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Providence College on the road to Chicago

satyking said:
Cav how does this year look
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I will start with the post I put in the last thread.

cavbim said:
Well this is has been quite Actually was looking for the thread Saty started for '16 but that must long gone. So I'll use this since Cox has a lot to use to bring this up

The recent news relates to the NJEC going on now where tweets from Cox and Divver have mentioned Foley and Bjorkvist. Cox had a good one on Bjorkvist and Divver had one about Foley being primed for a breakout year

Cox also had a recent article ranking the recruiting classes, he linked in the Lowell thread if you want to read it. Obviously with replacing the seniors the incoming class is a key so his PC wrap up is a pretty look into how PC will look next year

This past week PC landed a Boston area kid Prompting Cox to note the list of '99's Leaman and company have been able to get from the Boston area Which is very true plus the kid quoted above (a 2000) and the Koopman's ('98's I believe) and said amazing inroads Leaman has made. Which is very true, Army's failure to land this type of kid from New England was a key reason for his lack of success.

Finally Buccigross had a preseason top 10 with PC 9th (BC 8th so for both maybe a bit optimistic preseason). However Divvver got a look at some of the kids as summer session tweeted and said by season end this will be a very strong team. I suspect he is right.
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I will emphasize Divver's tweet. Year end this will be a good team. The question is do they at least position selves to get one of the last bids? Growing pains could kill early.

I'd believe people at this point more comfortable going into the season with Hawkey, then at this point with Ellis. The ultimate answer will be will Hawkey answer the bell like Ellis did

The defense is still veterans. 4 guys who have dressed just about all the time they were healthy, 2 sophomores who got their feet wet--Ruggiero a true freshman so often time those guys take their game up a notch. Plus Leaman has 2 USHL Dmen to work into the lineup like his 2 last year

Offense is a question. Wasn't there at the end, when needed and 6 valuable forwards graduated. Still the new guys by and large seem an upgrade, just they are freshmen, not seniors. Divver also tweeted Foley looks like Foley has taken his game to next level.
 
Re: Providence College on the road to Chicago

My thoughts on this team is an NCAA bubble team come the end of the season should be the goal. Pinho really needs to step up his game and take a leadership role on the offensive end.

Foley was outstanding at the Junior Camp working well in the corners and getting in front of the net. Now the Finn looks to be a fantastic two way center with elite passing skill bad played shorthanded for the Finnish team. He was on the WJC team last year as a fourth liner so he expects to win.

The key guy is Conway who already has a year under his belt at Penn State before being kicked off the team. He was their top scorer so can he find the scoring touch like he did at Penn State and in the BCHL?

Duhaime from the reports I have seen is expected to be an integral top six forward who also scored a ton in the BCHL.

I think Hawkey will be fine between the pipes and will continue to show that Leaman's defensive system will keep the GAA down with outside shots.

Anyways, everyone in Hockey East is playing fir second place behind the greatest freshman class ever at BU...;-)
 
The Zlax45 said:
My thoughts on this team is an NCAA bubble team come the end of the season should be the goal. Pinho really needs to step up his game and take a leadership role on the offensive end.

Foley was outstanding at the Junior Camp working well in the corners and getting in front of the net. Now the Finn looks to be a fantastic two way center with elite passing skill bad played shorthanded for the Finnish team. He was on the WJC team last year as a fourth liner so he expects to win.

The key guy is Conway who already has a year under his belt at Penn State before being kicked off the team. He was their top scorer so can he find the scoring touch like he did at Penn State and in the BCHL?

Duhaime from the reports I have seen is expected to be an integral top six forward who also scored a ton in the BCHL.

I think Hawkey will be fine between the pipes and will continue to show that Leaman's defensive system will keep the GAA down with outside shots.

Anyways, everyone in Hockey East is playing fir second place behind the greatest freshman class ever at BU...;-)
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Duhaime played in USHL for Chicago and Tri City had decent numbers (15-27-42 plus 4-4-8 in Tri City run to Clark Cup). He is a mid round pick (higher then Pinho was picked)

Was the BCHL guy you were thinking of rookie of year Vimal Sukamaran? He was 32-34-66 plus 7-12-19 in Chilliwack's playoffs

Divver tweeted this a little while ago. Getting this cleared up would be a help since technically we are a forward down. He was in Carolina Development camp





Mark Divver
@MarkDivver
.@FriarsHockey continuing to work on adding F Josh Wilkins for upcoming season. '97 from Sioux City had academic loose ends to tie up.
4:28 PM - 17 Aug 2016
 
Re: Providence College on the road to Chicago

cavbim said:
Duhaime played in USHL for Chicago and Tri City had decent numbers (15-27-42 plus 4-4-8 in Tri City run to Clark Cup). He is a mid round pick (higher then Pinho was picked)

Was the BCHL guy you were thinking of rookie of year Vimal Sukamaran? He was 32-34-66 plus 7-12-19 in Chilliwack's playoffs

Divver tweeted this a little while ago. Getting this cleared up would be a help since technically we are a forward down. He was in Carolina Development camp


Mark Divver
@MarkDivver
.@FriarsHockey continuing to work on adding F Josh Wilkins for upcoming season. '97 from Sioux City had academic loose ends to tie up.
4:28 PM - 17 Aug 2016
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Yea Sukamaran was the guy I meant. The video on Wilkins shootout goal at Carolina camp is insane. Reminds me of a Riley Barber type.

https://twitter.com/NHLCanes/status/751841260827078658
 
Re: Providence College on the road to Chicago

Another season coming upon us. Going to need a program for games this year with all the new names but the returning vets I suspect will need to carry the team in the early going. Hopefully Walman is fully recovered and ready to pick up where he left off before the shoulder injury. Looking for more consistency from Ruggiero. Agree on Pinho stepping it up more, would like to see Rufo doing big things. Florentino needs to have a big senior year. Hawkey taking over in net should keep the net minding play high, at least that would be the expectation. Not sure what's there for backups to him, so hopefully he stays healthy.

I'm sure there will be some growing pains but with league games early can't afford to fall too far behind the top teams.

Will be interesting to see how well the Eagles reloaded after losing so many guys late.
 
Re: Providence College on the road to Chicago

The context there was supposed to be the slow start to 2016 in January where PC dropped three of four points to BC and lost to Lowell and New Hampshire. Which, in Providence's case, resulted in them falling behind the BC's and Notre Dame's of the world in conference play, since their conference schedule was so backlogged. I know that PC (along with QU) was setting the world on fire in fall and wasn't trying to say otherwise.

I was keeping my own log of the Hockey East standings weekly last season to track the "true standings" in conference since certain teams, most notably PC, had such a vast difference in games played relative to other teams. On 1/14 PC was 5th in points but had two games in hand, resulting in them being 4th outright in points-per-game (PPG). PC maintained roughly the same position through January, peaking at T-3rd in PPG and 4th in overall points after the Vermont series, before dipping back down to T-4th/4th after playing Lowell. Into February, on 2/6 after sweeping Maine, they were still T-4th in overall points with BU and in 4th outright in points per game due to a single game in hand. That was the point I was trying to make, that throughout January and into February they were fighting with BU for the last bye in the HEA tournament.

I agree that that wasn't very clear in the post and I updated the opening bit to hopefully make the context more obvious and to hype up the fall part of the schedule a bit more. Wasn't trying to discredit the hot start you had in NC play and the start of HEA play, and I apologize if you thought I was.
 
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Re: Providence College on the road to Chicago

TheRevengeance said:
The context there was supposed to be the slow start to 2016 in January where PC dropped three of four points to BC and lost to Lowell and New Hampshire. Which, in Providence's case, resulted in them falling behind the BC's and Notre Dame's of the world in conference play, since their conference schedule was so backlogged. I know that PC (along with QU) was setting the world on fire in fall and wasn't trying to say otherwise.

I was keeping my own log of the Hockey East standings weekly last season to track the "true standings" at the top of the conference since PC had such a vast difference in games played relative to other teams. On 1/14 PC was 5th in points but had two games in hand, resulting in them being 4th outright in points-per-game (PPG). PC maintained roughly the same position through January, peaking at T-3rd in PPG and 4th in overall points after the Vermont series, before dipping back down to 4th/T-4th after playing Lowell. Into February, on 2/6 after sweeping Maine, they were still T-4th in overall points with BU and in 4th outright in points per game due to a single game in hand. That was the point I was trying to make, that throughout January and into February they were fighting with BU for the last bye in the HEA tournament.

I agree that that wasn't very clear in the post and I updated that first paragraph to hopefully make the context more obvious and to hype up the fall part of the schedule a bit more. Wasn't trying to discredit the hot start you had in NC play and the start of HEA play, and I apologize if you thought I was.
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Got it. Thanks for clarifying.
 
Re: Providence College on the road to Chicago

Hope Street said:
Kinda hard to put much stock in this piece after it mentions PC's 'relatively slow start' last season.

Really? Friars were 12-0-3 and No. 1 team in the country when they lost their first game to Cornell on Dec. 28.
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They might want to spell Providence right in the first sentence!
 
Re: Providence College on the road to Chicago

The Zlax45 said:
They might want to spell Providence right in the first sentence!
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Added the i into the word. Would be nice to hear if anyone has any comments on the content itself. Revengeance and I were shocked to see how little scoring is returning for PC and how much they are depending on players breaking out/freshman contributions, but I don't get the vibe that PC fans are very worried. To me it seems dangerous putting so much faith in the unknown (something NU has done more often than we'd like over the years).
 
NU_Husky said:
Added the i into the word. Would be nice to hear if anyone has any comments on the content itself. Revengeance and I were shocked to see how little scoring is returning for PC and how much they are depending on players breaking out/freshman contributions, but I don't get the vibe that PC fans are very worried. To me it seems dangerous putting so much faith in the unknown (something NU has done more often than we'd like over the years).
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In Leaman we trust...you can talk about the lack of scorning returning but Providence was never a high offensive team. They won with defense and goaltending.

Foley and Bjöqvist (Finland sent a poor squad) were outstanding at the USA WJC thing earlier this summer.

Foley was battling a concussion from the scrimmage last season in the first half of the season so once he got rolling in the second half he was much better.

I think your series of articles is overvaluing Northeasten which to me got hot against the absolute crap of Hockey East last season.

I think PC finishes right on the NCAA bubble this year. Not sure in or out.
 
The Zlax45 said:
In Leaman we trust...you can talk about the lack of scorning returning but Providence was never a high offensive team. They won with defense and goaltending.

Foley and Bjöqvist (Finland sent a poor squad) were outstanding at the USA WJC thing earlier this summer.

Foley was battling a concussion from the scrimmage last season in the first half of the season so once he got rolling in the second half he was much better.

I think your series of articles is overvaluing Northeasten which to me got hot against the absolute crap of Hockey East last season.

I think PC finishes right on the NCAA bubble this year. Not sure in or out.
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I pretty much agree with Zlax on this. I certainly know PC won't be a pre season favorite. However depending on if some of the balance in the bottom half comes up to the top half my opinion is Providence stands a good chance to secure a top 4 home berth and have them somewhere between 12-16 nationally, as Zlax said on the bubble.

Could what the article says come true. I know its possible other teams have a say in what happens. I would write that as worst case scenario.

I do think As Zlax says and to be fair the article touched on Leaman will have a large role in the final results. History at Union and Providence says his teams overachieve. At Providence the closest he came to underachieving was in '14-15 and we know how that ended. Bottom line is this Leaman teams generally are sum of the parts being greater than the whole teams

Again as Zlax noted PC is very defensive oriented, and hand in hand they play a very disciplined game. Roles are clear and expectations are high. without a doubt Leaman absorbed a lot as a grad assistant from Walsh

In the defensive department PC is still very solid. From what we saw of Hawkey last year it's clear he has talent. You read back on the old thread there was a real belief Hawkey would push Ellis hard for the job and would mean going pro at this point with his stock high was best for Ellis. The defense has 6 guys with experience returning, 4 as jr/sr have played just about every healthy game for 3 or 4 years. 4 have been drafted. It gives the luxury of letting an undersized and true freshman defender in Jacob Bryson learn in a less pressure pack situation. He is terrific puck mover and as a 17 year old one of the top offensive Dmen in the USHL.

I also think it paints a picture that is fraught with issues for Conway. Both his BCHL and Leaman said they did due diligence on him. He already proved his BCHL coach right who said he did everything expected of him and then some. The part of him not being drafted is like some dishonor. Well this past spring the Merrimack beat writer Mike McMahon had an article about college free agents signing NHL deals. No coach has produced more than Leaman in the 4 years measured. Sounds like a nice partnership between Conway and Leaman. Conway had a solid season on ice at PSU, had ridiculous numbers in juniors last years, but also great number before PSU in the USHL.

Zlax also laid out the case for the issue of undervaluing Foley. However you might also add Foley was a true freshman

Leaman also is very good at getting guys who fills the roles he needs. The guys coming in not mentioned while not stars have 3rd4th line roles and these guys are coming in older. Again Leaman is following the same blueprint from Union and when he first arrived at PC.

For sure the departed classes history is written but if you divorce Gillies from that class and look at what had to be replaced this year. This class is more talented at this point in their career than Leaman's first class was with the only reasons someone would argue is that Jankowski was a first round pick (probably now a bit of a stretch and a kid who should have played in the USHL a year before college) and they do have to prove it.

I also found it funny it mentioned Providence not being able to replace its losses as readily as BC. Yet Cox rated PC's class a bit ahead of BC. Which leads to the point PC knew they were replacing all the skaters it lost and as mentioned by mid year had to have realized Ellis was a serious possibility, BC did not anticipate the magnitude of their early departures. I would guess they thought 3, worst case 4.

Also as noted earlier PC still hopes to be able to get one more kid eligible which would solidify the bottom 6 forwards. Wilkins was a member of the US's WJAC team last winter and was invited to Carolina's development camp
 
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