Colgate 2025-26

[ProudCanadian]

The goaltending situation remains shaky. Neither Walker nor Davis seems ready to take on the #1 role. To be fair, the team as a whole looks fragile when it comes to confidence. Yesterday, with the Raiders up 3–0 and Yale on the ropes, a reckless play by Walker led to Yale’s first goal. The team looked completely disorganized afterward, even though they still held a two-goal lead and had a five-minute power play.

On defense, although the season is still young, I expected a lot more. Borgiel hasn’t returned to her 2024 form. Pickering remains as puzzling as ever. Spring seems to have hit her ceiling. Svejkovsky is seriously lacking in speed. Sawyer is slowly gaining experience. On the bright side, Senecal is playing excellent hockey for a freshman. As for Sambrano, it’s a complete mystery—could she be injured?

Up front, things appear to be trending in the right direction. Pais continues to get the job done, even if she was a bit less dominant this weekend. Biederman and Aubin seem to be finding their rhythm offensively. In fact, Biederman and Beauchamp showed some nice chemistry last weekend—maybe the start of something promising. I’m a bit puzzled by Decosse’s decision to pair Aubin with Roger. Sarah brings energy and can be very effective defensively with her forecheck, but she’s not an offensive forward. Aubin, who’s a solid playmaker, ends up limited in her options. Aside from the power play, #23 had just one shift with #44 this weekend—and it resulted in Emma’s only goal of the weekend. Looking closer, Aubin has been involved in 6 of Pais’s 9 goals so far this season. I’d love to see a line with Pais, Aubin, and Palumbo. Even though Palumbo isn’t putting up points like she used to, she’ll break through sooner or later.

One of the pleasant surprises: Goofers had two strong games this weekend. She’s solid in the faceoff circle and distributes the puck well to the wings.

 

[TchrBill]

Agreed, OT. I'm baffled as to why Walker got the start or why she was recruited to begin with. Up 3-0 & 4-2, lose in OT. Colgate has not been in this bad shape for many years. Decosse was handed a painstakingly crafted, golden program and is taking it in the wrong direction. I can't comprehend this as he's been on the bench for 11 years. This feels like another Dakosty era in the making! On paper, his recruits looked talented. FWIW, I predicted Colgate to finish outside the Top 4 in the league. The men's team has similar issues. Harder only has 2 recruiting classes under his belt but still has some splainin' to do. Unlike most sports, hockey is a long, 30+ game season so hate to write anything off yet. Still think Davis may be the better of the two.

 

[Oldtimer]

Proud Canadian, I like your take on both the Offense and Defense. There is definitely talent on Offense which is beginning to jell (Palumbo and Stewart still MIA), but on D, Senecal, Borgiel and Sawyer are it. Hopefully Sambrano gets back as I liked her game last year. Pickering unfortunately has not gotten better in her 3 years in Hamilton and has recently been out of position more than I remember. I'm also terrified whenever either Spring or Svejkovsky are on the ice as they invariably pinch and consistently get beaten. Not easy for coach but he has to face it head on. Cut their playing time in important games or moments.

PC your take on the team's fragility is also right on. For the last 6 years we always had Danielle or Kalty to rely on if we were down or a game was close. Now that safety net is gone so the team has to rely on itself which puts the pressure on everyobe to play lights out instead, probably not a bad thing but not an easy adjustment.

This makes us more of a team this year than we have been for some time as we have no totally reliable stars. Now the coaches and players need to figure out how to make themselves greater than the sum of their parts. They haven't done that yet.

I'm not ready to give up on them yet, but even getting into the ECAC playoffs may be a challenge this year unless things get resolved real soon.