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.

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.

Since we haven’t recapped in a few weeks, I am going to try to cover my bases here with all the recent matters of the program that we have been tracking. RPI has a month left to go in the regular season, with all their remaining games coming in the ECAC.

Rome wasn’t built in a day, and we have been very upfront about that with you all season. I think a lot of the fans we interact with who were the most outspoken about wanting a coaching change got a little out over their skis expecting overnight results. These overnight rebuilds are certainly happening much faster than they used to before the portal, but that was never really in the equation for RPI this year. It took a long time for Eric Lang to be chosen, at which point the best players on last year’s team were already in the portal. There have been bright spots this year, none bigger than the incoming recruiting class shaping up to be RPI’s deepest since the classes of 2018 and 2019. Public announcements about HFH renovations this offseason are encouraging, as has been the marketing for the team, which we have long called for. Our internal goal here at The Field House was 10 wins and/or home ice in the ECAC first round, both of which RPI has some work to do in order to achieve. Let’s dig a bit deeper:

Mayor’s Cup & Last Weekend

None of us are local right now and due to the lack of streaming (why…) we weren’t able to see any of this game live. Nonetheless, this one stings about as bad as a loss can. Coach Lang called it one of the most crushing defeats and most surprising finishes of his career. It would have been a great one to have to gain some traction locally, in a rivalry that has been totally one-sided in the past decade plus. Lang seems hellbent on changing that narrative, and this one could have been planted a flag in the ground. Listen to the very end of his presser… “As our program builds and gets pretty good, and then we’re going to get frickin’ really good and you can take that to the goddamn bank”. Yeah, I’m all in.

This past weekend at Harvard and Dartmouth was the exact synopsis of the ‘25-’26 season. Great effort, low scoring, not enough puck possession and shots on net, and not enough goals.

It is what it is at this point with this team, and I do agree with Lang that they will be a tough out in the playoffs. Krawchuk has proven that he’s capable of stealing you one, and the team can clearly play with anyone. They just can’t score yet, and that’s going to take time through recruiting and development.

Remaining Schedule

RPI has at least 3 very winnable games, albeit they are all on the road. I think 3-5 is doable, and then hopefully a playoff win to get to double digit wins on the year. That is my hope…

Recruiting Corner

Evaschesen on fire lately in the WHL.

Michael —> Evaschesen. More of that to come in Troy!

Ryan Michael committed to the program in January, and we will have a piece out shortly detailing that one. His high-IQ, 2-way game will be an immediate plug and play on the left side.

Leo-Gabriel Gosselin gets time in the QMJHL.

Gosselin is just an ‘09 birth year, meaning he has a ton of time to develop. His rights were recently traded from Chicoutimi to Baie-Comeau in the QMJHL, notoriously a top program in the league. He has been called up a few times recently and is gaining solid experience in the league this year.

A very happy new year to everyone, and what a crazy year it was for the RPI men’s hockey program. We’ve documented it all here, and we hope you have enjoyed the coverage. To wrap up the year and to thank everyone for their support, we wanted to turn it over to you guys and take in some mailbag questions. Here are our best thoughts on your pressing questions surrounding the program:

Will Matthew Jovanovic see more playing time in the second half of the season? - Toga

Stephen: All along the plan was to bring Jovanovic along slowly and gradually get him back into the swing of things. After all, he went 4.5 years without playing a single competitive hockey game. Now that he has played a couple of games, we do expect that he will start seeing some more ice time as the season goes on. When he has played, he’s looked pretty solid, and he has clear talent with his size and skating ability. One thing that Chris has also said about him is that he also just seems to have very good feel for the game. He’s probably not going to be an every night player, but we expect he will play more than 2 games in the second half. He is a player we’d circle for an offseason breakout, but it probably won’t happen as soon as the next few weeks.

What’s it going to take for RPI to turn its season around in the final 16 regular season games? - Ed

Stephen & Chris: Honestly, this probably isn’t the answer that you’re looking for, but RPI isn’t going to turn this season around. Rebuilds are a process, and RPI is very early on in it. The team simply isn’t good enough to turn around the year to finish in the top 4 of the league. If it did happen, it would be driven by excellent goaltending by Krawchuk in net and improvements from the top 9 forwards who have not produced much like Wallace, Buckley, Tinling, Rullers and Tapper. A reasonable goal for the 2nd half would be to build enough sustainable momentum to earn home ice in the ECAC playoffs and/or win a playoff game.

Is Coach Lang still living in a hotel room? - John

Stephen: This is a funny question. As far as we know, yes. Keep grinding Coach… it’ll all be worth it.

Is RPI going to recruit out of the ECHL like some of the other NCAA schools are doing? - John

Stephen: This is pretty doubtful. First of all, this is probably going to be only a one-year thing. All the former pro players currently in the NCAA (or being added to rosters midseason) are former major junior players who never got to take advantage of the rule change. Current major junior players can just go directly to the NCAA. Second of all, the players that have been added to rosters were late adds to replace last minute departures. Arizona State lost Cole Spicer in the summer and thus had a spot to fill, which they used on Jack Beck. Quinnipiac lost Ben Saunderson, who decided to go to USports instead, and they filled his spot with Graham Sward. The midseason addition of Mats Lindberg for Colorado College is because they lost a defenseman, Max Burkholder, for the season due to injury. RPI doesn’t have any long-term injuries that we are aware of, so this is highly unlikely. Expect Lang & co. to continue targeting the CHL for the roster overhaul.

Prior to the season, I had expected RPI to be able to score in bunches but struggle defensively. It now seems as though that may have been too optimistic. What do you see as the primary reason behind the scoring struggles (roster, system, something else)? - Brown Hockey Blog

Stephen: This team was never going to be one that was dynamic offensively, but we did expect them to score more than this. Depth was supposed to be the strength of the forward group, while the lack of top end talent would hold them back. So far, it has played out like that. However, the depth hasn’t been quite as strong as expected, and the top 6 is scoring even less than expected despite already being viewed as a weakness. Dovar Tinling and Jagger Tapper have taken steps back production-wise compared to last year, while Tyler Wallace and Rainers Rullers haven’t scored as much as expected going into the year. That’s about it; they need more production from the top 6.

Looking beyond the raw results. Do you see this year as a net positive, negative, or neutral so far, given the massive roster overhaul and new coach/system needing to be implemented? - Mike

Stephen & Chris: Definitely a net positive. With all that you mentioned, it was definitely going to be a tough year, but we have seen a good system and nice flashes from some young players. We think the roster was collectively overrated by the fanbase in the offseason off the sheer hope that Lang was a miracle worker. There is a lot of pieces we like, young ones especially, but the group lacks firepower and that has held them back. 7-28 on this year’s roster is better than last year’s in my opinion, but they don’t have anyone of the caliber of Caron, Muzzatti, Gilson, and others from last year. This takes time to build, a lot of it has to come from juniors recruiting and is tough to just poach out of the portal for a school like RPI. The calendar year has been a massive win given the coaching change, I’d say the season has been about neutral or slightly above what I expected. In early 2026? The wins to look for are more HFH news, a strong 2nd half, and roster improvement in the portal.

Who on RPI is most poised for a breakout second half? - Anonymous

Stephen: Our answers are probably all different. For me (Stephen), I’d say Buckley; his metrics are excellent with tons of shots and chances generated. The puck just hasn’t been going in the net. With his shot, I expect that’ll return to the mean.

Chris: Tinling. He’s just better than what we’ve seen so far. I imagine he’s had to shoulder a lot as a Captain and one of the main guys trying to integrate the new players and establish a culture. He also has had to move off his primary position (center) and get established on the wing. Regardless, he is better than the 4 points he has turned in thus far.

I think Tyler Wallace will do more not just in the 2nd half but hopefully in his senior year here too. He has 4 goals and 4 assists at the midway point but has clearly been on RPI’s best play driving line so far. They are different players, but in terms of career production I have always comped him to Austin Heidemann as a reference coming from the Atlantic. Austin started slow moving up from Mercyhurst but grew all the way into RPI’s leading point getter in 23-24 with 27 points. I think Wallace can follow a similar track.

While we are all excited about the recent recruiting wins, what are you most looking forward to seeing from the team on the ice as the season continues? -Matt

Chris: For me personally, the systems that Lang has implemented have looked solid so far. They have been competitive with most of the top teams, the PK has improved significantly as have the goalies, and their breakouts are effective. The team just seems to lack the talent to possess the puck for long enough right now. Thus, I am focused on more individual improvement in the 2nd half and want to see some of the younger players grow into building blocks for the program as they think about how to attack the portal in the spring. It would take a lot of pressure off the staff in the spring if the likes of Buckley, Sitar, Sobieski, Rullers, etc. establish themselves as top-flight players that can be built around.

What is the status of the Field House renovation? - Michael

Chris: The school has definitely kept this buttoned up and we understand the fear of it just being something that is “in the works” forever and ever. To make matters worse, Union just unveiled their fancy new arena this fall right across town. We understand the frustration. I don’t know the exact dollar amount, but somewhere in the $5-$10 million range ($7 sounds right to me), is being put into the Houston Field House this spring. It is supposed to be for ice and board renovations, refrigeration, and other maintenance to the overall facility. At the golf outing this summer, they were showing mock-ups for the proposed overhaul of the facility that would be north of $50 million, for new seats, locker rooms, weight rooms, lounges, and a new lobby. In essence, this would be your shiny new arena that the fans could enjoy. The fact of the matter is that this is going to take some pretty big donors, even with hockey being a big priority to Schmidt and Bowers. I imagine Dr. Bowers is working hard to get fundraising efforts in order because it is in her best interest to add a revival of the hockey program and an HFH renovation to her resume as AD. I do take solace in the fact that Schmidt, Bowers, and Lang are all highly incentivized to get this done. For now, though, we’re in stay tuned mode.

Coach Lang said on Big Board Sports with Rodger Wyland last week that in Year 1 at AIC they had to put a team together, in Year 2 they got really young and in Year 3 they got really good. It seems he is following the exact same model as he looks to get this program up off the mat, and into a perennial contender. The staff seems hellbent on doing this the right way and not “skipping any steps”, and so far, I would argue we are right on track.

RPI is 5-13-0 at the break after starting 0-6, battling hard in the middle of the season to a 5-5 mark with wins over Union, Clarkson, and Lowell, and finishing with a disappointing weekend against Quinnipiac and Princeton. They sit 11th in a bunched-up conference, have picked up some huge wins on the recruiting trail, and are right about where I would have expected at this juncture.

Forwards:

I think the forwards are just about where I would have predicted before the season. The criticism before the season of the forward unit was that it lacked explosion in the form of a true top-line, and unfortunately that has played out. On the other hand, the unit did look to have some depth, which has also played out for the most part. Prior to the season, we tiered the group as follows:

Looking back, we were correct on the roles, I’d say the one exception has been Matthew Buckley sliding up and Tinling and Tapper coming down a bit. The bottom 6 has been productive as we predicted, and basically propelled RPI to a sweep two weekends ago against Niagara.

Filip Sitar and Matthew Buckley have been the biggest surprises on the good side. The question for Sitar was if the increased role would lead to more production, and I would say the answer is unequivocally yes. Buckley on the other hand was confusing because he had a huge year in the OHL in 23-24 but was a bit disappointing in 24-25. His production has cooled off, but statistically he has been RPI’s best forward on a Corsi and xG basis. Both of these guys are real building blocks that Lang must be eager to retain and develop.

To get where they want to go in the 2nd half, they need the returners to elevate so they can truly run 3 lines out there that can produce. Tinling, Rullers, and Tapper have been quiet, perhaps a bit snakebitten, but we all know what they are capable of. This has been the missing piece in the first half.

What I would call out here is RPI’s finishing ability was clearly strongest in the middle 6. They have generated at a somewhat similar clip, but in those middle games they converted the opportunities they had, whereas early on and recently they have not. A lot of this is skill driven and hard to coach, but it is still critical to winning. At the end of the day, it has to be a focus of the program right now to recruit players that help the team possess the puck more, because their margin for error is really small.

Defense:

Our conversation about the defense through the preseason was that they are young and will have growing pains, but that it should benefit the program in the long run. There’s definitely been some good and a couple guys have established themselves as building blocks going forward. For the most part though, RPI hasn’t possessed the puck enough and this hurts them offensively. This team under Lang doesn’t get caught in its own end the way they did the last few seasons, but they struggle to truly move pucks from their own end into the opposing zone for sustained offense.

The bright spots to me for me have been Thomas Klassek and Kaz Sobieski, two young guys who have a world of talent and should become excellent players here. Sobieski has clearly been the #1 guy for the Engineers and has been a mainstay on the top pair and PP unit. His defense hasn’t been perfect, but I think it will keep developing with time. I see a top pair of Grayson Burzynski (more to come on that one) and Kaz Sobieski for the next two years, and that gets me very excited. Klassek is also a work in progress defensively, but he skates very well and has offensive ability that you can build around.

The left side has been fine but lacks a standout, for the most part Gustavs Ozolins has filled a void on the top pair, but RPI needs more from that unit. Gunnar VanDamme started strong but has faded a bit, and Lucas Lemieux has been quiet to start. We thought Lemieux was a bit raw but had a huge ceiling coming into RPI, so hopefully his game elevates as the season goes on and helps this group. Hilditch and Jovanovic have played sparingly but I’ve liked what I’ve seen so far from both.

My question for the 2nd half? Do we see a full-blown youth movement or do the likes of Russell, Goffredo, and VanDamme elevate their games enough to force those guys to wait their turn.

Goaltending:

Teams live and die by their goaltending. It’s just the truth of this game. RPI’s has been all over the place to say the least, but Nathan Krawchuk seems to have emerged as the Engineers best option. This is encouraging given Krawchuk’s young age, and he has certainly shown flashes. Bruveris has had some good games but has been disappointing for the most part. Given Krawchuk’s age and the staff’s vested interest in his development, I expect him to be given the keys in the 2nd half to investigate what they have in him. Whether or not he is the long-term starter remains to be seen, but I think he has certainly proven so far that he is part of the puzzle.

Between the two of them though, the goaltending has been a lot better as the year has gone on. RPI basically outplayed Miami for the weekend, who sits at 10-6-2 in the NCHC, but goaltending let them down a ton. It has progressed dramatically and directly led to wins against Union, Lowell, and game 2 against Niagara.

Recruiting and Miscellaneous:

TFH Blog:

We will have posts out on these guys shortly, but it’s hard to wrap up the first half without touching on the recruiting wins RPI has gotten. Lang has said multiple times that some of their most important wins right now have to come on the recruiting trails, and that certainly came to fruition this week.

Lange in Austria

Assistant Coach Matthias Lange is coaching for Austria in the IIHF World Championships right now. Best of luck to Coach Lange!

Hecker Commits

We had a piece go out last week detailing Ryan Hecker’s commitment to RPI. He is definitely a few years away, but the aforementioned 4 players, Hecker, and Gosselin now bring the pipeline recruited by Lang to 6.

RPI is headed the right direction as a program halfway through the 25-26 season. This season was always going to be a transition, but I’d point towards programs in year 2 of a head coach like Miami and Princeton as reasons to be excited. It doesn’t take long to remake a roster in this era, and the systems that Lang plays all look very dependable. Stay the course as this thing slowly builds — we are on the right track.

It’s been an interesting start for the league this year. The top of the league has looked better than I thought they would for the most part, leading me to believe that the league could actually get back to 3 bids in the NCAA tournament. I would not have put any money on that at the start of the year, but the top 5 teams (in my eyes) are all looking quite good. Conversely, the middle of the league has been weaker than expected, which is an okay trade off. The drop off is something to follow over the course of the year because I bet we see a decent sized gap between that top grouping and the rest of the league. The bottom of the league has been pretty much exactly what I expected.

Brown

They had a rough opening weekend against Air Force on the road, but they’ve done pretty much what I expected since then. They beat Princeton and took Quinnipiac to OT before getting swept last weekend by Colgate and Cornell. The defense has been just okay to start, but Tyler Shea has had a good start to the year in net. I still expect the defense to be pretty solid.

The offense has predictably struggled greatly. As I broke down in my season preview, Brown lacks any sort of depth up front and is pretty much fully reliant on Ryan St. Louis, Brian Nicholas, and Ben Poitras for scoring. So far, those guys have not been up to expectations; Nicholas has the most points on the team with 4. They need more than that from the top forwards or else they’ll continue scoring only 1.5 goals per game.

Clarkson

By far the weirdest team in the league this season, and it’s not close. I don’t understand Clarkson, and I suspect no one does (including the staff and team themselves). I don’t understand how you beat Penn State on the road, beat North Dakota, and beat a solid Michigan Tech team, but you also lose to every Atlantic team you play and Lake State. I said before the season that Clarkson is such a young team that it wouldn’t be a surprise if they struggled more than anticipated. However, these are crazy swings and way more inconsistent than expected.

Clarkson has been struggling since the start of ECAC play too with 3 straight losses now. I suspect that Clarkson is the type of team that is going to be much better at the end of the year when their young players are more adjusted to the college game, but there’s no way this is a second place team like I predicted. They are way too inconsistent for that and are looking much more likely to end up in the middle of the league.

Colgate

Colgate is around where I expected them to be. In terms of individual results, they’ve had some surprisingly good weekends against BU and Maine. They got a tie against BU and beat Maine. They also took Maine to OT in the second game against them. They’ve also dropped games they were expected to win though. They were swept by RIT and lost to Canisius. They almost lost to Yale too, but they managed to come back in the 3rd period and pull it out in OT.

Overall though, my Colgate prediction is looking spot on. The goaltending is weak: Reid Dyck has gotten most of the starts and is struggling while Andrew Takacs has been very meh in his starts. The defense hasn’t been good due to that. The offense has been just okay: they are generating about the same number of chances as last year, but they aren’t finishing as well. Last year, Colgate’s finishing was very good, but it has fallen to average. I think that falls more in line with their true talent level than last year. I expect Colgate to continue at around this pace.

Cornell

They’re looking pretty good to start the year. I thought they would continue to be a very good team with strong defense and goaltending, but I was concerned about an average looking offense. So far, that’s been about right. The defense is excellent and has allowed 1.5 goals per game. Alexis Cournoyer has stepped right in and looked elite between the pipes. Offensively, they’re averaging just under 3 goals per game. I don’t expect the defense will continue at THAT good of a rate, so they will want to up their scoring to be a true NCAA tournament contender.

So far so good though for Cornell. They’re 4-2, and the only 2 losses are close ones against good teams in UMass and Dartmouth. Before the year, I thought they’d be just outside the NCAA tournament, but I think they’re better than that. As of now, I’d predict them to make the tourney.

Dartmouth

Dartmouth is starting to get some national hype due to the 6-0 start, but I would pump the brakes a little bit. They’re definitely a good team, but the current rate is unsustainable. Their PDO is currently a whopping 109.7 with a 15.2% shooting percentage and a 0.945 team save percentage. That’s not going to happen all season. Going into the season, I had them 6th due to the goaltending and defense. So far, they have been excellent in both areas. While the goaltending won’t continue at that rate, if it’s reliable, they are easily a top 4 team because that was the main thing holding them back. I think the defending is sustainable though, so this is a team that will definitely outperform my projection.

The real question for me is: how much will they outperform it by? It’s a tough one to answer only 6 games into the year. My gut right now tells me that they’ll be on the NCAA tournament bubble, and I’m not sure which side of it. They are doing an excellent job possessing the puck. Their close corsi % is 60.9% which is 7th in the country. My SNACC metric, which is a corsi metric that factors in Strength of Schedule, has them 14th. That’s the main reason I see them as a bubble team. The rest of it will come down to how good their goaltending and finishing ACTUALLY is.

Harvard

On the other hand, I think Harvard is super underrated right now. The national media hasn’t caught up to them yet. They are 4-1-1 right now with their only loss to Cornell, and they tied a very good UConn team. Ben Charette has been awesome in net, even better than the most optimistic people expected of him. They are scoring easily as well with contributions up and down the lineup. I’d absolutely have them ranked in the top 20

The main hole for Harvard is the defense. They haven’t defended well in front of Charette, and they need to be better there. He can’t keep bailing them out constantly. I think that will improve because the defense corps is pretty experienced for the most part, and their overall puck possession has been pretty good. If they improve that, they can make the NCAA tournament, but if not, they’ll be on the outside of it. I view them similarly to Dartmouth in terms of level.

Princeton

This is another team that’s pretty much right where I thought they would be (so far). They’re 3-2 against an extremely weak schedule with wins over Alaska and Stonehill and road losses to Brown and Yale. The stats look much better than predicted obviously given the record and showing some good scoring in goaltending in that stretch. Based on the losses to Brown and Yale though, it’s pretty clearly schedule driven, and once they start playing the quality teams, it’ll fall down. I still view them in that 8-9 range in the league.

Quinnipiac

Quinnipiac is not playing up to my expectations so far, but the underlying numbers are right where I thought they would be. They’ve gotten unlucky against Alaska (twice) and had a couple super strange losses to Merrimack and Yale, but they’re so good it is unlikely to matter. As usual, they are one of the top puck possession teams in the nation and generate tons of chances while limiting their opponents. They’re averaging 3.4 goals per game while allowing only 2.3.

This is still a no doubt NCAA tournament team that’s one of the country’s elite, a couple fluke results aside. The only real weakness is that they have not been finishing their chances well; they should be scoring even more than 3.4 goals per game. The goaltending has been only average if you want to nitpick too, but it hasn’t been an issue really. They’re the top team in the ECAC.

RPI

Entering the first year of a new head coach inheriting a rebuild, the results were expected to be bad, but RPI has picked it up as of late. They started 0-6 against an extremely tough non-conference slate, but they’re 3-3 in the last 6 games. They’ve found ways to get upset wins against Clarkson and Union in league and against UMass Lowell out of the league.

RPI still isn’t a good team even with these results. They don’t possess the puck well, they don’t finish their chances, and the special teams are poor. But they’re starting to show some flashes with good transition play, and Nate Krawchuk is heating up in net as a freshman. I think they’re still a bottom 4 team, but I have more faith in them than some of the others now.

St. Lawrence

This is a team that’s just as bad as expected. St. Lawrence is sitting at 2-9-1 despite playing a very weak schedule. They have little offensive talent to speak of and are scoring barely more than 2 goals per game. Defensively, they’ve been horrendous in terms of chances allowed, and Mason Kucenski has struggled in net. There’s nothing really positive to speak of here. They’re one of the worst teams in the country, and they seem even worse than I had them preseason.

Union

Another interesting team to me, but for different reasons as the others. Union has been great, but they have played the worst schedule in the country. Going 8-2-1 is great, but there’s a reason they are currently only 35th in the NPI. The question for Union will be: are they actually good or just a product of their schedule?

For me, the sweep of UNH and UMass Lowell was impressive; I think they’re actually good. Even though the schedule is weak, they also have been dominant against it. Their close corsi % is 3rd in the country, and in my SNACC metric, they’re 9th even with how weak the schedule is. They’re scoring 4 goals per game and allowing only 1.9. That’s about as good as you can ask for. They’re definitely in the top 4 mix with Harvard and Dartmouth, but they’re not an NCAA tournament option unlike those teams.

Why? Well, to be honest, Union totally screwed themselves with this schedule. It legitimately isn’t good enough to make the tournament even if they are good enough as a team. Going 8-2-1 and only being 35th is crazy. In order to make the tournament as an at-large, they need 25 wins. That means going 17-6 the rest of the way, and that’s not going to happen. You need to be a Quinnipiac or Cornell level of dominant to do that, and I don’t see Union being that.

Yale

It’s tough to make any real conclusions on Yale. Their win over Quinnipiac was impressive even though it’s clearly a fluke. Outside of that though, they got an OT win over Princeton, and then got swept by Colgate and Cornell. They are struggling offensively and defensively with 2.4 goals per game and 3.6 goals against per game. That’s about what was expected. One thing to watch for though is goaltender Noah Pak. They’ve switched to him away from Jack Stark, and he has delivered so far with a 0.934 SV%. Despite the deficiencies that are clear on Yale’s roster, if he can give them good goaltending, they can outperform the projection to be around 9th in the league. Otherwise, they seem on track to land between 10-12.

Updated Projection

I try not to overreact too much to a limited sample size, so I’m a bit hesitant to drift a ton from my pre-season projections. It’s tough to place the 3-5 teams in the right order. I decided I need to see Union beat a team better than 43rd in the NPI before I move them up higher, and I need to see Dartmouth maintain their goaltending for longer before I move them up higher as well. I think Quinnipiac and Cornell will make the NCAA tournament, and either Harvard or Dartmouth will. The top of the league feels strong enough to get 3 teams in, even if the depth is not there.

1. Quinnipiac

2. Cornell

3. Harvard

4. Dartmouth

5. Union

6. Clarkson

7. Colgate

8. Princeton

9. RPI

10. Brown

11. Yale

12. St. Lawrence

It’s no secret this year that the Engineers will be fielding one of the most inexperienced defense groups in the league. Four freshmen and two sophomores are part of the group, and only one player will be graduating following the year. There’s certainly talent there though, and I expect that they will probably start off a little rough and improve throughout the year. Let’s breakdown the group.

The Vets

Starting with the lone graduating player of the group, Trevor Russell transferred in from Michigan Tech this offseason after graduating there. He missed all of last season due to an injury, but the year prior, he played a key role on an NCAA tournament team as a shutdown defenseman. He is expected to be in the top 4 for RPI this season as well, and he brings key leadership and experience to the young group. Look for him to be the top penalty killer for the unit and to get frequent defensive zone starts.

The staff is really high on Gunnar VanDamme, who comes in from Alaska-Anchorage after two years there. He was their #2 defenseman last season. He has average size, but he’s a very good skater with smooth edges and good overall mobility. He is very good at breaking out the puck and will fit in well with Lang’s system. However, he is not physical and not the best defensively. He projects to start out in the top 4 for RPI, but with the talent behind him, I would not be surprised if he ends up being surpassed by the end of the year.

One of the lone returners from last year on the back end, Jimmy Goffredo is a two way defenseman. He’s a good skater and good at breaking out the puck. His physicality is an underrated part of his game as he is not at all afraid to lay down the lumber. Goffredo has been a mainstay on the 3rd pairing in his two seasons at RPI, and he projects to play the same role this season.

The other returner from last year, Gustavs Ozolins, is a physical, gritty defenseman. He’s undersized and lacks foot speed, but he is extremely intelligent and competitive. He had solid defensive results last season and should fill a 3rd pairing/depth role again this season.

The Rookies

Coming over from Austria is Thomas Klassek. Klassek is a two way defenseman with a lot of talent. He dominated Austria’s U20 league, and he has played a multitude of games in their professional league. He should be ready to play right away due to his experience facing such tough competition in the pro league, and he is expected to be a lineup regular right from the jump.

Donning the same #22 that his father Todd wore at RPI, Landen Hilditch comes to the Engineers after 3 seasons in the BCHL. Last year, he wore the “C” with West Kelowna before a trade to Penticton. He did struggle with injuries and only appeared in 24 games, but by all accounts, he is healthy and ready to go now. Hilditch is an exciting player due to his size and athleticism. He is listed at 6’4” and 200 LBs, and he has very good skating ability for that size. He is also physical and tough in front of his own net. The right side of the defense is pretty talented, so he might not be a lineup regular right away. He is good enough to be a shutdown defenseman in the top 4 long term though.

The X Factors

While these players could fall under other categories, it felt like they deserved one of their own due to the variability in their outcomes.

A BCHL second team All-Star, Lucas Lemieux is arguably the most talented defenseman on the roster. He is 6’4” with outstanding skating ability and great skill and offensive ability to go with it. He has the potential to be a top two way defenseman in the country and earn an NHL contract at the end of his RPI career. He is a bit more raw though than the defensemen projected to be ahead of him on the depth chart. I think his talent will win out, and he will get top 4 minutes by the end of the year. If he does that, it bodes well for RPI’s ceiling since there’s not another player with his skillset. However, he is probably going to be lower in the lineup to start the year.

Another transfer defenseman, Kazimier Sobieski has a unique path compared to the others on the roster. Sobieski played 5 games at UMass and really struggled before returning to the USHL. He was excellent in the USHL for the remainder of the year. He is a very talented offensive defenseman who should be in the top 4 on talent alone. However, his UMass struggles beg the question of whether or not his game translates as well to the college level. I think he’ll be a top 4 mainstay and the QB of one of the power play units, and I do think he will be much better here.

The Wildcard

Lastly, the biggest wildcard on the roster, Matt Jovanovic has had one of the most unique paths in college hockey. His last competitive game was April 24th, 2021 with the Des Moines Buccaneers in the USHL as a 16 year old. Since then, he has struggled with a variety of problems with hip injuries, but he has been back skating for almost a year now. He’s been working with an NHL group in Toronto and has looked good. The range of outcomes are extremely wide for him. He could never regain pre-injury form and only be a depth defenseman in his career. Or he could get back to the elite 16 year old form and become a top player in the country. He probably will fall somewhere in between, but he will be an exciting player to follow at RPI.

I’m told that Jovanovic is healthy and cleared to play. He will play his first game in 4.5 years tomorrow against BU. I can’t wait to see him and the rest of the team on the ice tomorrow, when RPI hockey starts this new journey! LET’S GO RED!

After a very busy offseason (at least for me as someone who covers RPI primarily), the new season is on the cusp! It’s time to dive into the ECAC and take a deep look at every team. I’ll once again be using my model to predict the standings as it consistently has driven pretty good results. An interesting wrinkle that I’m excited to see play out is the addition of CHL players. They add a little variance because it’s impossible to know for sure how they will translate to college hockey. The consensus is that the OHL and WHL are on par with the USHL (if not even a little better) while the QMJHL is behind those 3. Here’s what the model had last year (with the difference from the actual result in parentheses).

1. Quinnipiac (—)

2. Cornell (4)

3. Clarkson (1)

4. Dartmouth (1)

5. Colgate (2)

6. Harvard (1)

7. Union (3)

8. Brown (—)

9. Princeton (—)

10. St. Lawrence (2)

11. RPI (1)

12. Yale (1)

Pretty good results overall. Every team was within 2 spots of their prediction except Cornell, who was extremely unlucky early in the year before making a run in the playoffs that justified the preseason hype, and Union, who was actually the 6th best team in the ECAC by the pairwise. If you ranked the teams by the pairwise, the model actually did fantastic with every team within 1 spot. Now, let’s get into it for this season!

1. Quinnipiac (Last Year: 1)

The more things change, the more they stay the same. This is now the 5th season in a row that Quinnipiac has been predicted to finish in first place, and they have delivered every time. This year, they are absolutely loaded with a roster that looks like a national championship contender on paper. The gap between them and the #2 projected team is about the same as the gap between #2 and #7 to give you an idea of how highly the model views them.

Key Losses: F Travis Treloar (36 points in 38 games), F Jack Ricketts (27 points in 38 games), D Davis Pennington (17 points in 38 games), D Cooper Moore (14 points in 37 games), D Aaron Bohlinger (14 points in 32 games)

Key Returners: F Jeremy Wilmer (41 points in 38 games), F Mason Marcellus (38 points in 38 games), F Andon Cerbone (35 points in 38 games), F Aaron Schwartz (30 points in 38 games), F Tyler Borgula (25 points in 38 games), F Chris Pelosi (24 points in 38 games), D Elliot Groenewold (12 points in 38 games), D Charlie Leddy (11 points in 37 games), G Matej Marinov (0.928 SV%)

Key Newcomers: D Will Gilson (RPI), F Matthew Lansing (USHL), D Logan McCutcheon (WHL), F Ben Riche (WHL), D Brady Schultz (QMJHL), D Graham Sward (ECHL), D Nate Tivey (QMJHL), F Antonin Verreault (QMJHL), F Markus Vidicek (QMJHL), F Ethan Wyttenbach (USHL)

Offense

Returning Offense Rank: 1

Incoming Class Rank: 1

Projected Offensive Rank: 1

Last year was somewhat of a rebuilding year for Quinnipiac as they had lost a lot of top players and gave multiple freshmen significant ice time. This year, they return the vast majority of their roster and the most returning scoring in the league.

Jeremy Wilmer was outstanding out of the transfer portal with over a point per game. He was joined by Mason Marcellus and Andon Cerbone who had 38 and 35 points, respectively. Those 3 upperclassmen will be looked at to lead the offense again, and now, they’re experienced and should have no issues there.

While Quinnipiac did lose key forwards Travis Treloar and Jack Ricketts to graduation, they should have no issues replacing them. Last year’s dynamic freshmen trio of Aaron Schwartz, Tyler Borgula, and Chris Pelosi all had 24+ points, and they’ll be expected to take a step forward this year. Based on their junior hockey pedigree, all 3 seem well equipped to do so. That gives Quinnipiac 6 dynamic forwards all returning from last year’s team.

When you factor in their recruiting class, it’s easy to see why the roster is so loaded. Quinnipiac went all-in on the CHL and landed numerous high level players, all of whom project to contribute immediately. Ben Riche had above a point per game in the WHL with 74 points in 64 games. Antonin Verreault has absolutely dominated the QMJHL the past 2 years with 107 points two seasons ago and 85 points last year. Markus Vidicek had a point per game in the Q last year after posting 88 points two seasons ago and 80 three seasons ago. All 3 players would probably be immediately on the top line for the majority of ECAC teams, but they’ll have to fight to even be on Quinnipiac’s second line.

Players from the USHL absolutely should not be discounted though. Ethan Wyttenbach is young, but he had above a point per game in the USHL last year, which led to a 5th round selection in the NHL draft. Matthew Lansing probably will only start out as a bottom 6 forward, but he was selected in the 7th round after he had 27 points in 54 games.

I have no idea how Quinnipiac is going to get all these players ice time honestly, but they will have no issues scoring.

On the blue line, they did lose a trio of good players from the top 4. Pennington, Moore and Bohlinger all contributed offensively, even if none of them were elite. To replace them, Quinnipiac landed RPI transfer Will Gilson out of the portal after he led the Engineers in scoring. He will slide right into the top 4 and contribute at even strength and on the power play.

Quinnipiac does return a couple players who should be able to take steps forward to fill bigger roles. Elliot Groenewold had a good freshman year where he contributed well both offensively and defensively despite being a true freshman. Now, he will need to be a go to guy in all situations, which he seems capable of doing based on his pedigree. Charlie Leddy transferred from BC and was able to contribute more offensively for the Bobcats than the Eagles.

The other spots were all filled with more high level CHL players. Logan McCutcheon is undersized but put up great offensive numbers in the WHL. He should still be able to transition well to the ECAC as the WHL is considered the most physical league in the CHL. Brady Schultz had a decorated career with Halifax in the QMJHL with excellent offensive numbers throughout his career. Lastly, Nate Tivey profiles very well due to his elite size (6’5 and 205 LBs) while also putting up outstanding offensive numbers last year in the QMJHL (40 points in 63 games). All 3 will likely contribute immediately.

Lastly, Quinnipiac made a late to the addition to the roster with Graham Sward. Sward is a former star WHL defenseman who had a whopping 81 points in 66 games in his final season there. Last year, he played a full season in the ECHL where he was a reliable two way defenseman. I have no idea how ECHL production translates to the NCAA for obvious reasons, but based on his WHL career, he seems like an elite two way defenseman who should be a stud at the college level. Quite the late add.

I see zero offensive holes to be honest. Quinnipiac has an excellent combo of elite returning talent and the league’s top recruiting class, which is filled with top junior hockey players. The model thinks this offense will score a whopping 4 goals per game, and while that’s a high number, I don’t think it’s out of the realm of possibility considering they hit that mark in 2022-23 and 2023-24.

Defense

Projected Defensive Rank: 1

Unsurprisingly, Quinnipiac is expected to be an elite defensive team once again as well.

Starting in net, they return Matej Marinov who led the team with a 0.928 SV% last season. I’m not really sure why they gave him less starts than Dylan Silverstein (0.903 SV%) when he was clearly better, but I don’t expect them to make that mistake this year. Marinov is easily the most proven goalie in the league heading into the season, and his track record leaves me no doubt he will deliver for them.

Quinnipiac does have some minor question marks on the blue line since they lost 3 key contributors, and they will be pretty young there. I’m not overly concerned about it though (and neither is the model). Charlie Leddy had elite defensive impacts last season and will step into a bigger role this year. Groenewold was also strong defensively and should only get better given how young he is. That helps their projection even though the model does ding them for losing Pennington, Moore and Bohlinger.

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.

2. Clarkson (Last Year: 2)

Clarkson surprised me a bit last year, only because they had underperformed for two straight seasons, then had a coaching change. Naturally, I was skeptical to put them back in the top 4. I worried about their scoring depth, and I wasn’t sure how their defense would fare under a new head coach. I had them 6th even though the model had them 3rd. I should have listened to the model.

This year, Clarkson will have a young team with a bevy of CHL players as incoming recruits. They have a lot of talent and a deep roster that can contend for the title if the freshmen can adjust to college hockey quickly. I expect they will be an NCAA tournament bubble team again as J.F. Houle continues to put his own stamp on the program.

Key Losses: F Ayrton Martino (51 points in 39 games), F Ellis Rickwood (35 points in 39 games), F Ryan Richardson (30 points in 38 games), D Trey Taylor (29 points in 39 games), D Kaelan Taylor (7 points in 39 games), G Ethan Langenegger (0.914 SV%)

Key Returners: D Tristan Sarsland (23 points in 39 games), D Tate Taylor (16 points in 33 games)

Key Newcomers: G Nick Avakyan (NAHL), D William Bishop (QMJHL), F Justin Cote (QMJHL), F Remi Gelinas (QMJHL), D Noah Houle (Lindenwood), F Mikael Huchette (Concordia), F Jace Letourneau (BCHL), D Matthew Mayich (OHL), F Adrian Misaljevic (OHL), G Keenan Rancier (UVM), G Shane Soderwall (Curry), D Bryce Sookro (BCHL), F Mael St-Denis (QMJHL), F Owen Van Steensel (OHL)

Offense

Returning Offense Rank: 10

Incoming Class Rank: 2

Projected Offensive Rank: 2

Clarkson lost its top 4 scorers from last year. Martino is gone after a decorated career culminating in a 25 goal, 51 point season and an NHL contract. Richardson is also gone after 4 good years. Top line center Ellis Rickwood decided to transfer to North Dakota while Trey Taylor left early to sign an NHL contract. All are big losses at the top of the lineup.

Only Tristan Sarsland and Tate Taylor profile as key returners. Sarsland had 23 points from the blue line and will be their top defenseman this season. He is excellent both ways and should be an All-ECAC selection. Tate Taylor had a great freshman year and should take a step forward with more minutes this season.

The best returning forwards are Ryan Bottrill, Talon Sigurdson, and Luka Sukovic. All are solid players, but none of them hit the points per game mark needed to be considered key returners. With the youth of Clarkson’s forward group, they need the 3 of them to take steps forward.

Even if they don’t though, I think the incoming freshmen are talented enough to play top 6 minutes immediately, even if they have some growing pains to start. Remi Gelinas dominated the CCHL to start the year with 2 points per game, then moved over to the QMJHL where he still scored at well over a point per game pace. Adrian Misaljevic had 69 points in 67 games in the OHL. Both will play big roles right from the jump.

I also really like Justin Cote, Mikael Huchette and Owen Van Steensel. Cote is incredibly undersized at 5’6, but he was a prolific scorer for his entire career in the Q. He could be Clarkson’s next Jack Jacome. Huchette had above a point per game in his last year in the Q, and then had 28 points in 26 games at Concordia. I think people are underrating USports transfers currently. These are players who were top CHL players in junior and then went to USports and developed further against older competition. They’re more like transfer portal players than freshmen, and I believe they will transition smoother as a result. Huchette was excellent as a USports freshman and should contribute for Clarkson. Last but not least, Van Steensel had 86 points in the OHL two seasons ago and 53 points last season. He’s a very good player.

This collection of strong forward recruits give the model and myself a lot of faith in Clarkson’s offensive abilities. If the returning forwards don’t take a step AND the new guys struggle, then they will have issues, but I really think at least one will go their way.

For the rest of the lineup, Jared Mangan had a decent freshman year and can play in the bottom 6. Erik Bargholtz has been a bottom 6 staple in his Clarkson career and this season should be no different. Letourneau and St-Denis profile as recruits who can contribute right away in the bottom 6, but they’ll need to earn those spots since Clarkson has a lot of depth.

On the blue line, Clarkson also has more than just Sarsland and Taylor who project to contribute offensively. Noah Houle comes over from Lindenwood after a 17 point season and should slot in well. Bryce Sookro was dominant in the BCHL with 56 points in 53 games and won the BCHL’s top defenseman award. He’s an excellent incoming recruit. Matthew Mayich is a St. Louis Blues draft pick who has been a great two way defenseman his entire OHL career and projects to play key minutes right away. Lastly, William Bishop had a breakout year in the QMJHL with 43 points. With Clarkson’s defensive depth, he’ll probably be further down the lineup, but he’s a good recruiting pickup. Not to mention they return Ty Brassington who was pretty solid as a freshman. There’s no shortage of options for Clarkson, and while they are very youthful on the blue line too, the talent is notable.

Defense

Projected Defensive Rank: 3

Clarkson’s defense should be similarly strong like last year. They take a hit due to their aforementioned youth and the players they lost last season. Kaelan Taylor had the best defensive impacts on the team and will be missed, while Trey Taylor played major minutes in all situations. However, the hit is pretty mild because they do return Sarsland who was excellent both ways along with Brassington and Tate Taylor who were solid as freshmen and should take steps forward.

In net, there are some question marks after the graduation of Ethan Langenegger. Originally, Clarkson was slated to bring OHL goalie of the year Jackson Parsons, who easily projected as the best incoming freshman goaltender. Unfortunately for them, they got screwed by him signing an NHL contract with the Ottawa Senators this summer, well after any good replacements would be available.

In his place, Clarkson added Keenan Rancier out of the transfer portal. At Minnesota State, Rancier was pretty solid and had a 0.909 SV% or higher every year there. But at UVM last season, he struggled greatly with a 0.885 SV%. Can he regain his mojo at Clarkson? Perhaps, but the model doesn’t project him to be the starter.

Another portal add for Clarkson was Shane Soderwall from Curry College. Soderwall is interesting because he has totally dominated at the D3 level with a 0.949 SV% as a freshman and 0.945 SV% last season. The model has him rated pretty solidly with a projected 0.915 SV%, which would pretty much match what Langenegger did last year. If he can actually perform to that level, they’ll be totally fine, but there are question marks around how a D3 player will translate to the D1 level.

Lastly, Nick Avakyan comes in from the NAHL. He’s expected to be the #3, but he could be a sneaky pickup; the model likes him. While he did struggle throughout his WHL career, he was excellent in the NAHL last season with a 0.923 SV%. I don’t think he should be totally discounted from the competition.

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.

3. Cornell (Last Year: 6)

I broke down Cornell’s season pretty in depth when I did my ECAC playoff preview podcast. To summarize though, they were mostly really unlucky with bad goaltending that came out of nowhere from Ian Shane after he had been a rock star his entire career. It caused them to finish 6th in the league despite being expected to easily finish top 3 and make the NCAA tournament. In the ECAC tournament, they finally made good on their talent and went on a run to win the league and send out Mike Schafer with a championship. Then, they upset Michigan State in the Regional Semifinals of the NCAAs before falling in Regional Final, just short of the Frozen Four. Despite their start to the year and 6th place standings finish, I thought they were pretty clearly the second best team in the league behind Quinnipiac.

Now this year with new head coach Casey Jones, they are projected to take a small step back after losing a multitude of key seniors to graduation. They’ll still be quite a good team, but I don’t think they’re going to make the NCAA tournament again. To me and the model, this is a team that’s around 20 in the pairwise, and I’ll get into why below.

Key Losses: F Dalton Bancroft (27 points in 36 games), D Tim Rego (24 points in 36 games), F Sullivan Mack (24 points in 32 games), F Ondrej Psenicka (22 points in 30 games), D Ben Robertson (15 points in 36 games), D Michael Suda (11 points in 36 games)

Key Returners: F Ryan Walsh (31 points in 36 games), F Charlie Major (18 points in 28 games), D George Fegaras (14 points in 30 games), D Hoyt Stanley (13 points in 36 games)

Key Newcomers: D Luke Ashton (Minnesota State), G Alexis Cournoyer (QMJHL), F Giovanni DiGiulian (USHL), F Reegan Hiscock (BCHL), F Aiden Long (USHL), F Chase Pirtle (BCHL), F Caton Ryan (BCHL), D Xavier Veilleux (USHL)

Offense

Returning Offense Rank: 9

Incoming Class Rank: 5

Projected Offensive Rank: 6

This is the weakest offensive projection for Cornell that the model has ever had, but it does make sense based on the lack of returning offense. Additionally, the recruiting class is good, but usually, Cornell’s recruiting prowess has been excellent and not just good. This makes it tough to fill in the gaps from all the graduating seniors.

Dalton Bancroft left after his junior year to sign an NHL contract, and he’ll be missed. Sullivan Mack and Ondrej Psenicka have graduated after 20+ points each. That’s half of the top 6 gone. Additionally Jack O’Leary and Kyler Kovich graduated after putting up 17 points and 14 points, respectively. Lastly, the top 2 scoring defensemen on the team both have departed; each had at least 15 points. Tim Rego graduated, and Ben Robertson transferred to Michigan. In all, Cornell lost 6 out of its top 8 point getters and 7/10.

There are some good returners up front despite the losses. Ryan Walsh is a top center in the league with his two way ability. He elevated his game last season to lead the Big Red in points, and they’ll be relying on him to be an elite center on the top line once again. Charlie Major had a good freshman year but missed some time due to injury. Cornell will need him to stay healthy this year and take a step forward.

Other forwards that should be good players are Jonathan Castagna, Nick DeSantis, and Jake Kraft. Castagna was disappointing last season. After a stellar freshman campaign coming straight from Canadian prep school, he dropped from 25 points to 15. He is one of the most purely talented players in the league with his size, skating and skill, and Cornell needs him to live up to that potential to make up for the lost talent. He needs to bounce back this season. DeSantis has been a steady contributor throughout his Cornell career with 20, 14, and 14 points his first 3 seasons. As a senior, they can count on him to fill a key role as a middle 6 winger. Lastly, Jake Kraft had 13 points as both a freshman and sophomore and should contribute on the 3rd line. If those guys can elevate their games beyond what they accomplished last season, it’ll help a lot to replace the scoring.

For incoming freshmen, there’s a lot of good forwards that project to score right away. It starts with Aiden Long, who had nearly a point per game in the USHL in Madison. He’s a big power forward who is capable of jumping right into the top 6 on the wing. Giovanni DiGiulian was another high level USHL player who is capable of playing in the top 6 right away. Chase Pirtle is more of a second line player, but he dominated the BCHL last season with 64 points in 54 games. Those are the players who project as top 6 types from the jump.

For other key incoming forwards, Caton Ryan is really talented and had nearly a point per game in the BCHL as an 18 year old. He profiles as more of a 3rd liner to start, but he has a lot of potential. Reegan Hiscock is a huge power forward who had a point per game in the BCHL and also can play on the 3rd or 4th line to start.

On the blue line, Cornell did a good job replacing the losses from all the seniors leaving. First though, Hoyt Stanley returns after a good sophomore year, and given his talent and pedigree, he should take a step forward this year. Similarly, George Fegaras will be counted on more this season.

For the newcomers, Luke Ashton comes over from Minnesota State as a rare transfer portal addition. He had 13 points as a freshman there after being chosen in the NHL draft. His massive size (6’6” and over 230 LBs) and skill to go with it fits right into Cornell’s M.O., and I expect he’s going to be a great defenseman for them. Xavier Veilleux is another NHL draft pick, and he had an outstanding year in the USHL. He should be able to slide right into Cornell’s top 4 on the left side.

I’m not as high on the rest of the defensemen though. Michael Fisher has NHL draft pick pedigree, but he has struggled a lot with injuries the past few years. He also was very mediocre in the BCHL with Penticton last season. Hudson Gorski is a big defensive defenseman who should do well as a 3rd pairing type, but he doesn’t project to add much offensively.

You might be seeing why the model is lukewarm on Cornell’s offense now. There’s a few too many 3rd line and middle 6 types and not enough top 6 and top line types. Now, the model could be wrong; Castagna could bounce back, Kraft could take a step, etc. But having 5 forwards projected in teens for points and only a handful projected for more than 20 (and only Walsh for more than 30) is why it’s expected to be average. On the blue line, they have a lot of really good players, but none of them project to be 20+ point type defensemen. It’s mostly really good 2 way types, which helps their defensive projection but not offensive.

Defense

Projected Defensive Rank: 2

I’m curious to see if there’s any sort of drop off for Cornell defensively after the coaching change. I don’t think there will be since Casey Jones was known for bringing a heavy and strong defensive style to Clarkson, and his system was fairly similar to what Schafer was running at Cornell.

They do lose a lot on the blue line to be fair. Tim Rego was their top defenseman who was good defensively in addition to his offensive prowess. Michael Suda was an excellent shutdown defenseman who will be missed. Lastly, Ben Robertson had pretty good defensive impacts as well.

Regardless of that, Cornell should be excellent defensively as usual. Hoyt Stanley is great defensively and returns in their top 4. However, the main thing that evens out the losses on the blue line in the eyes of the model is the goaltending. Ian Shane really struggled last year after a previously sparkling clean resume over the first 3 years. He went down to a 0.905 SV% when his lowest before was a 0.916. The model expects improvement there.

The reason for the expected improvement is due to incoming freshman Alexis Cournoyer. Cournoyer dominated the QMJHL last season with a stellar 0.942 SV% and was selected in the 5th round of the NHL draft. The model expects he will give Cornell another elite goalie to add to their history at the position.

If for whatever reason, he isn’t ready to be a full time starter, I do like Remington Keopple as well. He never has seen much action in his career due to Ian Shane, but he was good in the USHL prior to Cornell and was on the USA U20 world junior team back in the day. He honestly should have gotten more time last season when Shane was struggling while he had a 0.958 SV%. For his career, he has a 0.896 SV%, and I think he could be good if needed even if he doesn’t have the upside that Cournoyer does.

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.

4. Harvard (Last Year: 7)

Guess who’s back? Back again? Harvard’s back, tell a friend.

Okay that might be a bit of an exaggeration since it’s not like Harvard is going to be a bonafide NCAA tournament team like they were up until 2 years ago. However, this looks like the year where Harvard can get back into the top 4.

After Harvard’s mass exodus to the NHL two years ago, I got called crazy for predicting them to take a big step backward to 7th in the league. They ended up finishing 8th. Last year, the model predicted them to take a slight step forward to 6th, and I personally was a little more bullish because I thought the young talent on the roster would progress more than they did. Still, they did take a small step forward to 7th place. I did think back when they lost all that talent that they would end up rebounding in 2-3 years once they could get a couple of their recruiting cycles in and developed. They have had talent, but it’s just been way too young. This year, I do think the talent will have developed enough to get back into the top 4.

Key Losses: D Ian Moore (14 points in 32 games)

Key Returners: F Mick Thompson (32 points in 33 games), F Casey Severo (28 points in 33 games), F Joe Miller (23 points in 28 games), F Ben MacDonald (16 points in 27 games), D Ryan Healey (13 points in 33 games), D Lucas St. Louis (11 points in 33 games), D Mason Langenbrunner (10 points in 33 games)

Key Newcomers: D Donato Bracco (USHL), F Richard Gallant (USHL), F Aidan Lane (OHL), F Heikki Ruohonen (USHL), F Chase Stefanek (USHL)

Offense

Returning Offense Rank: 2

Incoming Class Rank: 4

Projected Offensive Rank: 3

Harvard is always one of the most talented teams in the league, and this year, they will have the scoring experience to combine with the raw talent. The entire top line of Thompson, Severo and Miller are back after all had 23+ points last season. Thompson was absolutely outstanding as a freshman with 32 points to lead the team and made it onto the ECAC All-Rookie team. Severo is an excellent top line center who should further grow as a senior. Lastly, Miller has been around a point per game his entire career, and he can safely be projected to do the same this season.

Harvard also has depth outside of that trio. Ben MacDonald had some injuries last season, but when healthy, he is a good 2nd line center with size and skill. Justin Solovey had a solid freshman year with 12 points and should take a step in the middle 6, while Phil Tresca also had 12 points and can be a reliable depth scorer as a senior.

The incoming freshmen are really exciting too. Gallant was selected by San Jose in the NHL draft after a great year on the NTDP, and he projects to slide right onto the 2nd line. Lane is another NHL draft pick with a high skill level. He spent most of the year at St. Andrew’s in Canadian prep, but after the CHL rule change, he joined Brampton in the OHL and immediately started producing at a point per game rate, which relaxes concerns on how he will translate as such a young player. He also projects as a top 6 player.

Heikki Ruohonen was drafted by Philadelphia in 2024 and then spent last year in the USHL with Dubuque. He’s a strong two way center who would be on the 2nd line for most teams, but given Harvard’s scoring depth, he probably will center their 3rd line. Stefanek is another who will probably be lower in the lineup but on most teams, he would be on the 3rd line. Harvard is pretty loaded with scoring talent up front this season.

This holds true on the blue line as well despite losing captain Ian Moore after a great career as a two way defenseman. Ryan Healey returns for his senior season as a proven offensive defenseman. Lucas St. Louis had a good freshman year and can be counted on to provide some offense in the top 4. Mason Langenbrunner had his best offensive year last year, and his two way game will be really important for Harvard.

The incoming freshmen will be able to contribute immediately for the remaining spots in the lineup. Bracco was one of the top defensemen on the NTDP and is lauded for his hockey IQ and vision. I expect he can play in the top 4 right from the jump despite being undersized. Drake Murray was solid in the USHL and should play on the 3rd pairing behind Healey and Langenbrunner on the right side.

Harvard returns 86.8% of their scoring from last season with only Moore being a key contributor. That returning scoring combined with the excellent incoming freshman class means Harvard looks like one of the most dynamic teams in the league.

Defense

Projected Defensive Rank: 7

All of the returning talent means Harvard is projected to improve defensively to be about middle of the pack after allowing almost 3 goals against per game last year.

The improvement is only expected to be mild though because of the losses of Moore and Jack Bar. I already talked about Moore above, but he was consistently a very good two way defenseman during his career who had good defensive impacts. Bar didn’t provide a lot of offense, but he also had good defensive impacts. Both will be missed on the blue line, and the model gives them a slight penalty there.

For the returners, Langenbrunner had excellent defensive impacts last year and is their top two way defenseman who should balance out the offensive minded Healey and St. Louis. Matthew Morden was decent defensively as a freshman last year and should improve given his talent and pedigree.

In net, Harvard did lose Koskenvuo early to an NHL contract, but they return Ben Charette who had a solid freshman year. Charette was excellent in the AJHL before arriving at Harvard, and last year, he had a 0.909 SV%. I think he’s a pretty safe bet to repeat that and give them a steady presence in net even if he doesn’t take a step forward. If he does take a step forward though, it would go a long way for improving their defense.

One issue that should be mentioned though is that behind Charette, Harvard does not have any quality goaltenders. Their backups are walk-on 3rd string types that they just pulled straight from prep school, so if Charette really struggles or gets injured, they are totally screwed. Like I said, I feel pretty good about Charette, but goaltending is highly variable so it’s worth noting.

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.

5. Union (Last Year: 4)

Union has been a team on the rise since hiring Josh Hauge, and the model predicts they will improve this year. The reason it predicts a drop in the standings is because even though they finished 4th in the league, they really were more like the 6th best team in the league if you go by the pairwise. I really, really liked what they did this offseason, and the model has them just barely below Harvard. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if they finished in the top 4.

Key Losses: F Caden Villegas (29 points in 36 games), D John Prokop (27 points in 36 games), F Josh Nixon (23 points in 36 games), D Cullen Ferguson (16 points in 36 games)

Key Returners: F Colby MacArthur (29 points in 36 games), F Brandon Buhr (28 points in 36 games), F Ben Muthersbaugh (28 points in 36 games), F Nate Hanley (28 points in 36 games), D Nick Young (10 points in 36 games)

Key Newcomers: F Luke Buss (Wisconsin), D Tyler Dunbar (Colorado College), D Will Felicio (Michigan), G Cameron Korpi (Michigan), F Alex Laurenza (NAHL), D Etienne Lessard (USHL)

Offense

Returning Offense Rank: 3

Incoming Class Rank: 7

Projected Offensive Rank: 5

Union returns a lot of firepower up front despite the losses during the offseason. Caden Villegas tied for the team lead in scoring after a very good career, and Josh Nixon was consistently pretty good in his two years there.

The players that come back though definitely outweigh that. Colby MacArthur had a breakout year with 29 points after only 12 total his first two years. Nate Hanley had another great year and gives Union an excellent 1-2 punch at center. On the wing, Brandon Buhr had 19 goals last season and is a preseason All-ECAC selection. Ben Muthersbaugh had 13 goals last season in an outstanding freshman campaign. That group of 4 is up there with some of the talent that Harvard and Quinnipiac return.

Behind them, Union also returns good depth scorers. Lucas Buzziol and Riley Brueck had solid freshmen seasons with 13 and 10 points, respectively, and they should be able to fill roles in the middle 6. Parker Lindauer had 14 points after transferring in from Maine and should score in that range again.

Union has two newcomers that project to contribute. First, Luke Buss transfers in from Wisconsin and projects to be a solid addition to the middle 6. He was a very good performer in the BCHL before going to Wisconsin, but he hardly saw any ice time for them. Second is the player who I think is the most underrated incoming freshman in the league. Alex Laurenza comes in after dominating the NAHL and putting up 82 points. Because the NAHL is a weaker league and there’s tons of hype around all the CHL additions, Laurenza has fallen under the radar, but he’s a great addition and projects to play in Union’s top 6 right from the jump even with their good scoring depth.

On the blue line, John Prokop is a huge loss as one of the top defensemen in the league last year and arguably the country. Cullen Ferguson is also a big loss as he was another very key defenseman for Union last year. They do return Nick Young who was solid offensively, but there’s not much returning offense from the back end.

However, Union’s newcomers at defense are excellent and should help fill the void somewhat. Tyler Dunbar comes in from Colorado College where he barely played his first two seasons. Prior to going there, Dunbar was a top defenseman in the USHL, and he is pretty talented. The model really likes him based on his USHL experience, and I think he is going to make a difference in Union’s top 4. Will Felicio is arguably the top transfer portal addition in the league. Felicio was a top offensive defenseman in the USHL with dynamic skill and vision and very good skating despite being undersized. He went to Michigan at 18 and barely played for some reason. Despite barely playing, he still produced with 11 points in 25 games, all at even strength. When he entered the portal, I thought for sure he would end up at a good Hockey East school, so that was a huge recruiting win for Union and likely was made possible by the new arena and facilities. He should be one of their top defensemen.

For the more traditional newcomer, Etienne Lessard was a top offensive defenseman in the USHL last season and projects to contribute immediately. He is quite undersized though at only 5’9”, so that could hold him back in such a physical league. The offensive contributions should still be there though.

In summary, Union has a lot of returning talent up front and supplements that well with a couple of newcomers to give themselves a good 3 lines that can score. While they did lose their two most productive defensemen, they made good use of the transfer portal to help mitigate that. They look like they will be a good team offensively.

Defense

Projected Defensive Rank: 4

Union’s projected defensive improvement is actually more notable than the offense because that is what is going to drive them up this season. They already didn’t have issues scoring last year with 3.11 goals per game, but the defense allowed 3.03 goals per game, which isn’t good. This year, that is expected to change.

Union had a great offseason on this front. John Prokop is a huge loss defensively in addition to the offense, but from a defensive standpoint, it views the loss of Cullen Ferguson as a good thing. Ferguson easily had the worst defensive impacts on the team last year, so the model views him as addition by subtraction (defensively of course, not offensively). Then, the depth defensemen who graduated/transferred weren’t anything special either, so losing Prokop is mostly evened out.

Additionally, returning Nick Young is very big for them on defense because he had the best defensive impacts on the team by a wide margin. He should continue to be a great shutdown defenseman for Union. As long as the touted newcomers that I mentioned above are at least decent defensively, their blue line looks to be in good shape.

The biggest difference between this year and last, however, is in net. I have long been saying that Kyle Chauvette was overrated and more of a high-end back up or low-end starter who should split time rather than a full time starter. Last year, he had below a 0.900 SV% on the year despite Union actually doing pretty well to limit chances against. He just isn’t good enough to start full time for a good team.

I think Union recognized that, and they went out into the portal and got another huge recruiting win with Cameron Korpi. Korpi was very good in the USHL prior to going to Michigan last year. Then, at Michigan, he split the net and recorded a 0.904 SV%. As a freshman in a very tough conference in the Big 10, that’s not bad at all. He should be even better for Union in the ECAC. The model views him as a major upgrade on Chauvette.

After that happened, Chauvette apparently decided he didn’t like having competition and entered the transfer portal. Honestly, if I were a Union fan (gross!), I’d say good riddance. If you can’t handle competition being brought in when you weren’t good enough to warrant being handed the job again, then I wouldn’t want you on my team. I’d say it all worked out quite well in Union’s favor, but we will have to see how it plays out on the ice.

On paper, Union should be pretty improved defensively to the point that they are projected to be the 4th best defense in the conference. That’s a big difference from last year, and if they do live up to that, they are going to absolutely contend for the top 4.

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.

6. Dartmouth (Last Year: 5)

Reid Cashman has done a great job at Dartmouth turning them into a pretty good program. I am going to be lower on them than most of the projections after they have been 4th and 5th the past two years, and they continue to do a good job recruiting. I don’t disagree with any of that, but there does appear to be a major flaw with Dartmouth that keeps them below the other 5 teams despite having a lot of talent.

Key Losses: F Sean Chisholm (27 points in 33 games), F Cooper Flinton (24 points in 32 games), D John Fusco (21 points in 32 games), F Luke Haymes (18 points in 22 games), F Braiden Dorfman (16 points in 31 games), D Ian Pierce (9 points in 24 games)

Key Returners: F Nikita Nikora (30 points in 33 games), D CJ Foley (30 points in 33 games), F Hayden Stavroff (22 points in 31 games), F Hank Cleaves (21 points in 32 games), D Eric Charpentier (11 points in 33 games)

Key Newcomers: F Andrew Clarke (USHL), F Brock Cummings (BCHL), D Brock Devlin (NAHL), F Nathan Morin (BCHL), F Ryan Schelling (BCHL), F Jason Stefanek (BCHL)

Offense

Returning Offense Rank: 6

Incoming Class Rank: 3

Projected Offensive Rank: 4

Dartmouth lost some big pieces in the offseason, both to graduation and early to the pros. Luke Haymes had some injuries last year but was a top forward in the league when healthy. He signed early along with Cooper Flinton. Both were top forwards that are big losses for the Big Green. Sean Chisholm also scored at nearly a point per game pace last season and now has graduated, so they’re losing basically 3 top line forwards. Braiden Dorfman was also a consistent middle 6 scorer.

Luckily, Dartmouth does return other important forwards. Nikita Nikora is an excellent playmaker, and he led the team in scoring last season. Hayden Stavroff and Hank Cleaves both had great freshmen years with 20+ points apiece. All 3 will be mainstays in the top 6.

What makes Dartmouth’s offensive projection still pretty good despite the major losses is they quietly have an excellent recruiting class with numerous quality forwards being added.

Andrew Clarke had 45 points in the USHL last year and projects to play middle 6 minutes right away. Brock Cummings and Nathan Morin were both solid in the BCHL and can play on the 3rd line. The crown jewels of the class though are Ryan Schelling and Jason Stefanek. Schelling was 3rd in the entire BCHL in scoring with 75 points and should play top 6 minutes immediately. Stefanek had 63 points in the BCHL and also projects to contribute in the top 6 right away. The incoming recruits add some top end talent and scoring depth up front for Dartmouth.

On the back end, John Fusco is a huge loss after he had 21 points. Ian Pierce also contributed offensively when he was healthy and will be missed. Those two were very good players, but losing them isn’t back breaking.

It’s especially not back breaking because Dartmouth returns star defenseman CJ Foley. Foley had 30 points and was one of the top defensemen in the league last year. It’s also rumored he turned down NHL contracts to return for his junior season. He’s on the Preseason All-ECAC team for a reason, and he should be elite once again. Eric Charpentier is also a key blue liner returning after putting up 11 points as a sophomore. The two of them will likely be the top pairing.

The only key newcomer at defenseman is a big one: Brock Devlin. It may not seem like he is a big addition on the surface because he played in the NAHL. He had a crazy 67 points in 55 games though, absolutely bonkers numbers for a defenseman. I don’t care what league you’re in, well above a point per game is amazing for a defenseman. He should be an excellent offensive defenseman for Dartmouth right off the bat.

Dartmouth’s underrated recruiting class will help fill the holes left by their many key departures, and they return enough talent to be pretty good offensively. They should score at a good rate this season.

Defense

Projected Defensive Rank: 8

Here is that fatal flaw I was referring to with Dartmouth. The defense is projected to be below average. There’s a few different factors for this that I’ll get into below, but their projection defensively is worse than the other teams in their range in Harvard and Union.

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.

7. Colgate (Last Year: 3)

The model is always too low on Colgate, but it’s tough to see how they should be above any of the top 6 on paper. They don’t project to be as good offensively or defensively as any of those teams. It’s fair to be skeptical of this projection though given the track record here. They consistently have found recruits who have outplayed their junior hockey pedigree, and they have done really well at developing their players.

Key Losses: F Brett Chorske (34 points in 36 games), F Alex DiPaolo (26 points in 32 games), D Tommy Bergsland (24 points in 36 games), F Ben Raymond (18 points in 36 games), D Reid Irwin (17 points in 32 games)

Key Returners: F Max Nagel (24 points in 36 games), D Michael Neumeier (20 points in 35 games), F Ryan Sullivan (15 points in 23 games), D Antonio Fernandez (14 points in 31 games), F Simon Labelle (13 points in 25 games), F Daniel Panetta (13 points in 25 games), D Brett Merner (9 points in 35 games)

Key Newcomers: F Tyson Doucette (OHL), G Reid Dyck (WHL), D Joshua Niedermayer (USHL), D Isaiah Norlin (Omaha), F Easton Wainwright (OHL)

Offense

Returning Offense Rank: 5

Incoming Class Rank: 8

Projected Offensive Rank: 7

The offense is projected to be pretty average this season after many big losses to graduation. Brett Chorske and Alex DiPaolo were the two top scorers on the team last season, with both scoring at nearly a point per game rate, and both have now graduated. Ben Raymond was more of a middle 6 scorer, so he’s not as big of a loss.

Colgate has some good returners who hopefully will be more healthy this year since Sullivan, Panetta and Labelle all missed a good amount of time last season. Max Nagel was great as a freshman and is the leading returning scorer. He will probably lead the team in scoring this year. Ryan Sullivan took a step forward last year to put up 15 points in 23 games, and he should play in the top 6 this year. Daniel Panetta and Simon Labelle also had injury filled years and will be in the top 6. The year before both had 27+ points, and Colgate will need them to get back to that. It’s a solid but unspectacular group of 4 if they don’t bounce back.

Niko Rexine and Jake Schneider both had 15 points last season, and Colgate will need them to take steps forward to become true top 6 talents. Easton Wainwright and Tyson Doucette seem to be around that level as well as incoming freshmen. Both were pretty good in the OHL but not great, and they look to be middle 6 type players. I feel like that’s the issue with Colgate on paper this year. Plenty of solid players, but with Chorske and DiPaolo gone, there’s a lack of high end talent.

On the blue line, top defenseman Tommy Bergsland is gone after graduating, and so is former top 4 mainstay Reid Irwin. Both were quite good offensively the past couple years and are big losses. I do really like the defensemen that Colgate return though. Michael Neumeier had an excellent freshman year with 20 points and should be their top defenseman. Antonio Fernandez is a good offensive defenseman who had 14 points last year. I also really like Brett Merner. He only had 9 points but was lower in the lineup due to Colgate’s depth last year. I think he could breakout this year.

Colgate should still be pretty deep on the back end with two of their newcomers. Isaiah Norlin scored nearly a point per game in the BCHL before going to Omaha last year. He didn’t play much and transferred in search of more ice time, and Colgate should be in position to give him that. I think he’ll be really good for them based on his play in junior hockey. Joshua Niedermayer went to Arizona State too young and then went back to juniors and played in the USHL last year where he had a pretty solid year. I think he will be good for them as well.

Colgate has a lot of solid players, but there’s just generally a lack of high end talent after all the graduations of the top players. Having guys like Daniel Panetta and Simon Labelle return to their pre-injury form, and having guys like Michael Neumeier take steps forward is imperative to being more than a middle of the pack offense.

Defense

Projected Defensive Rank: 9

Colgate was very weak defensively last season but managed to overcome that to win games. They still project to be fairly weak defensively this season but slightly improved.

Bergsland is a big loss defensively in addition to his offense, but the other losses weren’t really contributors defensively. Irwin’s defensive impacts were just meh last season even though he was good in previous years. Belpedio is another example of addition by subtraction as he had by far the worst impacts on Colgate last year. It averages out to not hurt Colgate too much.

They also return some really good defenders. Neumeier was excellent both ways and will be key back there this season. Brett Merner had great defensive impacts too, and he should step up into a bigger role this year.

In net, Colgate returns Andrew Takacs. This is an area where similar to Dartmouth, they are weaker than the top teams in the conference. Takacs had a 0.903 SV% last year and a 0.901 for his career. He’s not good enough to be a full time starter.

It’s possible that incoming freshman Reid Dyck can compete with him. Dyck projects to be pretty similar in performance. He is very experienced with a long WHL career, but he was just okay in the WHL with a career 0.892 SV%. He has some pedigree as he was drafted by the Boston Bruins back in 2022, but there’s also a reason that they chose not to sign him when their rights to him expired. They clearly didn’t think he was good enough to warrant signing him, and I can’t say I disagree.

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.

8. Brown (Last Year: 8)

This ranking probably surprises some people given that Brown lost a lot of key players in the offseason, but they did enough to still be ahead of the bottom 4, all of whom look to be pretty bad. Another thing that helps Brown is they look pretty solid defensively. They have a somewhat similar outlook as last season with some good top of the lineup players but extremely limited depth.

Key Losses: F Tyler Kopff (28 points in 32 games), F Max Scott (26 points in 32 games), D Brett Bliss (5 points in 31 games), G Lawton Zacher (0.914 SV%)

Key Returners: F Ryan St. Louis (29 points in 23 games), F Brian Nicholas (25 points in 28 games), D Alex Pineau (16 points in 32 games), D Ethan Mistry (12 points in 32 games)

Key Newcomers: D Matthew Desiderio (USHL), G Freddie Halyk (Denver), F Ben Poitras (Northeastern), F Michael Salandra (Quinnipiac)

Offense

Returning Offense Rank: 8

Incoming Class Rank: 9

Projected Offensive Rank: 9

Losing Tyler Kopff and Max Scott after only their sophomore years was a killer blow for a Brown team that actually has many very good young pieces that they were starting to build around. Kopff was signed early to an NHL contract, while Scott transferred to Maine. Those two were top of the lineup pieces that are not easily replaced, especially with Brown’s lack of depth.

The other two excellent top of the lineup forwards will have to keep playing up to that level. Ryan St. Louis struggled with injuries but still led the team in points with 29 in only 23 games. He’s a dynamic player who should be Brown’s best player night in and night out. Brian Nicholas was outstanding as a freshman, producing at a near point per game rate. He will slide up as the top line center now that Scott is gone.

The issue is the talent surrounding them. Brown did try to make up for it through the transfer portal despite being limited there due to Ivy League rules. Ben Poitras comes over from Northeastern where he played lower in the lineup and only had 3 points in 31 games. Prior to Northeastern, however, he was dynamic in the USHL and had more than a point per game his final year there. I think he’s going to be great for Brown, and he could be a similar success story as St. Louis, who also transferred in from Northeastern. Michael Salandra is the other transfer. He didn’t play a single game at Quinnipiac last season, but he had a point per game in the BCHL before going there.

Those are good pickups, but after that? It doesn’t look good. Even with Salandra, on most teams, he’s probably a 3rd line player. Outside of those 4, the top 6 is going to be filled with two rising sophomores who had 10 and 9 points. Charlie Gollob doesn’t have much junior hockey pedigree to speak of; he was extremely mediocre in the BCHL. Ivan Zadvernyuk had a point per game in the NAHL before Brown, but that’s nothing special for that league either. I know our friends at Brown Hockey Blog disagree, but I just don’t see it with them. They’re 3rd line players at best.

After them, it gets even more dire. Ryan Shostak is next on the list for highest point scorers up front, and he had only 6 points last year. That’s the 7th best forward on the team. Not good! The bottom 6 is going to be an extreme weakness.

On the blue line, Alex Pineau returns after building on his great freshman year. He should be their top defenseman again. Ethan Mistry also returns as a very good two way defenseman and should contribute offensively again. For the newcomers, Matthew Desiderio was one of the top defensemen in the USHL and is a huge add for Brown. He should step immediately into the top 4 and have a big impact. None of the other defensemen project to add much offense.

Luckily for Brown, it’s harder to find top end talent than it is to find good depth players. If they can develop one of the current players into a good 3rd liner and get Gollob and Zadvernyuk to take steps forward, they could be meh offensively instead of on the lower end. It’s certainly possible, but I would bet against it.

Defense

Projected Defensive Rank: 5

This is where Brown is expected to do well, and it’s why they are still supposed to finish in 8th despite the offense and losses. They are not projected to be as good defensively as last season, but it’s still pretty solid.

On the blue line, Brett Bliss is a loss defensively as he had pretty good impacts there. They also lose Tony Andreozzi, but the model doesn’t view him as a particularly big loss. It really likes the return of Nick Traggio and Ethan Mistry as guys who are good in their own end. It all evens out there in the end despite the loss of Bliss.

In net is where the main downgrade comes in. Lawton Zacher was a top goaltender in the ECAC last season and arguably the country. He decided to enter the transfer portal and go to Northeastern following the season. It certainly was a big blow to the team.

Brown did well in finding his replacement in my opinion though. Freddie Halyk comes over from Denver after posting a 0.915 SV% in limited time there last year. He has great size at 6’6” and was solid in the AJHL before going to Denver. I think he was a good pickup for Brown. While the model obviously doesn’t expect him to replace Zacher, it projects him to be less of a downgrade than you might think. I think he can keep Brown solid defensively even if he won’t be a top goalie in all likelihood.

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.

9. Princeton (Last Year: 9)

Princeton will be looking to improve in year two of the Ben Syer era after an expectedly below average start. They struggled offensively as anticipated since they lack talent, but defensively, they were about average. The defense should be the strength of the team again after the offseason and given Syer’s track record at Cornell. However, the offense does not project to improve the way you would hope in year two of a new head coach, which is what holds Princeton back.

Key Losses: D Noah de la Durantaye (10 points in 29 games), G Ethan Pearson (0.913 SV%)

Key Returners: F Brendan Gorman (26 points in 30 games), F Jake Manfre (17 points in 30 games), F Jaxson Ezman (15 points in 30 games), D Nick Marciano (14 points in 30 games), F David Jacobs (14 points in 26 games), D David Ma (13 points in 30 games), D Ian Devlin (4 points in 30 games)

Key Newcomers: None

Offense

Returning Offense Rank: 4

Incoming Class Rank: 10

Projected Offensive Rank: 10

It may be surprising to see Princeton’s offense projected so low given they return a lot of scoring. The main thing is that their returning offense is mostly driven by quantity not quality. Last year, they struggled to score, so returning 88.6% of their point production doesn’t really do a whole lot.

No key forwards were lost up front, but they also only had one 20 point scorer. Brendan Gorman had nearly a point per game last year and returns as the clear top player on the roster. Jake Manfre had a good freshman year, and they will need him to take a step forward to be competitive offensively. Jaxson Ezman and David Jacobs were solid, but they need more from the two of them. Jacobs had 24 points the year before, so he has shown he can be a true top 6 player. If he can get back to that, that would be a big help.

Those are the only players who had above half a point per game last year, which shows immediately why the Princeton offense is lackluster. Other guys who will have to step up are Miles Gunty, Kevin Anderson, and Luc Pelletier who all had between 8 and 10 points last season. There are no key incoming forwards, but Hans Martin Ulvebne is the closest. He had 23 points in the USHL last season and projects to add 9 points.

For the defensemen, Nick Marciano and David Ma were both pretty solid offensively, but neither is a top level talent. Noah de la Durantaye was consistently a very good defenseman for Princeton, and he’s a pretty big loss for them even though he wasn’t as good last year as in the past. Tyler Rubin was very good as a sophomore but missed half the year last year due to injury. A return to form for him would be quite helpful.

The only incoming freshman on the blue line is Chris Reiniger who played 2 years in the USHL with the Chicago Steel and had 22 points there last season. He should be a solid player for them right off the bat, but he’s not a player that the model registers as a key newcomer offensively.

There’s just not enough talent on the roster for Princeton to score much. If they have some of the younger players who showed promise take big steps forward, they have a chance to be middle of the pack, but that’s a big if.

Defense

Projected Defensive Rank: 6

This is where Princeton’s bread and butter will be. Last season, they were slightly below average, and it should improve to be solid this year.

First, they only lose de la Durantaye as part of the defense corps. While he was good offensively, his defensive impacts were the worst on the team, so the model views him as addition by subtraction. Ian Devlin was pretty good defensively and returns while Ma was solid defensively as a good two way player. The combo of addition by subtraction with plenty of key returners gives them some expected improvement.

In net, Ethan Pearson graduated after a pretty good year with a 0.913 SV%. Neither of the incoming freshmen project to be starting level in the net, so Princeton will be turning to Arthur Smith. Smith was a pretty heralded recruit with lots of talent and some NHL draft looks prior to going to Princeton. However, he has struggled a lot his first two years there. As a rising junior, it’s kind of now or never for him to finally breakout and live up to his potential. If he can breakout, Princeton has the chance to surprise with a pretty good defense.

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.

10. St. Lawrence (Last Year: 12)

SLU is in a bad position as a team that both struggled greatly last year, and they also lose the vast majority of their top players from that team as only 2 of the top 9 return. That team already struggled a lot to score, and now the situation looks pretty dire there. However, the defensive side looks improved, and that’s the difference here.

Key Losses: F Greg Lapointe (19 points in 34 games), D Mason Waite (16 points in 35 games), F Tomas Mazura (14 points in 17 games), D Philippe Chapleau (11 points in 35 games)

Key Returners: F Tyler Cristall (17 points in 29 games)

Key Newcomers: D Sam Frandina (BCHL), F Sam LeDrew (BCHL), F Cooper Pierson (BCHL), F Rasmus Svartstrom (BCHL)

Offense

Returning Offense Rank: 11

Incoming Class Rank: 11

Projected Offensive Rank: 12

The cupboard is pretty bare here offensively. Not a single player on the team last year crossed over the 20 point threshold, and they lose 2 out of the 3 players who managed to have more than half a point per game in Lapointe and Mazura. Other scorers that were high up in the lineup, like Felikss Gavars, Ty Naaykens, and Reilly Connors have also departed.

For the returners, Cristall was pretty good last season, but that’s the only key returner. The next best returner is Isaac Tremblay who had a solid freshman year with 12 points, but if you’re 2nd best returning scorer had only 12 points, you’re in trouble. Gabe Westling, Gunnar Thoreson, and Nicholas Beneteau are all younger players who could take steps forward but none scored more than 10 points last year.

There are some incoming freshmen who will make impacts. First, Rasmus Svartstrom is easily the best player in the class. He led the entire BCHL with 46 goals, and he had 69 points total on the season. He adds some much needed scoring talent, and he should be an immediate boost to the top 6. After him, Sam LeDrew had nearly a point per game in the BCHL. He projects to be an impactful 3rd liner as a freshman. Cooper Pierson struggled in the USHL but was pretty good in the BCHL last year. He projects to be a bottom 6 forward immediately. The main issue is that the latter two are solid but unspectacular recruits, and only Svartstrom is expected to have a big impact.

On the blue line, the top 3 defensemen have graduated. Mason Waite and Philippe Chapleau were the only two who had double digit points last year. Drake Burgin also graduated, which does not help, even though he took a step back offensively in his senior year. The best returning defenseman is Isack Bandu who had 7 points.

Sam Frandina was really good in the BCHL and projects to be a solid offensive defenseman but nothing special. Andrew Brown is the only other notable defensive recruit. He was good in the BCHL but just average in the QMJHL, so he doesn’t project to add too much offensively.

The offense is projected to be the worst in the league for a reason. Even with some surprises and players taking steps, I just can’t see a path to a good offense here.

Defense

Projected Defensive Rank: 10

While the defense isn’t projected to be good at all, it is expected to improve enough to put SLU above RPI and Yale in the model.

The reason for this is pretty interesting. Despite losing Waite, Chapleau, and Burgin, they are all more examples of the model viewing a player as addition by subtraction when they have weak defensive impacts. That trio of players all had the worst defensive impacts on the team, and the model thinks it is a good thing that they have all graduated now. Should it do that? I’ve gone back and forth on it, but I do think so. Just because a player leaves a team doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing. There’s plenty of players who have negative impacts on their team.

In net, they return Mason Kucenski who is expected to be the starter after he was the primary starter last season. He was below average with just a 0.900 SV%, and I was surprised they didn’t try to give others opportunities honestly. Kucenski was not very good in the USHL before going to SLU, so it’s not as if he has some great pedigree to fall back on either. He is projected to give them similar results as last year.

The changes are enough to project SLU to improve by 0.5 goals per game defensively. Even though they were very bad defensively last season, the blue line improvement and slight improvement in net means they shouldn’t be horrible like last season. Instead, they should just be a normal level of bad.

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.

11. RPI (Last Year: 10)

Onto the team who certainly had the most eventful offseason. The better question for RPI is what didn’t change? They decided to let go Dave Smith as the head coach, and they replaced him with Eric Lang from AIC. After a multitude of losses in the transfer portal and lots of roster turnover with a whopping 19(!!) new players, they land here as a team with good depth but a lack of high end talent and question marks defensively. I have been trying to calm down all the RPI fans who are excited about the Lang hire and expect immediate results and convince them that this year is still looking to be a rough one.

Key Losses: D Will Gilson (24 points in 35 games), F Tyler Hotson (22 points in 35 games), F Felix Caron (21 points in 35 games), F Jake Lee (20 points in 35 games), F John Beaton (19 points in 34 games), D Elliott McDermott (18 points in 35 games), D Max Smolinski (15 points in 35 games)

Key Returners: F Dovar Tinling (20 points in 32 games), F Jagger Tapper (20 points in 29 games)

Key Newcomers: F Ethan Bono (Merrimack), F Matthew Buckley (OHL), F Cole Gordon (Arizona State), F Jack Gorton (BU), G Nathan Krawchuk (OHL), F Jackson Kyrkostas (BCHL), D Lucas Lemieux (BCHL), F Ian Scherzer (USHL), F Filip Sitar (UConn), D Kazimier Sobieski (USHL), F Tyler Wallace (Niagara), F Luc Wilson (Minnesota State)

Offense

Returning Offense Rank: 12

Incoming Class Rank: 6

Projected Offensive Rank: 8

Unsurprisingly, RPI has the least amount of returning scoring in the conference; they only return 25% of their point production from last season. Hotson and Caron were big losses in the transfer portal as young core players who had 20+ points, while Lee and Beaton graduated. RPI basically had the difficult combination of a big senior class followed by lots of transfers due to the coaching change.

Two very good forwards do return up front though. Dovar Tinling has had two very good years as a top 6 center since transferring in. Now, he’ll likely be the leader of the forward group as the top line center. Jagger Tapper had a surprise freshman year with 20 points, and he should be playing in the top 6 once again in a key role. Rainers Rullers is the only other returner of note there after a 13 point freshman campaign and a development camp invite to Tampa. He is expected to play in the top 9.

The vast majority of the forward lineup will be newcomers though. Starting with the numerous transfers, Filip Sitar comes in from UConn after one year there. In junior hockey, he was a stellar player and was getting some NHL draft looks, but at UConn, he was suspended to start the year due to pro games in Sweden. Once he finally got into the lineup, he was relegated to the 4th line where he played a key defensive role for the top 10 team, but he only recorded 3 points on the year. The model likes him to make good on his junior hockey promise and talent, similar to Ben Poitras on Brown.

Tyler Wallace comes into RPI after 2 great years at Niagara where he had 30 and 26 points. He likely won’t produce that much in the ECAC, but he was a good pickup that can play in the top 6. Luc Wilson comes over from Minnesota State where he was a good 3rd liner for them with 13 points. The year before, he had 19 points, so he’s a proven middle 6 forward on a good team. On this RPI team, he will likely see more ice time and is expected to be productive. Ethan Bono played in the bottom 6 at Merrimack for two years, recording 9 points in each. He is projected to score more at RPI given the step from Hockey East down to the ECAC and will probably be slotted into the 3rd line.

Cole Gordon was a good 4th line center for a pretty good ASU team last year, and he projects to play a similar role for RPI. Lastly, Jack Gorton barely saw the ice at BU, but prior to BU, he was pretty solid in the BCHL, so the model also likes his projection on the 4th line.

One wild card that I didn’t mention because the model has a low projection on him is Alfred Lindberg. Lindberg was highly productive at AIC as a freshman with 22 points in 20 games, but last year, he struggled with injuries and AIC struggled in general. He fell back to 11 points in 34 games, and since that’s in the Atlantic, the model doesn’t expect much from him. However, if he falls back to his freshman year level, that’s another player that can get into RPI’s lineup and produce.

For incoming freshmen, Jackson Kyrkostas is expected to be the most productive after he had over a point per game in the BCHL. He has consistently put up points everywhere he has gone in his career, and he should be an immediate impact freshman in the middle 6. Matthew Buckley comes in from the OHL where he had 35 points last year, but the year before he had 51. He projects to play a 3rd line role. Lastly, Ian Scherzer had a solid year in the USHL and also projects to be a 3rd line type.

Defensively, RPI lost their top defensemen from last year. Will Gilson, Elliott McDermott and Max Smolinski all left either through the transfer portal or graduation, so there’s a large offensive void on the blue line.

The most impactful newcomers there are Lucas Lemieux and Kazimier Sobieski. Lemieux was one of the best defensemen in the BCHL last season, earning a selection on the 2nd All Star team. He should be an immediate impact in the top 4 with his offensive abilities. Sobieski is an interesting transfer. He played 5 games at UMass to start the year and struggled, and then, he returned to the USHL where he was excellent. He is projected to be in the top 4 as well, and he has the highest point projection among the defensemen. None of the other returners or newcomers are expected to produce offensively, which is definitely a weak point.

With all the key transfers and freshmen, it might be surprising that RPI’s offense is projected to be 8th in the league, but you might have noticed why that is the case. Almost all of these players project as middle of the lineup types, and they lack players who are supposed to be highly productive. Only Tinling, Tapper, and Wallace have top 6 projections, and then it’s a lot of middle 6, 3rd line, and bottom 6 projections. The depth will keep RPI competitive, but it means they are unlikely to score as much as last year.

I do want to shoutout that depth though because RPI actually has one of the deepest forward lineups in the league by the projections. If you compare the 4th line and their projections for every team in the league, Quinnipiac is by far #1, but RPI, Clarkson, and Harvard are all practically tied for #2. Obviously, you don’t win many games with your 4th line, and there’s a reason those other teams are top 3 teams by the offensive projections while RPI is 8th. It still gives them a good foundation to start with in year 1 of the Lang era.

Defense

Projected Defensive Rank: 11

This is the huge weakness that keeps RPI below the rest of the teams. Defensively, RPI was extremely weak last year, and it’s not supposed to get any better after all they lost. Gilson, McDermott and Smolinski were the top 3 defensemen on the roster both by offense and by defense. Losing them given their defensive impacts drops RPI’s defensive projection a significant amount. There is no team in the league that lost more defensively.

In the goaltending department, this actually helps mitigate the expected drop. RPI is bringing in a very good goalie in the model’s eyes with Nathan Krawchuk. Krawchuk was a great goalie in the OHL last year, ranking 13th in SV% on a team that was incredibly leaky defensively. This represents a big upgrade from the subpar goaltending last season, and if Krawchuk actually delivers, that’ll be a big core piece to have in place for the rebuilding effort.

Despite that improvement in the goaltending department, it really only evens out the losses defensively, meaning the projection is pretty similar to RPI’s defensive performance last season, which was really bad. That projection keeps them below SLU, who the model has them pretty close to, and Brown and Princeton who project to have at least mediocre defenses even if RPI is better offensively.

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.

12. Yale (Last Year: 11)

Yale has consistently been the lowest rated team by the model due to their continuous shortcomings in the recruiting department leading to some pretty horrendous offense. This year, the offense is once again supposed to be bad even with some bright young pieces to build with. However, it’s really the defense that keeps their projection so low after allowing 4 goals per game last season.

Key Losses: F Will Dineen (18 points in 30 games), D Connor Sullivan (11 points in 30 games), D Dylan Herzog (11 points in 30 games)

Key Returners: F Ronan O’Donnell (20 points in 29 games), F David Chen (17 points in 18 games), F Micah Berger (15 points in 21 games), D Rhys Bentham (4 points in 8 games)

Key Newcomers: F James Shannon (BCHL)

Offense

Returning Offense Rank: 7

Incoming Class Rank: 12

Projected Offensive Rank: 11

Yale’s poor recruiting once again hampers their offensive ability. However, this year feels like the first time in awhile where there’s actually a pretty solid young core to build around. They only lose Will Dineen up front who was good and is a loss. However, the young players seem capable of filling that hole.

David Chen returns after struggling with injuries, but when he was healthy, he had nearly a point per game. He should be their best player this season. Micah Berger also had some injury troubles but had an excellent freshman year when healthy. He is a true top 6 forward. Lastly, Ronan O’Donnell had a surprise freshman year with 20 points to lead the team. He looks to be a valuable power forward in the top 6 once again.

There’s some promising young players below them too, but they will need to take steps forward since they played at a 3rd line level. Zach Wagnon and Donovan Frias had 14 and 12 points, respectively, which are respectable freshman seasons. Will Richter had 11 points as a sophomore. That trio needs to be more in the 20 point range this season.

The issue is that those players profile like 3rd line players, so after the top 4 forwards, the depth drops off quickly. Even after those 3 players, the next best returning forward had 6 points. That’s a dramatic difference, and that lack of depth means they don’t project to score very much. They aren’t going to get much help from the league’s worst recruiting class either. Only James Shannon projects to contribute, and even that is only a bottom 6 projection since he had slightly less than a point per game in the BCHL.

Yale also loses their top two defensemen in Connor Sullivan and Dylan Herzog. They will be helped by Rhys Bentham hopefully being healthy for the full year. He only played in 8 games last season but was looking really good in those games with 4 points. He will likely be their top defenseman. The highest point total for a returning defenseman is 6 though, so there’s not much offense on the blue line. Similarly, there’s not any help coming from the recruits. Beyond the top players in Yale’s lineup, there’s simply just not much of note.

Yale is going to struggle to score again this season. Even if the promising young players all take steps, there’s not enough depth or talent on this roster. It’s basically the same story as Princeton but with way less depth and slightly more talent at the top of the lineup.

Defense

Projected Defensive Rank: 12

The defense is projected to be the worst in the league once again. Defense was actually supposed to be a strength for Yale last year, but then, it totally imploded. Jack Stark somehow dropped from a 0.919 SV% to a 0.879, which is an insane difference. That was the best save percentage of any of the goalies on the team somehow. Yale’s goaltending was the 2nd worst in the country only above Miami.

For this year, the losses of Sullivan, Herzog, and Kieran O’Hearn hurt them because those three were their top defensemen. The model projects there to be more shots and chances against with those losses. Again, this is a spot where a healthy Bentham should be a really big help for Yale.

In net, Stark will likely be the starter again. The model uses up to 3 years of data for goaltending, so it is projecting a bounce back for him, which Yale desperately needs. Even with a bounce back projected for Stark though, the improvement isn’t expected to be drastic enough when you’re starting from such a low spot; Yale gave up 4.03 goals per game last season.

While there is improvement expected overall, the blue line losses counteract the goaltending bounce back a little bit, so the improvement is projected at 0.23 goals per game, which is solid, but it’s not nearly enough. Allowing 3.8 goals per game would still be horrendous, and certainly the worst mark in the league. There is some hope here though. Stark has shown he can play at a high level, so if he truly can rise back to his freshman year level, they can get back to a respectable defense and potentially finish higher than 12th. I think it’ll all come down to Stark though because with the losses on the back end, I don’t think they can really improve too much in shots against and chances against.

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.

Final Model Rankings

1. Quinnipiac

2. Clarkson

3. Cornell

4. Harvard

5. Union

6. Dartmouth

7. Colgate

8. Brown

9. Princeton

10. St. Lawrence

11. RPI

12. Yale

Model Tiers

Quinnipiac
————————- (big gap)
Clarkson
Cornell
————————- (small gap)
Harvard
Union
Dartmouth
————————-
Colgate
Brown
Princeton
————————-
St. Lawrence
RPI
Yale

All-League Predictions

1st Team

Sr F Jeremy Wilmer, Quinnipiac

Jr F Mason Marcellus, Quinnipiac

Sr F Ryan St. Louis, Brown

Jr D CJ Foley, Dartmouth

Sr D Tristan Sarsland, Clarkson

Jr G Matej Marinov, Quinnipiac

2nd Team

So F Mick Thompson, Harvard

Jr F Ryan Walsh, Cornell

Jr F Andon Cerbone, Quinnipiac

So D Michael Neumeier, Colgate

Sr D Will Gilson, Quinnipiac

Fr G Alexis Cournoyer, Cornell

3rd Team

Sr F Brandon Buhr, Union

Sr F Brendan Gorman, Princeton

Sr F David Chen, Yale

Jr D George Fegaras, Cornell

So D Tate Taylor, Clarkson

So G Ben Charette, Harvard

All-Rookie Team

This year’s all rookie team was particularly hard to predict because of the influx of CHL talent. There’s a lot of talent coming into the league this season, that’s for sure.

F Adrian Misaljevic, Clarkson

F Aiden Long, Cornell

F Remi Gelinas, Clarkson

D Matthew Desiderio, Brown

D Xavier Veilleux, Cornell

G Alexis Cournoyer, Cornell

Awards

Player of the Year: Jr D CJ Foley, Dartmouth

Goalie of the Year: Jr G Matej Marinov, Quinnipiac

Rookie of the Year: Fr G Alexis Cournoyer, Cornell

If you’ve made it all the way to the end of this preview, thanks for reading! Hockey season is coming this week and I can’t wait!

The leaves are starting to turn, football has begun, and that means hockey season is right around the corner. The Engineers forward group (like every position) is going to look completely different this year and is more transfer heavy than the defense is. Dovar Tinling and Jagger Tapper figure to be the most prominent returners of the group, but aside from that we will have quite a few new faces to learn. Seeing as the unit will have 8-9 new players at a minimum, and oh hey, a new coaching staff as well, I don’t find analyzing last year to be a worthwhile exercise. So, let’s start fresh with an entirely new unit that has a ton of eligibility and the chance to grow into something special.

Part of what has me excited for this team is how young it is at every position. Guys like Luc Wilson and the aforementioned Tinling will provide experience up front, and Trevor Russell and Jimmy Goffredo the same for the defense. For the most part though, most of the team has 2-4 years of eligibility left and the chance to be Coach Lang’s first great core of players here. That should leave all fans excited. The other major theme that jumps out to me is that this forward group has a ton of lefties and a ton of centers. Like a ton. That will be a challenge for Lang & co. to manage and makes projecting the roster a bit more difficult than usual. Will it propel freshman RW’s Matt Buckley and Jackson Kyrkostas into bigger roles right away? Which guys move to the wing, and will some play on their offside? Those questions are above my pay grade, but I will do my best here to take them apart for everybody. Let’s jump into it.

The Top-6:

I think part of what makes this era of college hockey exciting is that there are so many ways to build a team and players find your program at completely different places in their career. When I look at this top 6, I see players stepping up in competition looking to sustain their production, others coming down looking for more opportunity, sophomores looking to build on a great freshman year, etc. The challenge now is to make it all mesh together.

Tyler Wallace comes over from Niagara with a background very similar to Austin Heidemann’s at the time. 2 highly productive years in Atlantic Hockey including 30 points as a freshman, preceded by a very successful junior hockey career, primarily in the AJHL for Wallace. He was 5th in points in the AJHL before going to Niagara and brings quite a bit of goal scoring and size to the Engineers. He has mostly played center and Lang highlighted that he had one of the best faceoff percentages in the country, but his experience at wing makes him a logical fit to move over given the team’s personnel.

One-Liner: Tyler has produced at every level, but will he be able to take that next step forward despite much harder competition on RPI’s schedule this year?

Dovar Tinling is the veteran of this forward group and arguably the best bet to lead the team offensively. The fanbase is familiar with Dovar’s story now and how he went to UVM too early, but I really think his best hockey is still in front of him. He centered Jack Brackett and Felix Caron for the majority of last season and figures to be a top-line staple in 2025. Tinling’s allegiance to the program through the coaching change when he would have had many suitors figures to make him an immediate leader for this group. I think his offensive game is very solid and he should have every opportunity to produce this season. The question for me is if he can elevate his two-way game to an all-league level as he figures to be at the top of the scouting report for the Engineers.

One-Liner: Is Tinling ready to be the featured guy up front after the Muzzatti, Hotson, and Caron departures?

Jagger Tapper is a very welcomed returner after a pleasantly surprising freshman year where he turned in 20 points. Injuries in the top-6 launched Jagger into an elevated role, which he ran with and never gave back. This time last year, we were talking about Tapper as someone who had work to do to crack the lineup but possessed all the tools to be a successful college player. Tapper is an incredibly important piece of the puzzle here for quite a few reasons. First, he is very skilled and has the ability to continue developing into a top-level offensive player. Second, RPI is very short on right wings this year, so Tapper has a big role to take on. Lastly, he is one of the few holdovers being relied upon to carry the RPI culture, and his 3 years of eligibility remaining make him an exciting piece for the staff to keep developing.

One-Liner: His standout freshman year was unanticipated and at times a bit lucky with ENGs and secondary assists. Can he legitimize that production as an essential part of the core in his sophomore season?

Luc Wilson transfers to RPI from a Minnesota State team that won the CCHA and took the National Champion WMU Broncos to 2 OTs in the NCAA tournament. Wilson primarily was a middle-6 center for Mankato but figures to move to the wing given RPI’s glut at center.

Wilson is a high-IQ offensive player with a capable shot and playmaking ability. Last year’s 13 points regressed from his 19 as a sophomore, but he did stay consistent with 7 goals. Similar to Tinling, he is a 1-year guy that will bring experience to a fairly inexperienced team. I don’t expect an enormous jump despite a moderate drop in competition, but Wilson figures to be a solid producer on the 2nd line.

One-Liner: Wilson is as safe a bet as you’ll find and has produced at every level. What is his ceiling for a team desperate for high-end scoring?

Filip Sitar is far and away the x-factor on this roster to me, and like Tapper, a very important player with 3 years of college hockey left. Sitar is a very high-IQ center that is great in the dot and plays a 200-foot game. Stephen did a great piece breaking down his game over the summer which I recommend everyone checks out. To summarize though, Sitar was regarded as an NHL draft prospect in Sweden but was blocked last season on a very strong UConn team. The numbers show his defense was excellent in his 4th-line role, but his production internationally suggests there is way more offense to his game. Additionally, Coach Lang said to us he thought Sitar went to UConn a year too early. We have seen this model work before for RPI with guys like Dovar Tinling and TJ Walsh, and you could make the argument that Sitar is the best player of the three at this point in their respective careers.

One-Liner: The blueprint has worked in the past, so can Sitar deliver on the increased opportunity to produce that he should receive this year?

Rainers Rullers had a productive freshman year and was our lone attendee of development camp this summer, where he spent a week with the Tampa Bay Lightning. He was consistently RPI’s 3rd-line center last year, mostly behind Lee and Tinling on the depth chart. Rainers took on a lot of responsibility as a freshman, as he was one of RPI’s top penalty killers and logged a lot of minutes. Logic would tell you he’d slot up a spot onto the 2nd line this year, but with the surplus of centers this year I think he could be a candidate to move to the wing. I’d expect Rullers to be a top defensive forward again, but I’d love to see him use his size to turn into a true power forward. A year of a college weightlifting program should work wonders, and hopefully we see an uptick in physicality this year, especially around the net. If he can elevate his offensive production, I expect him to be a very useful player for RPI that plays in all situations.

The Middle-6

The middle 6 this year is the strength of the forward group and has a lot of options, especially at center. RPI is going to need to rely on its depth, both to score up and down the lineup, but also to help out with defensive coverage. It is safe to plug in the top-6 players, as well as Bono and Lindberg into the lineup every night. That leaves the three freshmen to carve out the final top 9 role, or establish that they can contribute in a defensive role on the 4th line.

Ethan Bono reminds me a lot of where John Beaton fit into the roster the last few years. Bono is naturally a center but seems like a candidate to move to the wing given the surplus. He was pretty young when he went to Merrimack and did produce for them in a tougher league. He’s got good size and should be a better fit in a league that is more physical than Hockey East. I think it is fair to say there is a role for him if he doesn’t improve from last year, but development as he drops down to the ECAC would be a welcomed occurrence for RPI.

One-Liner: Is he a natural fit to move to the wing and will this move come with a scoring bump?

Alfred Lindberg was the lone AIC Yellow Jacket to follow Coach Lang across the state border this spring. He had a bit of a confusing career at AIC, as he produced 22 points points in just 20 games his freshman but regressed down to 11 last year. He was a bit banged up and Lang said he was extremely snake-bitten, but this is pretty significant point-per-game regression. He was an assistant captain as just a sophomore and certainly seems like the type of kid Lang wanted to bring with him for the transition.

One-Liner: Will his familiarity with Coach Lang facilitate a smoother adjustment for him than the rest of the transfers?

Matt Buckley should be a beneficiary of the left-handed skew of this forward group, as he comes in from a stacked Oshawa team in the OHL. In my view, Buckley is best positioned among the freshman forward to make an impact right away. His 30 goals in the OHL 2 years ago show he has significant offensive prowess which the team is looking for. Last year was a down year, but I expect a bounce back as he joins the collegiate ranks. Buckley should get powerplay opportunities early on as a freshman and wouldn’t be surprised to see him contend for ECAC all-rookie honors.

One-Liner: Was last year’s drop in production an aberration or a concern?

Ian Scherzer is one of the most interesting players on the roster to me, as I truly think he can be a building block for the next 4 years of the program. He is a pure center with elite play-driving metrics, defense, and a very high-IQ. His underlying metrics in the USHL were excellent last year and suggest he was a bit unlucky with his point total. Lang referred to him as “one of our type of players” and I think he may force his way into a prominent role sooner rather than later. I think he has the capability to be a really, really good college player at RPI if he stays and develops. Early in the season, I think he more than Kyrkostas and Buckley has the ability to make an impact on the 4th line if he is blocked out by older players in the top 9.

One-Liner: Can he translate elite play driving metrics into legitimate point production as a college player?

Jackson Kyrkostas is the last true candidate to play in a scoring role in my view, and he is a name RPI fans should be pretty familiar with. He committed to the program during his days at Kimball Union and has been a prolific scorer everywhere he has gone. I suspect he starts in more of a depth role earlier on, but he has the offensive capabilities to be a very productive player.

One-Liner: The skill is there, but does he play a complete enough game to get extended time as a freshman?

The Bottom-6:

The Engineers have struggled immensely on defense, and the penalty kill in the past two seasons, and there are many reasons that is the case. One of those was a lack of depth at forward, causing an inability to defend with your typical 4th-line checkers. It pushed guys like Jake Gagnon and Sutter Muzzatti into penalty killing roles, when in reality, you want those guys taking your offensive chances. I think RPI finally has the right mix and proper depth in the bottom 6 which is going to help forwards stay fresh and help the defense.

Brad McNeil is expected to be one of the captains and is a clear leader of the group. He is a high-IQ forward, a penalty killer, and a guy that you know what you’re getting from. He didn’t take the step forward offensively that I was hoping for last year, but I am not sure this team needs him to. I’d expect him to be plugged right into the 4th line all year long and relied upon for his experience.

One-Liner: Is there any more offense to his game that could propel him beyond just a 4th-line role?

Cole Gordon comes to RPI from an ASU team that made the NCAA tournament last year. Gordon is a grinder through and through, and I feel as if I need to fully reserve judgment until seeing his game in person, because his impact doesn’t show up in the box score. I think Gordon will bring a tenacity to the bottom 6 that the team has sorely lacked recently and will help with the PK improvement as well. Expect he and McNeil to be penciled into the lineup immediately each night.

One-Liner: Will his tenacity and physicality help the team defensively and make his role irreplaceable?

I did a piece highlighting Jack Gorton last week, but he is a bit of a tough scouting report because we don’t have much data on his game. He does possess a lot of size and has flashed some skill, but his game is clearly raw. It’ll be interesting to see how he fits into the puzzle early on.

One-Liner: Can Gorton help carry BU’s culture and winning ways to help Coach Lang establish winning habits within the program?

Mat Bourgault reportedly had an excellent training camp last fall and was flying around the ice in the exhibition game at UMass we saw last year. And then, he suffered a season ending injury and we never got to see anything more. He stuck at RPI through the coaching change and should be fully healthy now, and I expect he will contribute in the bottom 6. Similar to Gorton, we don’t have much tape on him because he has played so sparingly, but I am excited to see him fully healthy again. I expect Mat to force his way into the lineup after a broken freshman year.

One-Liner: Can he force his way into a crowded bottom 6 after years of injuries and setbacks?

Lucas Matta is our final highlight, as the former defenseman is expected to play forward again this year after injury forced him to change position in 2024. Matta is a leader of the group and will provide the team positional flexibility as needed.

One-Liner: Will it be forward or defense for Matta in his final collegiate season?

This year is a big transition for the RPI program, and there will be a lot of new faces for fans to get used to. I strayed away from the more team-oriented preview we typically do in favor of a player spotlight piece, sheerly due to the number of new players there are. It is going to take some time for Lang to get this to gel, and it may not even come this season. I am excited to see the deployment of a new system, and look forward to seeing this young forward group grow together over the next few years. I think the unit has excellent depth and its strongest points are the middle 6, but it will be reliant on development from a few top players to carry the scoring. They will need to score with depth and compete hard to get the most out of their talent this year. A little more than a week until the team hits the ice, we will have a lot more content coming your way to kick off the season. As always, Let’s Go Red.

RPI released its roster for the first year of the Eric Lang era last week in what all signs point to being a developmental year. The roster is ironically not up on the website now, but I feel like we have a strong inclination at what it’ll look like. The roster looked as expected with the exception of Ethan Elias and Joseph Henneberry, who Stephen reported had committed in June. I am willing to chalk this up to a communications error and expect them both in Troy next year. It has been a while since we got any content out there, so I wanted to go through some initial thoughts on the roster.

The Youth Movement

The coaching staff did a nice job finding veteran pieces that can help now, but this is going to take a year or two to build a “core”. It took Seth Appert a few years to develop his first core of Chase Polacek, Tyler Helfrich, Allen York, and others. Dave Smith’s best group was the classes that had Jake Johnson, Ture Linden, Owen Savory and others. I think even if there are growing pains, there is reason to be excited by the freshman class and I will add in the talented sophomore transfers as well, Filip Sitar and Kaz Sobieski. Retention is not guaranteed in this era, but there will be opportunities for these players to contribute and grow into a top-tier core for the roster going forward. I think Nathan Krawchuk has high-end starter potential, Lucas Lemieux and Joseph Henneberry have all-league potential, and all of the others are very solid prospects that will contribute.

Depth, Depth, Depth

I certainly won’t be penciling in any line charts, but those of you that have been reading the blog a while know I like to game out line charts. This would be my preliminary depth chart right now.

Wilson-Tinling-Tapper
Wallace-Rullers-Sitar
Henneberry-Lindberg-Buckley
McNeil-Gordon-Bono
Bourgault-Scherzer-Kyrkostas
Gorton

Lemieux-Russell
VanDamme-Sobieski
Ozolins-Elias
Klassek-Goffredo
Matta-Hilditch

Bruveris
Krawchuk

I feel so significantly better about this roster than I have in prior years. The top end is not as strong as it was last year after the Gilson, Hotson, and Muzzatti losses but the depth is drastically improved. It truly feels like everyone on the roster either does right now or will contribute significantly during their career.

Centers

Coach Lang really prioritized depth at center in the portal, and it feels as if the Engineers have 8-9 guys that can line up in the middle. There is definitely more depth on the lefthanded side so I would expect the Wallace’s and Bono’s of the world to go to LW. Tinling, Sitar, Rullers, Wallace, Bono, Lindberg, Buckley, Kyrkostas, Scherzer, McNeil, and Gordon all have significant experience at center. This makes it a bit harder to forecast a lineup, but I equate centers to shortstops and centerfielders in baseball. The learning curve is steeper at those positions, so I would rather have depth there and flex guys to the wing than vice versa.

I think this roster lacks the firepower at the top to score a lot and probably doesn’t have the goaltending to be superb defensively either. However, the depth is exciting as Lang begins his rebuild. Fans should be excited by the depth he is accumulating, as there is a “build through the draft” feel to this offseason as he stockpiles young talent. There are a few top players that will graduate after this year, but I think retention and development of this young core is the path to success. Much more to come on the blog and hockey season will be here before we know it. It is an exciting time in Troy as we ramp into the first season with Eric Lang at the helm!

Wow! What a day it was yesterday. It had been nearly a month without a head coach for the RPI Engineers, but the guy who had been the favorite all along ends up with the job. Barring a super out of the box hire, Lang always made the most sense and was by far the best candidate. His record at AIC is well documented, with numerous league titles, NCAA Tournament appearances, and a win over the #1 seed in the tournament in 2019. We have spoken at length on Substack and X about why he was the right man for the job and are ecstatic with Dr. Bowers’ decision. So rather than repeating ourselves again, we compiled a to-do list for the first offseason of Coach Lang’s tenure. It calls to mind the first 100 days of the U.S. presidency, as the first month of Lang’s tenure will be hectic to say the least. Decorate the office in June, coach, we have work to do!!

1. Retention, retention, retention

Immediately when RPI fired Dave Smith as the head coach, all of the best players on the Engineers started getting calls from other programs trying to poach them. Most of the top ones did choose to enter the portal, 5 of them to be exact. Gilson landed at Quinnipiac, Smolinski at St. Cloud, and Hotson announced Monday night he would head to Bowling Green, leaving Muzzatti and Caron looking for spots. However, there’s still some left who are likely undecided that had been waiting to see who was hired.

We think most fans would agree that the most important players to retain at this point are Dovar Tinling, Jagger Tapper, Rainers Rullers, and Jimmy Goffredo. These players should be high priorities for Coach Lang to keep as the main players left at the top of the lineup. Additionally, it would be beneficial to keep the depth players as well for culture purposes. Guys like Brad McNeil and Gustavs Ozolins have been looked to as future captains since arriving on campus due to their leadership qualities and compete level. Plus, there’s the fact that they need to field a roster. The team only has 12 players returning from last season as of right now; can that number really afford to be lower? He doesn’t exactly have a head start with the transfer portal, as many players are off the board or very close to committing. The true roster overhauling may begin next offseason, so it makes sense to retain the valuable pieces and develop what he can.

Lastly, Coach Lang should take a run at trying to convince the portal guys to return. While 3 of them are committed, we know all too well that verbal commitments are not binding, which has burned RPI plenty of times. Maybe it is RPI’s turn to be on the other end of it. Muzzatti and Caron are uncommitted and are likelier to return while their future is still up in the air. Caron, in particular, would be a huge piece to return as he has 3 years of eligibility remaining and would be core piece of the rebuild. It’s worthwhile to try to reach out to all of them and attempt to sell them on your vision at RPI. It’s not like they were unhappy at the school; their coach just got fired. It’s not too different from a normal portal recruitment, and worst case scenario, it fails.

2. Determine which recruits to keep

You can probably add in Lucas Lemieux, Jackson Kyrkostas, Nate Krawchuk, and Thomas Klassek from the recruit pool to the players we listed above as well. These players should be just as big of a priority to keep as key recruits who are expected to contribute immediately as freshmen and could help make up the core of Lang’s team as he builds the roster in his image. It bodes well that none have decommitted yet, so I think there’s a good chance of keeping them.

For the rest of the recruits, there’s more question marks surrounding them. For guys like Jack Ziliotto, Easton Adrian, and Landen Hilditch, the question is whether or not they come in this year or get delayed a year. All 3 are good recruits, but Ziliotto would probably be more of a 3rd line player if he came to RPI this fall instead of waiting a year. Adrian and Hilditch have had injury-plagued years, so the question for them is more about how healthy and ready they are. The other recruits either project as depth players or are young and definitely need more development in junior hockey. Coach Lang will have to decide which of those players to keep.

3. Use the portal (and CHL) to fill the remaining roster holes

The first big area that needs to be addressed is the goaltending room. The Engineers currently only have 3rd stringer Carson Dorfman on the roster. The odds are probably high that Lang wants to address this before the season begins! Jokes aside, having a blank slate in the goaltending room is not the worst thing in the world. Goalie may be the only position that you can land a player that is out of your proverbial league simply with the pitch of playing time. Coach Lang has the chance to grab a very solid goalie with a few years of eligibility from the portal based on the playing time he has to offer. Patriks Berzins from Maine could be an option through the Latvian connection. He was teammates with Rainers Rullers in Madison in 23-24 and is in the portal now. Chase Clark started at AIC this year, so he is also an option but would have to be graduating early to get into RPI as a transfer. We would still absolutely like to see Nathan Krawchuk come as well as stated above since he looks to be a good goalie from Sudbury in the OHL. Regardless, this is a position that needs to be filled out very quickly this offseason.

For the rest of the holes, there are not many players from AIC that are worth bringing over as essentially all the best players have committed elsewhere now. It is especially difficult with RPI’s transfer rules, but Lang will have spots to fill. This team graduated 11 players and lost 5 to the portal already. RPI has lost its entire top 4 on defense, both goalies that played, and 7 of its top 10 forwards counting Muzzatti who missed the end of the season. There’s lots of playing time to go around. Here’s what he has to work with right now:

? - Tinling - Tapper
? - Kyrkostas - ?
? - Rullers - Ziliotto?
Bourgault - McNeil - Payant
Sullivan, Janus, Oakenfold

Lemieux - ?
Klassek - Goffredo
Ozolins - Hilditch?
Adrian?
Maguire, Matta

? Krawchuk Dorfman

That’s 6 spots that are totally empty, all in key roles in the lineup, and keep in mind that this assumes that no one else enters the portal or decommits and assumes Coach Lang chooses to keep everyone and doesn’t delay Ziliotto, Hilditch or Adrian. There’s a good chance there will be more spots to fill than just what we have laid out there. Unfortunately, the hiring process took longer than it probably should have, so a good chunk of talent is off the board from the portal. However, there’s still enough to find players from the portal, and there’s probably still some CHL players who can come in and contribute as freshmen. With Lang’s reputation, we bet he can convince some solid players to join the fold early on with the minutes he has to offer, especially younger players who can be sold on being centerpieces of a rebuilding program.

4. Finalize the Coaching Staff

Per sources, we can report that Mathias Lange and Karlis Zirnis will be retained on the staff, leaving one assistant spot open for Coach Lang to fill. Luckily that is much easier to manage, and that should help a lot with the transition. It should also ideally help to keep the rest of the roster and the incoming recruiting class intact. We said before in previous articles that we’d like for Coach Lang to hire a recruiting specialist type of assistant, and that remains the same now. With his reputation in the hockey world, we have no doubt that there will not be a shortage of coaching talent interested in joining the staff.

5. Engage Alumni and Fans

Lang will have some very practical roster building questions to address first, but once he gets the chance to catch his breath, I suspect he will spend a lot of the summer drumming up new interest in the program. Matt Murley of Spittin Chiclets has been helping out a lot, and other prominent hockey alumni have voiced desire to help right the ship. Lang is a smart guy who comes from a situation that lacked resources. He would be wise to draw into RPI Hockey’s history with the alumni and local fans to gain momentum early in his tenure. I would like to see the university get the students more involved as well, which I am sure he and Dr. Bowers will work closely on. Hiring a new coach can reinvigorate a fan base and a recruiting pipeline too. I am sure the athletic department and Coach Lang will be eager to catch a wave of momentum and run with it. A big part of that will be getting as many prominent hockey alumni and donors as possible involved in the program.

Welcome Coach! We are excited for this new chapter of RPI Hockey!

Per Ken Schott, Eric Lang is set to be named Head Coach of the RPI Engineers. Lang comes to RPI from AIC where he totally turned that program around. Despite having very little university or financial support, Lang led the Yellow Jackets to 4 straight league titles and 3 straight NCAA tournament appearances. Up until this year, they had 6 straight winning seasons.

Lang will inherit a rebuild at RPI with the majority of the best players either graduating or in the portal. It’ll likely take a few years, but given his track record, he has a great chance to turn things around here. This is an absolute homerun hire. We will have more to come later!

Yesterday afternoon, a new report dropped naming two more finalists for the next RPI men’s hockey coach. They are Dartmouth Associate HC Jason Tapp and Clarkson Associate HC Chris Brooks. The original report naming Eric Lang, Dan Jewell, and Jim Doyle the finalists was erroneous, which will be discussed more in a bit.

This new list makes a lot more sense. Both Tapp and Brooks were coaches that were on our radar when we wrote about potential candidates since they are both ECAC assistants with national titles on their resumes. They both seem like better fits than Doyle, and they both are more experienced than Jewell. Frankly, it relieves me that these are the type of candidates RPI can draw, as opposed to what the first list looked like.

Tapp was a longtime assistant and associate HC at Union where he helped build and win the national championship in 2014. He joined Reid Cashman at Dartmouth 5 years ago, and he has been the top assistant there and a big part of their rise. As a former goaltender who has been working with the goalies there, he developed both Clay Stevenson and Cooper Black into goalies who earned NHL contracts. He can point to his familiarity with the area, experience in the ECAC, and revival at Dartmouth as reasons he deserves this job.

Brooks built UW-Stevens Point into a D3 powerhouse and won a national championship as the head coach there. Since then, he has done good work with both Michigan Tech and Clarkson. He had numerous NCAA tournament appearances at Michigan Tech, and while Clarkson had a brief dip his first two years there, they rebounded this year and appear on the right track once again. It helps that both are smaller tech schools with good academics as well. He should have some familiarity with what type of kids he can recruit.

Now, talking about where the search stands and getting into the erroneous report. The initial report was clearly wrong: the finalists were not Lang, Jewell, and Doyle. Tapp and Brooks being in the picture now doesn’t mean those 3 aren’t finalists, but the list was not just those 3 as first reported. That being said, I would be shocked if all 5 of these coaches are finalists; it’s just way too big of a list to have for your final round when you’re bringing them all to campus. It’s either a list of 3 or 4, and either Jewell or Doyle or both are not finalists.

It is frustrating to receive a report of finalists stated as fact that is now clearly not the status of the situation. We have heard some rumors the past couple of weeks, but didn’t report any of them without full confirmation. Certainly, these situations can be fluid, but this wasn’t reported on like it was rumor. Lang is the only one definitely correct from the initial report.

So, you may be asking why we can trust this new report if the first one was so incorrect. I had that same question myself, so I sought out to confirm it myself privately. Lang, Tapp, and Brooks are confirmed finalists. It’s not clear what the status of Jewell and Doyle’s candidacies are.

Here is my gut feeling based on what I’ve heard, but I want to make it clear that this information is not confirmed. It appears to me that neither Jewell nor Doyle are finalists. It’s possible that one of them is, but there’s practically no chance that both are as I stated above. That would be too many to bring to campus and cause the process to extend into next week.

One random note that bodes well for those who want Lang to be pick is that the transfer portal showcase he is running was postponed. As I said on Twitter, I think this is mostly related to the RPI coaching search. The date of the portal opening was known well in advance as was the fact the season wouldn’t be fully over. The only thing that has changed since it was scheduled is that Lang is a finalist for the RPI coaching job. What does that mean? Well, in a best-case scenario mindset (if you want Lang of course), he thinks he’s getting the job either late this week or early next week and doesn’t want this event to interfere with that. In the worst-case, it probably was just too much to handle interviewing seriously for the job while trying to administratively put the event together.

With the two new candidates, we would tier them as follows.

1. Eric Lang

2. Jason Tapp and Chris Brooks

3. Dan Jewell

4. Joe Doyle

For the big picture with the process, I expect that the new coach will be named by the Frozen Four at the latest. All the on-campus interviews will take place this week, and it shouldn’t take too long after that. At the earliest, it could be announced Thursday if the interviews were Monday-Wednesday. In actuality, I think it’ll be sometime between Friday and Tuesday. Stay tuned.

When Dave Smith was relieved of his duties on March 10th, it was a fair assumption that Dr. Kristie Bowers would like to have a successor in place by the end of the month. Now that the transfer portal is open, there is more urgency to have your ducks in a row for roster retention purposes. RPI has already had 5 of its top players purged, specifically Felix Caron, Sutter Muzzatti, Will Gilson, Tyler Hotson, and Max Smolinski. The search has been kept incredibly quiet, but Ken Schott of the Daily Gazette and Mike McMahon of CHN have reported now that only 3 candidates remain. Let’s break it down.

The Finalists:

Eric Lang (AIC Head Coach):

We wrote about Lang extensively in our first article, dubbing him the “odds-on favorite” for the job at that time. That seems to still be true, and it is hard to argue with his record at AIC. He is very highly regarded in hockey circles, which I think is a strong indicator to potential success. His peers rave about the work he did with limited resources in Springfield, and it’s fair to assume that if RPI ups its support, he could replicate that work here. He obviously has a need for a job, and we are under the belief that he is incredibly interested in this opening.

His record at AIC does speak for itself. After a two-year ramp-up period prior to the transfer portal, he ripped off four consecutive Atlantic titles and six consecutive winning seasons. AIC was not considered an easy job in the slightest, so this is impressive work with such limited resources. They upset the #1 overall seed in St. Cloud State during the 2019 NCAA Tournament as well. All of this is incredibly impressive, but I have just two concerns that I will raise. I don’t like how their results tapered off the last 3 years, even though this year was explainable because AIC announced they would cut the program before the season. Second, Lang worked at Army before getting the AIC job, so he has no NCAA experience outside of Atlantic Hockey. It is reasonable to wonder how high his ceiling is at RPI when he has never competed for top-tier talent outside of the Atlantic. If he is hired, I would like to see him employ that young, personable recruiting specialist as an assistant, the way Nolan Graham was for Appert and Dan Jewell was for Smith. Brian Riley, whom Lang worked for at Army, raved about Lang’s work saying that he got them 3 guys from the USHL in his first year, which is practically unheard of for that program. So, perhaps we should have more faith in his recruiting abilities given better resources, but I would still love to see him add an assistant with that skillset.

In many ways the thesis to hire him is similar to what it was for Dave Smith, but his resume is simply better at this time. I feel that Lang could elevate the floor of RPI into the middle of the league pretty quickly, the question would then be can he get the level of talent to Troy needed to compete with the Quinnipiac’s and Cornell’s. For me, Lang was the baseline for candidates coming into this because it seemed like such a mutual fit. Now that I have seen the finalists, make no ifs ands or buts about it, Eric Lang needs to get this job. He is vastly more qualified than the other two candidates and boasts a resume where he has done “a lot with a little”. RPI has much more to offer than AIC, but it still doesn’t have the resources to compete with the top dogs in the East. Lang could turn this thing around pretty quickly, and RPI would be remised to miss this opportunity.

Dan Jewell (Merrimack Associate HC):

Speaking of Jewell, he has been listed as one of the three finalists. It is certainly an interesting option and would be quite the story if he is to land the job. Jewell deserves a lot of credit for the recruiting classes he helped construct during Dave Smith’s first two seasons at RPI. Think back to all the players we regret losing to the transfer portal and the rest of that core that stayed. Tristan Ashbrook, Simon Kjellberg, Zach Dubinsky, Ottoville Leppanen, Jake Johnson, Ture Linden and Owen Savory. The story goes that Jewell found Savory in a USHL camp and dug him out of the tiny GOJHL and the rest was history. Jewell can directly point to that group of guys in his interview, and say, “I had a large part in getting almost all of those guys here”. And he’s not wrong, he may not have stayed for the two best seasons under Smith and gotten to reap the benefits, but his fingerprints are all over those teams.

At Merrimack, he was there for their first tournament appearance in 12 years and has helped elevate their program under Scott Borek. Merrimack is a nearly impossible school to recruit to and succeed at when they have to compete with BC, BU, Providence, Maine and the rest of Hockey East every year. Therefore, there is a little more nuance required to evaluate his resume seeing as he took some challenging assistant jobs. Truthfully, I am not opposed to bringing Jewell back to Troy, and I am excited by his recruiting prowess. It is a little challenging to get excited if this were the hire knowing Eric Lang was available, but you could sell me on the upside Jewell provides.

Joe Doyle (Air Force Associate HC)

The last finalist is Air Force Associate Head Coach Joe Doyle. This is a head scratcher to say the least. Doyle played four years at Air Force and has spent nearly his entire college hockey career as an assistant there. He is originally from Massachussets, so perhaps he is looking to get back on the East Coast. Air Force has had some success during his time there, but it came almost entirely before COVID. Recruiting to the military academies is never easy, but this would be a massive change of scenery for him. I am curious as to how there weren’t better candidates to be considered in this final round. If you are going to reach into the Atlantic for a coach, I would much prefer the guy who won four consecutive titles as a head coach. With all due respect, this candidacy isn’t in the same ballpark as Lang’s.

Well, we are down to 3. Lang has always been the leader in the clubhouse, Jewell has the program ties, and Doyle is the surprise. People in hockey circles that we speak to rave about Eric Lang and think he is the right person for this job. Jewell has an interesting case to bring to the table, but make no mistake, it should be Lang’s to lose. Hopefully we will have our answer by the end of the week. Let’s go red.

Earlier in the week, standout freshman Felix Caron and Nashville draft pick Sutter Muzzatti entered their names in the transfer portal. Aside from early entrant Nick Strom, these are the first, and likely not the last players we will see go. It is part of the game nowadays, especially when you undergo a coaching change.

Sutter Muzzatti had a bit of a “what could have been” career at RPI, especially after the prolific freshman year he had. He was basically a point-per-game producer in the second half of his freshman year and was rewarded as a 5th-round selection of Nashville that summer. He battled injuries his sophomore year on a bad team, and didn’t quite take the leap that he had hoped. In the offseason, he had hip surgeries which essentially took him out of his junior year entirely. It makes sense that he needs a change of scenery, especially before the Predators would lose his rights. If his body is fully healthy, he can make a real impact in the middle-6 for a top 10 or 15 team in the country. It is too bad we never got to see everything Muzzatti could have been while at RPI. All accounts say that Sutter was an excellent leader and ambassador of the program, and we wish him all the best in his final year of college hockey.

Caron is a real tough one to lose. He was the crown jewel of last year’s recruiting class. He came in off a year in which he finished 3rd in goals and points in the BCHL. He took a ton of penalties in his freshman year, but 21 points as a freshman is a rarity. Felix was definitely a player you would have liked to keep and develop the next 3 years. He was on a path to becoming a 15 goal, point-per-game type of player in a few seasons. Losing Muzzatti hurts, but Caron would have been a much more valuable piece to a new coach because of how much eligibility he has left. We wish Felix the best and look forward to following the rest of his college career.

Big Picture Thoughts Before the Hiring

The Houston Field House feasibility study and future renovations, the coaching change, and extended search indicate the institution is committed to reviving the hockey program. But RPI is not positioned financially and competitively for an overnight rebuild. As disheartening as that may be for fans that have endured a lot of struggles, it is still the reality of the situation. I take a lot of solace in the fact that the new president is an alum and a massive hockey fan. The AD came from a hockey powerhouse at Boston University. They are putting their fingerprints on this program, but it takes a minute to get your ducks in a row behind the scenes.

Engineer fans shouldn’t panic if there is short term pain. Remember, this team finished 12th and 10th respectively in the past two seasons. There is no talent on the roster that is absolutely irreplaceable. Regardless, these two losses sting. Muzzatti has been a staple with explosive talent, and Caron had the potential to be a top-6 cornerstone. I am sure there is urgency within the athletic department to get this this search wrapped up, so the new coach doesn’t inherit a gutted roster.

This process is about rebuilding the foundation of the program to support long-term, sustained winning. Things like this are going to happen, but you have to keep the vision in mind and let whoever the new coach is build it their way. Hopefully we will have clarity on the search soon, I would expect something is finalized or very close by the end of next week. Until then, and especially after then, buckle up and have patience as the program overhaul roars on this summer. It’s going to be a busy offseason.

It’s now time to get into the options to replace Dave Smith as RPI’s head coach. RPI is in a pretty good position right now from a timeline standpoint. Since they are the first program this offseason to fire a head coach, they also have a head-start to try to woo the top candidates on the market. Currently, the only other school with an opening at head coach is Ferris State, and I would think that due to the conference and history that RPI would be a more attractive opening.

After what transpired under the previous administration, Dr. Schmidt and Dr. Bowers will have to convince top candidates that they can succeed here. It is no secret in the hockey world what has transpired with the program, and there will likely be some natural skepticism from candidates that they can succeed here. That being said, let’s dig in!

Alumni

Kirk MacDonald ‘07
RPI (NCAA) Asst. Coach: 2013-14
Reading Royals (ECHL) Asst. Coach: 2014-17
Reading Royals (ECHL) Head Coach: 2017-22
Dubuque Fighting Saints (USHL) Head Coach: 2022-24
Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins (AHL) Head Coach: 2024-Present

When writing this article, I went back to look at Without a Peer’s initial article in 2017 about candidates, and I came across their section on Kirk MacDonald there. The last paragraph was particularly interesting.

MacDonald has a solid history across his career of holding leadership roles, holding captaincies in junior, college, and minor league hockey during the course of his career. Anyone who's been through what he's been through with cancer has a pretty strong grasp on perseverance and handling adversity. It certainly looks like he has a bright future in coaching. But is that future now? It's possible, but in all likelihood, the top spot at RPI might be a little too much, too soon, especially given the other candidates that are out there right now. Still, it's certainly worth watching MacDonald's coaching career to see where it might go.

The paragraph proved prophetic as MacDonald ended up elevating to the head coaching position in Reading. In his 4 seasons as head coach, Reading was above .500 in every season and made the playoffs in all but 1. He then left to become the head coach for Dubuque. In Dubuque, he was also quite successful in his 2 years there with records of 32-24-6 and 41-13-8. Last year, he led the team all way to the finals before they lost against Fargo.

MacDonald parlayed that into the head coaching position for the WBS Penguins, the AHL affiliate of the Pittsburgh Penguins. He has had an extremely successful first season there with a 31-16-8 record that has them in 2nd place in the Atlantic Division.

His only real weakness is a lack of experience in the college game, so his recruiting prowess is unknown. His star is rising quite fast though. Even a year or two ago, I don’t think he would have been such a hot commodity because he was still really inexperienced outside the ECHL, but now, he is easily one of the favorites for the job. The question now with MacDonald is “would he come here?” AHL head coaching jobs aren’t too far from NHL jobs, and it arguably could be a lateral move at best. Last year, Clarkson managed to hire JF Houle from an AHL head coaching job, but Northern Michigan also lost Grant Potulny to one. That’s where Dr. Bowers and Dr. Schmidt come in like we said above - they have to demonstrate to the top candidates that they are creating an environment for success.

Andrew Lord ‘08
Cardiff Devils (EIHL) Asst. Coach: 2014-20
Greenville Swamp Rabbits (ECHL) Head Coach: 2020-21
Greenville Swamp Rabbits (ECHL) Head Coach and GM: 2021-24
Halifax Mooseheads (QMJHL) Head Coach: 2024-Present

Lord is another young coach with a promising future, even though he is not rising quite as fast as MacDonald.

In Cardiff, Lord had an excellent record with 30+ wins in every season and no more than 15 losses in any season. He made it to 3 straight finals, and won back to back championships in 2018 and 2019. He then moved back to North America, taking over in Greenville and ended up assuming both HC and GM duties. Lord continued his success there with playoff appearances in all 4 seasons.

Becoming the head coach in Halifax is quite interesting. With CHL players now eligible, those connections will be very important for the next coach, and Lord will have great ones in the QMJHL. However, it’s worth noting that Halifax is near the bottom of the standings this year, and Lord doesn’t have any other junior hockey or NCAA experience. It is likely too soon for him, but he is a coach to watch in the years to come.

Ben Barr ‘04
RPI (NCAA) Volunteer Asst.: 2004-05
Capital District Selects (Peewee) Head Coach: 2005-07
RPI (NCAA) Volunteer Asst.: 2007-08
Union College (NCAA) Asst. Coach: 2008-12
Providence College (NCAA) Asst. Coach: 2012-14
Western Michigan Univ. (NCAA) Assoc. HC: 2014-16
UMass (NCAA) Asst. Coach: 2016-17
UMass (NCAA) Assoc. HC: 2017-21
Univ. of Maine (NCAA) Head Coach: 2021-Present

I feel obliged to include Ben Barr here because he should absolutely be the first person that they call about this opening. I also have to be clear here that this has zero chance of happening; when they call him, I honestly don’t even know if he picks up the phone to tell them no. He might let it just go to voicemail. Maine is in a better conference with more history and is currently undergoing $300 million worth of renovations to their facilities. They’re about to make their second straight NCAA tournament. Why leave?

Adam Oates ‘85
Tampa Bay Lightning (NHL) Asst. Coach: 2009-10
New Jersey Devils (NHL) Asst. Coach: 2010-12
Washington Capitals (NHL) Head Coach: 2012-14
New Jersey Devils (NHL) Assoc. HC: 2014-15

This also has no chance of happening. Oates runs a private skills coaching company that is highly lucrative. His clients includes numerous NHL players, other professional players, and many top prospects. No reason for him to leave his company to come here, and honestly, I think RPI should be targeting a younger coach who would plan to be here for a longer term.

Brad Tapper ‘00
North York Rangers (OJHL) Head Coach: 2009-10
Florida Everblades (ECHL) Asst. Coach: 2010-13
Orlando Solar Bears (ECHL) Asst. Coach: 2013-14
Chicago Wolves (AHL) Asst. Coach: 2014-16
Rochester Americans (AHL) Asst. Coach: 2016-17
Adirondack Thunder (ECHL) Head Coach: 2017-18
Grand Rapids Griffins (AHL) Asst. Coach: 2018-19
Okanagan Hockey Ontario U18 (CSSHLE U18) Asst. Coach: 2019-20
Iserlohn Roosters (DEL) Asst. Coach: 2020-21
Iserlohn Roosters (DEL) Head Coach: 2021-22
ERC Ingolstadt (DEL) Asst. Coach: 2022-Present

Tapper was an RPI legend during his playing days at the turn of the century. He spent some time in the NHL before a career overseas. Now, he finds himself as an assistant coach in the top league in Germany, after a litany of stops in the American minor leagues. I don’t think this resume really qualifies him for the job, nor would he necessarily want to move back across the world to Troy. Tapper only lasted 11 months as a head coach in the DEL, and his best experience besides that are AHL assistant jobs. Can’t say I see the fit here.

NCAA Head Coaches

Eric Lang
AIC (NCAA) Asst. Coach: 2006-08
Manhattanville College (NCAA III) Head Coach: 2008-11
Army (NCAA) Asst. Coach: 2011-16
AIC (NCAA) Head Coach: 2016-Present

The odds-on favorite right now for the job, Lang has come up for pretty much every single ECAC and Hockey East opening the past 5 years and interviewed for many of them. It’s reported that St. Lawrence even made him an offer, but he decided to stick around at AIC instead.

Depending on how many jobs open up this offseason, I would be willing to bet a large sum of money that Lang lands somewhere. In November, it was announced that AIC would be returning to Divison II hockey after 27 years in Division 1. This effectively guarantees that Eric Lang will be taking another job, and I expect him to be highly coveted. After two seasons ramping up his version of the program, Lang ripped off 4 consecutive AHA championships spanning 2018-22, and AIC has been near the top of the league every year. This year was a down year, but on a podcast with Mike McMahon, Lang explained that it has been difficult to get the players to buy into playing a team game because they are all concerned about their numbers to make sure they find spots for next year.

Given RPI is one of the first openings of the offseason, they can be among the first to take a crack at Lang, and since they don’t have to contend with AIC trying to keep him, the odds are higher that he moves than in the past. Lang’s resume is highly decorated with success at one of the worst programs in the country in terms of resources. His accomplishments there are nothing short of phenomenal. The only question is if he can translate the recruiting and wins to a more difficult conference.

Bill Riga
Boston Jr. Bruins (EJHL) Asst. Coach: 1996-2003
Union College (NCAA) Asst. Coach: 2003-08
Quinnipiac Univ. (NCAA) Asst. Coach: 2008-14
Quinnipiac Univ. (NCAA) Assoc. HC: 2014-21
Holy Cross (NCAA) Head Coach: 2021-Present

RPI fans will be familiar with Bill Riga since he was one of 4 finalists for the job back in 2017. Since then, he continued his success with Quinnipiac as a top program in the ECAC and country before accepting the head coaching position at Holy Cross.

At Holy Cross, he has built up the program into a top program in the Atlantic in a short time. They have gone from 12 wins to 17 to 21 to 22 (and counting). It’s only year 4 of his tenure, and this season, he won the Regular Season title, and they have a good shot at winning the conference tournament to secure an NCAA berth.

Because of that, I don’t think he will want to leave. It would be one thing if Riga had been there 10+ years and won multiple Atlantic Hockey championships and was looking for his next challenge. But he has only been there 4 years and appears to be at only the beginning of what is looking like an excellent tenure as a top program in the league. Many coaches aren’t willing to leave unfinished business behind as they are starting to get things rolling. Still, it is well worth RPI’s time to see if he’s interested.

Brett Riley
Albany Academy (Prep) Head Coach: 2014-17
Wilkes Univ. (NCAA III) Head Coach: 2017-19
Colgate Univ. (NCAA) Asst. Coach: 2019-20
LIU (NCAA) Head Coach: 2020-Present

Only 34 years old, Riley is very young, but he has risen quickly as a top young coach in college hockey. He has ties to the area from his time at Albany Academy and has familiarity with the ECAC from his time at Colgate. While he was only at Colgate one year, in that year, he secured commitments from numerous very good prospects, some of whom helped them win the ECAC championship in 2022 and some who are still on the team now.

After a year at Colgate, he was tasked with the head coaching position at the brand new program at LIU. They announced they were starting a program very late, and Riley essentially only had 5 months to put together a roster for their inaugural season. It is also no secret that LIU is one of the most underfunded programs in the country, and they have no conference and operate as an independent. Despite those obstacles, Riley has turned LIU into a program that’s very respectable. They have gone from 3 wins to 10 to 13 to 17 to 20 this season. Going 20-12-2 and winding up at 26 in the pairwise at LIU is nothing short of a miracle. His youth, recruiting prowess, and ability to build a program from the ground up could be quite appealing for RPI.

Cam Ellsworth
Sioux City Musketeers (USHL) Asst. Coach: 2008-11
UMass Lowell (NCAA) Asst. Coach: 2011-17
UMass Lowell (NCAA) Assoc. HC: 2017-18
Norwich Univ. (NCAA III) Head Coach: 2018-Present

Ellsworth was a top assistant in the country while he was at Lowell, helping them build multiple Hockey East championship teams with numerous NCAA tournament berths and a Frozen Four appearance. He then took the Norwich head coaching position in D3, where his teams have been great.

Now that he’s been in D3 for so long, I’m not really convinced Ellsworth should be on the radar. The D1 game has changed massively since he was last in D1 with the transfer portal, CHL eligibility, and recruiting landscape altering college hockey at the Division 1 level. It is so different now that I don’t know you’d want a coach who has now been coaching D3 for 7 years.

Top Assistants

Joe Dumais
Ohio Univ. (ACHA) Asst. Coach: 2006-07
Mahoning Valley Phantoms (NAHL) Asst. Coach: 2007-08
UConn (NCAA) Asst. Coach: 2008-11
Union College (NCAA) Asst. Coach: 2011-15
Union College (NCAA) Assoc. HC: 2015-16
Quinnipiac Univ. (NCAA) Assoc. HC: 2016-Present

Dumais is easily one of our top choices if we had our pick, and he would be an unequivocal slam dunk hire. Dumais graduated from Quinnipiac in 2006, where he played 4 years for Rand Pecknold and wore an “A” his senior year. He bounced around junior hockey before landing at UConn where he spent 3 seasons. From there, he rose to associate HC at Union under Rick Bennett and played a crucial role in recruiting their 2014 national championship team. He returned to the Bobcats in 2016, where he has been Pecknold’s right-hand man for the better part of a decade now, and won his second national championship in 2023. In fact, Pecknold credits Dumais for designing the play which led to the game winning goal that night as well.

Dumais was a finalist for the Princeton job in 2024 when Ron Fogarty was hired, and has had his name come up in nearly every major opening in the past number of years. Perhaps the most notable is that he turned down the Union job a few years back when Josh Hauge was hired. This begs the question, what is Dumais holding out for? Pecknold is not real old, but could Dumais be holding out for his dream job at Quinnipiac? Is he doing what Ben Barr did and waiting to jump right to a major program? It is hard to say, but RPI would have to pony up some major resources, money, and pledge significantly more backing to the program to get Dumais in the door.

Joe Pereira
Sacred Heart Univ. (ACHA) Head Coach: 2012-13
UConn (NCAA) Asst. Coach: 2013-18
UConn (NCAA) Assoc. HC: 2018-22
BU (NCAA) Assoc. HC: 2022-24

Pereira is an interesting one, and would require Dr. Bowers to draw on the BU connection to pull him in. Pereira is just 37 years old, and like Dumais is now the top lieutenant at his alma mater. He was the captain at BU his senior year, before spending nearly a decade at UConn as an assistant. He is in year 3 as Associate HC at Boston University, coaching future NHL standouts in Macklin Celebrini, Lane Hutson, Tom Willander, and Cole Eiserman.

The fit here is a little harder to find, as Pereira is young and finds himself in a great role currently. He may not be apt to leave BU and be thrown into a rebuild at RPI. However, he could stay on the East Coast, and RPI may be interested in hiring a young “recruiting guru”. To be honest though, I’m a little skeptical of him as UConn was a middling program his entire tenure there, and BU is one of the easiest programs to recruit for. The fit and ability to make it work at RPI is definitely questionable.

Joel Beal
Albany Academy (Prep) Asst. Coach: 2009-11
Union College (NCAA) Volunteer Asst.: 2011-12
Union College (NCAA) Asst. Coach: 2012-13
Sacred Heart Univ. (NCAA) Asst. Coach: 2013-16
Sacred Heart Univ. (NCAA) Assoc. HC: 2016-18
Miami Univ. (NCAA) Asst. Coach: 2018-19
Providence College (NCAA) Asst. Coach: 2019-Present

I think this may be my favorite fit of all. In theory, you could argue someone like Dumais is a flashier hire, but Beal has Capital Region ties that make this a no-brainer. Beal played for Nate Leaman at Union until 2005 and coached at Albany Academy before notching a job with the Dutchmen in 2011. After 2 years, he moved to Sacred Heart for 5 years, did a year with Miami (OH), and is now in year 6 at Providence. He was promoted to Associate HC for the Friars last summer and is in charge of the PK and recruiting. It has been a down year for their PK, but they were in the top 20 in the country every other year Beal has been there. He also had a hand in recruiting Trevor Connelly to Providence, who was selected in the 1st round of the NHL draft last summer.

At 42, now is the time for Beal to get his first crack at a head job. He has ties to the area, and his resume qualifies him for the job. He is young enough to relate to young players as a great recruiter but has developed his X’s and O’s quite well under Leaman the past 6 years. If Coach Beal is looking to make the jump, I think this makes a ton of sense.

Jason Tapp
Union College (NCAA) Volunteer Goaltending Coach: 2009-11
Union College (NCAA) Goaltending Coach: 2011-12
Union College (NCAA) Asst. Coach: 2012-16
Union College (NCAA) Assoc. HC: 2016-20
Dartmouth College (NCAA) Assoc. HC: 2020-Present

Tapp is another ECAC lifer that has been in the conference for 15 years now. I think there are better candidates on this list, but he is definitely qualified for a job at this point. He was at Union when they won their national championship and was Bennett’s top guy by the end. He moved over to Dartmouth in 2020 and has helped Reid Cashman’s resurgence of the program since. I am sure Tapp would interview and take the job if RPI were interested, but I do think they can shoot a little higher.

Chris Brooks
Western Michigan Univ. (NCAA) Asst. Coach: 1999-2008
Rio Grande Valley Killer Bees (CHL) Head Coach: 2008-11
UW-Stevens Point (NCAA III) Head Coach: 2011-17
Michigan Tech (NCAA) Asst. Coach: 2017-22
Clarkson Univ. (NCAA) Asst. Coach: 2022-24
Clarkson Univ. (NCAA) Assoc. HC: 2024-Present

Brooks has had a long and decorated career in the NCAA. He got his start at WMU where he coached as an assistant before moving on to become a head coach in the now defunct Central Hockey League. At UW-Stevens Point, he built the program into a National Championship winner, one of the few to win an NCAA championship on this list.

Brooks went back to D1 as an assistant after that. At Michigan Tech, he coached 2 different NCAA tournament teams, and they made the NCAA tournament in 2 straight years after he left with players he helped to recruit. While he hasn’t seen the same success with Clarkson, he was considered a candidate to become the new head coach after Casey Jones departed, and he was widely acclaimed for helping to keep the Clarkson roster intact during the transition. Clarkson thought so highly of him that they promoted him to Associate Head Coach and required JF Houle to keep him on the staff.

There’s no doubt that with his experience at both the D3 and D1 levels, he could make for a good head coach. Winning a national championship is challenging at every level, and Michigan Tech and Clarkson profile fairly similarly to RPI. He’s a solid option should RPI miss out on their top choices.

Non-NCAA Coaches

Dan Muse
Milton Academy (Prep) Asst. Coach: 2005-07
Williams College (NCAA III) Asst. Coach: 2007-08
Sacred Heart Univ. (NCAA) Asst. Coach: 2008-09
Yale Univ. (NCAA) Asst. Coach: 2009-14
Yale Univ. (NCAA) Assoc. HC: 2014-15
Chicago Steel (USHL) Head Coach: 2015-17
Nashville Predators (NHL) Asst. Coach: 2017-20
USNTDP (USHL) Head Coach: 2020-23
New York Rangers (NHL) Asst. Coach: 2023-Present

Muse has been mentioned as a candidate for numerous jobs over the years, and it’s easy to see why. He helped recruit and build the Yale team that won the National Championship and they were a top program in the decade. Then, he went onto the Chicago Steel in the USHL and won the Clark Cup in his second year there. In Nashville as an assistant, they made the playoffs 2/3 years he was there; the year they didn’t was the COVID year with the weird play-in round in the bubble. With the NTDP, he coached and developed players like Luke Hughes, Trey Augustine, Zeev Buium, Ryan Leonard, Oliver Moore, Will Smith, and Gabe Perreault.

There are zero holes in his resume. He has excellent collegiate experience with an ECAC background and a national championship. He has USHL and NTDP experience with success at both those stops, and those connections should instantly help recruiting. Lastly, he has NHL experience, which instantly would bring the program a ton of credibility. This is a top candidate, and honestly, he’s our #1 even over Dumais and Lang with all his quality stops. This is another one that Dr. Schmidt and Dr. Bowers would have to thoroughly convince that RPI has the resources in place.

Greg Moore
USNTDP (USHL) Asst. Coach: 2015-18
Chicago Steel (USHL) Head Coach: 2018-19
Toronto Marlies (AHL) Head Coach: 2019-23
USNTDP (USHL) Head Coach: 2023-Present

I’m honestly quite surprised I haven’t seen Greg Moore’s name pop up anywhere, but I’m more than happy to be the first one to mention him. While Moore currently does not have any collegiate experience, I think he does make up with that with the experience he has.

Moore has tons of USHL experience and connections between his two stints with the NTDP, where he has developed top talent for USA hockey, and his stint as Chicago Steel head coach. In his two years in Chicago, he made it to the finals the first year, and the second year, they went a whopping 41-7-1 on the season (note that he left mid year for Toronto that year though). In Toronto, he became their AHL head coach, and after being slightly below .500 his first season, he improved the next two seasons. His final season, they improved to 42-24-6 to win the division.

Given his USHL experience, it’s easy to imagine that he would instantly be able to recruit some top talent from the league, and ideally, his time in Toronto allowed him to make some OHL connections as well. Moore seems like a really good under-the-radar candidate.

Program Ties

Dan Jewell
SUNY Plattsburgh (NCAA III) Asst. Coach: 2011-12
Hamilton College (NCAA III) Asst. Coach: 2012-14
Bloomington Thunder (USHL) Asst. Coach: 2014-17
RPI (NCAA) Asst. Coach: 2017-19
Merrimack College (NCAA) Asst. Coach: 2019-Present

Old friend Dan Jewell helped recruit the two best teams Dave Smith had. Rumor goes that he had a connection with Owen Savory from a USHL camp during his time in Bloomington, and the rest is history now. Dan has done nice work with Merrimack the last 5 years, which is probably the hardest program to win at in Hockey East. He is seen as a fast riser in the industry and is regarded highly for his work with us and Merrimack. He is obviously familiar with RPI, which you could argue is a good or bad thing. The program was supported a lot less under the last administration when he was here, so I am curious how he reflects on the experience. However, it absolutely makes sense to give Jewell a call, and he would be wise to pick it up and throw his hat in the ring. He isn’t as flashy as the other candidates but could make sense.

Scott Moser
Canisius College (NCAA) Asst. Coach: 2014-19
RPI (NCAA) Asst. Coach: 2019-21
Univ. of Vermont (NCAA) Asst. Coach: 2021-Present

Another former RPI assistant under Dave Smith, Moser got his start coaching as an assistant at Canisius while Smith was still their head coach. He helped them build their 2016-17 team that won the Atlantic regular season title. In 2019, he came to RPI to replace Dan Jewell, ironically. He led the PK that season, which operated at 86%, and in his tenure, he also helped land some quality recruits like Sutter Muzzatti and Max Smolinski.

After the COVID year at RPI, he left to go to UVM, and it has always been heavily implied that the school furloughing him during the COVID cancellation led to his departure. UVM has gone from 1 win the year prior to his arrival to 8, 11, 13, and then 11 again, so he has helped them improve. He also has coached as an assistant for Slovakia’s WJC team for a few years now.

The arguments against him will likely keep him from being a serious contender, however. Most of his career is tied to Dave Smith: he played for him, coached under him at Canisius, and coached under him at RPI. The school clearly wants a fresh start for the program, and while his year here was the team’s best year under Coach Smith, it wouldn’t really feel like a new start. Additionally, he is still quite young at 35 and doesn’t feel experienced enough for a head coaching job yet. He’s a promising coach, but it feels like he’s still another 5-10 years away.

Out of the Box

Chris Lazary
St. Michael’s Buzzers (OJHL) Asst. Coach: 2010-12
York Univ. (CIS) Asst. Coach: 2012-13
Waterloo Siskins (GOJHL) Head Coach: 2013-14
Sarnia Sting (OHL) Asst. Coach: 2014-16
Saginaw Spirit (OHL) Assoc. HC: 2016-18
Saginaw Spirit (OHL) Head Coach: 2018-Present

Lazary has had tons of success with Saginaw in the OHL since taking over as head coach midway through the 2018-19 season. In the 6 seasons, he has 3 division titles, 4 playoff appearances (soon to be 5), and he won the Memorial Cup last year, the championship for the entire CHL. This season, he has Saginaw in 4th in the conference. It would be a no brainer to take him given his track record there; it’s hard to win year after year in the OHL with the way its draft works. He would also immediately be able to recruit many OHL players, and he has a track record of development. He has coached Michael Misa, Zayne Parekh, Pavel Mintyukov, and Cole Perfetti to name some big ones and developed all of them extremely well.

Now, would a coach in the OHL who has never coached in the college game and has pretty much only coached in major junior be interested in a college job? Truthfully, I have no idea, and I have no idea what the pay looks like for a CHL job and whether it’d be considered a step up. With all his success at Saginaw, I imagine it would be extremely tough to pull Lazary away from there, but other coaches could be more amenable to the idea. It’s an out of the box idea, but it could pay off if they go that route. It’s worth looking into at minimum.

Troy Mann
Topeka Tarantulas (CHL) Asst. Coach: 2004-05
Columbia Inferno (ECHL) Asst. Coach: 2005-06
Columbia Inferno (ECHL) Head Coach: 2006-08
Charlotte Checkers (ECHL) Assoc. HC: 2008-09
Hershey Bears (AHL) Asst. Coach: 2009-13
Bakersfield Condors (ECHL) Head Coach: 2013-14
Hershey Bears (AHL) Head Coach: 2014-18
Belleville Senators (AHL) Head Coach: 2018-23
Kingston Frontenacs (OHL) Head Coach: 2023-Present

Mann has a long and decorated career in the pros with nearly 10 years as an AHL head coach, 3 years as an ECHL head coach, and many more as an assistant. With Hershey, he accumulated a very good 162-102-40 record, 2 division titles, and a Calder Cup appearance. His stint in Belleville was not as good, but he still went 150-117-22. In total, he has over 300 career wins in the AHL.

The past 2 seasons, he has coached Kingston in the OHL. Last year, they were only slightly above .500 and didn’t make too much noise, but this year, Mann has the team at 36-18-8, good for 4th in the Eastern Conference. I’ve said it many times now, but CHL recruiting is going to be incredibly important for this program to compete nationally. With his experience in the pros working in the minor leagues for development and now his OHL experience, I think Mann is worth a look.

Rick Bennett
Providence College (NCAA) Asst. Coach: 2000-05
Union College (NCAA) Asst. Coach: 2005-07
Union College (NCAA) Assoc. HC: 2007-11
Union College (NCAA) Head Coach: 2011-22
Savannah Ghost Pirates (ECHL) Head Coach: 2022-24
Quinnipiac Univ. (NCAA) Asst. Coach: 2024-Present

This is a funny option if nothing else. After the 2014 Mayor’s Cup debacle, it is hard to see RPI wanting to employ Rick Bennett. But, you could argue that Bennett is more qualified than anyone on this list. He has a national championship to his name and numerous ECAC titles. What holds him back is that he has been trending down basically since the national championship. Union fell off towards the end of his tenure which ended controversially. He was fired in Savannah and then landed on Rand Pecknold’s staff as the #3 guy. Hard to see a world where this happens, but if he ever wanted to return to the capital region, you never know.

Rocky Russo
Mahoning Valley Phantoms (NAHL) Asst. Coach: 2005-09
St. Louis Bandits (NAHL) Asst. Coach: 2009-10
Amarillo Bulls (NAHL) Asst. Coach: 2010-13
Philadelphia Little Flyers (EHL) Head Coach: 2013-15
Philadelphia Little Flyers (EHL) Head Coach and GM: 2015-17
Amarillo Bulls (NAHL) Head Coach: 2017-21
Lincoln Stars (USHL) Head Coach: 2021-Present

Russo is an interesting option as a junior hockey coach with tons of NAHL and USHL experience. He most recently has been the head coach for Amarillo in the NAHL and Lincoln in the USHL. At Amarillo, he built that team into a top one in the NAHL with extremely strong seasons in his last 3 years there. He then moved to Lincoln where they have been a strong team every year of his tenure, and they have not missed the playoffs yet. Russo’s lack of college experience along with having no experience outside of junior hockey is a pretty big detriment to him, and that’s why we have him in this section. We don’t really see him being the type of coach they want.

Tiering the Candidates

We just gave you a huge list with lots of options for the job. There’s plenty of promising coaches who have the experience and resumes to succeed in Troy. Not all candidates are built equally though, so we wanted to give you tiers in terms of who is in the top group, second group, etc. First, note that we won’t be including anyone from the out of the box section nor totally unrealistic hires; we want to tier the realistic options here. The order within the tiers isn’t relevant.

Tier 1 - Homerun Hires

The coaches listed below have little, if any, question marks and would instantly be unanimously lauded across the hockey world. They are brought up practically every year when new head coaching jobs open up in college. Hiring one of these coaches would likely require significant commitments from the administration to get them to come, so it would be a double win as hiring one of them would signal large investment in the program.

Kirk MacDonald

Eric Lang

Joe Dumais

Dan Muse

Tier 2 - Great Hires

The coaches listed below have come up for some other head coaching jobs in the past, but they are not consistently brought up every time. They have some question marks and not as stellar resumes as tier 1, but all of them would do quality jobs as the head coach. The hockey world would react positively, but it wouldn’t be seen with the same level of “wow” factor as tier 1.

Bill Riga

Brett Riley

Joel Beal

Jason Tapp

Greg Moore

Tier 3 - Solid Hires

The coaches listed below usually have not come up for other head coaching jobs, but they have solid resumes and could do a good job. All have question marks to varying degrees and would likely have to quell some concerns. The hockey world would likely have similar questions, and the hire wouldn’t necessarily be seen as a win like the hires in tiers 1 and 2. If someone from this tier is hired, it likely means that RPI missed out on their preferred options.

Andrew Lord

Cam Ellsworth

Joe Pereira

Chris Brooks

Dan Jewell

Scott Moser

Our Rankings

Both of us have come up with our individual rankings of the candidates from this list, but the differences within the tiers aren’t too large for the most part. We mostly agree overall with some minor differences, and some of it is personal preference. Stephen generally would prefer someone younger with a high ceiling who has demonstrated recruiting ability or has the connections to recruit effectively over an older, higher floor option. Chris wants the same thing but wants each candidate to be considered individually. RPI opted for a different archetype from Seth Appert when Smith was hired, therefore passing on Ben Barr who was likely the best option. If Lang or Riga is the best candidate, it shouldn’t be held against them that they are coming from the Atlantic like Smith was.

Chris

1. Dan Muse

2. Joe Dumais

3. Kirk MacDonald

4. Eric Lang

5. Bill Riga

6. Brett Riley

7. Joel Beal

8. Greg Moore

9. Joe Pereira

10. Dan Jewell

11. Jason Tapp

12. Chris Brooks

13. Andrew Lord

14. Scott Moser

15. Cam Ellsworth

Stephen

1. Dan Muse

2. Joe Dumais

3. Eric Lang

4. Kirk MacDonald

5. Bill Riga

6. Brett Riley

7. Joel Beal

8. Greg Moore

9. Jason Tapp

10. Chris Brooks

11. Joe Pereira

12. Dan Jewell

13. Cam Ellsworth

14. Scott Moser

15. Andrew Lord

We separated out our list above based on “archetypes” of coaches (alums, NCAA head coaches, NCAA assistants, etc.), and that will inevitably be something considered by Dr. Bowers and the committee. The first step though is to get the top coaches in each bucket into the building for an interview. It is on the athletic department and institution as a whole to sell the new coach on resources that the past two coaches have not gotten. None of our top choices will take the job if the resources aren’t up to snuff. This will be a fun process to meander through, and we will have updates every step of the way. Let’s hope this is the start of a renewed institutional commitment to hockey, leading a connected rebuild from the top-down. RPI has incredibly loyal fans and the chance to be great again, but the program needs to be supported, and the right hire needs to be made here.

Let’s Go Red!

Stephen: The date is February 29th, 2020. RPI has just wrapped up their regular season with a 4-1 win over Dartmouth in a game that was never in doubt. The players gather around and joyously sing Hail in the locker room. They are on a 4-game winning streak, outscoring their opponents 17-2. They are 11-5-1 in the calendar year and have just clinched the 4th seed and a first round bye in the ECAC playoffs, the program’s first top 4 finish since 2013. They’re one of the hottest teams in the country and seem likely to make it to the ECAC semifinals for the first time since 2002.

Despite it only being year 3 of Dave Smith’s tenure, that was, unfortunately, the high point of it. Soon, the entire world would get stuck in a global pandemic that would essentially shut everything down. The playoffs and remainder of the season were cancelled, and that team’s opportunity went to the wayside.

Still, there was optimism about how the program had progressed and how they could build off that finish. There was no telling what would follow in the coming months and years.

It’s fall of 2020, and the vibes are still good. The start of the hockey season is delayed as the conferences decide on policies to mitigate the COVID risk while playing. The vibes change quickly. The assistant coaches are furloughed. It’s discovered the team isn’t practicing nor allowed to use any facilities at all. The players have been resorting to paying out of pocket for local ice times.

It all shifted permanently when the Ivy League cancelled the hockey season. Soon after, there’s uncertainty about how the rest of the ECAC will proceed. There’s radio silence from the RPI admin as everything stays in a waiting period.

The dam breaks. Star goalie Owen Savory enters the transfer portal, citing the worry that the school won’t play hockey and feeling as though he can’t take the year off and miss out on a year of development. RPI and Union end up following suit as wannabe Ivies. Those 8 teams were the only eastern teams in the entire country to cancel their seasons.

Savory picks UMass Lowell. Tristan Ashbrook, who had had a promising freshman year with 9 goals and 13 points, enters the transfer portal and picks Michigan Tech. Two key core players gone.

They survive that initial wave mostly intact, a couple major pieces gone. Not practicing at all nor having assistants being able to work certainly was bad, but it seemed like they might make it through.

That spring, the administration does the unthinkable. Despite vaccines starting to become available to the public and getting rolled out effectively, the administration refuses to promise the team will play the following season. Another wave of departures follow, this time more than the initial wave. Cory Babichuk, Brady Ferner, and Billy Jerry enter the transfer portal and pick UVM, North Dakota, and LIU. That’s an ECAC rookie of the year finalist and top pairing defenseman gone plus two captains who fill middle of the lineup and depth roles. A significant chunk of the team’s core and leadership is now gone.

The staff hits the transfer portal hard to try to replace what was lost. They get commitments from TJ Walsh and Anthony Baxter who can play key roles in the top 6 and top 4. Jack Agnew and Jake Lee commit after not getting much ice time at Hockey East schools as freshmen to be young core pieces. Late in the summer, Robert Morris cuts its program, and they pick up big winger Justin Addamo.

The damage still isn’t done though. Scott Moser leaves for an assistant role at UVM after the entire furlough and COVID debacle. The administration announces that no “external spectators” will be allowed at home games, limiting attendance to only students and faculty. They are the only program in the country to do this.

That year, they end up having a decent year, especially given all that was lost. Remaining players from the 19-20 team in Ture Linden, Ottoville Leppanen, Jakub Lacka, Jake Johnson, and Simon Kjellberg end up elevating their games and having excellent years. The transfers fill in the gaps in the middle of the lineup to give some depth. Jack Watson emerges as the starter in net. They get one game away from Lake Placid against Harvard, who ends up winning the ECAC title. Optimism returns that maybe they can weather the COVID storm.

Behind the scenes, the opposite was happening. Recruiting battles were being lost left and right due to the COVID policies with the lack of fans and cancellation of the year prior concerning recruits about the school’s commitment and investment in hockey. A couple top commits end up decommitting. Other recruits were concerned with Coach Smith’s lack of a contract extension, wondering if they were committed to him and if they could trust that he’d still be the coach.

The transfer portal opens and all of the key seniors opt to use their 5th year from COVID elsewhere. Two more key underclassmen decide to transfer in Zach Dubinsky and Simon Kjellberg. The program never recovered from this accumulation of losses of players, recruits, coaches, etc.

After all of the departures over the two years and the inability to recruit effectively enough to replace them due to the administration’s choices, the program only declined more. The 22-23 year yielded inconsistent results with a strong start against a weak schedule and a 7th place finish in the league, but the team struggled defensively and was too easy to play against. The 23-24 team bottomed out with even worse defensive play and poor puck possession leading to a 12th place finish; they did manage a first round upset in the ECAC playoffs to make the year feel not totally awful. This season, they improved slightly to 10th, but it was clearly not the improvement the new administration was looking for. They made the coaching change and relieved Dave Smith of his duties.

There will always be multiple “what ifs” with Dave Smith’s tenure as coach at RPI. First, what if COVID doesn’t happen and doesn’t cancel the rest of the 19-20 season? They had a series with Harvard, a team they had just beaten 2-0 on the road, and they were one of the hottest teams in the country. Yes, they probably break the Lake Placid curse, and yes, they had a shot at the ECAC title and NCAA tournament although I think they probably would have bowed out in Lake Placid to the #1 Cornell team.

The second “what if” and the more reasonable one is what if the administration acted like any other one and didn’t do some of the most ridiculous things imaginable. This is the one that really hurts because it was entirely preventable, unlike COVID.

They don’t lose Ashbrook, Babichuk, Jerry, Ferner and Savory; that’s for sure since they were on the roster at the start of the year, and in interviews, all cited the school’s COVID response as the only reason they left. That 2020-21 team had an outstanding blue line and would have been elite defensively. Go look at that roster if you don’t believe me. They had Babichuk, Ferner, Johnson, Kjellberg, Klee, Hallbauer, and Sertti. They would have had Linden, Leppanen, Lacka, Sellar, Mahshie, and Dubinsky up front. I think it’s safe to say that would have been a really good team.

They would have returned that entire blue line the following year as well, and the losses overall would have been minimal with only Alec Calvaruso, Shane Sellar, Billy Jerry, and Linden Marshall graduating. Everyone else would have been back. That 21-22 team with all the core pieces intact makes the NCAA tournament. Change my mind.

Then, you factor in that those teams being excellent would have helped recruiting a ton and added great prospects to the good prospects they had committed with Muzzatti, Smolinski, and Hunter McDonald all coming in 22-23, and it becomes pretty obvious that Coach Smith got absolutely screwed here. I don’t think you can find a coach in RPI’s history who got screwed more by the school. Ultimately, he couldn’t recover from such a huge blow, and Chris will break that down below in a bit.

While COVID was out of everyone’s control, the school’s response to it was unbelievable. No coach in the country got dealt a worse hand. Dave Smith had his program and team ripped to the ground, and yet, he never once complained publicly. He kept a positive attitude despite the neglect and mistreatment of the program and gave it his all to try to rebuild it through the portal and under the radar recruits. He was extremely passionate about the team, the program, and the RPI community. These qualities are what I’ll always remember about Dave Smith as RPI’s coach - the positivity, passion and dedication. And I’ll certainly always have that “what if” in the back of my head of what could have been had he had any support from the school. He did not deserve this outcome, and he deserved to be treated way better. I hope that at his next stop, he gets the support and results that he should have had at RPI.

Chris: I have been a fan of this program my entire life, and I witnessed nearly all of the Seth Appert era which concluded in 2017. Seth was charismatic, outgoing, and a skilled recruiter, who's up-and-down RPI career saw numerous peaks in the top 20 nationally. The 8-28 2017 team that lost him his job though was dreadful and had a litany of off the ice issues. You may be wondering why I am talking about the last firing and not the one that happened, well, yesterday, but I bring it up because the context is necessary.

RPI was scrutinized heavily by alumni and media for its handling of the 2017 men’s and women’s hirings, which was farmed out to Parker Executive Search. It resulted in 4 finalists: Ben Barr (now coach of #3 Maine), Bill Riga (now coach of #1 AH team Holy Cross), Dave Smith, and Ed Gosek. Media and alums were opining for RPI to hire Barr, the former Engineer whom they thought would restore the program to glory. But Barr in many ways was cut from the same cloth as Appert was when he was hired, they were both the young, star recruiter, first-time head coach archetype. With the ups and downs and tactical deficiencies under Appert, the school opted for the proven and safe commodity in Dave Smith. The hope was that his professionalism and experience would elevate the floor of the program, and it was viewed as a safe hire.

As Stephen noted, up until COVID it looked like a masterful move. The administration cut the legs out from under the program, but even in 21-22 the team was still highly competitive. Led by Ture Linden and Jake Johnson, they defeated Dartmouth at home and advanced to play Harvard in the quarterfinals. This to me, was the turning point and the first thing Smith’s staff had actual responsibility for in this decline. What do I mean by that you may ask? Harvard had 14 NHL draft picks including a lottery pick in 21-22. RPI fought hard and fell just a little short that Sunday night. That team embodied everything Dave Smith had been about up until then; they blocked shots, killed penalties, and didn’t give their opponents an inch of space.

But it was pretty clear this was about as good as the program could get employing this strategy, and that offseason they made some gambles to add skill and talent. They brought in Austin Heidemann, Brendan Budy, John Evans, and Nick Ardanaz, all of whom were touted for offensive ability. The trend continued over the next few years, with offensive first players like Dovar Tinling, Tyler Hotson, Arvils Bergmanis, and Will Gilson. The team has scored more specifically in the past two years, but defensive ability and penalty killing has plummeted since the 2022 team. Many of the players recognized last weekend on Senior Night had excellent careers, but it is also true that Smith had less success developing this group than he did with the crop of Linden, Kjellberg, and others.

I truly believe that the staff made a philosophical shift to add more skill to the roster, but RPI’s reputation nationally and/or their recruiting abilities did not allow them to find complete players in this transition. It was a reasonable gamble at the time to elevate the program, but the recruiting pipeline was probably not hot enough after COVID to support this plan. It resulted in the last few of Smith’s teams losing their tenacity and sound play that were such a joy to watch in the past. RPI’s drop from an 86% PK in 2020 and 87% in 2022 to just 69% the last two years shows the validity to my theory. Smith’s bread and butter when he was hired was that he ran a tight ship and disciplined teams, which is why I brought up the Appert history to explain why this was attractive to RPI back in 2017.

The bottom line is that the last three seasons have not been up to our standards as a program, and Dr. Bowers needed to spark something. There is no one party at blame here. The bottom line is that Dave Smith was not supported by the institution to the extent he was promised 8 years ago. He developed a strong, budding core and circumstances out of his control never allowed him to capitalize on it fully. But we are far enough away from COVID now where that excuse can’t be used for everything anymore, and the past three teams have not been good enough. It’s a disappointing story with a world of what-ifs. Dave was slighted, the fans suffered, and RPI once again finds itself having to put the pieces back together. It is IMPERATIVE that the institution supports the next head coach to the fullest extent, especially in today’s age of college sports. We would personally like to thank Coach Smith for all the support and time he has graciously given to our coverage of the team. We wish him the very best and are excited for this next chapter of RPI Hockey. Lets’ Go Red.

RPI’s season came to an end on Friday night with a 5-2 loss at Harvard in the first round of the playoffs. This offseason will be the one where they are totally moved on from the core of Gagnon, Lee, Brackett, Beaton, and Watson that has made up the team for the last 4 seasons. They stuck it out during COVID and the nonsense that followed from the administration and made up the heart and soul of the team and the leadership group. I want to thank them for their dedication and commitment to the program, along with all the other graduates.

It was another trying season with injuries and poor play. There were some small flashes here and there and a good young core to build around. They were definitely better than last year with improvements in areas like puck possession, scoring chance generation, and the power play. The defense and goaltending did improve a bit, albeit marginally, but the PK was just as bad. Overall, the offense was improved by a good amount, but the defensive improvement was not much.

The improvement this year was not the type we were all hoping for obviously. Going from 12th to 10th and getting a couple more wins doesn’t really feel all that different. This offseason is vital to the program being on the right trajectory. Let’s talk about it.

Coaching Staff Thoughts

Obviously, we’re all well aware that a majority of fans want to see a coaching change after this season. Let’s not beat around the bush there. I get it; we’re all frustrated of the team being bad consistently for the past 2 decades with few good years mixed in. It’s been rough seeing the program decline to this.

First, in terms of what I think will happen, I’m not really sure. Last year, I could tell they were going to keep Coach Smith; this year, there’s not a strong indication or feeling one way or another. My gut is leaning slightly that they keep him. The only reason for that slight hunch is that the women’s team has had worse results and records under Coach Vines, and he is still their coach. It wouldn’t make much sense to me to keep him but fire Coach Smith just purely on a results basis. If there’s a bad locker room or culture, like what caused Seth Appert to get fired, that’s a different story, but there’s no indication of that being the case.

Now in terms of my opinion. I want to note that I’m not ever a “FIRE THE COACH” guy for any sport, pro or college. For example, as a Patriots fan, I didn’t want Belichick to get fired (as the coach at least), and I also thought Mayo should get a second year to prove himself. I think coaches are often the scapegoats for problems out of their control.

What is way more important than any individual year is the long term trajectory of the program and where it is headed. That’s how I would view making a decision here. I don’t think it’s as black and white as people think. What I like to do for stuff like this is to make arguments for and against it, and then I see what it looks like.

In favor of making a change:

• The program can’t seem to get out of the post-COVID rut and seems to need a spark of some sort. A change could provide the spark needed to get the program moving more rapidly in a positive direction.

• There’s a concerning pattern of poor defense, PK, and goaltending the past couple years after that used to be a strength. Even after adding 3 transfer dmen in the portal, it was still a weakness this season.

• They’re probably more reliant on the portal than they should be. It made sense that they had to use it a ton during COVID and right after COVID when the administration caused most of the team to leave. That’s past the program now though, and it still gets used a lot. Is that the new normal in college sports and the way it’ll be regardless, or should they seek more balance?

• Puck possession has been a weakness the past couple years. It was pretty solid in 19-20 and 21-22, but the downturn in results has coincided with not as good puck possession, even though it improved this season.

• The forward pipeline looks just okay right now. Kyrkostas and Ziliotto look good. Lariviere and Shaw need another year of junior hockey but could be good as well. Oakenfold and Janus are bottom 6 guys (which you do need), but they could probably use some more talent at the top of the forward pipeline.

Against making a change:

• This is a good, young core that has the potential to turn into a great one. They will likely lose the vast majority of it to the portal if there’s a change, and they’ll be forced to start over.

  • Tapper, Caron, Tinling, Hotson, and Rullers are up front with Kyrkostas and Ziliotto looking like good pieces to join them. Gilson and Smolinski are on the blue line with Lemieux, Adrian, Klassek, and Hilditch looking like good pieces to join them.

• There were extensive injuries this year. If they were more healthy, they are probably at least 3 wins better, if not more, and they certainly would have been top 8 at minimum. That’s a conservative estimate as well.

  • They missed 2/3 of the projected top line basically the entire year. Tonelli played like 3 minutes in the exhibition game and had to retire from hockey. Muzzatti was a shell of himself when he came back from offseason surgery and only had a handful of games until he went out for the year. They both would have helped offensively, defensively and on special teams since both of them play in all situations. Strom played 6 games and went out for the year; he probably could have helped defensively. Bourgault missed the entire year after the exhibition and would have been a good piece in the bottom 6 and on the PK based on how he looked in that game.

• The blue line pipeline is extremely strong. Lemieux is an excellent prospect. Adrian and Hilditch have both dealt with injuries this year but project as top 4 defensemen. Klassek looks like he has talent as well, and Matthews should be good after another year of junior hockey. Defending has been their biggest weakness, and the recruits look well-stocked to fix that issue.

• With the change to the CHL rules, it’s extremely important to have a coach with connections there as CHL recruiting will be the primary path for RPI competing nationally (I’ll expand on this in a future post that I have planned). They need a coach who can recruit there, and that will be a strength of Coach Smith.

  • I know currently they only have Krawchuk committed, but across college hockey, there’s a lot of private commitments from CHL players who are waiting until after the season to make it public. I’d be shocked if that’s not the case with RPI.

• Making a change without administrative and resource commitments will do absolutely nothing. If they’re going to make a change, the ducks need to be in a row behind the scenes in terms of resources.

  • Look at Miami. They moved to the NCHC, didn’t support the program well, and it took a downturn. They fired Rico Blasi and hired an alum in Chris Bergeron, which was considered a home-run after he brought Bowling Green back to national competitiveness. They changed nothing behind the scenes, and Bergeron failed and was fired last year. Bergeron is an objectively good coach; bringing Bowling Green back was not easy. Good coaches can fail too if you don’t give them proper support. Let’s not be Miami.

• The majority of the program’s issues are not on Coach Smith. It’s not his fault the administration had the most harmful COVID policies in the country, and most of the downturn isn’t on him. He is not blameless (as we went over in the section above), but the percentage of the blame that goes to him is not very high. Would this be a classic coach scapegoat situation?

Overall, I think there are good arguments for both sides, and the list was pretty even when thinking about the long term. I see both sides, and I respect whichever opinion you choose to take. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens.

A lot of bullet points had to do with the administration and resources, and to me, this is way more important than what is done at head coach. That brings me to the next part of this.

Administrative and Resources Thoughts

What will really dictate this program’s future is Dr. Schmidt and Dr. Bowers and what resources and support the program can be given.

This is another spot where I’m not going to beat around the bush. Shirley treated this like another D3 program for 20 years. There’s a reason that the program’s downturn began in the early 2000s shortly after she took over.

Then, she basically drove a sword through the program’s chest with COVID policies and other decisions around that time.

1. Cancelled the 2020-21 season of course

2. Locked the players out of all facilities entirely with no practices allowed, the only program in the country to do that as far as we know

3. Furloughed all the assistant coaches. Not sure if any other programs did this, but this led directly to Scott Moser leaving for UVM

4. At the end of the year, they wouldn’t even guarantee playing in 2021-22, which led to another flurry of player departures

5. Didn’t allow fans in 2021-22, the only program in the country to do that

6. Let Coach Smith’s contract expire, further hurting recruiting and causing even more questions about commitment at the top

I don’t think anyone would succeed in that environment, and there’s no question that the best thing for RPI hockey is that Shirley retired and Dr. Schmidt has replaced her.

For this current administration, I do believe they are committed to hockey. There’s a few reasons why.

1. They immediately approved adding a 3rd assistant when that became an option

2. Hiring Dr. Bowers from a hockey powerhouse in BU shows what the focus is in athletics

3. The HFH feasibility study for either doing major renovations to the rink or building a new one means they want to invest in the facilities

There are a few areas that are concerning though. The HFH feasibility study was a great step, but we have heard nothing about it in a little while. My best guess is it’s still ongoing behind the scenes, and they’re trying to be thorough to make sure they get this right, which would be a good thing. The issue is the lack of communication. We don’t know if that’s the case, or what the deal is. We shouldn’t have radio silence on it; we should have the occasional public update to keep fans informed.

Additionally, the social media presence is abysmal. I don’t think I need to elaborate too much; it’s that bad. Consistent posting during games, interviews, behind the scenes footage, promotions, stats, highlights, etc. are all necessary for a D1 program, and they do none of it. This goes hand in hand with community outreach, branding, marketing, etc. which all also seem to be poor. I can’t say for sure on that front since I’m not in the Troy area, so feel free to correct me there in the comments if I’m wrong.

It’s still early on in their tenure, and it takes time to get change going after 20+ years of neglecting the program. I’m still hopeful we will see changes in these areas; Dr. Bowers knows what it takes to run a top program.

How does this team get into a winning position?

Now, it’s onto the meat of this piece. What does this offseason look like for the staff in terms of the team on the ice? Let’s take a look.

Forwards

Hotson - Tinling - Caron

x - Kyrkostas - Tapper

x - Rullers - Ziliotto

Bourgault - McNeil - Payant

Sullivan, Janus, Oakenfold

This is what we’re looking like at forward currently. Returning 4 forwards with 20+ points is a big boon to the top 6. Kyrkostas should be able to slot right into the 2nd or 3rd line. Since he’s young, it’d be ideal for him to start on the 3rd line and work his way up like Caron and did Tapper did this year. Ziliotto has had a good year and should be a good option on the 3rd line. He’s a center, but they have too many centers so he’ll probably have to start on the wing.

You might notice I have not included Muzzatti here. Ever since he was drafted, I have expected that he would not stay all 4 years and get signed. His injury filled year makes it more likely that he stays, but here’s the thing: he can become a free agent this summer if Nashville doesn’t sign him. Despite his injuries, I can see them still pushing to sign him to avoid that, so I’m not counting on him returning. If he does return, that’s just gravy on top.

This is a good core and a good top 9 so far. Without Muzzatti, the team could use a couple of forwards on the left side. These will likely be filled through the portal and through CHL players. It’s only a couple spots, so I feel good about this forward group. They were able to score this season and had good depth.

These young players should improve as well, both offensively and defensively. The defensive improvement is very needed obviously. For as talented as these guys are, it’s imperative they develop more of a two way game as a lot of them are giving back more than they’re scoring.

Caron and Tapper had 20+ points each, the first pair of RPI freshmen to do that since Pirri and D’Amigo! They are very exciting pieces for the next few years.

These cards are from at . I’d highly recommend checking him out; he has some great weekend previews and writeups on college hockey.

Defensemen

Lemieux - Gilson

x - Smolinski

Klassek - Goffredo

Ozolins

Maguire, Matta

I project that both Adrian and Hilditch are going back to junior hockey after they have both been injured for the vast majority of the year. It’s possible one comes in, but I’d be really surprised if both did.

This blue line core looks pretty good. Gilson was one of the best dmen in the ECAC and should make an all-league team if the coaches are smart. He’s elite offensively and while he’s slightly below average defensively, it doesn’t detract from the overall body of work.

Smolinski has settled into a nice groove a second pairing defender who can produce offensively. He still sometimes tries to make too many plays and do too much and turnover the puck, but his defense has steadily improved. If he can take another step forward defensively, he could really be a luxury on the second pairing.

Lucas Lemieux will come in and should be ready to play top 4 minutes immediately as a freshman. He is one of the best defensemen in the entire BCHL this season. He has size, skating, skill and a great shot to produce offensively. Defensively, he uses his size and skating to have strong gaps and disrupt plays. Getting a two way guy like him in the top 4 should help on the back end. I don’t think he will fully replace what McDermott brought to the table since he will just be a freshman, but I expect him to have a strong year.

That leaves one gap in the top 4 on the left side, and my guess is the portal will be used here. The left side is pretty young with Lemieux and Klassek as freshmen, and Ozolins and Maguire as sophomores. I’d assume they want some experience in that spot. Ideally this can be a more defensively minded option. I think Gilson, Smolinski, and Lemieux have enough offense that they can go this route without sacrificing there. Even Goffredo on the bottom pairing moves the puck well enough and has some offense too.

Bergmanis was a huge disappointment for me this season. He was widely considered one of the top defensemen in the portal, but he was awful in his own end. His offensive game was solid but didn’t make up the gap. That’s part of why I want the more defensive option there; I don’t want the same mistake to be made.

The bottom pairing of Ozolins and Goffredo should be effective. Goffredo can be good in a bottom pairing role on a good team as he continues to develop, while Ozolins was really solid defensively in his freshman year. Both are young and should improve too.

That leaves Klassek, who seems good and like he could compete for a third pairing role. He should be valuable depth as someone who might start lower in the lineup but has the potential to be higher. Maguire and Matta should be depth guys once again.

Goaltending

The goaltending was slightly better this year compared to last. Overall, they let in 14 more goals than expected for the season. Last year, that number was 20. It’s still well below average, and it definitely continued to be an issue for the team.

For next year, RPI returns Dorfman as the third goalie, and they bring in Nate Krawchuk who is a great OHL goalie. He is a great pickup who should be a long term #1 in the net even if he’s not right away. To join him, I expect they’ll get a transfer. Regardless of who they get there, I feel better about the net next season with Krawchuk in the fold.