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LSSU Lakers 2018 off-season thread

Re: LSSU Lakers 2018 off-season thread

Randy Russon says it best, "Damon Whitten has had four full seasons to reverse the sad state of the Division 1 men’s hockey program at Lake Superior State University. But Whitten has not even come close to making the Lakers a winner. The numbers clearly show that Whitten has done a sub-par job as head coach of the Lakers, who failed to qualify for the Western Collegiate Hockey Association playoffs this 2017-2018 season. To be sure, Whitten’s record as bench boss of the Lakers is not pretty, regardless of any excuses that he or his backers may have. It has been four losing seasons in a row for the Lakers under Whitten with uninspiring, respective records of 8-28-2, 14-22-5, 11-18-7 and 10-22-4. Do the grade school arithmetic and Whitten’s four-year, overall record as the Lakers head coach stands at 43-90-18. Which is not even close to a passing grade. In fact, in going from 8 wins in 2014-2015 up to 14 in 2015-2016 and then back down to 11 in 2016-2017 and further down to 10 in 2017-2018, it can be stated that the Laker program is going backward instead of forward under Whitten."

Spin in any way you want, man, and, most on here do that , but the numbers don't lie.

The good ship Laker is being steered vastly off course under Whitten and methinks the next four years could steer them to even lower levels and divisions.

Tune-in, if you like, to the Hockey North Show, with Randy Russon, on ESPN 1400 tonite on ESPN 1400 http://stream.sovcomm.net:8001/espn1400
 
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Re: LSSU Lakers 2018 off-season thread

I am not sure who is at fault on the Lakers. I am not sure if it is a lack of talent or a lack of coaching talent or a combination of both. I do know it is the coaches job to figure out if it is their coaching methods that are not working or players talent or lack of that is hurting the program. Whatever it is,the coaches best get their act together and decide who really needs to be fixed.
 
Re: LSSU Lakers 2018 off-season thread

Northern has to wonder if their new coach is going to try and get the MN job now that they are needing a new coach .
 
Re: LSSU Lakers 2018 off-season thread

sm2pk said:
Northern has to wonder if their new coach is going to try and get the MN job now that they are needing a new coach .
Click to expand...

It's certainly a possibility, one I wouldn't rule out. But who knows how dry the well is for Minnesota recruits, maybe Poultny thinks NMU has the better prospects over the next few years. Still, I've got to imagine Minnesota would be paying better than NMU if that's what he's after.

As for your previous post, looks like both Kyle Chatham and James Roll both had ECHL contracts, but were let go after 3 games with their respective clubs (Reading & Indy Fuel). I'm guessing they were on ATOs, which seems to be common to use near the end of the season. Neither scored in their games, so that's likely why they were released.

In other news, I'm suprised that none of his fanboys have posted about it yet: Owen Headrick signed an ATO with the Wheeling Nailers of the ECHL since his OHL eligibility was up.
 
Deman said:
It's certainly a possibility, one I wouldn't rule out. But who knows how dry the well is for Minnesota recruits, maybe Poultny thinks NMU has the better prospects over the next few years. Still, I've got to imagine Minnesota would be paying better than NMU if that's what he's after.

As for your previous post, looks like both Kyle Chatham and James Roll both had ECHL contracts, but were let go after 3 games with their respective clubs (Reading & Indy Fuel). I'm guessing they were on ATOs, which seems to be common to use near the end of the season. Neither scored in their games, so that's likely why they were released.

In other news, I'm suprised that none of his fanboys have posted about it yet: Owen Headrick signed an ATO with the Wheeling Nailers of the ECHL since his OHL eligibility was up.
Click to expand...

As one of many Whitten apologists on here, methinks your term “fanboy” is a bit self serving, man.

Congrats to Owen Headrick, the smooth skating defenceman from Garden River, Ontario. A class act all the way from a great family.
 
Re: LSSU Lakers 2018 off-season thread

sm2pk said:
Headrick made a huge mistake in leaving .
Click to expand...

May have to wait and see how he pans out in the ECHL. He had good offensive numbers (13G, 33A, 46 pts in 64 games) but was also -23. Not only that, but those numbers came against 16 and 17 year olds. How he'll fare against older talent is another story.

Truth Serum said:
As one of many Whitten apologists on here, methinks your term “fanboy” is a bit self serving, man.
Click to expand...

At least he/she isn't proclaiming "Year number XX under 'insert Coach's name here' will be the best one yet."
 
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Re: LSSU Lakers 2018 off-season thread

sm2pk said:
Headrick made a huge mistake in leaving .
Click to expand...

Like jsmithe said: He had good offensive numbers, which would certainly help build confidence, I'd think, but yeah, it was against younger kids. Some may be more talented than some rosters in the NCAA, but still younger & generally smaller.

I'm not worried about him in the ECHL, at least for the rest of this season. Wheeling isn't likely to make the playoffs this year, so Headrick will probably have a few games this season then be dropped. I'll be watching the camps during the summer & start of next season to see if 1) He's at an NHL camp, and 2) Where he ends up after that.

I'll be the first to admit that I didn't like the way he left the team, I still think childish & selfish leaving his team high and dry a few days before a weekend series (I mean, why not just leave during the Christmas break? Give them time to find a replacement or come up with a plan), but there certainly isn't any guarantee he'd be any better of a player at the college level, rather than Major Junior. If anything, he should've stuck around so he could at least get an education, since unless he's an AHL regular, it's hard to survive off of an ECHL contract for any length of time, let alone if he falls to the SPHL.
 
Re: LSSU Lakers 2018 off-season thread

Deman said:
Like jsmithe said: If anything, he should've stuck around so he could at least get an education, since unless he's an AHL regular, it's hard to survive off of an ECHL contract for any length of time, let alone if he falls to the SPHL.
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Hopefully he won't have to call his brother-in-law at the Chrysler Plant.

He should have been like Ned. "Look at Ned. Ned doesn't have to depend on hockey."

https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/74de8642-1e53-4103-9d3a-d5d9eb72c216
 
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Re: LSSU Lakers 2018 off-season thread

Deman said:
I'll be the first to admit that I didn't like the way he left the team, I still think childish & selfish leaving his team high and dry a few days before a weekend series (I mean, why not just leave during the Christmas break?
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So you know the whole story then, to define his actions as "childish and selfish"?

Methinks you might want to get all the facts before making comment or passing judgement. Your “childish and selfish” comments do apply in this situation, (personally I would add whining), just not to a 20 year old athlete in this case, man.
 
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Re: LSSU Lakers 2018 off-season thread

Truth Serum said:
So you know the whole story then, to define his actions as "childish and selfish"?

Methinks you might want to get all the facts before making comment or passing judgement. Your “childish and selfish” comments do apply in this situation, (personally I would add whining), just not to a 20 year old athlete in this case, man.
Click to expand...

Here's what I recall the team & local media presented to us fans leading up to the signing:
<ul>
<li>He committed to Lake State to play hockey.</li>

<li>Erie had been after him to sign since day 1 - yet he committed to play for LSSU.</li>

<li>Had some moderate success at Lake State.</li>

<li>He gets heavily recruited during the Christmas break - hell, I think your buddy Randy wrote an article about that.</li>

<li>Plays, what, 3 games after the break, and signs with Erie the Wednesday or Thursday (article came out on a Thursday from the school, but who knows what day they knew for sure), right before a home series, giving no time to get someone else prepared for the role, or finding chemistry with his replacement on the blue line.</li>
</ul>

I think it's hard to contest these facts.

Now, to reiterate what I've said in the past:

If someone commits to play for a team, I'm under the belief that they should at least finish out the year with said team, or else leave when it would effect the team the least. It's the decent thing to do.

I also understand wanting to jump off a sinking ship and onto a winning team - nobody wants to lose. But I've said all this before, and it hasn't mattered, so let me use a different analogy:

Say you're married. Everything is going fine, you're relatively happy, etc. But then some model shows interest in you and you divorce your wife for her. I think most people, at the very least, would say it was selfish, right? You only care about your own feelings and not the wife's.

To me, this situation is largely the same. Maybe I overstepped when I said childish, I'll admit to that, but I do 100% think it was a selfish move by Headrick. If there is more to the story, then there is more to the story, but until that story comes out, I can only go off of what's been printed and what we know about each team involved.

Believe me, I'd love to have my mind changed on this matter, really. But I have not seen anything to change it. Sorry, man.
 
Re: LSSU Lakers 2018 off-season thread

Remember when Ron Fogarty was a finalist for the LSSU job? Then someone made him a good offer? Isn’t that him on TV right now? There’s a perfect example of our commitment to NCAA Division I ice hockey.
 
RapidsCity said:
Remember when Ron Fogarty was a finalist for the LSSU job? Then someone made him a good offer? Isn’t that him on TV right now? There’s a perfect example of our commitment to NCAA Division I ice hockey.
Click to expand...
I don't think "commitment" is the best choice of words. Lack of desired resources is what it really boils down to.
 
Re: LSSU Lakers 2018 off-season thread

A week from today (April 2) will mark the 30 year anniversary of the Lakers first NCAA National Championship when Mark Vermette scored the game winning goal against St. Lawrence in Lake Placid. I would love to hear Bill Crawford's call on Vermette's overtime winner.
 
Re: LSSU Lakers 2018 off-season thread

Randy Russon's latest column from www.hockeynewsnorth.com talks about another missed opportunity and loss for Lake Superior State and head coach Damon Whitten, who has steered the good ship Laker to four straight losing seasons.

http://www.hockeynewsnorth.com/nojhl/show-the-nojhl-some-love/#more-26827

It is not the Ontario Hockey League. But there are players aplenty who get to the OHL via the Northern Ontario Jr. Hockey League.

For those who haven’t noticed — and for those who are blinded by the bright lights of the southern Ontario junior A loops — the NOJHL is a really good league with really good players.

Just from one team alone — the Soo Thunderbirds — current OHLers who got there from the NOJHL include Soo Greyhounds star left winger Boris Katchouk, Kitchener Rangers standout goalie Mario Culina, Erie Otters recently-turned-pro defenceman Owen Headrick, Sudbury Wolves pepper pot forwards Darian Pilon and Drake Pilon and Guelph Storm rookie pivot Keegan Stevenson.

I have had a reputable OHL general manager in Dave Drinkill of Saginaw tell me how impressed he is with the NOJHL and how happy he is with the way top Spirit prospect Camaryn Baber has developed as a rookie centre with the Thunderbirds.

“We are beyond thrilled with how Cam has developed in the NOJHL and under a good coach such as John Parco,” Drinkill relayed to me a while back. “The NOJHL is good league.”

Why it is not more widely respected is mind-boggling.

I mean, you would think, having seen how many players that are developed by the NOJHL for the OHL, that there would be some level of interest shown by Division 1, National Collegiate Athletic Association schools, including the nearby Lake Superior State Lakers, Northern Michigan Wildcats and Michigan Tech Huskies.

Let’s be serious and honest and up front here.

That is, if a player from the NOJHL is good enough to make it to the OHL, then he is certainly good enough to play in the Division 1, Western Collegiate Hockey Association, of which Lake Superior State, Northern Michigan and Michigan Tech are all a part of.

Ah, Lake Superior State, which has two NOJHL teams (Soo Thunderbirds and Soo Eagles) within two miles of it and a third (Blind River Beavers) a mere hour-and-a-half away.

What is Lakers coach Damon Whitten — who has been at the helm of four straight losing seasons at Lake Superior State — thinking by turning a blind eye and a deaf ear to those who tell him over and over again how many good NOJHL players there are right in his own back yard?

Oh well.

What’s the old saying? You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink.

At any rate, the OHL does rather well by the NOJHL.

It’s just a pity that the WCHA — especially Lake Superior State — chooses not to.

I guess it’s just another loss for the Lakers.
 
Truth Serum said:
Randy Russon's latest column from www.hockeynewsnorth.com talks about another missed opportunity and loss for Lake Superior State and head coach Damon Whitten, who has steered the good ship Laker to four straight losing seasons.

http://www.hockeynewsnorth.com/nojhl/show-the-nojhl-some-love/#more-26827

It is not the Ontario Hockey League. But there are players aplenty who get to the OHL via the Northern Ontario Jr. Hockey League.

For those who haven’t noticed — and for those who are blinded by the bright lights of the southern Ontario junior A loops — the NOJHL is a really good league with really good players.

Just from one team alone — the Soo Thunderbirds — current OHLers who got there from the NOJHL include Soo Greyhounds star left winger Boris Katchouk, Kitchener Rangers standout goalie Mario Culina, Erie Otters recently-turned-pro defenceman Owen Headrick, Sudbury Wolves pepper pot forwards Darian Pilon and Drake Pilon and Guelph Storm rookie pivot Keegan Stevenson.

I have had a reputable OHL general manager in Dave Drinkill of Saginaw tell me how impressed he is with the NOJHL and how happy he is with the way top Spirit prospect Camaryn Baber has developed as a rookie centre with the Thunderbirds.

“We are beyond thrilled with how Cam has developed in the NOJHL and under a good coach such as John Parco,” Drinkill relayed to me a while back. “The NOJHL is good league.”

Why it is not more widely respected is mind-boggling.

I mean, you would think, having seen how many players that are developed by the NOJHL for the OHL, that there would be some level of interest shown by Division 1, National Collegiate Athletic Association schools, including the nearby Lake Superior State Lakers, Northern Michigan Wildcats and Michigan Tech Huskies.

Let’s be serious and honest and up front here.

That is, if a player from the NOJHL is good enough to make it to the OHL, then he is certainly good enough to play in the Division 1, Western Collegiate Hockey Association, of which Lake Superior State, Northern Michigan and Michigan Tech are all a part of.

Ah, Lake Superior State, which has two NOJHL teams (Soo Thunderbirds and Soo Eagles) within two miles of it and a third (Blind River Beavers) a mere hour-and-a-half away.

What is Lakers coach Damon Whitten — who has been at the helm of four straight losing seasons at Lake Superior State — thinking by turning a blind eye and a deaf ear to those who tell him over and over again how many good NOJHL players there are right in his own back yard?

Oh well.

What’s the old saying? You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink.

At any rate, the OHL does rather well by the NOJHL.

It’s just a pity that the WCHA — especially Lake Superior State — chooses not to.

I guess it’s just another loss for the Lakers.
Click to expand...

Why would those players want to come to LSSU? Why would an up and coming coach want to come to LSSU where resources are non-existent. Do you think a Minnesota State assistant, making $123,500 would take a pay cut for the opportunity to coach a career killer?
 
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Re: LSSU Lakers 2018 off-season thread

LSSULaker889294 said:
A week from today (April 2) will mark the 30 year anniversary of the Lakers first NCAA National Championship when Mark Vermette scored the game winning goal against St. Lawrence in Lake Placid. I would love to hear Bill Crawford's call on Vermette's overtime winner.
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That would be nice. The TV broadcast with Tom Mees doing the play-by-play and Bill Clement doing the color was excellent from what I can remember though. I always thought Tom Mees was great as a college play-by-play guy.
 
Re: LSSU Lakers 2018 off-season thread

Bill said:
That would be nice. The TV broadcast with Tom Mees doing the play-by-play and Bill Clement doing the color was excellent from what I can remember though. I always thought Tom Mees was great as a college play-by-play guy.
Click to expand...

I agree with you Bill. I'm hoping they will honor the 30th anniversary of the 1988 championship team during GLSW this coming season.
 
Re: LSSU Lakers 2018 off-season thread

College Hockey News is reporting that former Lakers coach Scott Borek will be the new head coach at Merrimack.
 
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