I'm happy but quite surprised to see Plattsburgh ranked 2nd in the preseason D3hockey.com poll. They were fourth in the final poll of 17-18 for that site and lost two all time great forwards. I'm curious if the voters were basing it more on the returning players plus recruiting classes of Plattsburgh, Elmira and Hamline or if they think Elmira and Hamline somehow lost even more of what made them successful last year.
In today's opening day action, we have some non-conference action on the docket:
Neumann @ Cortland - 2PM ET
Wilkes @ King's - 3:30PM ET
LVC @ Post - 4:00PM ET
Buff State @ Canton - 4:00PM ET
Sacred Heart @ Johnson & Wales - 4:00PM ET
Anna Maria @ Nazareth - 6:00PM ET
Franklin Pierce @ Plymouth State - 6:00PM ET
Suffolk @ Nichols - 6:40PM ET (odd start time, anyone know why?)
Morrisville @ Castleton - 7:00PM ET
Saint Michael's @ Potsdam - 7:00PM ET
William Smith @ Salve Regina - 7:00PM ET
Aurora @ Trine - 7:00PM ET
Stevenson @ UMB - 7:00PM ET
Southern Maine @ UNE - 7:00PM ET
Chatham @ St. Benedict - 7:30PM ET (interesting East vs West opener)
St. Scholastica @ Augsburg - 8:00PM ET
Concordia (WI) @ Bethel - 8:00PM ET
St. Mary's @ St. Norbert - 8:00 PM ET
Lake Forest @ St. Thomas - 8:00 PM ET
UWSP @ St. Olaf - 8:30PM ET
BTW, Castleton game starts a 4pm (men play at 7pm)
And it looks like Cortland is the first D3 team to win this season. Congrats to them. Who will be next???
I checked out the Wilkes @ King's stream. Very impressed with how Wilkes held up with 6 skaters dressed for the game. 3-1 win by King's College Monarchs, who only had a 30-26 shot advantage over the understaffed Colonels.
Final:
Norwich - 2
Elmira - 4
So it appears Hamline scored as OT expired last night. I believe that's the second boxscore I've seen this year already where the winning team scored with no time on the clock. I think the other game might have been a D1 game a couple of weeks ago. I'm not a fan of seeing goals posted at the 5 minute mark of OT. I've seen them post goals with the tenths of a second displayed if my memory is correct. That's the way it should be posted so it shows an increment of time remaining.
The box score I read was 1:20 into OT. On another note, UW-Superior may be better than preseason predictions - adding a couple of UMD transfers definitely looks to have bolstered their D and goaltending.
Tough weekend for the Beacons! Swept by two teams they should typically have little trouble beating, and at home no less! Ouch!