My 2025-26 season postmortem:
Year 3 of the Mike Harder era ended just like Year 2 and Year 1, with Colgate getting swept in the ECAC Quarterfinal round. But unlike the first 2 seasons, Colgate finally earned its first playoff win in the Harder era, due to the team finishing 7th in the regular season - unfortunately this was a regression from the previous two campaigns.
Yes, this season felt like a step back, and the won-loss record clearly indicates this. The start of the season did look promising though, as we scheduled 2025 NCAA Tournament participants Boston University, Maine, and Michigan State - all on the road! We earned a tie in the 2nd BU game and split the series with Maine, so things were looking good in late October. But after getting swept at home by RIT, clearly there was a storm cloud on the horizon. It only got bigger when we got swept by Dartmouth and Harvard in November.
Then in the 2nd half of the season, we found ourselves looking putrid on Fridays only to look great on Saturdays. I wonder if our success on Saturdays was due to our ECAC opponent having been worn down by Cornell the night before? Also of note, we had two games this season where we scored 5 goals and lost. (November 8 at Harvard and February 13 at Union). That is unacceptable.
Lastly, I wasn't entirely sold on Reid Dyck getting the majority of the goaltending minutes this season. Clearly the coaching staff saw something in him that said "start him over Andrew Takacs". But being a first year, he was logging experience and I think he'll only get better next year. Remember in 2018-19 we had a first year goaltender start every game - it was either Mitch Benson or Andrew Farrier. Then in 2019-20, both Benson and Farrier improved in both save percentage and goals against average, with each notching 2 shutouts. And I'm sure Benson getting a lot of minutes as a freshmen helped with his phenomenal play as a senior in 2022.
Our attention turns to the 2026-27 season now. Can we bounce back from 2025-26? I sure hope so.