Vermont 2022-23: New Jerseys, New Attitude

[KennyCat]

Clearly we can’t play with the upper echelon of Hockey East. A better measuring stick will be games against the lower half. If I’m not mistaken, the best players on the team are still Sophomores, so let’s give them some slack. The boys from Minnesota will be coming next year and it can only get better.

im frustrated too, but Coach will get them focused. Have you listened to him? He is a true pro, smart, respectful, classy. The effort will be there, results not too far behind.

[Catfantoo]

I agree we still have to expect some of these ups/downs. I've now watched (TV-Live) 7 periods of play. Todd's recruits are basically Fresh/Soph and as Lisa stated the cupboard was left extremely bare by the previous administration. With us playing UConn/NU off the bat we were definitely out talented. In those games we would have had to almost have 3 perfect periods and get incredible goal-tending. As it stands the 2nd period was our undoing and once we fell behind it was difficult to play catch-up. The break is coming at a good time and the staff will reset the lineup. Last year we had 8 wins, any shift to ~12 this year would be considered movement in the right direction.

On a positive - good crowd on Saturday Season opener. Announced crowd at slightly more than 3,000 and versus other announced crowds I definitely could see a path to close to that #. Student section was filled. Need some success when students are there to keep them coming. Sunday was difficult as it competed with NFL, and Pat's.

[NYCatamount89]

Yea this is the part of a rebuild where you want to see some progress. It was easy to write of games that last couple of years. It's definitely frustrating. Still, we can't be surprised that they got swept in 4 games against UConn and NU. Levi is so good. It hurts my soul that at one point he was a UVM commit. I'm not sure there's sports betting on College Hockey yet, but I'd guess the over/under for UVM goals this weekend would've been around .5

I do wonder if this group needs to get a bit faster. They definitely have the size and physicality but I wonder if that is also part of the reason they seem to take so many penalties.

The future recruits look encouraging and hopefully as the season goes on this group puts a few wins together.

[GreenCat]

Year 3. Carvel, Baizin, Leaman seemed a lot quicker to competitiveness. A lot of years of awful hockey and dwindling interest/crowds. Patience is wearing thin. I will say Woodcroft says all the right things and seems a great coach.

[UVM Cat in Texas]

Year 3. Carvel, Baizin, Leaman seemed a lot quicker to competitiveness. A lot of years of awful hockey and dwindling interest/crowds. Patience is wearing thin. I will say Woodcroft says all the right things and seems a great coach.

Yeah, this is how I feel. I'm certainly willing to give Woodcroft the benefit of the doubt but, at the same time, I was hoping to see a little more in terms of the teams competitiveness. And just because there are a lot of sophomores are on the team, isn't a reason to have hope for the future. If they're not all that good as sophomores, they're only going to be marginally better as seniors. We'll see what happens from here on out, but this season is not off to a good start.

[TovarishchLisa]

Year 3. Carvel, Baizin, Leaman seemed a lot quicker to competitiveness. A lot of years of awful hockey and dwindling interest/crowds. Patience is wearing thin. I will say Woodcroft says all the right things and seems a great coach.

I'll give Bazin and Leaman (admittedly in Leaman's case it wasn't his first college job), but Carvel had a booster rocket in Makar that the previous regime had left behind.

[TovarishchLisa]

I know HoCro isn't the best competition but man, I feel like we needed that one.

[Cat lover]

Probably would have been better to start with Holy Cross before jumping into league play. Not sure how much of last night was Vermont getting 2 good weeks of practice or Holy Cross being so much worse than UCONN and NU. Prob mostly the 2nd reason but we can always hope.

[Catfantoo]

Agree with the comments concerning Carvel, Baizin, and Leaman. Interesting that Carvel followed John Micheletto (UVM #1 assistant under Sneddon). John got alot of props for the early years success under Sneddon, but that certainly didn't translate at UMASS. Agree with Lisa that Carvel had the NHL connections and he landed some great classes quickly. Bazin and Leaman are good coaches and did flip their programs quickly. Neither program was as depleted as UVM but you can't argue with their turnarounds.

UVM-HC. I was at the rink in the morning and a good vibe was evident from the team on ice and off. Todd pushed them hard for 12 days and they responded. Solid 3 periods, goals from 3 of the 4 lines, and 1 PP goal (which was point of focus since last game). We were physically the bigger team and that wore on HC. We won battles, races and were the faster/quicker team as well. Pairwise has us mid/late 40's and HC in 50's. This was a game we needed, and it turned out how it should have. Better team next week at Colgate but one we can certainly compete with. Need to keep the momentum going in a positive direction.

[NYCatamount89]

This team needed a reset after those first two weekends. Good to see them score in bunches even if it is against a weaker team. Obviously this isn't any kind of world shaking victory, but after the last few years it just feels good to dominate another team for 60 minutes.

In terms of timeline it is really important to remember that UMASS, PROV and UML are examples of turnarounds going perfectly. All of these are home run hires and guys who should get opportunities as NHL head coaches. Also I think each of these schools have much more competent leadership in their athletic departments...and more money. It's hard because when we got to HE we were on par/ahead of these programs and now we are so far behind, but the reality is this was always going to take time, if it works at all.

[KennyCat]

Agree with the sentiment above. Glad to see they beat a team they should defeat. And I like the balanced scoring. Not only is it more difficult to defend, but it gets more players involved…

One thing I don’t like … the penalties. PK at the start of the game = disaster against any HockeyEast team.

[Catfantoo]

Totally agree with your comment on the penalty - 7 seconds into the game. That can change the complexion of the game. If HC scores maybe they play better and UVM has difficulty without the lead. Instead of a 6-0 game maybe its a hard fought affair and turns out to be 3-2. You never know but less penalties is what is needed against the better teams.

[Cat lover]

Anyone else find it weird that during "Little Caesars Pizza Night" they had no pizza at the snack bar. Someone dropped the ball planning that one.

[iowabasedtraveler]

I am a Colgate fan doing advanced scouting, but I totally empathize with this NY Catamount fan’s comment…
”This team needed a reset after those first two weekends. Good to see them score in bunches even if it is against a weaker team. Obviously this isn't any kind of world shaking victory, but after the last few years it just feels good to dominate another team for 60 minutes.”
Colgate is in a similar boat. We generally play .500 hockey. The last two weekends, we split with Arizona State and Merrimack on the road. But, the previous weekend, we dropped two to Northern Michigan at home (one was a toss-up, the second we never showed).
Last year, we got off to a terrific start (5-0 if I remember right, including two against Vermont on the road). But we still ended up playing .500 hockey and luckily got to Lake Placid only as we owned Cornell last season (won 4 of 5).
Anyway, I will be at both Vermont at Colgate games this weekend. I hope we give visiting Catamount fans the same hospitality that Clarkson Doug and I received last season at Gutterson. It was a very enjoyable weekend in Burlington (even if we did have to stay in Plattsburgh, N.Y., because of the leaf-peepers). Good-luck as I expect it will be another close series between two teams that desperately want to get (and stay) in the top echelons of their respective conferences.

[TovarishchLisa]

hey cool another win. Gabe was great tonight, and nice to see Buyalsky on the board.

power play really needs work though. think we've given up as many shorties as we've scored PPGs so far. but one step at a time. let's make it 3 in a row?