November 17, 2025 • 28 mins
Hosts Jim Connelly (@jimmyconnelly), Derek Schooley (@derekschooley), and Ed Trefzger (@EdTrefzger) review games of the weekend and news of the past week.
They highlight Dartmouth's 6-0 start, Michigan State's nine-game winning streak, and RIT's surprising recovery for its own nine-game streak after an early season sweep by Sacred Heart.
The episode also touches upon the challenges of polling and rankings early in the season, and the potential unpredictability due to team depth and the nuances of hockey dynamics.
This episode is sponsored by the NCAA Men's Frozen Four, April 9 and 11 in Las Vegas. Tickets: https://ncaa.com/mfrozenfour
Find all of our podcasts at USCHO.com/podcasts
They highlight Dartmouth's 6-0 start, Michigan State's nine-game winning streak, and RIT's surprising recovery for its own nine-game streak after an early season sweep by Sacred Heart.
The episode also touches upon the challenges of polling and rankings early in the season, and the potential unpredictability due to team depth and the nuances of hockey dynamics.
This episode is sponsored by the NCAA Men's Frozen Four, April 9 and 11 in Las Vegas. Tickets: https://ncaa.com/mfrozenfour
Find all of our podcasts at USCHO.com/podcasts
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Usccho dot com.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Welcome to USCCHO Weekend Review from Monday, November seventeen, twenty
twenty five. This episode is brought to you by the
NCAA Men's Division one Frozen four April ninth and eleventh
in Las Vegas. Visit NCAA dot com slash m Frozen
four for tickets. I'm at Trevsker alongside Jim Connolly and
(00:37):
Derek Schooley, and well, once again we've got a couple
of hot teams to talk about. First of all, Dartmouth
there's six oh to oh, surprising a lot of people
right out of the gate. They swept the North Country
Tour against Saint Lawrence and Clarkson six to one and
three to one respectively, And that's never an easy road
trip for anybody in the league. But it's the first
(00:59):
time they've swept both teams on a trip up north
since seventeen eighteen, and it's the first six and oh
start since nineteen fifty seven, fifty eight, even before I
was born. So they are off to a terrific beginning.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
You know, the funny thing is when you said seventeen eighteen,
I was thinking like the year seventeen eighteen, not two
thousand and seven.
Speaker 4 (01:22):
I was like, a darkness played hockey that long.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
But no, that's a pretty that would be an even
impressive stat. But no, the one thing I impressed I
was impressed with when I did some research on this
one goal a game for their last five games. That's
that is, and then even the game before that too.
So if you're looking at it, they've played six games
(01:45):
and they've given up seven goals. That is an impressive stat.
That's lockdown defense right there.
Speaker 5 (01:52):
You know, Ed might not have been alive, but you know,
nineteen fifty seven, that was Eisenhower's administration. I mean, you know,
maybe that we can and find some similarities there. I
don't know, you know, I just feel like Dartmouth is
doing a lot of the things that you have to
do really well.
Speaker 6 (02:07):
They do some of the boring things well. They win
face offs.
Speaker 5 (02:10):
They scored three shorthanded goals, two on the same penalty
on Friday night against St.
Speaker 6 (02:16):
Lawrence.
Speaker 5 (02:17):
They are such a dangerous team. They lurk, they find
ways to turn you over. They capitalize, they put pucks
in the back of your net. I mean, they don't
they're not flashy, they don't have the high end talent
that you're going to see. Some of the other schools
we'll talk about, but they do everything really well.
Speaker 6 (02:34):
You know, we'll talk a lot more about them this week.
Speaker 5 (02:37):
But I just look at this Dartmouth team now and say,
if they cannot be the most positive and confident they've
been in the last two decades.
Speaker 6 (02:49):
In handover, I don't know what the problem would be.
Speaker 5 (02:52):
This is a team that should bring a lot of
confidence back to Dartmouth.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
I'll go even step further. You talk about boring things.
You've got a defense, defense, defense wins championships, and you're
besides face off goals, shorthanded goals, all this. I come
back to the five straight games giving up one goal
and especially two goals on the road in the North Country.
(03:17):
Clarkson's been playing pretty good, and you've got to adm croto,
you know, a transfer from Clarkson just going up there
and just winning games.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
One thing one maybe a caveat in this as an ivy.
There's still about three weeks behind everybody else in games,
so they still have a few to get under their belt.
But that doesn't take away from what they've accomplished. No.
Speaker 5 (03:38):
I guess that's what probably makes this look a little,
you know, strange off. Maybe it's too early to be celebrating,
but this is a great start right now. And the
way that Dartmouth is playing, the confidence they're playing with,
you know, I guess we'll find out if this is
just a bunch of early season bounces. But I don't
know if there's something in there that tells me that
(04:00):
this isn't just good early season luck.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
This is a pretty good team. You're giving up only
one hundred and twenty shots. You've got two goalies splitting
even up one hundred and twenty shots in six games,
the same percentage of nine to forty five between two goalies.
They're split rolland Clark, Kanemic crowto ones at nine to sixty,
which is off the charts, and nine to twenty three
(04:25):
and you've given up one hundred and twenty shots pretty good.
Speaker 5 (04:29):
And listen, nine sixty isn't sustainable his entire seat, you know,
to be somewhere even in that you know, stratosphere at
this point is pretty.
Speaker 4 (04:40):
Twenty three, is you know? I got?
Speaker 5 (04:43):
I do wonder It always makes me wonder whether or
not we'll see one goaltender at some point this season,
or will this be a platoon situation the entire year.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
For weeken we talk about that that we've seen more big.
I mean, we saw it this weekend with Ed and
we're going to talk about our it, but both our
it and our meal. My team have played one goalie
all year. A lot of teams have.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Yeah, you mentioned goaltending though, just overall stats. I was
just taking a quick peek. The top ten goaltenders in
D one right now who've played at least a third
of their games are nine to thirty five save percentage
and above. So there's some really really good goaltending going
on out there in general.
Speaker 6 (05:25):
So you're saying that a nine oh five save percentage
isn't going to lead.
Speaker 7 (05:29):
The news this year. That might be belown the midpoint.
I don't know. We'll have to see how things go.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
I think it would be well keeping a streak rolling
is Michigan State. They lost their first game of the
season to New Hampshire and haven't lost since. So they've
lost won nine in a row, including on the road
this past weekend for one and three to one at
Notre Dame. Fifty two shots stopped over the weekend by
Trey Augustine talking about goaltending. He got his fiftieth collegiate
(05:58):
victory in that Michigan state. They're going to be I
think probably ballists are not all in, but probably unanimous
number one for a second week in a row.
Speaker 6 (06:10):
You know, I just look at this team.
Speaker 5 (06:11):
They don't have a lot of holes right now, and
when you're getting the goaltending they're getting. We just mentioned goaltending,
but you know, Treyo Augustine, the way he's playing in net,
they don't have a lot of holes. You know. I
just think he hit his fiftieth win and he's not
even at Christmas of his junior Season's that's pretty impressive.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
Yeah, I'm a little concerned with Notre Dame. I'm they're
they're trying to find their identity a little bit, going
from brocks Shean Jeff Jackson to brocks Shean. Brock shean'
is a fabulous coach at Chicago Steel. He's a puck
possession guy. They're trying to find the identity a little
bit of where they are, and I think Notre Dame
(06:51):
they've got some really good players canoe ball and Danny
Nelson and Mazzadi and they're going to get somebody eventually,
but they're just not right now. And Notre Dame Michigan
State to go in there and do that to them,
pretty good weekend for them. It's got to get better
for Notre Dame sooner than later. They it doesn't get
(07:12):
easier in the Big Ten. They do have this weekend.
They come out your way at Jimmy and they say
they get.
Speaker 4 (07:19):
Merrimack Boston College.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
Then they come home and get Wisconsin, who's been playing
pretty well. You're going to see Notre Dame's got to
turn it around pretty quickly here.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
Well, that winning streak nine games, but they're not the
only one with it, and the other team in the
country with a nine game winning streak completely surprising people
around Rochester is rit They got swept the first weekend
of the season, won nothing in sixty one to Sacred Heart,
but since then they've reeled off nine straight, three of
(07:50):
those outside of the conference and the rest in Atlantic Hockey.
It's really quite a surprise. It was expected to be
a real rebuilding year for the Tigers. They lost two
seasons ago, four players to the Portal, two more this
year and new coach and Matt Thomas coming in, so
(08:11):
it was expected. It might be a little bit of
a struggle to get things going, but they have been
finding ways to win. And probably the one to put
the most credit on is goaltender Yakub Kurbachek, who's been
top ten and was a goalie of the Month last
month in Atlantic Hockey.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
One game, I think it's one game they gave out,
giving up over two goals.
Speaker 7 (08:34):
Yep.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
I think that was the one game against Sacred Heart
or Air Force they won seven to three. We had
two pretty quickly, and I thought that might been the
way that we were going to get and we kept
saying it was the race to three on going into
the second game, and obviously it was, and they got
the third one with forty five seconds left in the game.
(08:55):
But really good hockey series, big boy hockey, as.
Speaker 4 (08:59):
I called it on my post game. They're big, they're heavy.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
I thought both teams played extremely hard, came down to
the final three minutes both games. Unfortunately, they got a
power play goal in the last with about three minutes
left on a disputed call, but I can't go there.
Speaker 4 (09:20):
And then.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
And then we gave up one with forty five seconds left,
but they they found ways to win.
Speaker 4 (09:26):
I was impressed with them, but it's.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
It's early, but they're they're the story of Atlantic hockey
so far right now, just with railing off nine in
a row. But it could have went either way, and
I will take the solace of that. That's my the
only I guess when you get to walk out of
there with some feeling good about yourself that you played
as hard as you possibly did, but you got no
(09:50):
points out of it.
Speaker 4 (09:52):
Good hockey team.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
They their goaltending was outstanding, They did a lot of
It's a completely different ri T hockey team, man, and
maybe you come out of that. It's not as free
wheeling and run and gun. It's more of a straight
line East west, simplistic, hard nos hockey team. And that's
why I kind of use the word big boy hockey.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
That both games were well coming into the season, and
even in his introductory press conference, first year head coach
Matt Thomas talked about that maybe they didn't have the
talent level that they've had some years in the past,
especially like an elite goal scorer, so that they were
going to want to do things to play a little
(10:35):
bit more defensively. And his point that he made early
on as he said, we're not always going to be
the most talented team on the ice, but we want
to be the hardest working team every time.
Speaker 7 (10:48):
So that's been kind of the mantra.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
They've been working very hard in practice, and also he's
really set kind of his identity on the program very quickly.
Speaker 5 (10:59):
You know, I think there's also something you have to
mention here is the fact that they're winning close games,
especially this weekend.
Speaker 6 (11:06):
Take those two this weekend.
Speaker 5 (11:07):
You go on the road to a you know, I
think that Robert Morris is a tough place to win.
Speaker 6 (11:12):
It has been for years.
Speaker 5 (11:13):
So you go on the road, you find yourself with
the game and the balance, back to back nights, and you.
Speaker 6 (11:19):
Find ways to win those games.
Speaker 5 (11:21):
Good teams find ways to win, and that's part of
the championship resume.
Speaker 4 (11:25):
You know.
Speaker 5 (11:26):
Now I think we have to ask ourselves, is this
like a nice little Atlantic cocky run or is orit
something besides just an Atlantic cocky front runner? Are they
going to be in the at large bid conversation for
the entire season. You start putting streaks together like this,
it's going to get those wins pile up fast, and
(11:47):
you know, once you're over twenty twenty five wins. I
don't care what conference you're and you're under consideration, You're
you're going to be in the picture. So I think
that this is That's what I'm looking at the most
for RIT right now, whether or not this is going
to be an NPI run or is this just going
to be something that we were talking about in Atlantic.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
The next two weeks are going to tell you they
play Tuesday night at Niagara, Friday night a single game
at Bentley, Sunday morning, hop on a bus to Toronto
and fly to Dublin and then play in.
Speaker 7 (12:17):
The Friendship four.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
In Belfast and the Friendship For you, if you'd asked
before the season, is this going to be a tough
matchup among the teams?
Speaker 7 (12:28):
You might not have thought so, but.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
Sacred Heart maybe has turned things around a bit. Miami
is off to a terrific start, and Union is blowing
the doors off of people, So that could turn out
to be a much better tournament and a much higher
level of competition that people.
Speaker 7 (12:44):
May have thought.
Speaker 5 (12:46):
You got to think about three of the four teams
you just mentioned there, Miami, Union and RIT are teams
that we have talked about on this podcast as teams
that have been flying way too low under the radar,
Well you'll see them fly above the radar over Belfast.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
Well with that, we're coming to the midpoint of the program.
Will take a pause that we're sponsored by the NCAA
Men's Division one Frozen four April ninth and eleventh in
Las Vegas.
Speaker 6 (13:23):
Glass Today we're fucking men's ice hockey. Open your textbooks,
join thousands of other swimming fans for an in person experience.
You have to see to believe.
Speaker 5 (13:33):
It's the NCAAA Men's Frozen four, April ninth and eleventh
in Las Vegas.
Speaker 6 (13:38):
Attendance is encouraged. Passion is mandatory.
Speaker 5 (13:41):
By your seat today at NCAAA dot com slash m
Frozen four.
Speaker 6 (13:45):
How many teams are in the Men's Frozen four?
Speaker 7 (13:49):
Please leave me.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
We're back with USCCHO weekend review. There were still some
upsets over the weekend. One that really stood out was
Vermont over Main two to one after they lost seven
to nothing the night before, and Steve Wheeler was ecstatic
in his postgame interview on ESPN Plus. But for the
(14:16):
most part, it started to feel like things were leveling off.
We haven't had as many upsets as we've had recently,
and there could be a number of reasons with that.
You're getting in the conference play where you know teams better,
Maybe the top ten are getting settled in. Maybe teams
in general are finding who's going to be the goalie
(14:36):
and who's going to be the players to look on,
look at, and maybe we'll find out with today's poll,
maybe the voters are getting it right by mid November.
I want to start there because Jim, you and I
both are among the fifty ballots, ballots, voters, whatever you
want to call it, for the pole and every week,
(14:58):
it seems this year it's been a lot more work
and a lot more comparing things to get a ballot together,
because nobody's really running away with it. Maybe you could
say Michigan, Michigan State, you got Dartmouth in there, maybe
not getting enough love yet. But things are kind of
(15:19):
converging to the middle on those top ten teams.
Speaker 7 (15:22):
So that's a hard part too.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
But what are some of the reasons we're seeing maybe
things leveling off?
Speaker 7 (15:27):
Now?
Speaker 5 (15:27):
I'll start with where you're just going the ballot every week,
every Sunday night. Putting together a ballot is one of
the most difficult things because you want to respect teams
that you know are good, that probably are that sometimes
are just coming off really bad weekends.
Speaker 4 (15:44):
You know.
Speaker 5 (15:44):
Boston University, for me, has been a team that's been
really hard.
Speaker 6 (15:48):
To quantify this year.
Speaker 5 (15:49):
I know that they're good, I know that they have
plenty of talent, but I'm concerned about some of their losses.
They've played a really hard slate as well. You know,
there's teams like that out there. Minnesota is a team
we've talked about in that even Western Michigan, you know,
defending national champions and they've had some real bright lights.
I've seen them twice. I've called their games, and I
(16:10):
think they're a really good team. But there are parts
of their game that concerned me right now, you know,
in terms of what we're seeing now and maybe less
upsets as the season goes on.
Speaker 6 (16:22):
I think it's just.
Speaker 5 (16:25):
Sometimes you really have to consider the fact that the
voters don't know everything early in the season. Now we're
actually seeing voters start to make a more educated guess
with their ballot each week.
Speaker 6 (16:45):
That's one of the things that I think is leveling
us off.
Speaker 3 (16:49):
I would say that there are some times that you
could look and you could say, hey, I'll just vote
the Pairwise, I don't think you can vote the NPI
right now at all, because it's no, it's crazy, and
I know that we we don't want to really go
there right now. But you got Dartmouth at number one.
If you voted, you got Lau in the top fifteen.
That's one upset that you if you really wanted to talk,
(17:10):
if there was an upset. I don't think anybody saw
LU going into Minnesota and beating Minnesota. I could have
told you I thought LU was really good, and they
after we played them, and they are just as good.
They beat Merrimack, they took Penn State to overtime. That
didn't surprise me. They almost said they had them four
(17:30):
to three down with tend to go on Saturday night.
If they would have swept them, I think the Gopher
faithful would have been going crazy in Minneapolis even more
than they already were. But I think if you it's
tough right now, you're still trying to figure everything out.
If you look, if you look at all the numbers
and the records, and then then you go get a
(17:52):
little bit crazy and you pull up the NPI and
say let me compare it a little bit, and then
you look at that and then you just really don't
know what you're talking talking about because how crazy it is.
So I think that if you use all the data,
you're still trying to figure out exactly where polls are
going and where the or not. And like you said,
they're maybe leveling off because there is enough video on
(18:13):
people that are people are starting to look at a
couple of games back, they're starting to see who the
leading scores are, they're starting to see trends on their
power play, they're starting to see trends of how they're
doing things. So I think that that's maybe a couple
of different reasons why you're seeing leveling off on that polls.
Speaker 4 (18:32):
How difficult it is.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
And this is for somebody who's not voting on a
pole anymore, but I can tell you when I did it,
and I haven't done it for a while now. I
used to would look at what I thought were my
poll I would look at a pair. Wise, I would
look at league standings, and that's all difficult right now
because also in league standings, we've only played four league
games and we're tied with two other teams that are
(18:55):
played eight games, so you don't really know that as well,
so you're still kind of there's still a whole bunch
up in the air.
Speaker 5 (19:03):
I mean, I think if we can kind of look
at the season to date and say that, you know,
the college hockey season.
Speaker 6 (19:09):
Has been drunk to date, I think that this week
maybe we.
Speaker 5 (19:12):
Sat down, had a glass of water, starting to feel
a little bit better, and where we're thinking about what.
Speaker 6 (19:17):
The rest of the night looks like.
Speaker 5 (19:19):
I think that we're finally seeing things level off a
little bit. And I say that, and now we're going
to see the number one, two, and three teams all
lose this week.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
That's just you mentioned the NPI, and at some point
we're going to see a shake up in that, and
that I think is going to be once teams have
played more than fifteen games, because you got to have
fifteen games in the calculation, if I remember correctly, twelve okay,
well even better okay, So they're just approaching twelve, and
(19:49):
then after that they can start taking off wins that
hurt you.
Speaker 7 (19:54):
And so.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
That is going to start kicking in very soon. And
once that happens, then I think you'll see things straightened out.
Speaker 7 (20:03):
Quote unquote, or at least.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
Look more like they've looked in the past, like a hope.
Speaker 7 (20:09):
Yeah. I mean, it's very strange right now.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
I wrote last week in our TMQ column that it's
going to be a hot mess until semester break or
maybe even early in January, and so people have got
to get used to it being different. That's why at
us Echo, our publisher Tim Browley, was reluctant to publish
(20:32):
it too early, and that always puts US as a
publication in a different difficult place because other people are
publishing it. But it it just did not make a
whole lot of sense early on, you know, and you
start seeing teams having played one or two games in
there at the top, and teams that have you know,
like a five to one record at number forty seven.
(20:54):
It was that kind of weirdness and so that should
settle down. Just like the RPI and just like the
pair wise before it, it's the kind of thing where
the numbers only really make sense after all the games
have been played. They kind of converge into where they
should be. And you know, in the pair wise, generally
(21:15):
the teams that were in the tournament in the pairwise,
so to speak in January, something like seventy five or
eighty percent of those would make it. We'll have to
see what that looks like with the NPI.
Speaker 7 (21:25):
Now.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
People may have modeled out previous seasons and can tell
us better, but I'm really just going to sit and
wait and maybe take from this season some guidelines that
we can apply in other years. But also with this,
and this is something we've talked about before. A lot
of this has to do, I think, with just how
(21:47):
deep everybody is. I think that because there's such a
talent pool, teams are deeper in general than they have been.
And you know, teams I don't know, Derek see more
of it. I don't think we're in a situation where
where teams are reluctant to roll out a fourth line.
(22:08):
Maybe you shorten your bench a little bit later on,
but there's depth from first line to fourth line and
across defenseman right now that I don't think we've seen before.
Speaker 4 (22:17):
I mean everybody, everybody, I think everybody.
Speaker 3 (22:19):
That's how what's made college hockey so much deeper or
so much better right off the bat is everybody's getting
better players. The pool is bigger, and I think it's
going to start leveling out because right now people are
just they were lucking a little bit to going to
the CHL last year because they.
Speaker 4 (22:38):
Didn't know how it was going to be.
Speaker 3 (22:40):
Now, I think people are more in tune with going
into the CHL. They're seeing the Gavin McKenna's of the world.
They're seeing that now you're going to see more higher
draft picks coming. You're going to see that, You're going
to see a pyramid be a little bit different. You're
going to see a pyramid of development. And I think
that that's what I think that'll that'll straighten the game
(23:01):
out if they can get the development model correct, and
I think we're still ways away from that, but if
you can get the developmental model correct from the top down,
I think you're going to see college hockey flourish even more.
Speaker 6 (23:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (23:15):
I'll just kind of close with one highlight on the NPI.
We talked about Thanksgiving as a good time to look
at the pair wise, I think this one, even given
another month the break, will be a perfect time to
start looking at the NPI.
Speaker 4 (23:30):
Once you have.
Speaker 5 (23:31):
The Ivy League schools with fourteen to eighteen games played,
or you know, a little more than two thirds of
their season, then I think you'll you'll have a better
idea where everybody said but as you said, ed, we're
not really going to have any sort of understanding of
how numbers will follow probably.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
Till Febrory and I think we can look at how
teams schedule now with five independents, it makes a difference,
But once we get past the beginning of January, most
of the non conference schedule will have been played by
everyone except for games scheduled against independence, and then they'll
play each other a lot more towards the end of
(24:12):
the season. So that sort of stratification by winning percentage
outside your conference will have pretty much taken place. And
I expect that that's going to be very much like
we have seen in past years, where your non conference
winning percentage is pretty much a determination of how many
(24:34):
teams you get in. And this year is going to
be very interesting because you definitely have a stratification. If
you look at it right now, Big ten is seven
hundred out of conference Hockey East five forty three, NCCHC
sixt eighty one. You take the other three conferences, Atlantic
Hockey three ninety four, CCHA three eighty five, ECAC four
(24:56):
seventy five, probably a couple from ec ac get In,
maybe one from the other two.
Speaker 7 (25:02):
But you're gonna
Usccho dot com.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Welcome to USCCHO Weekend Review from Monday, November seventeen, twenty
twenty five. This episode is brought to you by the
NCAA Men's Division one Frozen four April ninth and eleventh
in Las Vegas. Visit NCAA dot com slash m Frozen
four for tickets. I'm at Trevsker alongside Jim Connolly and
(00:37):
Derek Schooley, and well, once again we've got a couple
of hot teams to talk about. First of all, Dartmouth
there's six oh to oh, surprising a lot of people
right out of the gate. They swept the North Country
Tour against Saint Lawrence and Clarkson six to one and
three to one respectively, And that's never an easy road
trip for anybody in the league. But it's the first
(00:59):
time they've swept both teams on a trip up north
since seventeen eighteen, and it's the first six and oh
start since nineteen fifty seven, fifty eight, even before I
was born. So they are off to a terrific beginning.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
You know, the funny thing is when you said seventeen eighteen,
I was thinking like the year seventeen eighteen, not two
thousand and seven.
Speaker 4 (01:22):
I was like, a darkness played hockey that long.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
But no, that's a pretty that would be an even
impressive stat. But no, the one thing I impressed I
was impressed with when I did some research on this
one goal a game for their last five games. That's
that is, and then even the game before that too.
So if you're looking at it, they've played six games
(01:45):
and they've given up seven goals. That is an impressive stat.
That's lockdown defense right there.
Speaker 5 (01:52):
You know, Ed might not have been alive, but you know,
nineteen fifty seven, that was Eisenhower's administration. I mean, you know,
maybe that we can and find some similarities there. I
don't know, you know, I just feel like Dartmouth is
doing a lot of the things that you have to
do really well.
Speaker 6 (02:07):
They do some of the boring things well. They win
face offs.
Speaker 5 (02:10):
They scored three shorthanded goals, two on the same penalty
on Friday night against St.
Speaker 6 (02:16):
Lawrence.
Speaker 5 (02:17):
They are such a dangerous team. They lurk, they find
ways to turn you over. They capitalize, they put pucks
in the back of your net. I mean, they don't
they're not flashy, they don't have the high end talent
that you're going to see. Some of the other schools
we'll talk about, but they do everything really well.
Speaker 6 (02:34):
You know, we'll talk a lot more about them this week.
Speaker 5 (02:37):
But I just look at this Dartmouth team now and say,
if they cannot be the most positive and confident they've
been in the last two decades.
Speaker 6 (02:49):
In handover, I don't know what the problem would be.
Speaker 5 (02:52):
This is a team that should bring a lot of
confidence back to Dartmouth.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
I'll go even step further. You talk about boring things.
You've got a defense, defense, defense wins championships, and you're
besides face off goals, shorthanded goals, all this. I come
back to the five straight games giving up one goal
and especially two goals on the road in the North Country.
(03:17):
Clarkson's been playing pretty good, and you've got to adm croto,
you know, a transfer from Clarkson just going up there
and just winning games.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
One thing one maybe a caveat in this as an ivy.
There's still about three weeks behind everybody else in games,
so they still have a few to get under their belt.
But that doesn't take away from what they've accomplished. No.
Speaker 5 (03:38):
I guess that's what probably makes this look a little,
you know, strange off. Maybe it's too early to be celebrating,
but this is a great start right now. And the
way that Dartmouth is playing, the confidence they're playing with,
you know, I guess we'll find out if this is
just a bunch of early season bounces. But I don't
know if there's something in there that tells me that
(04:00):
this isn't just good early season luck.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
This is a pretty good team. You're giving up only
one hundred and twenty shots. You've got two goalies splitting
even up one hundred and twenty shots in six games,
the same percentage of nine to forty five between two goalies.
They're split rolland Clark, Kanemic crowto ones at nine to sixty,
which is off the charts, and nine to twenty three
(04:25):
and you've given up one hundred and twenty shots pretty good.
Speaker 5 (04:29):
And listen, nine sixty isn't sustainable his entire seat, you know,
to be somewhere even in that you know, stratosphere at
this point is pretty.
Speaker 4 (04:40):
Twenty three, is you know? I got?
Speaker 5 (04:43):
I do wonder It always makes me wonder whether or
not we'll see one goaltender at some point this season,
or will this be a platoon situation the entire year.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
For weeken we talk about that that we've seen more big.
I mean, we saw it this weekend with Ed and
we're going to talk about our it, but both our
it and our meal. My team have played one goalie
all year. A lot of teams have.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Yeah, you mentioned goaltending though, just overall stats. I was
just taking a quick peek. The top ten goaltenders in
D one right now who've played at least a third
of their games are nine to thirty five save percentage
and above. So there's some really really good goaltending going
on out there in general.
Speaker 6 (05:25):
So you're saying that a nine oh five save percentage
isn't going to lead.
Speaker 7 (05:29):
The news this year. That might be belown the midpoint.
I don't know. We'll have to see how things go.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
I think it would be well keeping a streak rolling
is Michigan State. They lost their first game of the
season to New Hampshire and haven't lost since. So they've
lost won nine in a row, including on the road
this past weekend for one and three to one at
Notre Dame. Fifty two shots stopped over the weekend by
Trey Augustine talking about goaltending. He got his fiftieth collegiate
(05:58):
victory in that Michigan state. They're going to be I
think probably ballists are not all in, but probably unanimous
number one for a second week in a row.
Speaker 6 (06:10):
You know, I just look at this team.
Speaker 5 (06:11):
They don't have a lot of holes right now, and
when you're getting the goaltending they're getting. We just mentioned goaltending,
but you know, Treyo Augustine, the way he's playing in net,
they don't have a lot of holes. You know. I
just think he hit his fiftieth win and he's not
even at Christmas of his junior Season's that's pretty impressive.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
Yeah, I'm a little concerned with Notre Dame. I'm they're
they're trying to find their identity a little bit, going
from brocks Shean Jeff Jackson to brocks Shean. Brock shean'
is a fabulous coach at Chicago Steel. He's a puck
possession guy. They're trying to find the identity a little
bit of where they are, and I think Notre Dame
(06:51):
they've got some really good players canoe ball and Danny
Nelson and Mazzadi and they're going to get somebody eventually,
but they're just not right now. And Notre Dame Michigan
State to go in there and do that to them,
pretty good weekend for them. It's got to get better
for Notre Dame sooner than later. They it doesn't get
(07:12):
easier in the Big Ten. They do have this weekend.
They come out your way at Jimmy and they say
they get.
Speaker 4 (07:19):
Merrimack Boston College.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
Then they come home and get Wisconsin, who's been playing
pretty well. You're going to see Notre Dame's got to
turn it around pretty quickly here.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
Well, that winning streak nine games, but they're not the
only one with it, and the other team in the
country with a nine game winning streak completely surprising people
around Rochester is rit They got swept the first weekend
of the season, won nothing in sixty one to Sacred Heart,
but since then they've reeled off nine straight, three of
(07:50):
those outside of the conference and the rest in Atlantic Hockey.
It's really quite a surprise. It was expected to be
a real rebuilding year for the Tigers. They lost two
seasons ago, four players to the Portal, two more this
year and new coach and Matt Thomas coming in, so
(08:11):
it was expected. It might be a little bit of
a struggle to get things going, but they have been
finding ways to win. And probably the one to put
the most credit on is goaltender Yakub Kurbachek, who's been
top ten and was a goalie of the Month last
month in Atlantic Hockey.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
One game, I think it's one game they gave out,
giving up over two goals.
Speaker 7 (08:34):
Yep.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
I think that was the one game against Sacred Heart
or Air Force they won seven to three. We had
two pretty quickly, and I thought that might been the
way that we were going to get and we kept
saying it was the race to three on going into
the second game, and obviously it was, and they got
the third one with forty five seconds left in the game.
(08:55):
But really good hockey series, big boy hockey, as.
Speaker 4 (08:59):
I called it on my post game. They're big, they're heavy.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
I thought both teams played extremely hard, came down to
the final three minutes both games. Unfortunately, they got a
power play goal in the last with about three minutes
left on a disputed call, but I can't go there.
Speaker 4 (09:20):
And then.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
And then we gave up one with forty five seconds left,
but they they found ways to win.
Speaker 4 (09:26):
I was impressed with them, but it's.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
It's early, but they're they're the story of Atlantic hockey
so far right now, just with railing off nine in
a row. But it could have went either way, and
I will take the solace of that. That's my the
only I guess when you get to walk out of
there with some feeling good about yourself that you played
as hard as you possibly did, but you got no
(09:50):
points out of it.
Speaker 4 (09:52):
Good hockey team.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
They their goaltending was outstanding, They did a lot of
It's a completely different ri T hockey team, man, and
maybe you come out of that. It's not as free
wheeling and run and gun. It's more of a straight
line East west, simplistic, hard nos hockey team. And that's
why I kind of use the word big boy hockey.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
That both games were well coming into the season, and
even in his introductory press conference, first year head coach
Matt Thomas talked about that maybe they didn't have the
talent level that they've had some years in the past,
especially like an elite goal scorer, so that they were
going to want to do things to play a little
(10:35):
bit more defensively. And his point that he made early
on as he said, we're not always going to be
the most talented team on the ice, but we want
to be the hardest working team every time.
Speaker 7 (10:48):
So that's been kind of the mantra.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
They've been working very hard in practice, and also he's
really set kind of his identity on the program very quickly.
Speaker 5 (10:59):
You know, I think there's also something you have to
mention here is the fact that they're winning close games,
especially this weekend.
Speaker 6 (11:06):
Take those two this weekend.
Speaker 5 (11:07):
You go on the road to a you know, I
think that Robert Morris is a tough place to win.
Speaker 6 (11:12):
It has been for years.
Speaker 5 (11:13):
So you go on the road, you find yourself with
the game and the balance, back to back nights, and you.
Speaker 6 (11:19):
Find ways to win those games.
Speaker 5 (11:21):
Good teams find ways to win, and that's part of
the championship resume.
Speaker 4 (11:25):
You know.
Speaker 5 (11:26):
Now I think we have to ask ourselves, is this
like a nice little Atlantic cocky run or is orit
something besides just an Atlantic cocky front runner? Are they
going to be in the at large bid conversation for
the entire season. You start putting streaks together like this,
it's going to get those wins pile up fast, and
(11:47):
you know, once you're over twenty twenty five wins. I
don't care what conference you're and you're under consideration, You're
you're going to be in the picture. So I think
that this is That's what I'm looking at the most
for RIT right now, whether or not this is going
to be an NPI run or is this just going
to be something that we were talking about in Atlantic.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
The next two weeks are going to tell you they
play Tuesday night at Niagara, Friday night a single game
at Bentley, Sunday morning, hop on a bus to Toronto
and fly to Dublin and then play in.
Speaker 7 (12:17):
The Friendship four.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
In Belfast and the Friendship For you, if you'd asked
before the season, is this going to be a tough
matchup among the teams?
Speaker 7 (12:28):
You might not have thought so, but.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
Sacred Heart maybe has turned things around a bit. Miami
is off to a terrific start, and Union is blowing
the doors off of people, So that could turn out
to be a much better tournament and a much higher
level of competition that people.
Speaker 7 (12:44):
May have thought.
Speaker 5 (12:46):
You got to think about three of the four teams
you just mentioned there, Miami, Union and RIT are teams
that we have talked about on this podcast as teams
that have been flying way too low under the radar,
Well you'll see them fly above the radar over Belfast.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
Well with that, we're coming to the midpoint of the program.
Will take a pause that we're sponsored by the NCAA
Men's Division one Frozen four April ninth and eleventh in
Las Vegas.
Speaker 6 (13:23):
Glass Today we're fucking men's ice hockey. Open your textbooks,
join thousands of other swimming fans for an in person experience.
You have to see to believe.
Speaker 5 (13:33):
It's the NCAAA Men's Frozen four, April ninth and eleventh
in Las Vegas.
Speaker 6 (13:38):
Attendance is encouraged. Passion is mandatory.
Speaker 5 (13:41):
By your seat today at NCAAA dot com slash m
Frozen four.
Speaker 6 (13:45):
How many teams are in the Men's Frozen four?
Speaker 7 (13:49):
Please leave me.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
We're back with USCCHO weekend review. There were still some
upsets over the weekend. One that really stood out was
Vermont over Main two to one after they lost seven
to nothing the night before, and Steve Wheeler was ecstatic
in his postgame interview on ESPN Plus. But for the
(14:16):
most part, it started to feel like things were leveling off.
We haven't had as many upsets as we've had recently,
and there could be a number of reasons with that.
You're getting in the conference play where you know teams better,
Maybe the top ten are getting settled in. Maybe teams
in general are finding who's going to be the goalie
(14:36):
and who's going to be the players to look on,
look at, and maybe we'll find out with today's poll,
maybe the voters are getting it right by mid November.
I want to start there because Jim, you and I
both are among the fifty ballots, ballots, voters, whatever you
want to call it, for the pole and every week,
(14:58):
it seems this year it's been a lot more work
and a lot more comparing things to get a ballot together,
because nobody's really running away with it. Maybe you could
say Michigan, Michigan State, you got Dartmouth in there, maybe
not getting enough love yet. But things are kind of
(15:19):
converging to the middle on those top ten teams.
Speaker 7 (15:22):
So that's a hard part too.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
But what are some of the reasons we're seeing maybe
things leveling off?
Speaker 7 (15:27):
Now?
Speaker 5 (15:27):
I'll start with where you're just going the ballot every week,
every Sunday night. Putting together a ballot is one of
the most difficult things because you want to respect teams
that you know are good, that probably are that sometimes
are just coming off really bad weekends.
Speaker 4 (15:44):
You know.
Speaker 5 (15:44):
Boston University, for me, has been a team that's been
really hard.
Speaker 6 (15:48):
To quantify this year.
Speaker 5 (15:49):
I know that they're good, I know that they have
plenty of talent, but I'm concerned about some of their losses.
They've played a really hard slate as well. You know,
there's teams like that out there. Minnesota is a team
we've talked about in that even Western Michigan, you know,
defending national champions and they've had some real bright lights.
I've seen them twice. I've called their games, and I
(16:10):
think they're a really good team. But there are parts
of their game that concerned me right now, you know,
in terms of what we're seeing now and maybe less
upsets as the season goes on.
Speaker 6 (16:22):
I think it's just.
Speaker 5 (16:25):
Sometimes you really have to consider the fact that the
voters don't know everything early in the season. Now we're
actually seeing voters start to make a more educated guess
with their ballot each week.
Speaker 6 (16:45):
That's one of the things that I think is leveling
us off.
Speaker 3 (16:49):
I would say that there are some times that you
could look and you could say, hey, I'll just vote
the Pairwise, I don't think you can vote the NPI
right now at all, because it's no, it's crazy, and
I know that we we don't want to really go
there right now. But you got Dartmouth at number one.
If you voted, you got Lau in the top fifteen.
That's one upset that you if you really wanted to talk,
(17:10):
if there was an upset. I don't think anybody saw
LU going into Minnesota and beating Minnesota. I could have
told you I thought LU was really good, and they
after we played them, and they are just as good.
They beat Merrimack, they took Penn State to overtime. That
didn't surprise me. They almost said they had them four
(17:30):
to three down with tend to go on Saturday night.
If they would have swept them, I think the Gopher
faithful would have been going crazy in Minneapolis even more
than they already were. But I think if you it's
tough right now, you're still trying to figure everything out.
If you look, if you look at all the numbers
and the records, and then then you go get a
(17:52):
little bit crazy and you pull up the NPI and
say let me compare it a little bit, and then
you look at that and then you just really don't
know what you're talking talking about because how crazy it is.
So I think that if you use all the data,
you're still trying to figure out exactly where polls are
going and where the or not. And like you said,
they're maybe leveling off because there is enough video on
(18:13):
people that are people are starting to look at a
couple of games back, they're starting to see who the
leading scores are, they're starting to see trends on their
power play, they're starting to see trends of how they're
doing things. So I think that that's maybe a couple
of different reasons why you're seeing leveling off on that polls.
Speaker 4 (18:32):
How difficult it is.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
And this is for somebody who's not voting on a
pole anymore, but I can tell you when I did it,
and I haven't done it for a while now. I
used to would look at what I thought were my
poll I would look at a pair. Wise, I would
look at league standings, and that's all difficult right now
because also in league standings, we've only played four league
games and we're tied with two other teams that are
(18:55):
played eight games, so you don't really know that as well,
so you're still kind of there's still a whole bunch
up in the air.
Speaker 5 (19:03):
I mean, I think if we can kind of look
at the season to date and say that, you know,
the college hockey season.
Speaker 6 (19:09):
Has been drunk to date, I think that this week
maybe we.
Speaker 5 (19:12):
Sat down, had a glass of water, starting to feel
a little bit better, and where we're thinking about what.
Speaker 6 (19:17):
The rest of the night looks like.
Speaker 5 (19:19):
I think that we're finally seeing things level off a
little bit. And I say that, and now we're going
to see the number one, two, and three teams all
lose this week.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
That's just you mentioned the NPI, and at some point
we're going to see a shake up in that, and
that I think is going to be once teams have
played more than fifteen games, because you got to have
fifteen games in the calculation, if I remember correctly, twelve okay,
well even better okay, So they're just approaching twelve, and
(19:49):
then after that they can start taking off wins that
hurt you.
Speaker 7 (19:54):
And so.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
That is going to start kicking in very soon. And
once that happens, then I think you'll see things straightened out.
Speaker 7 (20:03):
Quote unquote, or at least.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
Look more like they've looked in the past, like a hope.
Speaker 7 (20:09):
Yeah. I mean, it's very strange right now.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
I wrote last week in our TMQ column that it's
going to be a hot mess until semester break or
maybe even early in January, and so people have got
to get used to it being different. That's why at
us Echo, our publisher Tim Browley, was reluctant to publish
(20:32):
it too early, and that always puts US as a
publication in a different difficult place because other people are
publishing it. But it it just did not make a
whole lot of sense early on, you know, and you
start seeing teams having played one or two games in
there at the top, and teams that have you know,
like a five to one record at number forty seven.
(20:54):
It was that kind of weirdness and so that should
settle down. Just like the RPI and just like the
pair wise before it, it's the kind of thing where
the numbers only really make sense after all the games
have been played. They kind of converge into where they
should be. And you know, in the pair wise, generally
(21:15):
the teams that were in the tournament in the pairwise,
so to speak in January, something like seventy five or
eighty percent of those would make it. We'll have to
see what that looks like with the NPI.
Speaker 7 (21:25):
Now.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
People may have modeled out previous seasons and can tell
us better, but I'm really just going to sit and
wait and maybe take from this season some guidelines that
we can apply in other years. But also with this,
and this is something we've talked about before. A lot
of this has to do, I think, with just how
(21:47):
deep everybody is. I think that because there's such a
talent pool, teams are deeper in general than they have been.
And you know, teams I don't know, Derek see more
of it. I don't think we're in a situation where
where teams are reluctant to roll out a fourth line.
(22:08):
Maybe you shorten your bench a little bit later on,
but there's depth from first line to fourth line and
across defenseman right now that I don't think we've seen before.
Speaker 4 (22:17):
I mean everybody, everybody, I think everybody.
Speaker 3 (22:19):
That's how what's made college hockey so much deeper or
so much better right off the bat is everybody's getting
better players. The pool is bigger, and I think it's
going to start leveling out because right now people are
just they were lucking a little bit to going to
the CHL last year because they.
Speaker 4 (22:38):
Didn't know how it was going to be.
Speaker 3 (22:40):
Now, I think people are more in tune with going
into the CHL. They're seeing the Gavin McKenna's of the world.
They're seeing that now you're going to see more higher
draft picks coming. You're going to see that, You're going
to see a pyramid be a little bit different. You're
going to see a pyramid of development. And I think
that that's what I think that'll that'll straighten the game
(23:01):
out if they can get the development model correct, and
I think we're still ways away from that, but if
you can get the developmental model correct from the top down,
I think you're going to see college hockey flourish even more.
Speaker 6 (23:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (23:15):
I'll just kind of close with one highlight on the NPI.
We talked about Thanksgiving as a good time to look
at the pair wise, I think this one, even given
another month the break, will be a perfect time to
start looking at the NPI.
Speaker 4 (23:30):
Once you have.
Speaker 5 (23:31):
The Ivy League schools with fourteen to eighteen games played,
or you know, a little more than two thirds of
their season, then I think you'll you'll have a better
idea where everybody said but as you said, ed, we're
not really going to have any sort of understanding of
how numbers will follow probably.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
Till Febrory and I think we can look at how
teams schedule now with five independents, it makes a difference,
But once we get past the beginning of January, most
of the non conference schedule will have been played by
everyone except for games scheduled against independence, and then they'll
play each other a lot more towards the end of
(24:12):
the season. So that sort of stratification by winning percentage
outside your conference will have pretty much taken place. And
I expect that that's going to be very much like
we have seen in past years, where your non conference
winning percentage is pretty much a determination of how many
(24:34):
teams you get in. And this year is going to
be very interesting because you definitely have a stratification. If
you look at it right now, Big ten is seven
hundred out of conference Hockey East five forty three, NCCHC
sixt eighty one. You take the other three conferences, Atlantic
Hockey three ninety four, CCHA three eighty five, ECAC four
(24:56):
seventy five, probably a couple from ec ac get In,
maybe one from the other two.
Speaker 7 (25:02):
But you're gonna
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Bobby Bones Show
Listen to 'The Bobby Bones Show' by downloading the daily full replay.