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Northeastern 2022-23: Unfinished Business - Great Expectations
- Thread starter Split-N
- Start date
Plus Lund or McDonald. Looks like the program is getting obliterated
edit to comment on levi leaving: happy for him, sad for the program. Everyone has expressed their disappointment yet it’s still an understatement. To amount to nothing with the best goaltender is really a crime. Between lack of success and the outflow of talent there is something wrong. I know a lot of people on this forum talk about their teams this way. It’s easy to be harsh. I hate to do it. But i think we are just beginning to see the cracks.
Plus to throw in some other questions:
why recruit BUs sloppy seconds?
why bother with deroche last year when you run the risk of disenfranchising your fans for a miserable at best player?
Where was adaptation in the power play- I don’t think bottom third of ncaa is where this team should be on paper and without mcdonoughs one-timer we may have been last. The % doesn’t tell you how bad it looked.
edit to comment on levi leaving: happy for him, sad for the program. Everyone has expressed their disappointment yet it’s still an understatement. To amount to nothing with the best goaltender is really a crime. Between lack of success and the outflow of talent there is something wrong. I know a lot of people on this forum talk about their teams this way. It’s easy to be harsh. I hate to do it. But i think we are just beginning to see the cracks.
Plus to throw in some other questions:
why recruit BUs sloppy seconds?
why bother with deroche last year when you run the risk of disenfranchising your fans for a miserable at best player?
Where was adaptation in the power play- I don’t think bottom third of ncaa is where this team should be on paper and without mcdonoughs one-timer we may have been last. The % doesn’t tell you how bad it looked.
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PullTheGoalie
Active member
The losses of McDonough, Struble, Levi, Bucheler, Novak, Walsh, Demelis, Mella, Riley Hughes and Spott were expected. The decisions to leave by Cam Gaudette and James Davenport are not surprising. Players want to play and will look to go where they can. The reported planned transfer of Jack Hughes is a jaw dropper. Jeff Cox reports that another drafted underclassmen will also enter the portal. That description could be Lund, McDonald, Doyle or Dorrington. Cox also said that almost all the losses would be addition by subtraction. One Pack, I know your BU comment refers to Doyle. I don't think he saw a moment of ice time after the Jan 1 game vs Harvard. I'm guessing he's the other drafted underclassmen looking to move on.
PullTheGoalie
Active member
Kind of a surprise. Sam Colangelo enters the portal.
Kind of a surprise. Sam Colangelo enters the portal.
I’m definitely surprised. Not a good harbinger.
I’m not sure how someone in the pipeline filling his shoes is a good thing. Maybe the coaching staff has a game plan, but I think it’s more likely lack of success is breeding lack of success here.
Officially official on Jack Hughes.
One of the highest touted prospects we have ever had and he leaves after two years not to the pros but to the portal! Players don’t leave if they are happy and these guys obviously aren’t happy. We talked all season about how bad the morale of this squad looked and now we get to see how bad it actually is. I find it highly unlikely the coaching staff coached them both out of the program (would love to hear otherwise). All in we are looking at a very young team next year and some serious rebuilding underway.
as it stands we will have 1 senior and 2 junior forwards with any experience. Maybe we can pick up some transfers of our own, but they’re unlikely to be top 6 type players. 5 incoming freshman I don’t know much about.
On D we are looking at all frosh/soph lines and new goaltending.
One of the highest touted prospects we have ever had and he leaves after two years not to the pros but to the portal! Players don’t leave if they are happy and these guys obviously aren’t happy. We talked all season about how bad the morale of this squad looked and now we get to see how bad it actually is. I find it highly unlikely the coaching staff coached them both out of the program (would love to hear otherwise). All in we are looking at a very young team next year and some serious rebuilding underway.
as it stands we will have 1 senior and 2 junior forwards with any experience. Maybe we can pick up some transfers of our own, but they’re unlikely to be top 6 type players. 5 incoming freshman I don’t know much about.
On D we are looking at all frosh/soph lines and new goaltending.
Mark Divver @MarkDivver
Princeton D Pito Walton headed to Northeastern. Expected to attend Toronto development camp this summer. Had offers from AHL teams
Princeton D Pito Walton headed to Northeastern. Expected to attend Toronto development camp this summer. Had offers from AHL teams
TheRevengeance
2016 Hockey East Overlords
Now I remember why I stopped coming to this place. The doom and gloom from alleged NU "fans" in here is unreal.
Yes, losing two top picks looks bad. The looks are far and away the worst part of it. If the two transfers were anything close to what they were supposed to be when they were 17 they'd still not be back at NU next year - because they'd both have signed with their NHL teams by now instead of sitting at home without contract offers. They managed to post a combined -18 rating on a winning team in front of the best goaltender in the country, when 0 (zero) other regular skaters had a negative differential. They were both on the first unit of the worst power play Northeastern has had in the Madigan-Keefe era. Mitch Brown of EP Rinkside watched and rated every NU player and gave Jack Hughes a 20 grade on a scale of 0-100, the second worst rated player on the team and only eclipsed by his brother Riley, who will be transferring with him to ravage some other program. JD Burke of the same publication wrote a scathing review of Colangelo, saying among other things that he "isn't nearly as productive as anyone would've hoped", called his skating "well below average at the college level," that he "spends most of his game operating as a spectator" and "wanders in and out of prime scoring chances without increasing the quality of each look." Jeff Cox posted on the New England Hockey Journal that Northeastern's transfer losses "can be seen as addition by subtraction." These are all direct postings in public forums. They aren't behind the scenes musings or quotes from a scorned coaching staff. None of them besides arguably Cox have any reason to carry water for NU. Another big school will take these guys as reclamation projects because of their pedigree and potential. I wish them the best of luck. If they had left a year ago and NU had the chance to spend their scholarships elsewhere the team would probably be playing hockey this weekend instead of being two weeks into their summer golf outings. If you want to criticize the staff for not developing them have at it, if you want to blame NU for both of them being outperformed by such highly touted prospects as Matt Choupani and Jack Williams have at it, but my only complaint is that I won't be watching Northeastern this weekend (and that Eli Sebastian has somehow still not been put on NLI.)
Yes, losing two top picks looks bad. The looks are far and away the worst part of it. If the two transfers were anything close to what they were supposed to be when they were 17 they'd still not be back at NU next year - because they'd both have signed with their NHL teams by now instead of sitting at home without contract offers. They managed to post a combined -18 rating on a winning team in front of the best goaltender in the country, when 0 (zero) other regular skaters had a negative differential. They were both on the first unit of the worst power play Northeastern has had in the Madigan-Keefe era. Mitch Brown of EP Rinkside watched and rated every NU player and gave Jack Hughes a 20 grade on a scale of 0-100, the second worst rated player on the team and only eclipsed by his brother Riley, who will be transferring with him to ravage some other program. JD Burke of the same publication wrote a scathing review of Colangelo, saying among other things that he "isn't nearly as productive as anyone would've hoped", called his skating "well below average at the college level," that he "spends most of his game operating as a spectator" and "wanders in and out of prime scoring chances without increasing the quality of each look." Jeff Cox posted on the New England Hockey Journal that Northeastern's transfer losses "can be seen as addition by subtraction." These are all direct postings in public forums. They aren't behind the scenes musings or quotes from a scorned coaching staff. None of them besides arguably Cox have any reason to carry water for NU. Another big school will take these guys as reclamation projects because of their pedigree and potential. I wish them the best of luck. If they had left a year ago and NU had the chance to spend their scholarships elsewhere the team would probably be playing hockey this weekend instead of being two weeks into their summer golf outings. If you want to criticize the staff for not developing them have at it, if you want to blame NU for both of them being outperformed by such highly touted prospects as Matt Choupani and Jack Williams have at it, but my only complaint is that I won't be watching Northeastern this weekend (and that Eli Sebastian has somehow still not been put on NLI.)
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PullTheGoalie
Active member
TR, no argument here with those assessments. I do wonder though, what happened to JHughes? Freshman year, starting as the youngest player in the NCAA, was impressive. Sophomore year was immensely disappointing. I keep waiting for someone to reveal that there was a physical reason for it, any reason for it. I really can't remember another player having first and second years like that. Any insight on what happened?
I do not have the hockey knowledge (beyond a point), have never met any of the current NU players, and have no insight into the program. So, I'm not in a position to know if the parade to the portal is 1) A repudiation of the team "culture;" 2) The coaching staff cleaning house; or 3) Just what has come to be the normal movement of players since the transfer portal came to be a thing. What I'm keeping an eye on (and knocking on wood about) is any of NU's younger players following suit and any pipeline decommits.
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https://twitter.com/hkmac11/status/1637913625535938561?t=0Hay5MdR1tQ7_t4PsRFcQQ&s=19
I would recommend looking at this account name and then reading their tweets. You'll come to a conclusion or two.
I would recommend looking at this account name and then reading their tweets. You'll come to a conclusion or two.
PullTheGoalie
Active member
15 players moving on. 9 graduating or doing post grad elsewhere. 3 looking for playing time. 1 to the NHL. So, reason #3 applies to the majority of the group. SC I can understand. Sort of a square peg/round hole with his strengths applied to the NU system over three years. JH is the one you wonder about. First year vs Second year, what happened?
TheRevengeance
2016 Hockey East Overlords
I don't have or pretend to have any insider knowledge on the younger Hughes, other than that the program seems to have been cleared out of any signs of their entire family. I did look back at the past three years out of morbid curiousity if nothing else. A time period that covers the entire time he went from being a potential top 10 pick to a late second rounder to his current state, and I noticed that his individual analytics were also negative in his U18 season at the NTDP despite him putting up points. There were perhaps warning signs there and more contributions to his draft slide than we realized at the time. Hindsight is 20/20 I suppose.
However what I will say is that this article was posted in January and when I read it at the time of publication it really, really, and I mean really, rubbed me the wrong way.
https://www.collegehockeynews.com/ne...ack-Hughes.php
"I guess the elephant in the room, that I knew and (the coaching staff) knew, was that I could do a lot more and that they expected more of me,” he said. “At this point in the season, they probably still do."
“I had a lot of conversations and did a lot of video with the coaching staff, and that was kind of a mutual agreement that I have to get back to doing the things that I was doing last year: competing harder, being more intense, getting on the forecheck, things like that."
"I think when I'm playing hard, and I'm playing intense, I'm winning a lot more draws,” he said. “Over the course of the year, I've been very streaky on faceoffs. One game, I'll be at 60 percent or higher, and then other games, below 40 (percent) or even 30."
"But yeah, when I'm playing harder, more intense, that's when I'm winning more draws and more battles,”
Those are... not good quotes. I don't have an ounce of media training or personality and I would never let a kid on my team go out and say that kind of stuff. And this wasn't in a hit piece, it was in an article meant to spotlight him and praise him. The best fluff article of Jack Hughes money can buy on one of two national college hockey websites is littered with quotes that, if you read just barely into the subtext, all break down to "If I tried harder and exerted effort more often things would probably go better for me and my team, maybe I'll improve at that."
It's been two full months and I still cannot believe anyone approved this to go out into the world.
However what I will say is that this article was posted in January and when I read it at the time of publication it really, really, and I mean really, rubbed me the wrong way.
https://www.collegehockeynews.com/ne...ack-Hughes.php
"I guess the elephant in the room, that I knew and (the coaching staff) knew, was that I could do a lot more and that they expected more of me,” he said. “At this point in the season, they probably still do."
“I had a lot of conversations and did a lot of video with the coaching staff, and that was kind of a mutual agreement that I have to get back to doing the things that I was doing last year: competing harder, being more intense, getting on the forecheck, things like that."
"I think when I'm playing hard, and I'm playing intense, I'm winning a lot more draws,” he said. “Over the course of the year, I've been very streaky on faceoffs. One game, I'll be at 60 percent or higher, and then other games, below 40 (percent) or even 30."
"But yeah, when I'm playing harder, more intense, that's when I'm winning more draws and more battles,”
Those are... not good quotes. I don't have an ounce of media training or personality and I would never let a kid on my team go out and say that kind of stuff. And this wasn't in a hit piece, it was in an article meant to spotlight him and praise him. The best fluff article of Jack Hughes money can buy on one of two national college hockey websites is littered with quotes that, if you read just barely into the subtext, all break down to "If I tried harder and exerted effort more often things would probably go better for me and my team, maybe I'll improve at that."
It's been two full months and I still cannot believe anyone approved this to go out into the world.
Some movement on the incoming side of the portal:
- Pito Walton D 6-2-195 | 7-14-21 in 32 games with Princeton. Seen by some as the second coming of Tommy Miller.
- Alex Cdmpbell F 5-11-174 | 14-12-26 in 34 games with Clarkson. NSH 3rd rounder. Hope that this is someone who can put the puck in the twine.
PullTheGoalie
Active member
Well, it's good to see Western Michigan sent packing even if it was BU beating them.
Well, it's good to see Western Michigan sent packing even if it was BU beating them.
Love to see it. I don’t think they’ll go all the way, but nice to see some hockey East demonstrate they’re capable. Pulling hard for Merrimack tomorrow.
RossiRules
Registered User
I paid $40 to watch Levi's debut in Buffalo v a tired Rangers team on Sling. He played awesome and did NU proud. Highlight of the season.
Thiessen'sBetter
New member
Devon doing Devon things. What a gem of a player and person he is. Good night for the program.
...What a gem of a player and person he is...
It's Devon's world and we were privileged to be able to live in it for the couple of seasons he wore red and black. And to top it off, Aiden McDonough scores his first goal for Vancouver.
Looks like I'll be using my ESPN+ subscription to look in on some remaining Buffalo and Vancouver games.
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SkinsFan09
New member
As long as prospects see players from this program going into the NHL we'll be fine. The recent departures - no impact players if we're being honest.