Wisconsin Hockey 25-26 Hastings Year 3 - Turning the Corner?

[solovsfett]

If they play EXTREMELY well, 3-3 with a Big 10 Tourney win is probably the top of the ceiling. I think that gets them a 10-15 seed the NCAAs. But don't know, speculation has gotten us nowhere. But, who knows really. I'm going to watch and hopefully they understand the cage they are in now.

I think it's though is night and day that they are MUCH better than under Granato from the fundamentals perspective (esp defense). But this might be the wall for Hastings in terms of you HAVE to have high end scorers and legit talent. Those are two things he never had really at Mankato, mostly because it wasn't even a possibility to attract those type of players. He had to do it with development and goalie play, and to be blunt, they weren't playing top 15 teams each weekend in conference play. Bigger fish in a little pond type situation in Mankato.

The further we get, the more it stings to have lost Stramel and Whitelaw, purely from a talent POV.

I agree on talent. They need more pure goal scorers. Losing Stramel is on the coaching staff. Nightingale isn’t a soft coach to play for so I wish I knew WHY Hastings and staff practically pushed Stramel out???

Whitelaw didn’t belong at UW. Dude has jumped more schools than Star Wars shows have jumped sharks!!!

But defense to me is atrocious. And it’s been that way for Most of Hasting’s time here. Even after allowing so many back door goals this season I saw numerous ND players all alone ready to tap it in if they received the pass.

And the goalies are allowing ridiculously soft goals. That HAS to be on the goalie coach. Even after Howie was pushed out UW still had a couple of guys that played well. This group has been bad all season. I can’t name a single game the oat 3 seasons where goaltending won them the game like Richter, CUJO, Carey, Elliott, Derksen, Daubenspeck and Valley did on several occasions.

 

[UW student and hockey fan]

This group has been bad all season. I can’t name a single game the oat 3 seasons where goaltending won them the game like Richter, CUJO, Carey, Elliott, Derksen, Daubenspeck and Valley did on several occasions.

Last two seasons sure, the goaltending has been pretty bad. And yeah, coaching may be an issue there. But McClellan in 23-24 was arguably the best goalie in the country.

 

[GoBucky18]

Because I needed to see the numbers myself:

Granato vs Hastings Each of First 3 Years to date (macro stats):

Record:	48-52-10	56-42-7	Average:
Save Percent:	.885/.884/.890	.928/.888/.884	.886 vs .900
Power Play:	21.5/18.8/16.7	19.7/22.1/29.4	19 vs 23.73
Penalty Kill:	84.5/79.7/74.3	87.2/81.8/72.5	79.5 vs 80.5
Goals/Given Up:	3.39/3.28, 3.11/3.35, 3.05/3.51	3.2/2.03, 2.92/2.97, 3.79/3.11	3.18/3.38 vs 3.3/2.70
Penalty Mins:	11.69/13.05/13.95	10.3/9.16/14.61	12.9 vs 11.35

Quick Takeaways:

Yes, goalie play is better, but the trend is bad.
Power Play is a plus, esp this year.
Penalty kill was outstanding the 1st year, and has been abysmal this year. Trend bad.
Goals and Goals given up: Scoring is about even. They both faced an inability to score goals, but Hastings D clearly gives up less than Granato's teams did. Scoring, I'd have to see some advanced metrics for scoring time/place/location to correct for things like Empty Net Goals, OT, etc. Giving up quality goals is one thing, it's the D breakdown or bad goaltending misses that are the real story there.
Penalty Mins: The fact that they have won this many games at 14.61 PIM/game is crazy. If they want to go 3-3 and have a shot, it's gotta be in the 10 or less arena. But, I also would consider correcting for penalties that mean nothing like end of game penalties and when there's scrums and it's all offsetting rubbish with only two guys actually serving a penalty.

Again, to me it's the scoring that matters the most. The teams that are a threat to hang 5+ credibly every night are going to be the best teams in the league and nation. It's just where the game is now.

Maybe I'll look at the top 2 finishers in the Big 10 and the top 4 seeds of the tourney over the last 5 years to see where we sit. I can tell you, it probably doesn't look pretty though.

 

[GoBucky18]

Nightingale isn’t a soft coach to play for so I wish I knew WHY Hastings and staff practically pushed Stramel out???

Agree 100%, I've had the opportunity to meet him a couple times and been around their program a couple times. MSU was in the desert, and Nightingale completely turned that program into a juggernaut. It's not like Munn is some cathedral or beautiful arena either. But, they renovated a TON for the players, don't have to worry about a women's team in the athletic dept, and he runs a freakin tight ship.

In my humble opinion, we need to be at that same level MSU is at. They RARELY have fundamental issues and are relatively clean in terms of how they play, and they don't beat themselves.