Questions from a college hockey newcomer
UM student here who just bought tix for the upcoming UM college hockey season. As a kid in Ann Arbor, I went to a number of games at Yost and know how great of an atmosphere it is. However, I don't really know the ins and outs of how college hockey works, so I was wondereing if you guys can give me a hand. I know the sport of hockey, and have watched the NHL for many years. My questions mostly revolve about the college aspect. If you can answer any of the below questions, that would be great:
1.) Of the Division 1 conferences, which ones are considered to be the elite (like SEC in Football or ACC in basketball)? Where does the Big Ten fall? Which are the bottom feeders?
2.) How many wins/points does it typically take for a team like Michigan to get into the NCAA tournament?
3.) How does the NHL factor into college hockey? How many NHL bound/drafted players is it optimal to have on a team?
4.) How good do you expcet Michigan to be this season? I know they were not very good last year, but I read about how well Mel Pearson did at Tech and it seems like there's a good group of incoming players (Norris, Hughes, the other Pastujov)
5.) How does recruiting work? Is there any way to track which teams recruit better than others?
1) Hockey East, NCHC and B1G are top conferences.
2) 21-22 wins minimum is what it usually takes to get a sniff, depending on strength of schedule
3) You typically need 2-3 guys who are a year or so away from the NHL and another smattering of guys who are a couple years in the minors. That's ideal. That being said, more talented teams lose to better overall teams often. Goaltending, just like the NHL, can make or break a season.
4) I expect Michigan to improve. I expect 2018 and 2019 to be years where they are playing well but learning Mel's style. 2019 and 2020 on I expect yearly trips to the playoffs.
5) College hockey recruiting is hard to follow . . . . kids get picked up from high school, major juniors etc. This website is badass though it is a pay site for most info. https://www.neutralzone.net/mens/
Otherwise you'll have to use http://www.collegehockeynews.com/
Conveninetly, Brian wrote a post about this about a year ago:
http://mgoblog.com/content/guide-college-hockey
So the only question is how good are we next year. Safest bet is probably much better than last year. Reasonable expectation is probably fringe tournament team.
1.) Of the Division 1 conferences, which ones are considered to be the elite (like SEC in Football or ACC in basketball)? Where does the Big Ten fall? Which are the bottom feeders?
Top to Bottom: NCHC, HE, ECAC, B10, WCHA, AHA
B10 will move up quickly with coaching changes at M, MSU, addition of ND. I'd probably put B10 in top 3 going forward but I'm a cart--> horse guy.
ECAC has been stong the last 5 years or so
2.) How many wins/points does it typically take for a team like Michigan to get into the NCAA tournament?
25 should get you in? top 2 in the B10 should do it.
3.) How does the NHL factor into college hockey? How many NHL bound/drafted players is it optimal to have on a team?
most top teams have 9-14, but some in the ECAC especially have fewer b/c they take older players with less top end potential and more experience (19-20 y/o FR).
4.) How good do you expcet Michigan to be this season? I know they were not very good last year, but I read about how well Mel Pearson did at Tech and it seems like there's a good group of incoming players (Norris, Hughes, the other Pastujov)
O/U 20 wins, top 4 in B10? At best, last team in tourney, IMO. I'm pessimistic compared to most IMO.
5.) How does recruiting work? Is there any way to track which teams recruit better than others?
I'll let others chime in on this one, some places will rank the classes this summer for the upcoming FR class, but recall that they committed 2-3 years ago and in many cases draft estimates change.
1. Top conferences are Hockey East and NCHC. Big 10 is stacked with traditional powers and should be right near the top, but some of those big schools (Michigan, MSU, Wisky) are in a bit of a lull.
2. http://www.uscho.com/faq/pairwise-rankings-explanation/
3/5. It's not just the NHL, but major junior hockey in Canada. Kids get scooped up at 15/16 to play major junior and often times go that route before they even start getting recruitied for college hockey. Once you go major junior (since there is a bit of monetary compensation) you lose your eligibilty in the eyes of the NCAA. So recruiting is different in hcokey as compared to other NCAA sports. You're not just recruiting against other schools, but other leagues. You also are recruiting kids that are sometimes a couple years removed from high school playing junior hockey in the US. I'll let others answer questions on how to follow hockey recruiting.
4. Bottom line is Michigan still has talent up and down the roster... this isn't basketball where a coach may need a few years to bring in top players for his system. I think things could turn around rather quickly.
1. NCHC is unquestionably the best right now with the last two national champions and a number of other great programs. HEA is always near the top. The B1G will be in third place this season; it has been down since it was founded (the western conferences all went through a drastic realignment when Penn State took up hockey) but that is due to historic weakness at Wisconsin, Michigan State, and Michigan, all of which are pillars of the sport and all of which have been bad.
Wisconsin is rising already, Michigan will be back in a year or two, Penn State has emerged as a strong program, Notre Dame has been added and is a national title contender. The B1G is at least top three, maybe top two this year.
2. Varies widely. There's no exact "target" because the math varies from year to year. What is important to know is that the hockey committee chooses tournament entrants on an entirely mathematical basis. The criteria used are identical to the Pairwise ratings produced at collegehockeynews.com and uscho.com--those sites predict all 16 teams with 100% accuracy.
Pairwise is based heavily on RPI with some extra factors thrown in. RPI is heavily dependent on a small handful of games played between conferences. A conference that performs well out of league can have 6 teams right there contending for bids. A conference that performs poorly (as the B1G has in recent years) can have a team running away with things, with the same record, barely making the middle of the field.
Don't worry about wins. Watch the pairwise.
3. National championships have been won recently by teams like Union with essentially no future NHL players on the team. Some teams focus on developing older players who play in junior hockey for a year or two after high school. Others, like Minnesota and (generally) Michigan, recruit NHL-bound prospects and rely on them from the moment they're eligible.
The "older players" route is becoming more popular as teams win with it.
4. Hard to say. They were really bad last year, and were actually lucky to win as many games as they did. They'll be better, but the schedule is tougher. I'm guessing .500 or a little over; I don't expect to make the tournament.
5. I haven't found a way to reliably track recruiting. You can see how players that are draft eligible or just drafted rate as pro prospects by looking at places like hockeysfuture.com, but as mentioned in point #3, teams like UMD are winning with older guys that aren't great pro prospects when they exit their high school years.
3. Except Shayne Gostisbehere
from that same Union team made to the league last year and has a chance to stick around.
Good call. That was this year, he was just a Hobey finalist.
"Best conference" is an ephemeral title currently held by NCHC. BC and BU are storied, but they are not the "most storied" and all one has to do to verify that is look at the rafters at Yost (and North Dakota and Denver and Minnesota...)
By the way, welcome to the sport. It's a wonderful game with great fanbases and facilities, hampered someone by a playoff system that is an embarrassing even as NCAA things go. Don't miss the opportunity to take a road trip to see the team in foreign arenas, they can be a blast (albeit not as easy or quite as entertaining now that we no longer share a conference with Western or Ferris et al).
A lot of great answers have already been given above. I'll stick to point #3.
Last year we saw an extreme example of this with Boston U. They had I think 11 drafted players on their roster. Not sure what the most Michigan has had at one time would be. I want to say 7-8 of those BU guys also played in the World Juniors. That's a bit of a downside for having so many top prospects on the team at one time. Looking back a few years, Michigan would routinely go into the GLI in December missing at least 4-5 guys due to the World Juniors.
For the most part, more draft picks / top prospects is better. Teams like BU, BC, NoDak, Michigan routinely make the tourney due to that combo of talent and coaching (yeah sore subject). But with the absolute random crapshoot that is single elimination hockey, you never know what is going to happen in the end.
It's rare for any one school to have so many players competing in the World Juniors Tournament. The tournament, usually scheduled for late December and early January may interfere with the team's regular season schedule. This year's tournament in Buffalo runs from December 26 through January 5 and it will include an outdoor game between the USA and Canada on December 29 at the stadium where the Buffalo Bills play. LINK
This past season, BUs defenseman Charlie McAvoy, forwards Kiefer Bellows, Clayton Keller, Jordan Greenway and Patrick Harper and goalie Jake Oettinger were on the USA team and defenseman Dante Fabbro was on Team Canada. The final cut from the USA team was BU defenseman Chad Krys.
First of all, welcome to the sport. I think you'll love it. Always cool to see others get interested in college hockey thanks to Michigan.
As for point 5, I've found this sheet to be helpful. You can get basic stats on a player by clicking on their name, and if you're really interested I'd say google a guy's name from the list and see if you can find scouting reports.
Chris Heisenberg's spreadsheet for recruits is pretty lit.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1t9EGTGoygGgIinXVWU93rWAUM3bhlVbZEKU_c2ZVsag/edit#gid=1394337104
I would say the main difference to the NHL, save what happened recently in game 7, is that the refs seem to "lose sight of the puck" before an inevitable goal for Michigan at least once every two games.
In addition to other websites mentioned, I'd also recommend College Hockey News. Their "Recruit Watch" page has a drop down menu that links to a list of each team's recruits. Michigan recruits can be found here.
Hope you'll enjoy the college hockey experience. I've been following college hockey since the 1960s when what's now known as the NCAA "Frozen Four" was the full extent of the NCAA college hockey championship tournament. Only two teams from the east and two from the west were in the "tournament." My first experience at a "Frozen Four" before it was known as that was in Syracuse, New York in 1971. College hockey has changed dramatically since then.