Hammer
We'll be back.
Let's try this again, as I deleted the first one. We're off to a great start already. 
Tomorrow's exhibition is a 2pm face off. If there's more than 1,000 I'd be surprised, and happy. It's just the way exhibitions go at Ferris, I suppose.
I have very few expectations for this team. I think we're somewhere between 8-10th in the league. Last year I thought we'd go to the Joe. Look where that went.
There are two places that I'm not concerned in the least: goaltending and defense. Pat Nagle and Taylor Nelson will be fine in net. I've liked Redmond and Wietecha since they stepped on the ice as freshmen. The other defensemen (Case, Billins, etc.) will be fine. Redmond returns as our top leading scorer. That ought to tell you something right there...
Which leads me to this: Where are we going to get our goals from? Connolly and Lewicki led this team with a whopping 10 last year, and Connolly is gone. Think about that for a minute. Exactly two guys on this team hit double digits last year. Oullette and Alexander appear to have an idea of how to put the puck in the net, but something always seems to happen once Bob Daniels and Co. get a hold of the freshmen. We'll see.
Discipline. This teams needs it on the ice, and they need it in buckets. The last four years, PIM and national rank:
2008-2009: 22.4/gm (most in D-1 by over 2 minutes/game)
2007-2008: 18.1/gm (8th in D-1)
2006-2007: 19.7/gm (12th)
2005-2006: 18.0/gm (34th)
2005-2006 and 2007-2008 produced the two lowest PIM/game totals, and by far the two best seasons out of the past 4. I do not believe that this is a coincidence. This team must stay out of the penalty box to be competitive. FWIW, we were at 18.2 PIM/gm (11th nationally) in 2002-03, our CCHA championship season.
Two other guys must raise their games: Cody Chupp and Blair Riley. Both had very disappointing junior seasons and are now captains on this team, along with Zach Redmond (Chupp has the C while the other two have the A's). Chupp went from 11-19-30 as a sophomore to 7-5-12. Riley went from 14-10-24 to 7-9-16 last year. As I said before, Redmond is the leading returning scorer. When a defenseman is your best returning scorer, that tells you something about your forwards' performance.
The non-conference schedule, quite frankly, is garbage. Canisius, Connecticut and Robert Morris to start the season, and then the Wisconsin tournament (which I do like). There's no reason this team cannot get out to a 5-1 start. I said something like that last year, and look what happened. I stand by the above comments. Expect one, maybe two, crowds above 2,000 this year and everything else in the 1500-1600 range.
I hope some of the players read this. They'll probably think that I'm an idiot (which I am, but that's neither here nor there). I hope it lights a bit of a fire underneath their asses. If they blow this off and go do what they did last year, we're back to the same old Ferris that wins 14 games a year, which just happens to be what I think we're doing this year.
Prediction: 14-20-4, 9th place in the conference, out in the first round.
Let the season begin.
Tomorrow's exhibition is a 2pm face off. If there's more than 1,000 I'd be surprised, and happy. It's just the way exhibitions go at Ferris, I suppose.
I have very few expectations for this team. I think we're somewhere between 8-10th in the league. Last year I thought we'd go to the Joe. Look where that went.
There are two places that I'm not concerned in the least: goaltending and defense. Pat Nagle and Taylor Nelson will be fine in net. I've liked Redmond and Wietecha since they stepped on the ice as freshmen. The other defensemen (Case, Billins, etc.) will be fine. Redmond returns as our top leading scorer. That ought to tell you something right there...
Which leads me to this: Where are we going to get our goals from? Connolly and Lewicki led this team with a whopping 10 last year, and Connolly is gone. Think about that for a minute. Exactly two guys on this team hit double digits last year. Oullette and Alexander appear to have an idea of how to put the puck in the net, but something always seems to happen once Bob Daniels and Co. get a hold of the freshmen. We'll see.
Discipline. This teams needs it on the ice, and they need it in buckets. The last four years, PIM and national rank:
2008-2009: 22.4/gm (most in D-1 by over 2 minutes/game)
2007-2008: 18.1/gm (8th in D-1)
2006-2007: 19.7/gm (12th)
2005-2006: 18.0/gm (34th)
2005-2006 and 2007-2008 produced the two lowest PIM/game totals, and by far the two best seasons out of the past 4. I do not believe that this is a coincidence. This team must stay out of the penalty box to be competitive. FWIW, we were at 18.2 PIM/gm (11th nationally) in 2002-03, our CCHA championship season.
Two other guys must raise their games: Cody Chupp and Blair Riley. Both had very disappointing junior seasons and are now captains on this team, along with Zach Redmond (Chupp has the C while the other two have the A's). Chupp went from 11-19-30 as a sophomore to 7-5-12. Riley went from 14-10-24 to 7-9-16 last year. As I said before, Redmond is the leading returning scorer. When a defenseman is your best returning scorer, that tells you something about your forwards' performance.
The non-conference schedule, quite frankly, is garbage. Canisius, Connecticut and Robert Morris to start the season, and then the Wisconsin tournament (which I do like). There's no reason this team cannot get out to a 5-1 start. I said something like that last year, and look what happened. I stand by the above comments. Expect one, maybe two, crowds above 2,000 this year and everything else in the 1500-1600 range.
I hope some of the players read this. They'll probably think that I'm an idiot (which I am, but that's neither here nor there). I hope it lights a bit of a fire underneath their asses. If they blow this off and go do what they did last year, we're back to the same old Ferris that wins 14 games a year, which just happens to be what I think we're doing this year.
Prediction: 14-20-4, 9th place in the conference, out in the first round.
Let the season begin.
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