October 29, 2025 • 18 mins
Hosts Jim Connelly (@jimmyconnelly), Derek Schooley (@derekschooley), and Ed Trefzger (@EdTrefzger) look at sometimes controversial or overlooked topics in our midweek episode called Upon Further Review.
The early 2025-26 season has seen 11 upsets of ranked teams in the first four weeks, up from just two during the same period last season. Meanwhile, mild upsets have become the norm. We discuss why this is happening and whether it's a case of everyone getting better.
Find all of our podcasts at USCHO.com/podcasts
The early 2025-26 season has seen 11 upsets of ranked teams in the first four weeks, up from just two during the same period last season. Meanwhile, mild upsets have become the norm. We discuss why this is happening and whether it's a case of everyone getting better.
Find all of our podcasts at USCHO.com/podcasts
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Usccho dot com.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Welcome to a pond further review our Wednesday podcast, where
we pick up on a topic we didn't get to
on Monday. I'm ed Trefsker with Jim Connelly and Derek
Schooley and something actually, this one got started last week. Jim,
we were talking about how many nationally ranked teams were
(00:33):
falling right then, and of course a few more over
this past weekend. And I kind of quipped, is everybody
bad this year? And you said, well, no, I think
everybody's good this year. So why don't we Why don't
we talk a little bit about that, what's leading to it?
Why don't we start with the first thing, which is
just the increased talent base there something like three and
(00:55):
twenty five or three hundred and thirty CHL or former
CHL player, some who went by way of youth sports
and played university hockey in Canada for a year or
two before transferring. How much of a difference does having
that many players come in make a difference, especially because
(01:16):
you have to assume that if they're displacing other players,
then they are at a little bit higher level than
the ones who are getting displaced.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
Well, thank you, I have to look too much further
than looking at Miami, look right at what they've done.
They completely revamped their roster and Anthony Oren got in late,
tried to change it through the transfer portal last year,
brought in a whole bunch of fifth years, knew they
were there for one year. Then he brought in some
(01:48):
of his guys from Tri City last year, revamped his
roster again, did not work the way that he wanted
it last year, spent the whole year recruiting and now
he's six in er to start year, the last undefeated team.
What's the number of players that he brought in this
year the new players.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
I believe it's twenty one of the twenty eighth that
are his ronster. We're not there last year.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
So I think by having a bigger pool, having more
talent to choose from, what a perfect year for him
if I could, like if I would have had the
talent pool to start a program this year, this is
the year to do it. This is the year to
have the ability to go out and get major junior players,
transfer portal guys, use sport players, players from all over,
(02:36):
pro hockey players.
Speaker 4 (02:37):
Let's not forget those.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
Do you get players from all different ways of different
walks of hockey ability hockey leagues, and you can then
build yourself a rebuild, build yourself a new program. You
still have to build the chemistry and culture of your
program to get them all to perform on the way
that you want to do things. But I think you're
(03:03):
going to have to kind of do that every year
anyway because of how transfer portal people coming and going anyway.
So I think this is the time you're really seeing
how things are going to work moving forward and just
looking at Miami, that's how it's going about it.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
You mentioned culture and chemistry. Getting a bunch of new
players in is also an opportunity to repair.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
Then absolutely absolutely started over, repair it, revamp it. You
still have to have some people to show the people
the way. I think the one thing that's underestimate is
just having people show people around campus. Hey, where's this class?
(03:48):
Where do I need to go to change a class?
Where do I need to go to see this professor,
where's our academic advisor? Just within the life room to
be able to help things like that facilitate that so
it's not always on the coaches or the administration. So
you have some leadership within your team. So there's a
(04:10):
few things that you want to be.
Speaker 4 (04:12):
Able to do.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
But yeah, that's part of culture and that's part of
building a team, and.
Speaker 4 (04:20):
We're seeing it.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
I'm glad you brought up Miami, Derek, because I think
that that's a great story and it's really a testament
to how changing recruiting with the CHL can really change
a makeup of a team. I mean, that was a
real a team that was really struggling the last three
four or five years. So seeing them with a hot
(04:42):
star that strong unions. Another team I look at in there, Northeastern.
You know, they had a tough season last year and
I kind of had them taged as maybe a team
that might struggle a little bit this year. They pulled
up a great win the other night against of Denver
whet nothing win, and their goaltender against the Shadow was
a huge part of that team. I just think that,
(05:04):
you know, what we're seeing is I think that coaches
and Derek, you can tell me how I might be
off space or spot on here, but I feel like
the need to change recruiting strategies has maybe even focused
recruiting a little bit more for coaches and they understand
that you know that there is no reason to just
(05:27):
build your team one way. There's more flexibility in how
you're trying to restruction your roster. Coaches are really benefiting
from that part. That the fact that there's you don't
have to just maintain one identity. You can go find
different players. Yes, I think culture wide, you have to
get the right pit for your locker room, but you
can go and get different types of players now that
(05:49):
maybe you weren't even going after at a mid to
lower tier school. I'm going to try to put some
sort of a classification, you know, a power vive and
non traditional powerhouse you know school. You know, I'll throw
a school like Miami You're a union into that into
that grade. Those are the programs that are finding ways
(06:12):
to kind of redefine everything about themselves.
Speaker 4 (06:15):
Love what Miami has done, I do.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
I think they've but I think a big thing and
you talk about recruiting of another big part is scheduling.
You have to do a good job scheduling to know
how to revamp your your You have to.
Speaker 4 (06:30):
You want to have a.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
Great start for your your your culture, but you also
want to get build some positivity going into things as well.
They started with Feris RPI and Lendon Wood. Now those
are very They struggled against some of those teams last year,
which are good challenges for them.
Speaker 4 (06:50):
But now moving forward, let's really see how they are.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
They've got Arizona State, Western Michigan, Saint Cloud, and then
they've got to go to with ed over to Dublin
in the Friendship four. So now it's going to be
are they going to be six and six? Are they
going to be eight and four? Where are they going
to go with these next six and THCHC games? That's
(07:15):
going to really determine did they get a lot of
positivity out of these games?
Speaker 4 (07:20):
Where are they are they? Are they fake wins? Not
fake wins?
Speaker 3 (07:24):
Because the win a wins a wins a win is it?
Speaker 4 (07:28):
Is it overconfident wins?
Speaker 1 (07:30):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (07:31):
I see the smile on your face, so I think
you know what I'm talking about. But we're going to
see where it is and I think that that's an
opportunity to.
Speaker 4 (07:38):
Build their culture.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
So there's a lot more to this changing of the
guard in programs. By getting a whole bunch of players.
It's also making the right schedule for this team, trying
to get where it is. I'm still interested to see
the teams that brought in a lot of CHL players,
and we brought in we brought in three.
Speaker 5 (08:01):
But how they all adjust to school, how they all
adjust to mid terms, how they all adjust to final exams,
how they all adjust to coming back second semester?
Speaker 3 (08:14):
Do they all come back? Do some of the ones
that came in early?
Speaker 4 (08:20):
Do some go back?
Speaker 3 (08:21):
Because it always happens that there's some USHL kids that
come in early end up at semester going back for
more seasoning. Does that happen here? So how does all
this play out? Is really going to be? We said it,
and then on our Monday podcast, there's still so much
to figure out as far as this goes, and we're
(08:41):
still going to see while the player pool is bigger,
while the game is better, while we're seeing a lot
more excitement around college hockey, there's still a lot of
questions to be answered that we're going to see moving
forward up until Christmas.
Speaker 4 (08:59):
Let me ask you this, Derek.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
I asked this question about CHL and academics to an
assistant coach who's heavily involved in recruiting, and I said,
is that going to be an issue, and he made
the point that hockey Canada, US wherever really is not
a blue collar sport anymore. It's it's kind of a
(09:22):
white collar, well to do family and he thinks that
because of that, some of the academics are not going
to be as big a problem is But still you
still got kids who maybe didn't didn't do any school
for a couple of years, but you but you have
that in ins U, s HL, BHL. But does the
(09:44):
does the family background make a difference there, maybe it
won't be as big a problem.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
I disagree with that, ed, because if you're in the
US HL or BHL, you've chosen that you wanted to
go to college, so you took the right path with
with courses. Unless for some strange reason there's a one
off there, you had taken the right courses. The major
junior kids they had it. They didn't take the right
(10:11):
They took a track to graduate high school, but they
didn't take the right track to be able to go
to NCAA eligibility through the nc Eligibility Center. But what
we're seeing right now is because they weren't told and
they weren't expected, a lot of waivers being granted for
this cycle and next cycle moving forward, I don't think
(10:34):
you're going.
Speaker 4 (10:34):
To see that.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
So you're going to see guys that had sixteen core
courses at what you need getting waivers at thirteen and
a half fourteen and a half, and.
Speaker 4 (10:45):
The old Hey, just put it through and see if
we can get through. That's what they did.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
What they're saying with pro hockey guys, they're saying that
with the waivers now because of that, and you can't
penalize the kids because they didn't know the rule was
going to change when they made the choices four years ago.
Speaker 4 (11:02):
So I think you're seeing Is it because hockey.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
Is a more wealthy sport that you're going to see
kids not have issues? I don't know if it's because
it's a more wealthy sport. I think it's because you're
going to see people choose this track, that this is
where they want to go, and they're going to get
helped through waivers. They're going to get helped through people
understanding that this isn't the way that they had originally
(11:30):
chosen to go, and they're going to the NCAA is
we're going to not look the other way but grant
them that leniency.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
You know, we didn't talk about goaltending as a specific
part of this mix, but you really have. You know,
if you talk maybe two goaltenders a team that are
really going to be the primary and secondary guys, you're
talking about one hundred and twenty six positions across Division one.
So sometimes we've seen this, even even with Atlantic Hockey
(12:05):
and CCHA, that maybe the goaltender caliber might be a
little higher than the average player. That's just kind of
my opinion what I've seen in the past. But now
with more talent in there, how much of this is goaltenders.
I took a quick look as of today going through
stats from goaltenders from what we have on us CHO
(12:29):
twenty eight Division one goaltenders are at nine to twenty
savee percentage or above.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
That's a really big smart right there. The goaltending is better,
There's no doubt. You know, I've just seen a few teams.
Speaker 4 (12:47):
In person this year.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
I know you mass low and U and H are
two that both have different goaltenders. Night Lowells came from
the chl unh Is was a transfer from Union.
Speaker 4 (12:59):
But goals, you know, we.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
Know how much goaltending can change things, so I think
that the the top tier goaltenders that came in from
the CHL just became an addition to what you already
had some decent, good goals Heady, I mean it was
always strong. As you pointed out, you don't need as
many goaltenders as you need forwards and defensemen, so you're
always going to have a better floor of goaltenders in concept.
(13:23):
But now that that should trickle down even further and
you're going to see even more of these CHL goaltenders
come in start having an immediate impact. I know Michigan
is a piece for that. I know I mentioned you Maasslow.
We're going to see a lot of these guys that
can really come in and either take a good team
(13:46):
and make it great, or take an average team and
make it better and make it Maybe take a team
that would be a twelve thirteen win team, maybe a
twenty win team.
Speaker 4 (13:56):
That would be a big step for any program. I
agree with Jimmy. I just I'm just still shocked.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
And Jimmy brought this up as how many of the
top ten teams are getting beat Jimmy brought this up
on Monday, is how many of the top ten teams
have got beat so far this year because it just
seems like it's happening on a regular basis.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
Yeah, it's eleven through four weeks. Yeah, I didn't think
much of it until I realized that last year there
were only two and that's a massive increase.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
Wait until March. Teams are going to be looking back
on those. Is North Dakota going to look at this
loss at Clarkson, Penn State losing at home to Clarkson,
some of these other upsets along the way, Sacred Heart
in Ohio State. Teams that might be kind of on
the edge are kind of on the bubble looking at
(14:49):
it and at large, is this one game going to
end up being the whole difference as to whether they
go to the postseason? We see that every year, but
we may be looking at a lot more teams with
a little regret about those October games that mean as
much as the ones in March.
Speaker 4 (15:07):
We finally got to it.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
It took us till October twenty seventh to throughout the
games in October. I mean the game the same as
the games in February.
Speaker 4 (15:17):
Love it and.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
Yeah we're there and we're seeing the ero of we'll
we'll have to see it. Don't get the NBI will
tell you that, oh, we're going to take out the
outlier map with the NPI. You know that, And maybe
you won't have secrets hard passing Ohio State, say in
the in the ranking of the NPI, because that won't
(15:41):
that abnormality is gone. But we're still going to see
teams that are going to look back and go, damn it,
why why did we have that loss home in November?
Speaker 4 (15:52):
Why did we have that loss in the second week
of the season.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
Those were those were the crucial ones that that that
hurt us. Well, we're going to be talking about it
certainly end of February.
Speaker 3 (16:01):
I'm getting stayed with my team because we're starting to play.
And I used it with my guys and said, hey,
the games in October are the same as the games
in February as far as standings go. And the points
that you lose right now in the standings well end
up biting you in in February when you wish you
could have them back and you can't.
Speaker 4 (16:21):
And that's the same thing.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
And no matter what the new Matt says, Tim.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
Yeah, and the funny thing about all of this, Yeah,
the funny thing about all this, Well, we got two
tims that we work with on those numbers. But the
funny thing about all of this is you're also going
to have a point at which you can no longer
remove games that hurt you because you're gonna eat what
(16:50):
is it ten, You got to keep at least ten
games in the calculation something like that, twelve twelve this year.
Speaker 4 (16:57):
Yeah, so that could end up.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
Yeah, I mean, especially if you have a conference where
you have a couple of teams that are really struggling overall,
and you get some of your wins against those teams,
then you can add it maybe a non conference skee.
Speaker 4 (17:17):
These are the numbers you'd love to have told.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
But if you don't have the right number of games
representative in your NPI, it does keep some of those
games in. So it'll be interesting to see if that
will move the needle much at all.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
So you might be in the last week of the
season or in the playoffs rooting for somebody to lose
so they're bad enough to come off and not win
so that they stay on.
Speaker 3 (17:44):
I'm glad, but I'm glad I didn't. I'm not a
math major at Western Michigan. I don't even know if
they I don't even know if I took a math
class in nineteen ninety four Western.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
More than a basically.
Speaker 4 (18:04):
Very dead.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
So yeah, this is why we have computers do it,
because if you did it by hand after each night's games,
you'd be doing the math for a week. So it's
only possible because of computers. Well, I think we've hit
on a lot of this. We're gonna definitely talk about
this subject more as things go along. And we didn't
even use the P word, so.
Speaker 4 (18:28):
Glad we had a calculator.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
We're going to wrap it up here for Jim Connolly,
for Derek Scooley, and I met Trevsker and this has
been a pond further review
Usccho dot com.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Welcome to a pond further review our Wednesday podcast, where
we pick up on a topic we didn't get to
on Monday. I'm ed Trefsker with Jim Connelly and Derek
Schooley and something actually, this one got started last week. Jim,
we were talking about how many nationally ranked teams were
(00:33):
falling right then, and of course a few more over
this past weekend. And I kind of quipped, is everybody
bad this year? And you said, well, no, I think
everybody's good this year. So why don't we Why don't
we talk a little bit about that, what's leading to it?
Why don't we start with the first thing, which is
just the increased talent base there something like three and
(00:55):
twenty five or three hundred and thirty CHL or former
CHL player, some who went by way of youth sports
and played university hockey in Canada for a year or
two before transferring. How much of a difference does having
that many players come in make a difference, especially because
(01:16):
you have to assume that if they're displacing other players,
then they are at a little bit higher level than
the ones who are getting displaced.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
Well, thank you, I have to look too much further
than looking at Miami, look right at what they've done.
They completely revamped their roster and Anthony Oren got in late,
tried to change it through the transfer portal last year,
brought in a whole bunch of fifth years, knew they
were there for one year. Then he brought in some
(01:48):
of his guys from Tri City last year, revamped his
roster again, did not work the way that he wanted
it last year, spent the whole year recruiting and now
he's six in er to start year, the last undefeated team.
What's the number of players that he brought in this
year the new players.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
I believe it's twenty one of the twenty eighth that
are his ronster. We're not there last year.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
So I think by having a bigger pool, having more
talent to choose from, what a perfect year for him
if I could, like if I would have had the
talent pool to start a program this year, this is
the year to do it. This is the year to
have the ability to go out and get major junior players,
transfer portal guys, use sport players, players from all over,
(02:36):
pro hockey players.
Speaker 4 (02:37):
Let's not forget those.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
Do you get players from all different ways of different
walks of hockey ability hockey leagues, and you can then
build yourself a rebuild, build yourself a new program. You
still have to build the chemistry and culture of your
program to get them all to perform on the way
that you want to do things. But I think you're
(03:03):
going to have to kind of do that every year
anyway because of how transfer portal people coming and going anyway.
So I think this is the time you're really seeing
how things are going to work moving forward and just
looking at Miami, that's how it's going about it.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
You mentioned culture and chemistry. Getting a bunch of new
players in is also an opportunity to repair.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
Then absolutely absolutely started over, repair it, revamp it. You
still have to have some people to show the people
the way. I think the one thing that's underestimate is
just having people show people around campus. Hey, where's this class?
(03:48):
Where do I need to go to change a class?
Where do I need to go to see this professor,
where's our academic advisor? Just within the life room to
be able to help things like that facilitate that so
it's not always on the coaches or the administration. So
you have some leadership within your team. So there's a
(04:10):
few things that you want to be.
Speaker 4 (04:12):
Able to do.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
But yeah, that's part of culture and that's part of
building a team, and.
Speaker 4 (04:20):
We're seeing it.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
I'm glad you brought up Miami, Derek, because I think
that that's a great story and it's really a testament
to how changing recruiting with the CHL can really change
a makeup of a team. I mean, that was a
real a team that was really struggling the last three
four or five years. So seeing them with a hot
(04:42):
star that strong unions. Another team I look at in there, Northeastern.
You know, they had a tough season last year and
I kind of had them taged as maybe a team
that might struggle a little bit this year. They pulled
up a great win the other night against of Denver
whet nothing win, and their goaltender against the Shadow was
a huge part of that team. I just think that,
(05:04):
you know, what we're seeing is I think that coaches
and Derek, you can tell me how I might be
off space or spot on here, but I feel like
the need to change recruiting strategies has maybe even focused
recruiting a little bit more for coaches and they understand
that you know that there is no reason to just
(05:27):
build your team one way. There's more flexibility in how
you're trying to restruction your roster. Coaches are really benefiting
from that part. That the fact that there's you don't
have to just maintain one identity. You can go find
different players. Yes, I think culture wide, you have to
get the right pit for your locker room, but you
can go and get different types of players now that
(05:49):
maybe you weren't even going after at a mid to
lower tier school. I'm going to try to put some
sort of a classification, you know, a power vive and
non traditional powerhouse you know school. You know, I'll throw
a school like Miami You're a union into that into
that grade. Those are the programs that are finding ways
(06:12):
to kind of redefine everything about themselves.
Speaker 4 (06:15):
Love what Miami has done, I do.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
I think they've but I think a big thing and
you talk about recruiting of another big part is scheduling.
You have to do a good job scheduling to know
how to revamp your your You have to.
Speaker 4 (06:30):
You want to have a.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
Great start for your your your culture, but you also
want to get build some positivity going into things as well.
They started with Feris RPI and Lendon Wood. Now those
are very They struggled against some of those teams last year,
which are good challenges for them.
Speaker 4 (06:50):
But now moving forward, let's really see how they are.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
They've got Arizona State, Western Michigan, Saint Cloud, and then
they've got to go to with ed over to Dublin
in the Friendship four. So now it's going to be
are they going to be six and six? Are they
going to be eight and four? Where are they going
to go with these next six and THCHC games? That's
(07:15):
going to really determine did they get a lot of
positivity out of these games?
Speaker 4 (07:20):
Where are they are they? Are they fake wins? Not
fake wins?
Speaker 3 (07:24):
Because the win a wins a wins a win is it?
Speaker 4 (07:28):
Is it overconfident wins?
Speaker 1 (07:30):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (07:31):
I see the smile on your face, so I think
you know what I'm talking about. But we're going to
see where it is and I think that that's an
opportunity to.
Speaker 4 (07:38):
Build their culture.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
So there's a lot more to this changing of the
guard in programs. By getting a whole bunch of players.
It's also making the right schedule for this team, trying
to get where it is. I'm still interested to see
the teams that brought in a lot of CHL players,
and we brought in we brought in three.
Speaker 5 (08:01):
But how they all adjust to school, how they all
adjust to mid terms, how they all adjust to final exams,
how they all adjust to coming back second semester?
Speaker 3 (08:14):
Do they all come back? Do some of the ones
that came in early?
Speaker 4 (08:20):
Do some go back?
Speaker 3 (08:21):
Because it always happens that there's some USHL kids that
come in early end up at semester going back for
more seasoning. Does that happen here? So how does all
this play out? Is really going to be? We said it,
and then on our Monday podcast, there's still so much
to figure out as far as this goes, and we're
(08:41):
still going to see while the player pool is bigger,
while the game is better, while we're seeing a lot
more excitement around college hockey, there's still a lot of
questions to be answered that we're going to see moving
forward up until Christmas.
Speaker 4 (08:59):
Let me ask you this, Derek.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
I asked this question about CHL and academics to an
assistant coach who's heavily involved in recruiting, and I said,
is that going to be an issue, and he made
the point that hockey Canada, US wherever really is not
a blue collar sport anymore. It's it's kind of a
(09:22):
white collar, well to do family and he thinks that
because of that, some of the academics are not going
to be as big a problem is But still you
still got kids who maybe didn't didn't do any school
for a couple of years, but you but you have
that in ins U, s HL, BHL. But does the
(09:44):
does the family background make a difference there, maybe it
won't be as big a problem.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
I disagree with that, ed, because if you're in the
US HL or BHL, you've chosen that you wanted to
go to college, so you took the right path with
with courses. Unless for some strange reason there's a one
off there, you had taken the right courses. The major
junior kids they had it. They didn't take the right
(10:11):
They took a track to graduate high school, but they
didn't take the right track to be able to go
to NCAA eligibility through the nc Eligibility Center. But what
we're seeing right now is because they weren't told and
they weren't expected, a lot of waivers being granted for
this cycle and next cycle moving forward, I don't think
(10:34):
you're going.
Speaker 4 (10:34):
To see that.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
So you're going to see guys that had sixteen core
courses at what you need getting waivers at thirteen and
a half fourteen and a half, and.
Speaker 4 (10:45):
The old Hey, just put it through and see if
we can get through. That's what they did.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
What they're saying with pro hockey guys, they're saying that
with the waivers now because of that, and you can't
penalize the kids because they didn't know the rule was
going to change when they made the choices four years ago.
Speaker 4 (11:02):
So I think you're seeing Is it because hockey.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
Is a more wealthy sport that you're going to see
kids not have issues? I don't know if it's because
it's a more wealthy sport. I think it's because you're
going to see people choose this track, that this is
where they want to go, and they're going to get
helped through waivers. They're going to get helped through people
understanding that this isn't the way that they had originally
(11:30):
chosen to go, and they're going to the NCAA is
we're going to not look the other way but grant
them that leniency.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
You know, we didn't talk about goaltending as a specific
part of this mix, but you really have. You know,
if you talk maybe two goaltenders a team that are
really going to be the primary and secondary guys, you're
talking about one hundred and twenty six positions across Division one.
So sometimes we've seen this, even even with Atlantic Hockey
(12:05):
and CCHA, that maybe the goaltender caliber might be a
little higher than the average player. That's just kind of
my opinion what I've seen in the past. But now
with more talent in there, how much of this is goaltenders.
I took a quick look as of today going through
stats from goaltenders from what we have on us CHO
(12:29):
twenty eight Division one goaltenders are at nine to twenty
savee percentage or above.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
That's a really big smart right there. The goaltending is better,
There's no doubt. You know, I've just seen a few teams.
Speaker 4 (12:47):
In person this year.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
I know you mass low and U and H are
two that both have different goaltenders. Night Lowells came from
the chl unh Is was a transfer from Union.
Speaker 4 (12:59):
But goals, you know, we.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
Know how much goaltending can change things, so I think
that the the top tier goaltenders that came in from
the CHL just became an addition to what you already
had some decent, good goals Heady, I mean it was
always strong. As you pointed out, you don't need as
many goaltenders as you need forwards and defensemen, so you're
always going to have a better floor of goaltenders in concept.
(13:23):
But now that that should trickle down even further and
you're going to see even more of these CHL goaltenders
come in start having an immediate impact. I know Michigan
is a piece for that. I know I mentioned you Maasslow.
We're going to see a lot of these guys that
can really come in and either take a good team
(13:46):
and make it great, or take an average team and
make it better and make it Maybe take a team
that would be a twelve thirteen win team, maybe a
twenty win team.
Speaker 4 (13:56):
That would be a big step for any program. I
agree with Jimmy. I just I'm just still shocked.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
And Jimmy brought this up as how many of the
top ten teams are getting beat Jimmy brought this up
on Monday, is how many of the top ten teams
have got beat so far this year because it just
seems like it's happening on a regular basis.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
Yeah, it's eleven through four weeks. Yeah, I didn't think
much of it until I realized that last year there
were only two and that's a massive increase.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
Wait until March. Teams are going to be looking back
on those. Is North Dakota going to look at this
loss at Clarkson, Penn State losing at home to Clarkson,
some of these other upsets along the way, Sacred Heart
in Ohio State. Teams that might be kind of on
the edge are kind of on the bubble looking at
(14:49):
it and at large, is this one game going to
end up being the whole difference as to whether they
go to the postseason? We see that every year, but
we may be looking at a lot more teams with
a little regret about those October games that mean as
much as the ones in March.
Speaker 4 (15:07):
We finally got to it.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
It took us till October twenty seventh to throughout the
games in October. I mean the game the same as
the games in February.
Speaker 4 (15:17):
Love it and.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
Yeah we're there and we're seeing the ero of we'll
we'll have to see it. Don't get the NBI will
tell you that, oh, we're going to take out the
outlier map with the NPI. You know that, And maybe
you won't have secrets hard passing Ohio State, say in
the in the ranking of the NPI, because that won't
(15:41):
that abnormality is gone. But we're still going to see
teams that are going to look back and go, damn it,
why why did we have that loss home in November?
Speaker 4 (15:52):
Why did we have that loss in the second week
of the season.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
Those were those were the crucial ones that that that
hurt us. Well, we're going to be talking about it
certainly end of February.
Speaker 3 (16:01):
I'm getting stayed with my team because we're starting to play.
And I used it with my guys and said, hey,
the games in October are the same as the games
in February as far as standings go. And the points
that you lose right now in the standings well end
up biting you in in February when you wish you
could have them back and you can't.
Speaker 4 (16:21):
And that's the same thing.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
And no matter what the new Matt says, Tim.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
Yeah, and the funny thing about all of this, Yeah,
the funny thing about all this, Well, we got two
tims that we work with on those numbers. But the
funny thing about all of this is you're also going
to have a point at which you can no longer
remove games that hurt you because you're gonna eat what
(16:50):
is it ten, You got to keep at least ten
games in the calculation something like that, twelve twelve this year.
Speaker 4 (16:57):
Yeah, so that could end up.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
Yeah, I mean, especially if you have a conference where
you have a couple of teams that are really struggling overall,
and you get some of your wins against those teams,
then you can add it maybe a non conference skee.
Speaker 4 (17:17):
These are the numbers you'd love to have told.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
But if you don't have the right number of games
representative in your NPI, it does keep some of those
games in. So it'll be interesting to see if that
will move the needle much at all.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
So you might be in the last week of the
season or in the playoffs rooting for somebody to lose
so they're bad enough to come off and not win
so that they stay on.
Speaker 3 (17:44):
I'm glad, but I'm glad I didn't. I'm not a
math major at Western Michigan. I don't even know if
they I don't even know if I took a math
class in nineteen ninety four Western.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
More than a basically.
Speaker 4 (18:04):
Very dead.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
So yeah, this is why we have computers do it,
because if you did it by hand after each night's games,
you'd be doing the math for a week. So it's
only possible because of computers. Well, I think we've hit
on a lot of this. We're gonna definitely talk about
this subject more as things go along. And we didn't
even use the P word, so.
Speaker 4 (18:28):
Glad we had a calculator.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
We're going to wrap it up here for Jim Connolly,
for Derek Scooley, and I met Trevsker and this has
been a pond further review
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