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Northeastern Huskies 2023-24: Brave New World or New Beginning?

On track to be the worst team in hockey East this year and it’s not particularly close.

It’s not helpful that we played with only once center and he is still not 100%. But it was more abysmal than you’d expect even given the circumstances. I’m not sure where they go from here.
 
RossiRules said:
...It's not injuries, it's talent!...Totally concerned!
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If there's a silver lining to last night's debacle, it's goaltending. Whitehead played very well, especially for a freshman--only to be hung out to dry in OT.

Injuries are part of the problem if only because the injuries are to front-rank guys but have to agree it's not the whole problem. In that vein, wondering where the older, more experienced portal guys have been. The OT goal IMO is on Pito Walton; Alex Campbell, brought in as a goal scorer, seems to have disappeared; same for Brett Edwards. Exception is Staudacher on defense.

Only eight SOG?
 
The portal guys haven't done it for me. Walton pushes offense at the cost of defense. The forwards don't seem to add much. For me, there havens been many transfers or PGs that have been 'impact' players. Tommy Miller from Michigan State, I loved. Without looking, nobody else comes to mind. Do we have a recruiting problem?
 
I think it’s a mentality or a coaching problem. Putting injuries aside, they looked great in the exhibition games and against Bentley. Confident and poised. Now they’re scrambling and failing to anticipate.

The lack of playmaking ability falls on the coaching imo. We haven’t had a power play in a couple years now. They look lost, and have no idea what to do with the puck. Passing to the guy on the goal line has just been terrible. He has no idea what to do with the puck once he gets it. Inability to develop players seems to be a challenge. Highly tauter guys flatlining and leaving. I don’t believe they are any less talented than the middle teams of hockey East, but they can’t seem to pull it together an enjoyable game of hockey like everyone else can.

im not saying replace the coaching. But the identity, whatever that is, is clearly not working.
 
PullTheGoalie said:
Do we have a recruiting problem?
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Yes, my hockey ear in the rail of the proverbial track tells me we do. It's an issue and the elephant in the room. This team post Adam G, Dylan S, ZAR, Devon Levi, etc. etc. and a host of other recent alumni should allow us to be filling the roster with NHL draft picks and for some reason that isn't happening. The program may be going in the wrong direction or simply does the current staff perhaps not have the ability to gauge talent. Numbers in Jr's and USHL don't always translate to success however the team has no chemistry, raw tallent or really any hope of righting the ship in my opinion. You can't coach to create tallent. I don't think it's a coaching issue. I think for the most part our bench coaching is as good as any in college hockey. It's recruiting, we need to recruit to blue chips and grinders and recognizing who has those qualities from paper to ice seems to have fallen off the table.
 
It's a bad year to be in the dilemma the Huskies are fighting. BC and BU are very talented. The Nadeau brothers have given Lynden Breen peers to play with. Maine is even better than I expected them to be. Providence is good but IMO always seems to fall a tad short of their potential. Lowell is not an easy team to play against, a typical Bazin squad. Merrimack and UMass, are right there with Lowell. UNH, I haven't seen yet. Good start. Will they keep it up? Probably not the whole season. That leaves UConn, UVM and NU in the last three spots. (Was it the Coaches Poll that had NU #4? I didn't see that at all.) That's not pretty but I had NU in the 6/7/8 group before the year started. It's hard to fight with one arm and that's where they are.
 
Just speculating but... another poster noted that Greg Brown at BC has been recruiting committed players diligently. Just flipped a defenseman who is considered a 1st rd pick. NIL was mentioned as a factor when the Hagens brothers committed to BC. Mark Divver mentioned that Letourneau will receive serious interest from "northeast schools". So, nothing confirmed but it could be surmised that BC is involved?
 
PullTheGoalie said:
Just speculating but... another poster noted that Greg Brown at BC has been recruiting committed players diligently. Just flipped a defenseman who is considered a 1st rd pick. NIL was mentioned as a factor when the Hagens brothers committed to BC. Mark Divver mentioned that Letourneau will receive serious interest from "northeast schools". So, nothing confirmed but it could be surmised that BC is involved?
Click to expand...

Certain programs have long been “rumored” to ignore the gentlemen’s agreement to stop recruiting a player who committed, but not yet signed an NLI. The Gophers seem to think that they are “entitled” to the best players in Minnesota. bu’s goalie Commesso was committed to UNH until suddenly he wasn’t. IIRC Fensore was committed to QPAC. BC has been flipping players for years. BC and bu never seem to have enough and always seem to have room for one more.
It reminds of Oklahoma and Texas football years ago when each team took players they didn’t need in order to keeping them from their rivals. Are these schools able to use promises of NIL to supplement their scholarships effectively expanding their recruiting classes?
 
Rossi, no he wasn't. I saw him play last January in a tournament at Merrimack. Program and line sheets had the NU logo next to his name. NU Hockey Blog had him listed in future roster projections a few days ago. The Heisenberg site has him scratched out as an NU commit as of today. Too bad. Read a Sportsnet draft piece last night that had him breaking into late first round.
 
I have no words to describe how incomplete this team is in nearly every facet of the game. I am in year 40 of watching them and I have no doubt in my mind this team is in the top 5 worst I have seen. What I really think is that in HE 6 teams recruited far better than us. Does anyone think differently or have a positive they can add because I really don't. There really isn't much I can see to build on but if they have full scholarships to most of this crew they were insane because from what I see we have a treasure trove of DIV 3 2nd liners on this squad, just not talented.
 
RossiRules said:
I have no words to describe how incomplete this team is in nearly every facet of the game. I am in year 40 of watching them and I have no doubt in my mind this team is in the top 5 worst I have seen. What I really think is that in HE 6 teams recruited far better than us. Does anyone think differently or have a positive they can add because I really don't. There really isn't much I can see to build on but if they have full scholarships to most of this crew they were insane because from what I see we have a treasure trove of DIV 3 2nd liners on this squad, just not talented.
Click to expand...
Don’t worry you have RPI next weekend. We play no defense and have a backup goalie as our starter. You should hang 4-7 goals on us no problem. Don’t worry about taking penalties our pp is the worst in the country. Just hammer away boys
 
Two years ago NU won 25 games and made the NCAAs, losing to WMich in OT on the goal that barely got by Levi. From there to here, so quickly, is the hockey version of an elevator plummet.
Can this season get turned around? It doesn't look likely. Where are the 'difference makers'? The 5 PG/Sr transfers have done little. The Freshman class, 6 players, have 4 points. That's 11 players not getting much done. I expected more from a couple of them but none of the others have popped at all. There are a handful of players that have been productive that are out or playing injured. Players that are here to be depth guys are forced into the lineup. Whitehead has played well, had a couple of goals against last night that he'd like back. Where are the guys to replace Harris, Struble and McDonough? It's looking grim. Is it too soon to wonder if NUs recent successes were all attributable to Jim Madigan?
 
For no particular reason yesterday, i stumbled across the Beanpot Final highlights from last year. Then i went to the game last night. If you want to torture yourselves with how far we are from being good again, watch that 8 minutes of video. Two years with the best goalie in the history of college hockey, and the future was our oyster. BC/BU/Harvard were certainly not layups, but when we were healthy, they were just another game on the schedule..........and now.......?.......what should have been the beginning of the next great run in NU hockey appears to be slipping away. Top recruits going elsewhere.......
 
I love some of those old highlight videos. I watch the ‘18 one before the beanpot every year.

Im not sure the world was our oyster the last two years. Levi carried a pretty dreadful offense. We have certainly reached a low I didn’t think was possible though. Hard to say where they go from here but I atleast don’t think it can get worse
 
OMG...Maybe we can beat VT. However because this is NU hockey nobody in the administration or alumni association will care to correct this dreadful situation. If it were BU or BC heads would roll and that premise alone is the reason the program for the most part will never really move forward.
 
Was at a different game last night, so I tried to keep up with the NU game via the gameday scoreboards at CHN and HE. There must have been a glitch at the Whit as there were no updates. I turned to twitter to follow the NU Hockey Blog and others. The posts were unusual in that these posts were unusually bleak, coming from people that contort themselves to find the smallest positive thing to highlight. When the NUHB comes out and says 'this is unwatchable', it speaks loudly to how bad it is right now.
 
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