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Colgate 2025-26

Marmot, would agree...it will be interesting to see the progress of two absolutely moribund programs over the next few years, Ferris State and RPI...IMO I would expect real progress in light of their coaching changes (Riley at FSU/Lang at RPI)...at both places the cupboard was bare, the transfer portal was a mess and, at least in RPI's case, little support from their "progressive" administration...year #3 tells us more about coaching changes than year #1...
 
TheGreenCoat said:
Marmot, would agree...it will be interesting to see the progress of two absolutely moribund programs over the next few years, Ferris State and RPI...IMO I would expect real progress in light of their coaching changes (Riley at FSU/Lang at RPI)...at both places the cupboard was bare, the transfer portal was a mess and, at least in RPI's case, little support from their "progressive" administration...year #3 tells us more about coaching changes than year #1...
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Little support? Try active Sabotage by the former president. The program was basically put on life support during Covid. I don’t think people realize how little support the program was given under Jackson. Particularly the last 10-12 years. The rebuild is on now. Lang has full support from the top and $$ is coming in. The recruits for next year are very good and only getting better. Year 3 I believe we will be lake placid bound
 
After today, it seems to me that…

a) Quinnipiac, Cornell and Dartmouth will get ECAC Hockey tournament first-round byes,

b) Harvard and Princeton will be battling for the fourth and final first-round bye,

b) Saint Lawrence, Brown and RPI will be traveling in that first round,

c) Union and Colgate will be hosting in that first round, and

d) Yale and Clarkson will be battling for the fourth and final position for hosting in that first round.

Of course, for all 12 teams, every point matters and every position matters for seedings in the first and second rounds.
 
More stats about our season and our opponents, in-conference and out-of-conference, tonight:

NCAA Percentage Index (NPI) rankings for Colgate and its 2025-26 opponents, as of tonight...

#1 - Michigan State, #6 - Quinnipiac, #10 - Cornell, #11 - Dartmouth,

#23 - Harvard, #25 - Union, #26 - Maine, #29 - Boston University, #32 - Princeton,
#33 - RIT, #36 - New Hampshire, #44 - Clarkson, #48 - Colgate,
#54 - Yale, #55 - RPI, #56 - Niagara, #58 - Brown, #62 - Saint Lawrence.

Updated...
Non-Conference; when Colgate scored first, 1-3-1; when opponent scored first, 2-5-0
In-Conference; when Colgate scored first, 5-1-1; when opponent scored first, 2-8-1

Colgate's weekend-opening game results:
Home: 2-5-0
Away: 3-4-1
Overall: 5-9-1
vs. Non-Conference: 2-4-0
vs. ECAC Hockey: 3-5-1

Colgate's Regular-Season Record Against Princeton, 2013-14 to Present: 19-0-4
 
well done IBT...home records in the ECAC this year have substantially improved vis-a-vis prior years...perhaps just a statistical fluke...we'll probably finish at 10-10-2 and have a home game in round #1...of course, going from 2 or 3 to one game is IMO stupid, but that's the rule...waiting to see if and when Tobias Ohman commits to Colgate...he may already have, although "Neutral Zone" isn't there yet...he is a skilled USH forward a la Max Nagel and boy do we need an upgrade across lines in speed/skill...
 
As an RPI fan, I thought hiring Harder when he was a high school schol coach was not a great choice, especially when they easily could have brought back Brett Riley (which is what I would have done). The first couple years were solid though so I accepted that I might have been wrong. Colgate fans, what are your thoughts on it right now? Lots of mentions of mediocre recruiting, but the results haven't been too bad (Saturday's bad game against RPI notwithstanding)
 
sshablak said:
We need a great goalie, ours are mediocre. It all starts with your goalie !
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Shabby, I agree with you on the uber-importance of the position. I don’t agree with the word ‘mediocre,’ though. That is too harsh in my opinion. Takacs and Reid are just inconsistent (and what do we really know about Haas and Olson?). Many times they each make absolutely brilliant saves which keep us in games. Other times they let in ‘easy’ goals and their body language afterwards lets you know that they are wickedly unimpressed with their own skills (or lack thereof). Sadly, the forwards and defensemen have been equally inconsistent. When I go to a game, and the puck is about to be dropped for the first time, I have no idea which team is going to show up for Colgate. With only two weekends left of the ECAC regular season, I would bet there has been only a handful of games (five or less) this entire season where all three moving parts (goalie, forwards, defenders) have excelled at the same time for all sixty minutes. Now that I type those words, that sounds overly harsh to me. he he he
 
Gentlemen, we have no real "shut down" defensemen, someone who is capable of controlling the front of our net without committing penalty after penalty...for example, Neumeier is a talented young man (and rookie of the year last season in the ECAC) but is a minus 26 this year post RPI...now I'm not totally into looking at +/- as a defining report card on performance but, even subtracting a minus 5 for extra-attacker/empty net goal efforts, minus 21 disturbing...he' skating a ton of minutes and our top six (when healthy) would suggest overuse and resulting fatigue...losing Merner has hurt as well...but anecdotally we do seem to score a lot of highlight goals while our opponents are able to get the "dirty" goals andk those from the "slot"...AND being outshot by 4/game results in 120 additional SOG and perhaps a dozen goals...FINALLY, I think teams have now adjusted to Harder's use of D-men in pressing the points and allowing Norlin, Neumeier, etc. to carry the puck deep into the offensive zone...to answer Sezenack my choice to succeed DV was either Lang or Brett Riley...Mike's a good guy, a great player and quite intelligent but his coaching resume was very light...I continue to wish him the best and hope our days ahead are good ones...goaltending? frankly I don't think that's the major problem; in any event we've got a 4.25 rated goalie from the OHL coming to Hamilton in the fall...
 
Tonight's research project... is Colgate taking more penalty minutes per game than its ECAC Hockey opponents?

If my math is correct, here are the average penalty minutes per game by ECAC teams for 2025-26...

Dartmouth, 6.04
Yale, 7.26
Harvard, 7.50
Quinnipiac, 7.53
RPI, 7.57
Union, 8.80
Cornell, 9.44
Princeton, 10.77
Colgate, 11.37
Saint Lawrence, 11.37
Brown, 11.58
Clarkson, 13.10

For reference, NPI#1 Michigan State is 10.30.

Look at the difference between Dartmouth and Clarkson... sheesh!
 
Next research project... so how does our current 11.37 average penalty minutes per game rank amongst the last couple of years?

2023-24, Mike Harder, 8.42
2024-25, Mike Harder, 9.33
2022-23, Don Vaughan, 10.65
2025-26, Mike Harder, 11.37
2021-22, Don Vaughan, 11.90
 
sezenack said:
As an RPI fan, I thought hiring Harder when he was a high school school coach was not a great choice, especially when they easily could have brought back Brett Riley (which is what I would have done). The first couple years were solid though so I accepted that I might have been wrong. Colgate fans, what are your thoughts on it right now? Lots of mentions of mediocre recruiting, but the results haven't been too bad (Saturday's bad game against RPI notwithstanding)
Click to expand...
Right now only 8 players on the roster were recruited after Mike Harder became head coach. 5 of those 8 players are first years. Another 5 players currently on the team came to us via the transfer portal, 4 of them after Harder became the head coach. The other 13 committed to Colgate while Don Vaughan was still the head coach.

When Harder was announced as the head coach, I thought this was a good choice. He played for Vaughan, was an assistant under him, and would continue whatever coaching practices were successful under Vaughan. In my opinion, this is still the case as the team still demonstrates a "never quit" mentality. If we're down by several goals, we won't throw in the towel. The game at Brown a few weekends ago is a prime example of this.

But I've seen Harder introduce his own element into the mix - with Vaughan I'd see us go into a defensive shell in the 3rd period. But with Harder, we're still playing loosely and not afraid to keep generating offense. And it's worked to an extent, I've seen us extend the lead at times. But it seems like our defensemen have become more offensive-minded. Good for scoring goals, not good when the puck gets behind them and the other team gets a prime scoring opportunity.

In 2027-28 (two seasons from now), it'll be a team primarily made up of Harder's recruits. That'll be a better measuring stick.

This season (from a won-loss record perspective) has been a step back from the first two, but to the other 'Gate fans: quit your complaining. We won the ECAC Championship in 2023 and that came out of nowhere! If it means a few mediocre seasons after that, I won't complain because we won a trophy in Lake Placid recently.
 
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