This season was a brutal disappointment. Here’s my lengthy, armchair assessment of the good and the bad.
Positives (in order of positiveness):
1. Ranking top 10 in shots and shots allowed suggests that Hasting’s system can produce winning hockey at WI.
Despite being woefully lacking in B10-level offensive talent, this team was able to generate a lot of potential offense (as measured by shots-on-goal). To me that suggests IF Hasting’s can recruit goal scorers, his system could put them in positions to score. I also think it’s impressive to be top 10 in shots-on-goal with a team that lacked forwards who could create their own offense. Imagine how many more shots on net they could generate if they had 2nd line players like Whitelaw, Mattie DSP, Strammel, etc. instead of Dyck, Tassy, Kuk, etc.
Hasting’s ability to produce a team that does not give up many shots on net, just two years into his reign, makes me hopeful for the future and suggests that even just a reasonable level of goaltending and goal scoring could be enough to win a lot of games.
2. The top line was productive.
I liked WI’s top line and, if I’m trying to be positive, I think each player reflects positively on the coaching staff’s ability to recruit/retain players in different ways.
Quinn is a high-end offensive talent that Hasting’s was able to retain (he didn’t leave in the portal last year) and develop (he is so much better this year than last year). That’s a good sign for the coaching staff.
As an aside – I’m surprised by some of the negativity towards Quinn on this forum. He’s the only player that consistently creates his own offense and can get the defense on their heels. In my opinion this team needs more players like Quinn and to lose him this offseason would be a huge loss. I did agree with the comment that he probably shouldn’t get a lot of ice time if we’re protecting a one goal lead in the 3rd, but this team already has plenty of players that can fill that role.
Ryland was an excellent pick-up from the portal. That’s a good sign the coaching staff can identify and land offensive talent in the portal.
Gavin was an excellent under-the-radar recruit. That’s a good sign the coaching staff can identify and land offensive talent the old-fashioned way - through recruiting.
3. Next year’s roster will have plenty of depth when it comes to 3rd and 4th line talent.
So this is going to come across as a back-handed compliment (because it is), but it’s still a compliment (kind a). I think this team, assuming everyone who can come back for next season does and NOT counting the incoming freshman, will have a strong 3rd and 4th line. I’d feel good about any combination of Kukkonen, Tassy, Dyck, Lindmark (he will find a way to get a 7th season
), Botterill, or Horbach on a 3rd line next year. And I’d be good with any of those skaters that don’t make the 3rd line, plus some combination of Scholl, Mehlenbacher, or Pietila to form a solid 4th line (I thought Dyck/Mehlenbacher/Pietila played excellent against Ohio State this past weekend).
The issue will be if those players (barring marked improvement; I think Botterill might have some 2nd line talent eventually) end up being regular 2nd line forwards and 2nd team PP members (with the exception of Tassy - I don’t mind him standing in front of the net on the 2nd PP).
4. I thought Kehrer played great pretty much all season. I think Hensler could be really good next year. I enjoyed watching Dexheimer with the puck on his stick.
5. They didn’t give up.
This should be a given, so I don’t really think of it as a positive, but I’ll give the team credit for not packing it in for the playoffs. I thought they’d get crushed and be done in two games, but they competed hard and should have won the series (I feel genuinely bad for Quinn).
Negatives:
1A. Goaltending.
Hasting’s first two years have been a rollercoaster when it comes to goaltending! Under Granato there was a lot of talk about needing a goaltending coach and then, when we finally get one, his first year is incredible. If there was an award for the best Goaltending Coach in college hockey, Murdock would have been in the running. He turned McClellan (who looked pretty bad the year before) into the best goalie in the nation and made Gramme look like a potential future starter. Unfortunately, that momentum did not continue into this year. You could argue that the handling of this year’s goalies was the worst in decades. For as much as Granato’s coaching staff seemed to damage the confidence of their starting goaltender, we never saw him ruin all three goaltenders on his roster (maybe that’s just because the third goalie never got to play). However, by the end of this year it was literally a coin flip if a shot on Gramme or Castro would go in. Scarfone was in that same boat, but redeemed himself (a little bit) in the playoffs.
I think Gramme probably had his transfer portal paperwork filled out by January.
I’m thinking Year 3 could indicate if Year 1 or Year 2 with a Goalie coach was the outlier.
1B. Lack of B10-level offensive talent.
This point has been made a hundred-times-over – this team did not have enough offensive talent to compete (offensively) in the B10. Beyond the first line, Fitzgerald seemed to be the only other (potentially) high-end offensive player and he just couldn’t pull things together this year. You could see flashes of the skill, but …
Not to rehash one of the main talking points on this forum from last offseason, but I think this season only amplified concerns that Hastings (who has a great resume and who I think was an excellent choice as head coach) has never demonstrated an ability to win in the current college landscape in the B10. More specifically, can he recruit the type of elite offensive talent that is needed to win consistently in the B10 given the type of talent on the rosters of most of the other B10 schools? Is the system he coaches the type of system that elite talent will want to play under or is it too rigid? Is their too much defensive accountability to attract future Caufields and Halloways? I think he can, but if he can’t, then I think we’ll end up with a lot of seasons that look like this past one.
2. Things got worse instead of better.
This is another point that everyone else has already made. This team started the season struggling to score goals and struggling with not-good-enough goaltending and this season ended with those same issues. There’s not much that happened in the last ¼ of the season that gets me excited for next season.
Let’s hope that they gain more than they lose in the portal and their incoming recruits exceed expectations.
