I'm not down on Clarkson at all this year. Everything I've read points to a new commitment, new mentality, and we looked pretty decent overall in our exhibition against Carleton. We've got some really speedy forwards this year and lost only three players to graduation (two of whom I considered liabilities). The last two years have been really hampered by injuries and last year also started with a a scandal that led to two incoming freshmen never attending the school.
Overall I thought we saw a very strong playoff series against SLU at the end of last year and it reminded me a lot of the coming-of-age series David Leggio had as a sophomore at Cornell in 05-06: the two double overtime games. Leggio won the Dryden award the next year. Paul Karpowich looked stellar in that SLU series and I'm hopeful he'll be able to carry that over into this season, especially with a full year under Chris Rogles (assistant coach who played goalie for Clarkson in the early 90s). Clarkson also added a strength and conditioning coach in the offseason so I'm hopeful that will help avoid falling into the injury issues of the last two years.
This series will be a great measuring stick for us in terms of seeing how much we need to improve and what we need to work on before the league games start in November. In particular, team defense and discipline need to improve from last year, as well as the power(less) play. Our special teams last year were miserable and unless we see some improvement there we could be in for another highly disappointing season. We've got at least one line that's clicking on offense already though - Freeman, McPherson, Pawlick line combined for 4 goals and 6 assists including a Freeman hat trick (one was an ENG) in the exhibition game.
not to rain on your parade but a line clicking in an exhibition game, isn't all that important. I'm sure the team you played in your exhibition game is no where near the speed of a D-1 team, let alone a good one.
Your point is well taken, and has been a topic of discussion already on other forums for Clarkson fans.
Carleton has a pretty good hockey team. Canadian schools can recruit from major juniors, so they can pick up some excellent, experienced players who were plenty good enough to play NCAA hockey but chose not to. I don't know how many Carleton might have, if any, but writing Canadian schools off as bad just because they're from Canada isn't really fair. The general consensus after the game wasn't "oh this is a team that we should have thumped 10-0 and didn't" but more of a "this is a good team and very good indicator of how we'll match up in the NCAA." I'm sure they aren't as fast as upper echelon NCAA teams, but they weren't your run of the mill scrubs either. This weekend will definitely be the real barometer, and I'm glad we're playing some quality teams in UNO and SCSU to expose our weaknesses early. You can't fix problems you don't know exist.
From what I have I seen over the years only a few canadian teams each year can compete with good D1 teams. If your team played a bad team last week dominating them really doesn't mean much.
Trying to figure out whether wilfrid laurier is good or RIT just played poorly. Am leaning towards the latter.
No Burt for RIT in the game against St. Cloud. Interesting he isn't playing, were we given any reason?
I didn't hear Murph in the starting lineup either. Wayne probably wants to see what some of these freshman can do against the big boys. Interesting idea, but safe since it's OOC.
murph's playing.
Yup. It's Janda that is sitting.
Sounded like a pretty good first period for the Tigers...couple chances just missing wide and a couple nice stops by Roponnen...0-0.do we have any explanation for no janda and no burt?
Sounded like a pretty good first period for the Tigers...couple chances just missing wide and a couple nice stops by Roponnen...0-0.
I would have to think Burt is a little dinged up. I can't imagine him running afoul of Wilson already or being held out to test some freshmen (it may be NC, but a great NC schedule can provide some insurance for an upset loss in March)
Come on staypuff, Clarkson got beat bad but they had some good moments. They never gave up. for about the first 10 minutes they looked pretty good. I'm sure they'll come back tomorrow night and take out their frustrations. They got called on a lot of penalties but they weren't throwing around a bunch of cheap shots.
Hey all. For those of you making the trip here, I hope you enjoy your stay. Weather looks perfect for hanging out downtown before and after the game. If you need recommendations for places to go to eat/revel, post what you're looking for and I'm happy to help.
Offensively, the PP looked real good initially, not always scoring, but good zone control. Players to watch are Alex Hudson and Terry Broadhurst. Newcomer Matt White looks to be a very exciting player, and we have a couple of good senior leaders in Joey Martin and Rich Purslow.
Alas, just one man's impression.
Definately going to be an interesting game between UNO and RIT. The Tigers certainly showed they can hang with a quality team like St. Cloud without their best scorer (who I expect to be in the lineup tonight).
Clarkson is going to need all the fans they can get, taking a shellacking happens, how they respond is going to be bellwether.
