Wisconsin Hockey XXXVI: Stop looking for the silver lining and ignoring the problem!!

[KaMiGo]

Re: Wisconsin Hockey XXXVI: Stop looking for the silver lining and ignoring the probl

Head out of sand, no problems with recruiting, head back in sand.

It is apples and oranges (women's vs men's) to a certain extent, but to claim there aren't issues is the real load of crap.

Look at the roster for the US National junior invitees for crying out loud.....

I'm not saying there are no problems. There certainly are. The comparison of men's vs women's is what is the load of crap.

It isn't fair to compare the men's situation to the women's situation and say "why can't the men get elite recruits like the women do?".

[gwhinwi]

Re: Wisconsin Hockey XXXVI: Stop looking for the silver lining and ignoring the probl

I know it doesn't really relate to the conversation, but the tone of the board lately reminds me of this episode of the IT Crowd.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bu9TsJlcvzc

[markwojo]

Re: Wisconsin Hockey XXXVI: Stop looking for the silver lining and ignoring the probl

I'm not saying there are no problems. There certainly are. The comparison of men's vs women's is what is the load of crap.

It isn't fair to compare the men's situation to the women's situation and say "why can't the men get elite recruits like the women do?".

Especially when the women are coached by a guy who's biggest knock was declining recruiting in the twilight of the Sauer regime as the lead assistant.

[oldtyme25]

Re: Wisconsin Hockey XXXVI: Stop looking for the silver lining and ignoring the probl

Oh come on...do you really think that recruiting is even remotely the same for the men vs the women?

This isn't a matter of drinking the flavored sweetened water, this is a matter of someone looking for any reason that they can to poke at the men's program right now. I honestly think that statement is a load of crap.


Unless you were joking, which might be possible, but given the general tone of the board and of your recent posts you'll have to forgive me if I don't see it that way.

While there is certainly many differences in recruiting on the Men's vs Women's programs....I think what ****es off the masses is that we used to get the top recruits and consistently had Badgers representing teams on the World Junior stage. Our teams were filled with NHL draft choices and the seats were filled at the Kohl and the Great Dane.

I guess where I am going with this is under Coach Excuse we are becoming irrelevant to the next generation of player. These kids never experienced the rocking full buildings and national championships. What they see is an unsuccessful program with a head coach who has a tainted reputation in the hockey circles, playing in a half empty building.

This is what has become of the once proud program under Eaves.

[Almington]

It isn't fair to compare the men's situation to the women's situation and say "why can't the men get elite recruits like the women do?".

Why not? Why isn't it fair? I know why the fall in recruiting happened, but why shouldn't we be expecting to land the top recruits?

[Wisko McBadgerton]

Re: Wisconsin Hockey XXXVI: Stop looking for the silver lining and ignoring the probl

Why not? Why isn't it fair? I know why the fall in recruiting happened, but why shouldn't we be expecting to land the top recruits?

Just to speed the onslaught along I'll go ahead with what I assume part of the argument would be. There are probably 3- 5 teams in Women's hockey that an elite recruit would consider. There are probably at least 15-20 teams in Men's hockey under legitimate consideration, perhaps more. Plus the CHL draws elite players from the men's pool. Elite men's players are spread out and competed for 10 or 20x more.

Which doesn't answer your expectations rephrasing, but to be fair, Kamigo didn't say there should be no expectation of any top recruits.


Ok, go ahead, everybody have a ball with that.

[solovsfett]

While there is certainly many differences in recruiting on the Men's vs Women's programs....I think what ****es off the masses is that we used to get the top recruits and consistently had Badgers representing teams on the World Junior stage. Our teams were filled with NHL draft choices and the seats were filled at the Kohl and the Great Dane.

I guess where I am going with this is under Coach Excuse we are becoming irrelevant to the next generation of player. These kids never experienced the rocking full buildings and national championships. What they see is an unsuccessful program with a head coach who has a tainted reputation in the hockey circles, playing in a half empty building.

This is what has become of the once proud program under Eaves.

Exactly!

[Timothy A]

Re: Wisconsin Hockey XXXVI: Stop looking for the silver lining and ignoring the probl

Just to speed the onslaught along I'll go ahead with what I assume part of the argument would be. There are probably 3- 5 teams in Women's hockey that an elite recruit would consider. There are probably at least 15-20 teams in Men's hockey under legitimate consideration, perhaps more. Plus the CHL draws elite players from the men's pool. Elite men's players are spread out and competed for 10 or 20x more.

Which doesn't answer your expectations rephrasing, but to be fair, Kamigo didn't say there should be no expectation of any top recruits.

Ok, go ahead, everybody have a ball with that.

You are correct. UW and UM practically recruit themselves by name and reputation only. The UW Women are battling the rodents primarily for the elite recruits (UW and UM have won 7 out of the last 10 ncaa titles and played for the title in 9 of the last 10), and then BC and maybe Harvard. UMD used to be a power, but have fallen off the map. It's not apples to oranges, it's apples to bolts. In this era, how many men's programs recruit by name and reputation only?

I do think the men's college hockey talent pool is as deep as ever, how else does Providence and Quinnipiac do it? This thought should make it easier for UW to recruit, so that does make Eaves/Schuey look even worse. I want to give Strand and Bittner a chance to improve the recruiting.

[Wisko McBadgerton]

Re: Wisconsin Hockey XXXVI: Stop looking for the silver lining and ignoring the probl

You are correct. UW and UM practically recruit themselves by name and reputation only. The UW Women are battling the rodents primarily for the elite recruits (UW and UM have won 7 out of the last 10 ncaa titles and played for the title in 9 of the last 10), and then BC and maybe Harvard. UMD used to be a power, but have fallen off the map. It's not apples to oranges, it's apples to bolts. In this era, how many men's programs recruit by name and reputation only?

I do think the men's college hockey talent pool is as deep as ever, how else does Providence and Quinnipiac do it? This thought should make it easier for UW to recruit, so that does make Eaves/Schuey look even worse. I want to give Strand and Bittner a chance to improve the recruiting.

I was thinking maybe UND instead of Harvard but even then, UM, UW, and then maybe BC are splitting up the elite players for the most part it seems.

The thing about the talent pool is that no matter how big it is, there still are only a small number of truly elite players. Look at football for example. Millions of kids play football, but there are usually still only about 30 or so "5 star" recruits each year.

How Q and Providence and Union are doing it is 4 year players, so a regular supply of 22-25 year old upperclassmen, including a healthy dash of overage Canadians. They aren't going out in the summer and having to find or accelerate guys to fill fall spots because guys that insisted they were coming back, or coming in, didn't.

And why they leave early is beyond me with few exceptions. Mike Mersch, (who I'm sure everyone looked at as a freshman and immediately thought "NHL talent" right?) 4 year guy, called up to the show today. Nic Kerdiles, two year guy, is sitting at 5 PP goals plus 1 g 2a for 8 pts. and last on the team at -11 in 21 games. I got tons of argument here about how ready he was to go. Now he's knocking his brains out on buses, getting further from the show every day, instead of having a degree, some more maturity, and possibly an All-American label.

Interesting fact I came across pertaining to 20 win seasons: There have been only 5 teams who have managed to put together more than 4 consecutive 20 wins seasons in the last 10 years. (Union, BC, DU, Miami, UND) Yet from the early 80's to the early 90's (when there were 40 something D-1 teams) at least 16 (or around 1/3) teams in college hockey boasted 4 or more consecutive seasons with 20+wins.

[markwojo]

Re: Wisconsin Hockey XXXVI: Stop looking for the silver lining and ignoring the probl

Here's the one overriding factor when comparing mens verses womans hockey recruiting....there are WAY few girls playing. While men have way more viable options both in college and in juniors, there are like 10 or 20 (or even) more times as many to pick from. Seriously how many "elite" girl hockey players are there that can help at the upper end of D1 each year? A few dozen? On the men's side of things there has to be literally hundreds every recruiting year that can truly play at an upper D1 level.

Please spare me the how are you supposed to deal with guys leaving early like most of the guys that have left have been some huge shocker. Minnesota, North Dakota, BC and the rest have guys leave early too....only difference there is they have a couple guys lined up every year ready to come in and there isn't the drop off we have here under Eaves when one "shockingly" leaves early. Kerdilies put up a point a game from day one and somehow Eaves is shocked he didn't stay for his junior year? Seriously? Maybe he would have had Eaves recruited a little more around him in his class and the following one and he had guys that could play near his level and have some team success in his junior year. Instead, the boom bust cycle of Eaves at UW was painfully obviously written on the wall and Nic and Anaheim probably weren't overly interested in having him stick around to be a "difference maker" in trying to lead the Badgers to double digit wins verses the 4 they managed without him. Why would a high level player stick around to play on a roster as thin as last years? For every Kerdilies that was a point a game guys through 2 years, I can give you a Stepan and Craig Smith that were quite successful transitioning right into the NHL w/o even a cup of coffee in the A. Incidently, Kerdilies is 21 while Mersch is 23 so not shocking he would find his way toward the NHL sooner. Here's the other difference between the two, Mersch had pretty talented veteran rosters to stay for his junior and senior years.

[Timothy A]

Re: Wisconsin Hockey XXXVI: Stop looking for the silver lining and ignoring the probl

How Q and Providence and Union are doing it is 4 year players, so a regular supply of 22-25 year old upperclassmen, including a healthy dash of overage Canadians. They aren't going out in the summer and having to find or accelerate guys to fill fall spots because guys that insisted they were coming back, or coming in, didn't.

I'd love to see UW go that route. I don't care if another former player makes it to the NHL, I want wins at UW. If that means 21-25 yr old Canadians, so be it. Just win baby.

[solovsfett]

I'd love to see UW go that route. I don't care if another former player makes it to the NHL, I want wins at UW. If that means 21-25 yr old Canadians, so be it. Just win baby.

Can't have over age Canucks, Mikey is part of the group of coaches crying about overagers in ncaa hockey

[KaMiGo]

Can't have over age Canucks, Mikey is part of the group of coaches crying about overagers in ncaa hockey

Please, show me any evidence from any source that shows Eaves as part of this proposal. There probably isn't any, but that's OK, you hate him so guilty by association is good enough.

[Almington]

Here's the one overriding factor when comparing mens verses womans hockey recruiting....there are WAY few girls playing. While men have way more viable options both in college and in juniors, there are like 10 or 20 (or even) more times as many to pick from. Seriously how many "elite" girl hockey players are there that can help at the upper end of D1 each year? A few dozen? On the men's side of things there has to be literally hundreds every recruiting year that can truly play at an upper D1 level.

Please spare me the how are you supposed to deal with guys leaving early like most of the guys that have left have been some huge shocker. Minnesota, North Dakota, BC and the rest have guys leave early too....only difference there is they have a couple guys lined up every year ready to come in and there isn't the drop off we have here under Eaves when one "shockingly" leaves early. Kerdilies put up a point a game from day one and somehow Eaves is shocked he didn't stay for his junior year? Seriously? Maybe he would have had Eaves recruited a little more around him in his class and the following one and he had guys that could play near his level and have some team success in his junior year. Instead, the boom bust cycle of Eaves at UW was painfully obviously written on the wall and Nic and Anaheim probably weren't overly interested in having him stick around to be a "difference maker" in trying to lead the Badgers to double digit wins verses the 4 they managed without him. Why would a high level player stick around to play on a roster as thin as last years? For every Kerdilies that was a point a game guys through 2 years, I can give you a Stepan and Craig Smith that were quite successful transitioning right into the NHL w/o even a cup of coffee in the A. Incidently, Kerdilies is 21 while Mersch is 23 so not shocking he would find his way toward the NHL sooner. Here's the other difference between the two, Mersch had pretty talented veteran rosters to stay for his junior and senior years.

What has killed UW is that the recruiting classes have lacked depth. The coaching staff from 2010-2015 totally wiffed with the secondary players. They went all in on the very top players, and when those didn't pan out the next level of players had already committed to the SCSU, providence, quinnipac type programs. That is why UWs recruiting classes have been so bimodal: a handful of elite players on one hand, and a bunch of AHA level recruits on the other. Hopefully, Strand and Bittner can change that in short order.

[Wisko McBadgerton]

Re: Wisconsin Hockey XXXVI: Stop looking for the silver lining and ignoring the probl

Please spare me the how are you supposed to deal with guys leaving early like most of the guys that have left have been some huge shocker. Minnesota, North Dakota, BC and the rest have guys leave early too....only difference there is they have a couple guys lined up every year ready to come in

The primary difference I see is that during BC's great six year run to 3 titles, they had 2 players leave before completing their Junior year. In the same period, UND had 3 total leave before 3 years were done. Neither had a one and done. In a similar period, UW had 12-16 freshman (depending on which way you want to group it) leave before their Junior year. That may very well be all on Eaves, as I'm not saying he's not responsible. I'm simply saying having 2 or 3 additional strong Juniors per year is a huge difference, especially when you think of how many times UW has just seemed to be one or two guys short of being very good. And it certainly affects the pipeline. Planning 3 yrs out is a lot different than sort of maybe planning for one or two depending on what happens. Instead of stacking guys, they were often scrambling to fill spots and bring guys in early. Labate and Navin would be Seniors and Besse a Sophomore at a lot of those schools mentioned above as some examples. There are a number of others. (Although maybe that's how UW got Besse and/or Labate in the first place, I can't say.) This stuff doesn't exonerate Eaves, but I feel it's a bit more accurate then just saying "other places have done it" because the other places have had different circumstances.

Kerdilies put up a point a game from day one and somehow Eaves is shocked he didn't stay for his junior year? Seriously?....
Incidently, Kerdilies is 21 while Mersch is 23

In the case of Kerdiles, Baggot said Nic insisted to Eaves he would be back. Whether that's accurate, or whether Eaves should have bought it, I have no idea. I think Kerdiles age is a major factor in why he should have stayed. That and his D was very inconsistent. He certainly wasn't (and won't be) as good as Stepan or as old or mature as Smith who turned 22 in the fall of what would have been his junior year. It's true and a very fair point that he would have come back to an empty cupboard. I certainly can't see that he's better off for not having come back, just the same.