SUNYAC 25-26 The start of a new era

[bakdraft21]

With the Yac having a down year last year, and with the NCHA, UCHC, and CNE guarenteed to have multiple bids for the next few years, along with the dissolving of the NEHC, I thought it would be good to have during the non-conference part of the season a weekly roundup discussing how the SUNYAC did that week, compare their results to other conferences, notable wins and losses, as well as weekly winners and losers. The focus will be on the SUNYAC and the 3 previously mentioned conferences, as personally I don't see any other conference getting multiple bids this year. If other conferences make substantial moves either up or down the pecking order, they will also be discussed. If I get anything wrong feel free to correct me. Notable results and weekly winners/losers can be subjective so feel free to argue why something should be added or deleted.

For the 1st week, relatively straightforward the SUNYAC has the best Non-Conference record in D3 Hockey boasting a 10-3 record and a 0.77 win %(No am i not counting that lame Fredonia Potsdam Series boooooo schedule real non-conference opponents). Only the NCHA has a win% greater than 0.5 with a 9-7-2 record. Both the CNE and UCHC went 0.5 this weekend. All other conference were below 0.5 this weekend.

Notable Wins:
Unranked SUNYAC SUNY Canton upsets #7 NCHA Trine at home. Should give the SUNYAC a boost and the NCHA a dip in the math
Unranked NCHA Dubuque upsets #11 WIACUW-Steven Points at home. Gives NCHA more depth at the bottom which will make it harder for other teams to break through in the math
#10 NCHA Adrian "upsets" #2 UCHC Utica on the road twice. Gives the NCHA a big boost and the UCHC gets hit hard in the math with these 2 results

Notable Losses:
#2 UCHC Utica loses to #10 NCHA Adrian at home twice. Already been mentioned, but still has to be noted here
#7 NCHA Trine loses to unranked SUNYAC SUNY Canton on the road. Already been mentioned, but still has to be noted here
RV SUNYAC SUNY Cortland loses to unranked MAC Alvernia at home. MAC will probably gain more than the SUNYAC will lose in the math but still, if you're trying to break though to get multiple bids results like this will not help.
#3 UCHC Geneseo ties unranked MAC Wilkes on the road. The MAC once again gets a result no one expects, while the tie will help a little, I think the UCHC lost more than what the MAC gained with this result
#5 NCHA St.Norbert loses to unranked MIAC St.Olaf in OT at home. The OT will make the math less hurtful, but this loss combined with the Trine loss will offset some of the Adrian gains

Weekly Winner(s): SUNYAC
The SUNYAC had the best Non-Conference record this weekend are it's really not particularly close. The Cortland loss to Alvernia stings but for the most part the league took care of business and heck even god awful SUNY Morrisville won a game.

Weekly Loser(s): UCHC
It's never a good week when the 3 best teams conference (Geneseo, Utica and Elmira for now) go a combined 0-4-1. Now granted those 4 losses are to Adrian and Hobart, but the math is often unforgiving, and that Wilkes tie is going to do the most damage. At least the rest of the league did well going 6-2 but none of those wins come close to offsetting the losses sustained this weekend.

Summary:
So what does this info mean? Absolutely nothing for now. Its only week 1. We don't have a big enough sample size to draw any meaningful conclusions for now and the needle will have barely moved. I'm sure the UCHC will bounce back and my beloved lakers looooooove their thanksgiving/winter break slump. As the season goes along, we'll be able to identify trends and possibly give context as to why certain teams and conferences are where they are in the pairwise.

Interesting post, will follow for sure, the YAC will be tough this yr for sure,I think Platty will step it up this year,then ya have Cortland and a few others who may/will challenge Oz and Bart.....

 

[Bartman]

Very Nice analysis by Lord Zubin. Adrian and Piros sure took care of business at Utica. Looking forward to see what two with Utica reveals this Thursday and Saturday. Still very early for everyone, but the "math" is the 'math".

 

[dmac1103]

Plattsburgh definitely looks like a different team this year. The goaltending looked great this past weekend with Bovan and Spry combining for a. 982 save percentage. It may not have been Hobart or Oswego still Plymouth State is coming off a 19 win season and ranked 1st in thier new league. Hopefully then can stay healthy cause my NFL and MLB teams dealt/dealing with tons of injuries.

 

[spwood]

Plattsburgh definitely looks like a different team this year. The goaltending looked great this past weekend with Bovan and Spry combining for a. 982 save percentage. It may not have been Hobart or Oswego still Plymouth State is coming off a 19 win season and ranked 1st in thier new league. Hopefully then can stay healthy cause my NFL and MLB teams dealt/dealing with tons of injuries.

I saw the same thing. I thought Bovan looked the more confident in net, but Spry made all of the saves as well. I also thought the defensive coverage was a bit better than in prior years. The penalty kill looked very good - even dangerous on the counter. Definitely some offensive skill on this team. I'm interested to see where it stacks up with the big boys next weekend.

 

[Lord_Zubin]

Week 2 of the weekly roundup is here. Since the NCHA and CNE played mostly conference games this weekend, we will be focusing on just the SUNYAC and UCHC this week, with one exception. No two conferences have battled each other more this season as they have faced off against each other 20 times this season already, the next closest pair is the MIAC and WIAC, who have faced off 12x this season.

The SUNYAC went 8-9 overall this weekend with all games being against the UCHC. They still have the best overall non-conference record at 18-12 with a win % of 0.6, but now they have been brought back down to earth with the CNE, NCHA, and the WIAC not far behind. The UCHC went 10-9 this weekend with all but 2 of those games being against the SUNYAC. Those 2 games were a loss to Ind Salve Regina and a win vs MASCAC Rivier. With a 0.516 win% so far the UCHC isn't quite breathing down the SUNYACS neck yet compared to other conferences that were previously mentioned, but they sure aren't out of the ball game yet.

Notable Wins:
#10 SUNYAC SUNY Oswego "upsets" #5 UCHC SUNY Geneseo on the road. The top 2 in the SUNYAC have gone 3-0 against the UCHC's top 2 with Hobart also sweeping Utica this weekend. Oswego does play Geneseo again and Utica this year, but assuming these 2 stay the top 2 they have guarenteed the series in their favor. I don't think it will be a clean sweep as Oswego has to visit the Aud and they refuse to win in that building regardless of who the opponent is, but a 4-1 series or a 3-2 series in the SUNYACS favor should help a lot with the math.
Unranked UCHC St. John Fisher upsets RV SUNYAC SUNY Cortland on the road. This is the last week I will be considering Cortland as part of the top 3 as their play has been unimpressive to start the year. St. John Fisher is a contender for that 3rd spot is the UCHC now with this win and a good result vs Buff State on the road. Their only loss is to Chatham who I will talk about later in the summary section.

Notable Losses:
#5 UCHC SUNY Geneseo loses to #10 SUNYAC SUNY Oswego at home. Already been mentioned, but still has to be noted here
RV SUNYAC SUNY Cortland losses to unranked UCHC St. John Fisher. Already been mentioned, but still has to be noted here

Weekly Winner(s): No one
While the top of the SUNYAC had a great weekend, the rest of the conference failed to support going 4-9 against the UCHC. Conversely, the top of the UCHC didn't have a good weekend going 1-3, but the rest of the conference went 9-6 to help support them. I have no idea how the math works, so for this week I am going to call it a draw for now. Anyone who knows how the math works feel free to reply and share your thoughts.

Weekly Losers (s): Johnson and Wales
For those who missed. Johnson & Wales had to suspend their game vs Endicott friday night just 30 seconds into the 2nd period because the entire score board broke. No one was able to fix it in a timely manner so they decided to just call the game. No reschedule has been made official yet. I've heard of facilities breaking down before a game as it usually happens 1-2x a year across D3, but during the game I have never heard of.

Summary:
The race has narrowed, while it remains to see if the NCHA can keep their 3 bids (spoiler given recent trends its not likely) for now it seems likely the SUNYAC and the UCHC will be in an absolute dog fight for getting those at large bids. The CNE also hasn't ruled themselves out yet for receiving 3 bids like they did in 2023. Cortland is no longer 3rd in the SUNYAC and while Platty is probably everyones pick to replace them, keep an eye out on Canton as a dark horse. They've already upset Trine and have #8 Hamilton coming up to them on the 15th. If they win their next two games, they will most likely be ranked. Elmira is still the 3rd best team in the UCHC by the skin of their teeth with their only excuses being they played Hobart 2x this season and Canton is off to a hot start. St. John Fisher, Nazareth, Albertus Magnus, and Chatham are all comping at the bits so I think we have a good midfield shuffle in both conferences this year. I have also just realized that the next 2 weeks are 90% conference matchups so one of these wont be posted again until after black friday. I will include the upcoming St.Norbert UW-Steven Points game in that post, as well as any other notable non-conference results from the 4 conferences. As always, if you disagree feel free to tell us why, I'm opening to edit the post.