the tape. He is so crafty maneuvering around defenders and has outstanding speed. The creativity in the offensive zone stands out to me too, he is just so patient and always seems to make the right pass. It looks as if he has the puck on a string while dangling through the neutral zone. He plays with an elusiveness as a forechecker and offensive player that is highly translatable and effective. Yurchuk’s dynamic game can truly drive offense and flip puck possession in his team’s favor.

Playmaking

As I alluded to before, his vision is simply top notch, and he is at his best with the puck on his stick. Some players simply don’t have that level of talent where the game slows down for them on the attack, but Yurchuk undoubtedly has it. He plays the game on the edge, but I found that more often than not he makes the right play.

So why didn’t it translate to college right away?

We’ve seen this happen with this archetype of player before. Highly skilled, often smaller players that were elite in prep and AAA, with high point production in the USHL that then struggle as Freshman in tough conferences. RPI has had a mixed bag recruiting this type of transfer, although I’d say it’s been more good than bad. TJ Walsh, Chase Zieky, and Brendan Budy are 3 that come to mind. The college game is clearly more physical, faster, and experienced than junior hockey, which can cause a slow adjustment for some guys. The ECAC is a heavier, tighter checking league than Hockey East, but it generally has less skill (although not always true). Yurchuk may struggle with the physicality of the league, but I also think his offensive ability will shine where it’s a bit of a dime a dozen in Hockey East. He is going to need his speed to be the difference maker and use it to find gaps in heavy ECAC defenses.

Intangibles

The biggest thing that holds Yurchuk back is his size and defensive ability. At 5’8, 170, he just doesn’t give you much in your own end and lacks the physicality you covet. That’s not to say that smaller forwards haven’t had success here, as quite a bit of his game calls Jacob Hayhurst to mind for me. I just think you know what you're getting with Yurchuk, and he’s likely not coming in to improve the defensive tenacity. He does have top-notch speed though, which when combined with his great stickhandling should help RPI possess and move the puck.

Yurchuk is a former top 10 pick in the USHL draft and was committed to Northeastern for a time, suggesting that the pedigree is absolutely there. I think the big question with this commitment is if the game slows down enough after another year and in a new conference. If Yurchuk’s possession and playmaking skills can shine through, then RPI just found a diamond in the rough.

Congrats to Ben and his family! Let’s go red.

Back in the beginning of February, we reported that RPI picked up a commitment from ‘06 LW Jordan Gavin. Listed at 5’11” and 180 LBs, Gavin was one of the top prospects in all of Canada for his birth year as a teenager. He’s had a long and winding path to get to where he is now, which we will get to in a bit. This year, he played for the Brandon Wheat Kings in the WHL where he had 16 goals, 42 assists, and 58 points in 68 games. Let’s take a look at his path given how unique it is.

Before the WHL

Gavin was a prolific scorer in U15 hockey with his high-end skill and elite hockey sense. He put up a whopping 24 points in only 6 games when the season was shortened due to COVID. This led to his selection as the #2 overall pick in the WHL draft following the season, behind Berkly Catton who just played out the full season with the Seattle Kraken in the NHL as a 19 and 20 year old. He also was selected ahead of Charlie Elick, a 2nd round pick for Columbus, and Roger McQueen, who was taken in the top 10 by Anaheim. That should give you an idea of the type of can’t miss prospect he was at age 14.

Since the WHL does its draft a year earlier than the other junior leagues, the players who are picked don’t join their team full time until a year later. Gavin played his age 14-15 year old season at the U17 level, where he again put up ridiculous numbers despite playing up an age group. He had 48 goals, 57 assists, and 105 points in 28 games! Players are still allowed to get a handful of WHL games as an affiliate player at that age, and Gavin played 9 games with the Tri-City Americans after turning 15 years old.

The 2022-23 Season

Gavin was able to join Tri-City full time in 2022 despite still only being 15 at the start of the season due to his late birthday in November. Despite his age, he was immediately a dynamic player in the league with 54 points in 62 games, which is extremely impressive for a 15-16 year old playing in junior. That was 3rd in the league in points for U17 players, and he was only 1 point behind Berkly Catton and Ryder Ritchie despite being younger than both.

He was as good as anyone in his age group, and that was evidenced by his selection to Team Canada Black for the World U17 Hockey Challenge. Joining him on the team were Macklin Celebrini, Sam Dickinson, Zayne Parekh, and Lynden Lakovic just to give a few names.

The 2023-24 Season

While most of the players in his age group were in their draft year this year, Gavin was not yet because of his November birthday. He started off the year playing for Team Canada in the Hlinka-Gretzky Cup as one of Canada’s best U18 players and as part of an absolutely loaded team that included 16 top 3 round picks, 10 first round picks, and 7 top 15 picks! He took a backseat to all of that talent, but the fact he was on that team shows he was in that conversation.

Gavin lit up the scoresheet again during the season although he didn’t take a huge jump in production. He went up to a point per game with 68 points in 68 games, which was 8th in the league among U18 players and still an elite mark for his age. Among players who were not yet draft eligible though, he was 2nd in the league only behind Gavin McKenna. He ended the year as a clear NHL draft prospect and one of the top prospects in western Canada.

The 2024-25 Season

Entering into his draft year, Gavin had a statistical profile in line with a clear first round pick. However, he wasn’t looked at as a first round pick and top NHL prospect anymore heading into the year due to questions about how his game would translate up levels. He was viewed as more of a top 3 round pick in the preseason. Scott Wheeler had him listed in his honorable mentions in his preseason top 32 rankings.

The NHL downgrades undersized players unless they have elite skating and compete level to go along with elite production. When Gavin’s production started stagnating during the year, his status as an NHL prospect fell alongside it. In the NHL Central Scouting October watch list, Gavin was rated as a C prospect, meaning projected for rounds 4-5.

In November, Scott Wheeler ranked him 59th in his rankings, but as the year went on, Gavin fell out of Wheeler’s rankings entirely and didn’t make his final top 100. In NHL Central Scouting’s midterm rankings in January, he came in at 123rd among North American skaters. In their final rankings in April, he was unranked and did not make the cut out of 224 skaters in North America. Obviously, he ended up going undrafted after finishing the season with 57 points in 68 games.

Scott Wheeler’s report in his November rankings do a very good job in explaining the slide and the question marks surrounding him, in my opinion.

Neutral Zone had an in-depth NHL scouting report on him last year as well, which also explains why scouts saw shortcomings in his projection.

This Year

That all brings us to this year, where Gavin stayed at around the same production level with 58 points in 68 games with the Brandon Wheat Kings, and he will again go undrafted in the NHL draft this summer.

To be clear, this isn’t meant to have a negative slant whatsoever; it’s just adding context on how a former top prospect in all of Canada ended up going undrafted and is now slated to attend RPI this fall. To be quite frank, RPI basically never lands players of this stature and raw talent, and it was a huge recruiting win to beat out some big programs to land him!

From watching Gavin, he is clearly a dynamic player, especially with the puck on his stick. He has high-end skill with outstanding hands. The puck is practically on a string when it’s on his stick, and he can dangle defenders regularly. He also has a great shot and can finish his chances with an accurate wrister and a pretty good one-timer.

The main strength of his game though is his absolutely elite IQ level. He processes the game at a high level and always seems to find impossible seams and passing lanes (seriously, watch those highlight videos). He then executes those passes easily with his skill. Gavin also has excellent decision making with the puck and creates scoring chances frequently in the offensive zone with his reads.

Another example of his incredible hockey sense is his ability to stay out of the box. He went 3 YEARS without taking a penalty in the WHL. When taking his first penalty in 3 years, the WHL felt they had to record a video to make note of the incident, which was a delay of game penalty. In total, Gavin record 10 penalty minutes in his entire WHL career, which was 275 games!

Fit at RPI

Gavin will enroll this fall at RPI and will likely slide immediately into the top 6 at LW. He will be one of the most naturally gifted players to ever don the Cherry and White, and his skill and hockey sense will instantly boost RPI’s scoring ability at the top of the lineup. He has the ability to be one of the top freshmen in the league, and I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if he’s on the All-Rookie team at season’s end. He is going to come in with a chip on his shoulder to prove the NHL scouts wrong and show that he can add more strength, pace/speed and competitiveness, and he will have every opportunity to do that at RPI. I can’t wait to see him suit up for the Engineers. Congratulations to Jordan and his family on his commitment!

Simon Motew’s path to RPI has been an unconventional one, and one that college hockey fans 10 years ago wouldn’t have been able to fathom. Motew hails from Highland Park, IL, just like former RPI center Zach Dubinsky. He was a standout for the Chicago Mission in AAA, before moving up to Ontario to start a great career with the Kitchener Rangers. Motew played 4 seasons in the OHL and was highly successful, but aged out prior to the NCAA’s inclusion of the CHL. He spent 1 year at St. Francis Xavier in USports where he was very good, before transferring over the border after the rule change to Ben Barr’s Maine Black Bears. Motew fell out of the lineup for Maine and now comes to RPI in search of regular minutes. There is a lot to like about Simon’s game, and I think RPI is a great place for him to develop with his final 2 years of NCAA eligibility.

Dependable, 2-Way Game

Motew plays a very reliable 2-way game that is so coveted by Lang’s staff. He has good size at 6’1, 190lbs and even plays a bit bigger than that with his physicality. What intrigues me most about Simon’s play is his ability to defend attackers looking to gain zone entry, as his size, speed, and long reach make him very difficult to gain entry on. He uses this reach to keep attackers to the outside and then move play back towards the neutral zone. He has above average speed for a defenseman of his size and seems very comfortable with the puck on his stick in transition. There’s clearly some offense in the tank too given his offensive output in the OHL and at St. Francis Xavier.

Developing Offense

Motew has produced points at every level except for Maine, with most of his offense coming as a blue-line facilitator. He has good speed and passes it well, thus I expect him to benefit from a slightly slower pace of play in the ECAC. I’d like to see his processing and deceptiveness at the blue line improve to get to the next level. I don’t expect him to see a primary offensive role at RPI, as Sobieski, Klassek, and Burzynski figure to get the lion’s share of PP time on the back end. However, he is skilled enough as a 2-way that he can help out on both ends.

This pickup pretty effectively threads the risk-reward needle that makes sense for the program right now. What I mean by that is, the team is in transition and is looking for high upside players that can be pieces to build with. You just saw 4 defensemen leave for the portal in an effort to get younger and more skilled. Motew has the upside to fit this theme, and his OHL and Hockey East pedigree is attractive even if he hasn’t found a collegiate home to stick at thus far. However, the defensive unit is also going to be very young, and Motew is 23 with a lot of hockey under his belt. In some sense you are getting a safe bet to balance the youth, but there seems to be more upside here than with some of the other options that were on the table.

Motew seems like a solid pick-up to me with the chance to earn a major role. He has attended Senators and Canadiens development camps, and is clearly well regarded in hockey circles. What he needs right now is ice time to develop, and RPI has room to provide that for him. Sobieski will garner the most minutes on the right side, but it seems Motew, James Guo, and Landen Hilditch will be competing for the last 2 spots. Congrats to Simon and we look forward to watching him this coming fall! Let’s go red!

College Hockey’s black Monday is nearly complete, with 253 players headed to the transfer portal according to Gopher Puck Live. The portal gives as much as it takes, depending on where your favorite program’s resources stack up against the rest. The Engineers have actually fared okay in the portal with the exception of last year’s coaching change, and day 1 brought some much-expected turnover. 9 Engineers headed to the transfer portal as the clock struck midnight, most notably senior forward Tyler Wallace. Wallace’s departure is unfortunate, but most of the other changes were likely the choice of the coaching staff. RPI nabbed one commitment today from Providence forward Brendan Ross. Ross played sparingly for the Friars in 2025-26 but had a productive freshman season at Alaska before transferring to Providence. He will have 2 years of eligibility left and look to regain his freshman year form at RPI.

Game Breakdown

Ross has all the physical tools you can ask for and has a pedigree of scoring in junior hockey. He is 6’3, 200 lbs., and skates well with a long stride. His hands are above average, and he effectively dekes around defenders to gain space in the zone. The shot looks highly effective to me and resulted in 47 goals in his final junior season for the Blackfalds Bulldogs. Ross has the tenacity to fill bottom 6 minutes for the Engineers, but he has the type of game that could break out into a much bigger 2-way role.

He’s had an interesting and tumultuous path from Blackfalds to RPI. The Bulldogs were one of the teams that left the AJHL for the BCHL in 2024, and Ross remained very productive after the move. His freshman year in Alaska was productive (3-11-14) and clearly Providence saw something in him to pry him away from Fairbanks. The Friars earned a late commitment from Roger McQueen which pushed Ross out of the top 9, and Providence’s complete lack of injuries held him out of the lineup this year. Obviously, you would like to see him have made more of an impact for PC, but they had a very deep forward group and undoubtedly the best 4th line in college hockey. Ross was the odd man out, and heads to RPI looking for the chance to produce in the top 9. At the very worst, he should be able to provide something on the 4th line.

Departures

9 Engineers headed for the doorway this morning in search of a new opportunity.

Forwards: Tyler Wallace (35-9-9-18), Cole Gordon (34-1-2-3), Jack Gorton (12-2-0-2), Jackson Kyrkostas (12-0-2-2)

Defense: Lucas Lemieux (20-1-1-2), Matthew Jovanovic (2-0-0-0), Gunnar VanDamme (33-0-5-5), Gustavs Ozolins (34-1-2-3), Jimmy Goffredo (25-1-4-5)

First and foremost, we’d like to thank all these guys for their contributions to the program. With that being said though, Wallace is the only one I’d make anything of. I expect him to move up a level and try to play a similar top 6 role on a program that’s further alone. Lemieux was a good recruit and flashed some but clearly was recruited over in favor of Burzynski and Michael. Gordon, Gorton, and Kyrkostas will go looking for programs where they can play more. Lang alluded to Jovanovic moving on due to injury concerns on the podcast last week. Lastly, Ozolins and Goffredo have played a bunch the past 2 years but are likely being recruited over too.

If there are no more entries, RPI’s depth chart looks roughly as follows:

Gavin-Sitar-Buckley
Evaschesen-Rullers-Tapper
Hadland-Scherzer-Ross
Lindberg-Lodewyk-Bono
McNeil

Burzynski-Sobieski
Klassek-Guo
Michael-Hilditch

Krawchuk
McCallum
Bruveris
Dorfman

I would not expect Bruveris back and expect 2-3 more forwards and defenseman to come in. Players have 2 more weeks to enter, but I would expect the bulk of the entries will be done by tomorrow or Wednesday. Congrats to Brendan and let’s go red!