In general, this team has done exactly what it's needed to so far. You don't achieve a #1 regional ranking by accident. We're undefeated (Liberty D1 game doesn't count in rankings) with the #3 strength of schedule in the southeast region. We've also done a good (not great) job with goal differential, and need to continue to do so, since our strength of schedule will not come close to matching Liberty and Florida Gulf Coast. We have five top 10 wins (Delaware(2), Kentucky(2), Penn State), with an average goal differential (AGD) of 3.2 in those games. We've also benefited from teams like UNC (13) and UNCW (20) being ranked, and we'll still play games against Cincinnati (14), Liberty (2), Louisville (16), and Virginia Tech (12). It would help us if UNC and UNCW stayed put, but I don't think their schedules are strong enough to keep them there. I'll be happy to share the raw data on how these rankings are calculated once they're posted on the ACHA website.GuerrillaPack said:
Icepack1, what are your general thoughts on the strength/performance of the Icepack so far? -- such as whether they are playing to their potential and their chances once they get to nationals.
I know you've indicated that you are very confident they will win the ACCHL title again this year. I feel really good about that too...but there have also been a couple of relatively close ACCHL games so far, including the 2nd game against unc-ch that was tied 2-2 in the 3rd. And the UVA game looked relatively close for most of the way until pulling away in the 3rd period.
And is Riley Johnson back yet? Hope they can stay injury free and play their best hockey at the end of the season and make a big showing at the year end tournaments.
It's no secret that our biggest strength is our offense. Our power play is among the best in the country, and we get scoring from all four lines. That alone will make us a tough out for anyone. Eric Daniel has a emerged as a tremendous number 1 goalie, and Griffin Hunt and Isaac Tawyer are both very solid backups. Any of those guys can give us a chance to win. Then there's our defense. I won't lie - it's not great. For starters, we're extremely undersized and get pushed around a lot. Guys like Alex James, Victor Hugo, and Alex Robinson (moved to D this year) have played great, but they're all offensive defensemen. We have a tendency to get beat on breakaways and get trapped in our own zone, leading to turnovers. Our play in the defensive and neutral zones has been a point of emphasis for improvement, but we still have a lot of work to do. Teams like Florida Gulf Coast and UMary ate us alive last year because we couldn't clear the zone. We will get a boost with Philip Bailey (F) and Logan Todd (D) joining the team next semester. This will improve our depth and create some extra competition for lineup spots.
Regarding the ACCHL, nothing has really changed my opinions from a few weeks ago. It was a bad league then, and it's a bad league now. UVA is an awful team that just sat in their own zone and prayed the puck didn't go in their net. We had 65 shots, and on most days we probably get 10+ goals in that game. To that point, we need to do a better job of generating high danger changes and getting traffic in front of the net, but we have a tendency to play down to our ACCHL competition, and some of the effort plays just aren't there. UNC at least had a game plan, but we were also very sloppy all night. I will give UNC some credit - they're definitely a top half of the ACCHL team this year, and they've certainly improved over the last couple years. The problem is that they still can't actually generate any kind of offense against us. They've scored 5 goals against us this year, and every single one came off a bad turnover or weird bounce. We had a tough stretch of games in October, so I haven't been entirely surprised to see a bit of a drop off in play the last couple weeks. I'm fully confident that we'll be ready to go against Cincinnati and against UNC in a couple weeks. I don't think UNC is the 13th best team in the southeast region (they're certainly not better than Cincinnati), but that number will change the way we mentally prepare for that game, which is probably a good thing.
For Nationals, we'll give ourselves the best chance if we can snag an autobid and skip Regionals. We'll avoid the additional uncertainty of a couple extra games (i.e. Wake Forest in 2020) and we have a better chance to avoid the other top teams in group play. We're ranked #1 right now, so we have a good chance to make that happen if we keep winning. That said, every team we see at Nationals is going to be elite and well-coached. We'll have a speed advantage and a size disadvantage against most teams. We'll certainly need our power play to show up, our goaltending to be rock solid, and our defense to take care of the puck. Games like the one against Penn State are what we can expect. The two games against Liberty in January will be a great indicator of how well we can compete with these teams. There are probably 10 or so teams that could win it all, and I'd feel comfortable including us in that group. I think UMary is the favorite to repeat. They return most of last year's team, which bulldozed everyone. At least they don't get to play at home this year. I think if we can stay healthy and continue to improve, we certainly could be the last team standing.
