ECAC Thoughts So Far
Looking at each team and the league as a whole through a month and a half
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.
Quinnipiac
Cornell
Harvard
Dartmouth
Union
Clarkson
Colgate
Princeton
RPI
Brown
Yale
St. Lawrence