Reflecting on the 2023-24 Season
What were the biggest problems, what were the positives, and were they addressed in the offseason?
Stephen: Now that we’ve had some time to digest the season and reflect, we wanted to do a deeper dive into some of the things that went wrong for the team. Brendan already did a great breakdown on the team’s biggest problem which was the lack of puck possession and quality chances, but here we’ll cover some big areas with the special teams and goaltending. We also have some reasons for optimism going forward.
Special Teams
The special teams were a big topic all year long, for good reason with how much they were consistently a struggle.
Believe it or not, the power play didn’t end up being that bad. It finished at 18.2% for the year, which ranked 42nd in the country. That’s not good, but in the beginning of the year, the power play started 1/27. That means for the rest of the year, the power play went 19/83, good for 22.9%. That’s pretty good! Now, I know you can’t just take out the first month of the year and pretend it didn’t happen. I do think it’s a good thing though that the power play improved over the course of the year, and with most of the personnel returning, that success could continue next season.
The real issue was obviously the penalty kill, which had a horrible 69.9% success rate, 2nd worst in the country. That meant giving up a whopping 46 goals on the penalty kill for the year, 1.24 per game. Overall, the special teams' goals for and against was 25-51 (including shorthanded goals for and against) for a –26 differential. That comes out to –0.70 per game, which is a lot of goals to lose on just special teams.
Let’s say the penalty kill was simply below average instead of horrible. If you change the penalty kill to a 78% success rate, that would mean 12 less goals over the course of the year, or 0.32 less per game. That doesn’t make up for the entire special teams differential, but even a below average penalty kill would have made a big difference.
What was actually just as big a culprit for RPI’s special teams was its undisciplined play. They took a lot of penalties this year, way more than usual. They had to kill an average of 4.47 power plays per game, which was the 8th most in the country. If they just had to kill off one fewer power play per game, that’s 0.3 goals you’re saving even with how bad the penalty kill was.
The interesting thing is that this is very uncharacteristic of RPI under Dave Smith. If we look at RPI’s penalty minutes per game by year, you see that Coach Smith’s teams have typically been very disciplined.
From 2017-22, every single team was extremely disciplined and in the top 15 in the country in penalty minutes per game. The last 2 years have divorced from that though. Last year, they were about average, so it wasn’t a real problem but you’d obviously like them to maintain their extremely high level that they usually display. This year, it was clearly a problem and one that cannot persist into next year.
Goaltending
A lot was made about the goaltending during the year. The first half of the season was very poor and consistently cost the team games. Then, there was a brief stretch where it was good in the beginning of the second half of the year when Watson returned from injury. He came back looking like his freshman year self by moving well, swallowing the first shot and having outstanding positioning. Ultimately, he ended up reverting to his sophomore year form with plenty of flashes during the year but very inconsistent. Overall, the goaltending was no better than last year, and you could argue it was worse (although I don’t think it was).
No matter how you want to slice it, the goaltending was bad. By the numbers, the goaltending was 59th in the country with a 0.882 SV%. This was even lower than last year’s 0.887. However, this obviously doesn’t factor in the quality of shots. So, it’s time to break out one of our favorite stats, expected goals.
As I’m sure you know, xG is basically a value assigned to every shot attempt with the odds that it ends up being a goal. This is based on shot location, game situation, etc. Overall, RPI had a really bad 3.7 expected goals against per game. This was way down from 3.1 expected goals against last year, which is still not good, but it is at least not awful.
However, this does not absolve the goaltending even when factoring in the poor defense during the year. As a whole, RPI’s goalies gave up 20.21 more goals than expected. That’s very high and works out to about 0.55 per game. More than half a goal extra per game makes a huge difference in winning and losing. Even on a game by game breakdown, the Engineers simply didn’t get many quality starts from the netminders.
This table pretty clearly lays out the goaltending struggles to me. RPI was getting way too many bad or horrible starts this year to have a chance in many games. The table looks pretty reasonable when you’re looking in the center of it. 5 good starts, 6 average starts, and 3 below average starts. The issue is that compared to 5 excellent starts and 3 great starts, there were double their counterparts with a whopping 10 horrible starts and 5 bad starts. That’s 15 starts where the goalies are giving the team almost zero chance to win. If the team gets average goaltending, you’re looking at a significant difference.
Summing It All Up
I broke down different areas of the struggles of the team, and also gave some mathematical estimates of how they impacted goals and goals per game. So what’s the result if you add it all up? It’s not as simple as just doing the quick addition because there’s overlap in the different areas we dissected.
Starting with the special teams, I mentioned both moving to a below average penalty kill and taking less penalties. When you combine the two together, the math comes out to about 20.5 goals saved over the course of the year.
As for goaltending, that also crosses over into the penalty kill, so there would be some double counting there. RPI spent about 1/10th of its time short-handed, so if you remove that from the goals given up compared to the expected goals, you get 18.19 instead of 20.21. This isn’t the perfect way to do this mathematically, but there isn’t really a way to do it better. I could specifically calculate the number of goals compared to the expected goals when short-handed with Instat, but I don’t think Instat properly factors in the fact that all powerplay shots are more dangerous compared to even strength.
This isn’t meant to be perfect, but it’s more so meant to give you a general idea of the impact of various issues the team had. When you add the goaltending and special teams together, you get 38.7 extra goals which is over 1 goal per game. That’s a significant impact and shows how little things can quickly add up. Imagine if RPI gave up 3 goals per game instead of 4? This isn’t even making the team “good” in any of the 3 areas. It’s just upgrading to a below average penalty kill, being slightly more disciplined, and getting average goaltending.
Using a Pythagorean Expectation (that Wikipedia page has a good breakdown) calculator, RPI’s expected winning percentage with those numbers is 0.4256. The expectation would move RPI from a 10-23-4 record to a 14-19-4 record. That’s a big difference, and luckily, these are fixable problems. Under Dave Smith, RPI has typically been disciplined with a good PK and goaltending. I would expect these areas to improve given that track record.
However, a lot also ties back to the puck possession and scoring chances. 14-19-4 is still not a good record. The reality is that with play driving that poor, you’re not going to be a good team regardless.
I’m not a coach nor do I want to pretend to be one. The personnel changes should help in this area, but I also would think there needs to be some system changes to go along with it. The main areas for improvement per Brendan’s research are better forechecking and shot retrievals in the offensive zone, improved transition play to generate more shots and chances off the rush, and less turnovers and giveaways in the defensive zone.
What Went Well?
Chris: We always try to toe the line on the blog between calling it how we see it in an objective manner, but also respecting that this is collegiate athletics, not professional, which does not garner the same scrutiny. Frankly, not a whole lot did go well this season. The team was basically punched in the mouth in the first weekend in Maine, and never found any momentum. But we are forward thinking and try to find what excites us for next season, and I do think there are some positives we can pull from this past year.
First things first for me is the production RPI got from its younger players, who will be a big part of the roster next season. Tyler Hotson is the first one that stands out, as his freshman campaign met and exceeded the high expectations, we had coming in. His IQ and knack for the puck are excellent, and I see him as a point-per-game player next year. Max Smolinski won the team’s “Top Defenseman” award, and I believe it was warranted after his sophomore year improvement. Stephen will touch on Muzzatti and Tinling later, but these four in addition to Jake Lee, Jack Watson, and Jake Gagnon represent the real returning core for next year in my eyes.
Something that stood out from this season as positive regression was RPI’s shooting percentage, which consistently sat in the top 15 in the country. It was almost exclusively responsible for the respectable goal output the team put up, seeing as the possession stats were so weak. RPI’s ability to convert its chances left me with a positive feeling about this core of forwards, such as Hotson, Tinling, Muzzatti, and Lee. I think the positive view of this situation is that if RPI can possess the puck better next year, not only will it help with goals against, but they also have the skill to convert the chances they will gain.
Stephen: One thing I want to point out is that the Engineers are retaining all their key young talent. In today’s portal world, that’s not a given, and there were plenty of teams in similar positions as RPI who were unable to keep key players after down years. UConn lost 1st round NHL draft pick Matthew Wood as well as Calgary Flames 5th round pick Arsenii Sergeyev. Ferris State lost Luigi Benincasa who had 23 points as a freshman. Niagara lost 21 point freshman Jack Richard. You can go down the list to find countless examples of teams losing key pieces after down years. Even some teams with good years lost key players.
To me, it’s a big vote of confidence for the coaching staff that no key young players entered the portal. Every portal entry was either a graduating player or a player stuck at the bottom of the depth chart likely seeking more ice time. Clearly the players believe in the team, program and their ability to develop here because if they didn’t, trust me, they’d be gone.
RPI will be returning Tyler Hotson as Chris mentioned, but Dovar Tinling and Sutter Muzzatti are both top 6 centers with 2 years of eligibility left. Those two will be highly important down the middle and have great upside. I like both to take steps forward this year. In particular, I think Muzzatti could be an All-ECAC player, and I expect he will be offered an NHL entry level contract by the Nashville Predators next spring.
The defense should be upgraded just purely on personnel. Sertti was a good defenseman, but McDermott was even better than him when he was at Colgate in the ECAC. He played a key 3rd pairing shutdown role for an NCAA tournament team at UMass, so he’s shown he can succeed in any role. Regula was also a good defenseman, but Gilson was probably Alaska-Anchorage's top defenseman last year. He has even more offense than Regula with both great shooting and passing ability, and his ability to breakout the puck should pay dividends in the offensive and defensive zone. Lastly, Ozolins is touted as a smart, efficient defenseman who can defend and also move the puck. In a 3rd pairing and depth role, he should be more effective than Ardanaz was, and he will compete with Matta for that spot this season.
In net, Watson will have quality competition for the #1 role for the first time since his freshman year when he wrestled the starting role from Linden Marshall. It probably isn’t a coincidence that he had his best season when he had the most competition. Giesbrecht is also a solid 1B option. Multiple CCHA fans reached out to me when he committed to say he was an underrated addition who many times was the only reason Ferris State was competitive. While he didn’t have a great year last year even with how bad his team was, he had a pretty good year in 22-23 when he had a .906 SV% despite the team giving up 33.3 shots on goal per game. They went 14-19-4, but his record was 11-12-1. This goalie competition should be quite interesting, and it’s good that the Engineers have two options who have shown they can be capable starters in the past.
Chris: The sample size last season was large enough that it became clear to us where the flaws were, specifically in puck possession, special teams, and goaltending. It is also evident the staff agreed with our assessment and seemed to tailor the offseason towards addressing these problems, all while retaining the core of the roster. I think there is legitimate reason to be excited about the changes made, and I would also add that there is more pressure on this team to perform after two consecutive disappointing seasons. The loss of Austin Heidemann is the only disappointment for me, as I feel that every other position was upgraded. McDermott and Gilson should be an upgrade on the Sertti-Regula pair, Tonelli will fill in for Ryan Brushett, Giesbrecht is a clear upgrade on the backups from last year, and Felix Caron and Rainers Rullers will make immediate impacts. When a team gives up a lot of offense, the typical phrases you’ll hear emphasized is adding size and physicality. However, RPI’s inability to possess the puck last year suggests that they needed better passers, faster decision-makers, and quicker skaters. There was a lot we can hypothesize about last season, and in many respects a lot of the film should be burned. But as a fan I am very enthused by the process of this offseason, there was a clear identification of flaws, roster departures from players not fitting in the system, and entries from players whose strengths address these flaws. Whether it works or not, we will find out. But I can’t wait to see the 24-25 Engineers in action this October.