AnchorsAway
Registered User
Re: The New WCHA 3, Revenge of the Sieve (2013-14)
As others have said, it's a tough call to speculate on how the league will shakeout (although I must admit it is interesting), The CCHA teams will be used to lower scoring, grind it out games (only 3 teams in their conference topped 100 goals this season) while the WCHA teams will be more accustomed to higher scoring, offensive games (8 teams in their conference topped the 100 goal mark this season) with UAH as a bit of a wildcard since they had a varied schedule, so it will be interesting to see what style becomes the norm.
Here's the breakdown on LSSU going forward: The Lakers were a team that was average at best offensively, and they will lose 3 of their top 7 goal scorers and 34% of their offensive points to graduation or early departures to professional hockey (possibly more, as another underclassmen is rumored to have received some notable attention from the pros). They are bringing in a few promising freshman but on the whole this is team without much of an offensive identity. Barring many of the new faces hitting the ground running offensively, this is a team that will likely struggle to score goals for at least the first portion, if not the entire season.
Defensively, the Lakers return their entire defensive corps along with both of their goalies; LSSU wants to play a tight defensive style and has shown the ability to do so at times, as this past season they held opponents to 2 goals or less in 22 of their 39 games including 6 shutouts.
If Lake State can keep the hatches buttoned down on the defensive end and have some players step up and score goals with come consistency, they have the ability to land in the top 3 of the nWCHA at season's end. On the flip side if the Lakers don't play to their MO defensive style and their offensive plays like a ship without a rudder and the team falls prey to its recent pattern of collapsing in the second half of the season they could just as easily finish in the bottom 3. In summation, their is a lot of unknowns when it comes to forecasting a new league with members coming from different corners of college hockey and that makes for a lot guessing and if, maybes, could be's and the 2013-2014 Lake Superior State University Lakers are shaping up to be a microcosm of that.
As others have said, it's a tough call to speculate on how the league will shakeout (although I must admit it is interesting), The CCHA teams will be used to lower scoring, grind it out games (only 3 teams in their conference topped 100 goals this season) while the WCHA teams will be more accustomed to higher scoring, offensive games (8 teams in their conference topped the 100 goal mark this season) with UAH as a bit of a wildcard since they had a varied schedule, so it will be interesting to see what style becomes the norm.
Here's the breakdown on LSSU going forward: The Lakers were a team that was average at best offensively, and they will lose 3 of their top 7 goal scorers and 34% of their offensive points to graduation or early departures to professional hockey (possibly more, as another underclassmen is rumored to have received some notable attention from the pros). They are bringing in a few promising freshman but on the whole this is team without much of an offensive identity. Barring many of the new faces hitting the ground running offensively, this is a team that will likely struggle to score goals for at least the first portion, if not the entire season.
Defensively, the Lakers return their entire defensive corps along with both of their goalies; LSSU wants to play a tight defensive style and has shown the ability to do so at times, as this past season they held opponents to 2 goals or less in 22 of their 39 games including 6 shutouts.
If Lake State can keep the hatches buttoned down on the defensive end and have some players step up and score goals with come consistency, they have the ability to land in the top 3 of the nWCHA at season's end. On the flip side if the Lakers don't play to their MO defensive style and their offensive plays like a ship without a rudder and the team falls prey to its recent pattern of collapsing in the second half of the season they could just as easily finish in the bottom 3. In summation, their is a lot of unknowns when it comes to forecasting a new league with members coming from different corners of college hockey and that makes for a lot guessing and if, maybes, could be's and the 2013-2014 Lake Superior State University Lakers are shaping up to be a microcosm of that.
