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| Jason Klump |
Also, Jason will be capturing video of the post-game press conferences he attends. Make sure to check them out on his YouTube Channel.
Brown's Maclellan signs NHL deal with Nashville
3/6/12
Jack Maclellan has signed a free-agent contract with the Nashville Predators of the NHL, says a source close to Brown hockey. Maclellan reportedly inked an two-way deal worth $630K per year in the NHL with a maximum signing bonus of $63K, and an AHL maximum option of $67.5K per year if he ends up with the Predator's affiliate, the Milwaukee Admirals. Because of his age, Maclellan's deal will be for two years under the entry level stipulations of the NHL's CBA.
Maclellan is in Nashville with the team, which lost 5-4 tonight to Los Angeles, and will remain with the club through the weekend as they finish the three-game home stand against Colorado Thursday and Detroit Saturday, says the source. The Predators are currently 5th overall in the NHL's Western Conference with 83 points through 66 games.
Maclellan finished his Brown hockey career with 46 goal and 55 assists for 101 career points. He becomes Brown's third major free-agent signee in as many years. In 2010, Aaron Volpatti signed a two-year deal with the Vancouver Canucks for $600K with a $100K signing bonus and $200K AHL option (Volpatti was old enough to not be limited to entry level maximums). Last year, Harry Zolnierczyk signed a $900K one-year entry level deal with the Philadelphia Flyers with a max $90K bonus and max AHL option. Both Volpatti and Zolnierczyk made it to the NHL in their first full professional season.
Who's "HOT," Who's "NOT"
1/27/12
ECAC Hockey has its moment in the national spotlight tonight with marquee rivalry matchups on two national networks, Yale at Harvard on NBC Sports Network (formerly Versus), and Colgate at Cornell on CBS Sports Network. It is kind of unfortunate that both of these televised games had to be on the same night, but in case you were wondering, CBSSN will be rebroadcasting the Cornell-Colgate game at 10:30pm (at least in my area, which isn't in New York, so I figure it's everywhere). So, everyone has a chance to catch both games as long as you are willing to stay up. What is unfortunate is that three of the four teams playing in these games are current residents in the "NOT" column if you were going to make an ECAC "Who's Hot, Who's Not" chart.
| Yale's Kenny Agostino |
Harvard is coming into the game on an even longer winless streak of eight contests. The Crimson have not won a game since returning from the Winter break, though it has not been a total loss as five of those games have been ties. Still, five points in eight games doesn't cut it and though a draw may get you points in the league standings, it's wins that get you respect. Seven of Harvard's eight ties this season, and five of their six in the ECAC, have come on the road, which makes it a little bit more easy to stomach for a Crimson fan. Their 2-2-7 road record may be really odd, but it's also pretty good. The problem is they have not been answering the bell at home, going 2-4-1 overall and 1-3-1 in the league. In fairness, the only league home game the Crimson have played since November was in difficult outdoor conditions at Fenway, so with three in a row coming at Bright, it's a chance for them to get back on track.
One of those recent road ties for Harvard came at Colgate last Friday. That is the only point the Raiders have earned in their last six games and last four in the league. No team was hurt more by the break than was Colgate. They were riding a six-game unbeaten streak (5-1-0) into it and have ridden a six-game winless streak (0-5-1) out of it. I had personally touted this Central New York home-and-home weekend as the focal point of the race for the Cleary Cup just a month ago, but that is sadly not the case anymore. Instead, it's looking more now that the Union-Cornell matchups next Saturday and on the last Friday of the season could decide first-place. A Raider sweep this weekend would still bring them within two points of Cornell with eight games to go, so it certainly is not over, but Colgate needs to find it's winning combination from the first half. They have gone from a team that rarely gave up more than three goals and often scored four or more to just the opposite, a team struggling to score three while getting monster numbers put up on them. Colgate has allowed 27 goals in the last 6 games to be exact, while scoring 13.
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| Colgate's Robbie Bourdon |
That much can be told just by looking at the stats, but without actually having watched the team over this recent stretch (I have not seen 'Gate since they tied Merrimack at home on December 10), it is hard to say what has lapsed on the defensive end. It would be easy to point the finger at Eric Mihalik in the goal, but like I said, I can't do that without having seen why the goals went in. Still, whether it's the goalie's fault or not, it's good for many reasons to get a change of pace in the net when a lot of goals are going in. Colgate did not have that option though for a few weeks as senior Alex Evin, who has posted stellar numbers in sporadic action this season, was unavailable to play with a sprained ACL. This may or may not have been known to opponents because Evin was still dressing for games, possibly as a decoy because third-stringer Steve Estep is not exactly game-worthy.
Though Mihalik rebounded last Friday in a 2-2 tie with Harvard after allowing 11 goals at Princeton and QU the weekend prior, Evin made his return last Saturday and allowed five goals in an OT loss to Dartmouth. No way of knowing if he was back to 100%, but that was the first time in seven starts this season that Evin allowed more than two goals. So, that leaves things a little up in the air for this weekend in the Raider net. Personally, I've been saying Evin should be the guy for awhile. His numbers are superior, he has more experience and from watching both guys, he just looks like a better goalie. I think he has more than earned the job and I never understood the Mihalik hype after his playoff run last season, but Coach Vaughan seems to like him for some reason. We will see.
That brings me to Cornell, who, in direct contrast to the three ECAC brethren they join on the national stage tonight, are at the top of the "HOT" list. The Big Red are unbeaten in their last seven (4-0-3), with five of those away from Lynah. They have lost just once at home all season, in the first game of the year back on October 29, and have not lost a single ECAC contest since November 5th, going 7-0-3 in the league since. So, Cornell is definitely sitting pretty in having quietly built themselves a decent ECAC lead of two points over 2nd-place Union with a game in hand and no one else really close. Not much else to say but the ECAC is theirs to win or lose. In fact, the "ECAC Who's Hot List" pretty much begins and ends with the Big Red.
Union certainly was on the HOT list until they stumbled against Brown, who has now beaten them in both meetings this season, last weekend on the road. They can get back on with a win over Clarkson, who is certainly warming up. After back-to-back wins against Yale and SLU, the Knights find themselves tied with Colgate for 3rd-place (based on winning percentage since points are meaningless when differing numbers of games have been played). So, if they can stay hot in the Capital District and Cornell takes care of business against Colgate, Clarkson could end the weekend in a battle with Union for 2nd-place going forward.
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| RPI's Marty O'Grady |
Finally, to round out this discussion of who is hot, warm, and cold in the ECAC, it is only fair to mention Princeton and RPI. It is rare in this league that a team is woefully awful for an entire campaign. Usually the parity in the ECAC gives rise more to ebbs and flows and everyone catches a little bit of fire eventually. It took Colgate until the last weekend of the regular season a year ago, but the Tigers and Engineers have apparently started to right their ships about a month earlier with both coming off impressive weekends. Hopefully, from here on out, it will actually be true when someone says that anyone can beat anyone else on any given night in the ECAC. Unfortunately for Princeton, they had to take two weeks off and three from league play, just as they were getting hot. But for RPI, it comes right on time for their rivalry games against the North Country.
It's Tourney Time!
12/29/11
Missing hockey, ECAC fans? I know I am. The games are back. Vacation is over.
I have put together an ambitious schedule for myself over the next five days, starting with tonight's international exhibition as Yale hosts the Russian Red Stars, whom they beat 5-3 a year ago tomorrow.
Yale was the only North American team to defeat the Red Stars last year as they beat Army and three lowly Canadian junior squads.
So far this year, the Reds were spanked by NoDak 5-1, but then spanked UVM 6-1 themselves yesterday. So, good test for Bulldogs and certainly a good warmup for the second half league slate, which begins for them with rival QU at home January 6th.
Thursday I will be at UConn where RPI faces a surging Lowell team in the afternoon opener of the Huskies' tournament before the hosts take on Army in the nightcap.
It's kind of ironic that RPI is playing in UConn's tourney this year for two reasons. First, RPI was unable to keep its own tourney for financial and competitive reasons, yet UConn's survives? In fairness, UConn plays an AHA league game in the first round, so it only has to draw in 2 teams. And it's athletic department is no doubt one of the richest among those with D1 hockey outside the Big Ten, so paying two schools to bus in from relatively close by is nothing to them. But why would RPI and UML not rather play a back-to-back at one of their home rinks and avoid an AHA game the second night? I'll be asking.
The second reason for irony is of course that RPI and UConn are top two candidates to become Hockey East's 12th member. No doubt discussions will go on behind the scenes there between those schools as each tries to gauge the interest of the other. We know now that UConn is at least being consulted on all possible options by Stafford Sports.
It would be cool if they could make the tournament winner take all. If either RPI or UConn wins, they get invited to Hockey East. If Lowell wins, they block both and Hockey East continues to wait for a more worthy program to come around. And if Army wins, well then, the ice opens up and swallows everyone and the world ends. Joking of course.
Continuing with my journey on Friday, when I will speed across the State of New Hampshire. After watching St. Lawrence become the third ECAC team in a row to face slumping Merrimack, and hopefully not being the first to lose, in the opener of the Ledyard Bank Classic at Dartmouth, it's off to Durham where UNH hosts Brown in a rematch of a stunning 5-5 tie from a year ago.
These are both very winnable games and would be the second win for an ECAC team against both opponents (Union beat MC and Harvard beat UNH), which would help the entire league in the PairWise and give the ECAC a winning record against Hockey East. Brown and SLU both ended the first half on a high note with wins over rivals Yale and Clarkson after suffering prolonged winless streaks, while MC and UNH both struggled to close the first semester.
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| Brown and Providence with the Mayor's Cup |
On to New Year's Eve, and back to Hanover for the consolation and championship, hopefully between SLU and Dartmouth, games of the LBC before returning home to Southeast New England for the Mayor's Cup between Brown and Providence on New Year's Day.
Dartmouth has underperformed its way to a .500 record over the first half, mostly due to defensive struggles. The focal point there is James Mello, who was the near unanimous favorite to be the top goaltender in the ECAC this season given the early departures of Allen York from RPI and Keith Kinkaid from Union, but right now he would be a complete afterthought in any discussion of Dryden Award front-runners. Mello allowed three or more goals in each of his six starts since Dartmouth's opening weekend in the Ivy Shootout.
The Big Green have only held the opposition under three goals when Jody O'Neill got a 3-1 victory at SLU November 18 and when Cab Morris beat Sacred Heart 4-1 this Sunday. Mello is now 14th overall in both goals against (2.99) and save percentage (.898) among ECAC goalies who have played at least one-third of their team's minutes in net, putting Bob Gaudet in a position of having to make a tough decision about who will be in goal when Dartmouth hosts the annual Ledyard Bank Tournament at the end of the month.
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| James Mello |
"When you're in there, you've got to be producing," said Mello. "I guess I'm not playing to the expectations that everybody had laid out. But we've got a different team this year and we're still trying to sort some things out. I feel like we've still got a lot of work to do in the neutral zone, and our defensive zone coverage too. We lost a lot of big names on the blue line so we're trying to fill those spots as best we can right now.
So, I will be watching Mello and the Dartmouth D-squad closely to see if they can turn things around. If they can, watch out because the offense has rarely been an issue for the Green.
Elsewhere in tourney action from far away lands, the Florida Classic looks pretty ho-hum this year. It will be a disappointment for Cornell if they don't win it as none of the teams there can match the Big Red's talent. Clarkson gets a rematch with Maine in the first round, whom they lost to 4-3 in Portland a month ago. Paul Karpowich is enough to make the difference up. I'm hoping for another all-ECAC final in Estero.
Princeton will represent the ECAC in the Mariucci Classic. The Tigers struggled mightily in the first half as they can't seem to find their identity yet under Bob Prier's more structured system. But they have shown their mettle on neutral ice west of the Mississippi already by beating "comeback team of the year" PC in Denver at Thanksgiving. If they can do the same to Northeastern this Friday on the big sheet, Princeton will almost certainly get a game with Minnesota, where anything they get is gravy.
Now, putting the meaning of winning a tournament championship aside, the real marquee matchups coming up are in three weekend sets (each of which is unfortunately just not in my travel budget this year, especially if I want to keep open the possibility of a trip to Tampa): Union at DU/CC, Harvard at NoDak, and QU at UNO. I know I want to see at least one sweep and four overall ECAC victories out of that. Best part is all three of those ECAC teams were playing very well when the break came. Now, they just have to keep it going. May not be such a down year after all if they do.
A Down Year, Smith for Hobey, and the Chris Wagner Suspension
12/14/11
The Colgate-Merrimack game was the biggest non-conference game of the ECAC Hockey season to date, one no one would have predicted in October to be so for many reasons, not the least of which is that it came two weeks after Cornell-BU, Yale-BC, and Union-Michigan.
Those first two games had been the biggest games for ECAC Hockey, but due to a combination of squandered opportunities and one costly early whistle for each, Yale and Cornell both lost. If either had won, we could have argued whether Colgate beating Merrimack would be a bigger deal, but neither did. And the biggest game has to be a win, of course.
Union did defeat Michigan by a healthy margin at Yost, but Michigan had only been a mediocre team and were already losers of three in a row at home. I would argue it was almost more impressive that Union tied Western Michigan twice at home in mid-October when that top-10 Bronco team looked in mid-season form already. As it turns out, since Colgate was only able to tie Merrimack, the Dutchmen still have the opportunity to notch the biggest ECAC win this Saturday when they play Merrimack at Lawler Arena.
Another factor that made the game between 'Gate and Merrimack unpredictable as a marquee matchup was that Colgate was representing the ECAC. Now, by the start of this season, long after a last-place 'Gate team had made a run to the ECAC semis after knocking off top-seeded Union last March and taken a team-building trip to Europe over the summer, it had become the popular thing to say among the media that "Colgate wasn't really a bad team and they are going to be a sleeper this year." Well, I like to say that a team isn't really a sleeper when they are everyone's sleeper pick, which is exactly what Colgate was. Still, no one expected them to be carrying the mantle for ECAC in mid-December. As I tweeted a week ago, if you had Colgate in first and RPI dead last as of mid-December, give me a call and I'll buy you a steak dinner.
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| Colgate bench boss Don Vaughan |
And even if one had foreseen the Raiders being the top objectively-rated (that is to say per the RPI, KRACH, and PWR) team in the ECAC at this point, they surely would have predicted its wins over Miami and Nebraska-Omaha early in the season to take precedence over a game against Merrimack, right? Not so. Though the Warriors were knocked off their undefeated pedastal the weekend before in a home-and-home sweep at the hands of Providence discounted the matchup slightly insofar as Colgate no longer had that chance to be the first to beat them, Merrimack was still the second highest objectively-rated team in the nation coming into Hamilton. Miami and UNO, on the other hand, have not played to expectations and are hovering around .500 records.
Since I'm talking a lot about objective rankings and matchups, in fairness I have to take a quick aside to talk about Quinnipiac's 4-3 win at Ohio State on October 8th. Objectively speaking, this was and now still is the biggest win of the season for any team in the ECAC because OSU is the top-ranked team in all the objective rankings. So, why would Colgate winning over Merrimack at home have been a bigger win? Two reasons: one win in a single game is much more decisive than splitting a two-game series and it is always easier to beat a team on the road the second night, which is exactly what QU did in Columbus after losing the opening game of the series. And although the objective rankings don't care whether you beat a team on the first or last day of the season, it is just common sense that it is harder and more telling to beat a good team when it is in mid-season form than it is on its first weekend of action.
It has been a down year overall for the league and Colgate entered the game as the top-ranked team in the ECAC in the RPI, KRACH, and PWR. Colgate was exactly 15th in the PWRECAC would have had exactly one team in the field. It wouldn't have been Yale as a #1 seed, Union as a #2, and RPI in there as a #4 as well like last season. It would have been Colgate or Cornell or whoever got hot and won the league tourney as a #4 seed against the second or third best team in the country and that's it. ECAC fans have come to understand where we stand in the hierarchy of college hockey at the moment, but that possibility is still far from what we are used to and would be tough to swallow. But in fairness, that's really all we deserve right now. The bottom line is that the league has underperformed in non-conference games.
In 14 games against the current top 16 teams in the PairWise, the ECAC is 1-10-3 (QU's win at OSU, Union's two ties with WMU, and now Colgate's tie against Merrimack the only positive results). Those are all obviously good teams and five of those losses belong to RPI but it still kills the league's other RPI. Against the remainder of the "Big Three," the ECAC is still just 9-10-2. So, the league has been bad against the good teams and mediocre against the mediocre teams.
Further, the ECAC is playing way more games against Atlantic Hockey and not doing as well. Last season, the league played 37 of its 104 non-con games against AHA teams and went 26-7-4. This season, the ECAC has already played 32 of just 67 non-con games against the AHA and already equaled the seven losses and four ties from a season ago. If you take out QU and Clarkson's combined 12-1-1 mark against the AHA (which is an example of how the ECAC should do against those teams, but is still WAY too many games for two teams to be playing against the AHA), the rest of the league is only 9-6-3 against its little bro. At the same time, the AHA's overall record against the other conferences is down as they are just 2-24-2 against the "Big Three."
Cornell lost to Mercyhurst. Colgate, despite some good wins, tied Army and lost to Niagara. Union, as I said, could not beat Western and also could not beat Niagara or a pretty weak UNH team. Yale played horrible games in losing to Sacred Heart and UMass. Clarkson is unvictorious in three games at Maine and both Alaska schools. SLU got pummelled by Ferris and Michigan early on. Dartmouth lost to lowly Vermont. Brown, who tied BU and UNH last year and has beaten Cornell, Yale, and Union this year, couldn't also beat Army, AIC, or Holy Cross for some reason. And RPI, who had a great chance to help the whole league against Ferris, Notre Dame, and CC, just couldn't beat anybody. I'm not saying the ECAC should have won all of these games, but even a few would have helped.
So, that's a lot of background for why this was a huge game at Starr Rink last Saturday, but now you get the idea. Colgate wanted to prove they were legit with the sparkle of their big early wins having lost their luster and, perhaps more importantly, the ECAC in general needed badly to prove its worth with a win.
The game itself did not disappoint. Both teams played excellent hockey and made very few mistakes. If you take the goalies out, Colgate was the better team. They had more and better chances and they controlled the last 40 minutes of the game and the overtime. But the goalie is part of the hockey team too and Joe Cannata was the difference between the tie and a Colgate win, making his save of the night on Corbin McPherson off a 3-on-1 in OT.
"I thought we had some great scoring chances down the stretch," said Colgate coach Don Vaughan after the game. "I thought we were going to win it in overtime. I mean we had the 3-on-1 and Corbin got all of that one and it was an unbelievable save. He was there before the shot."
[Click Here To Listen/Watch Jason's Interview With Coach Vaughan]
[Click Here To Listen/Watch Jason's Interview With Coach Vaughan]
"I'll give them credit," Austin Smith added. "They were a good team. They really take up ice. They're a big team and have a really good goaltender. We haven't played Cornell yet this year, but in years past that would be my comparison. They really clog up the middle and make you skate through it, which is not really our game. What are you going to say? They play their system well. It's kind of a boring game to play, but you gotta be ready to play whoever."
It's the only time I have seen Merrimack play but from talking to other people and just looking at their stats and results, I get the feeling Cannata regularly plays a big role for his team just as Smith does for Colgate.
* * *
In truth, Smith's having gone beyond a mere return to peak performance so far (18-10-28 in 17 games) after a regression his junior year (10-21-31 after 16-25-41 as sophomore) is probably what has been the difference between the Raider's having the status of "front-runner" as opposed to "sleeper."
Smith leads the nation with 1.65 points per game and with 18 goals, though he trails CC's Rylan Schwartz for the lead in goals per game by .02. He is second in the nation with a plus-15 rating, tied for first with five game-winners, and his five shorties are three more than anyone else in college hockey has and would be enough to lead the nation each of the last three full seasons.
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| Colgate's Austin Smith |
In conference games only, Smith has as many goals per game (1.38) as anyone else has points per game. Add in his assists, and Smith is scoring half a point more per game than anyone in league play. In Colgate's sweep of Clarkson and St. Lawrence the weekend before the Merrimack game, the Raiders scored 10 goals. Smith scored three of them, assisted on three more, and was on the ice though not part of the scoring for an additional two.
It's all this that makes Smith the ECAC's most legitimate Hobey candidate in probably the last 20 years. If he is not the outright front-runner, he certainly is among all eastern candidates. I just hope the rest of the country gets to hear enough about him and see enough video that he gets the proper attention and respect. Ice hockey is less of a priority at Colgate, already living in the large shadow of Cornell in Central NY, than at any other school in the ECAC. And of course, Smith also needs to keep up the pace, because nothing less will be good enough from an ECAC candidate. He says he can.
"Yeah, definitely. If we just keep creating chances, I could even get a couple more a night. There's been some nights I could have had three or four. I'm just trying to take it one game at a time. All our chances come from outworking and just our good chemistry as a team. If I'm in the running at the end of the year, it will be because our team is way up in the national rankings."
* * *
Now, guess who the league's second leading scorer is. He is also second among league players with a plus-12 overall. You might not know him because his team does not get a lot of attention (just look at the polls) and the attention it does get all goes to one guy: Austin Smith. That's right, it's Colgate sophomore Chris Wagner, who centers Smith's line.
Wagner is one of the best power forwards in the league, with a combination of skill and toughness that benefits Smith by both providing protection and drawing attention away as a legitimate threat. The two of them together are a shocking two goal per game combination through eight league games. It takes both halves of the league's next best scoring duo, Cornell power forward Brian Ferlin and defenseman Nick D'Agostino, just to equal Smith's goal production alone.
Smith and Wagner, who had played together sporadically during Wagner's freshman season a year ago as Colgate desperately searched for winning combinations, had skated side-by-side in each of the first 16 games this campaign with the aforementioned astonishing results. They were just hitting their stride as a lethal combo too in leading 'Gate to back-to-back league weekend sweeps and five wins in a row overall.
During the weekend against Clarkson and SLU when Smith was a part of six goals and on the ice for eight, Wagner was a part of five, scoring three himself. The reason Wagner was not on with Smith for more goals was that he received a game misconduct for a contact to the head major late in the second period Friday before Smith and Co. scored three goals in the third for the win against Clarkson.
Smith and Wagner would not have the opportunity to be on the ice together for the game against Merrimack.
On Wednesday, the ECAC league office issued a release saying it had suspended Wagner one additional game for his hit against Louke Oakley.He would sit in the biggest game of the league season, one that Smith himself fully understood the importance of. "Huge game for the PairWise Rankings tonight. Chance for Ecac hockey to get in the mix," he tweeted the day of the game. My sentiment exactly.
"It's interesting because we talk a little bit about that," added Vaughan of carrying the weight of the whole league. "When we play outside of conference, clearly it's all about us first. But, I think we take a little bit of that ECAC banner with us and we talked about that this week for sure."
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| Colgate's Chris Wagner |
No one used Wagner's absence as an excuse for not winning the game, but it certainly changed the way Colgate and Smith had to play. When two great teams play each other, you want both at full strength. With no Wagner, Merrimack was free to key solely on Smith when his line was out.
"I kind of thought my job tonight was more having to set it up than getting chances myself," Smith acknowledged after the game. "He creates a lot of ice for me, he's fast, strong, runs guys over to get to the puck," Smith said when asked what Wagner does for him. "He's the strongest guy on the ice all the time, so for me it's just about getting open and he finds a way to give me the puck. So, a pretty good duo. And we were clicking pretty good right before the suspension, so that was a little unfortunate."
This was the first use of supplemental discipline by the league this season. It must have been a pretty bad hit, right?
Cap Carey, who covers Clarkson for the Watertown Daily Times, was not at the game but was watching the live broadcast on Time Warner Sports and, in his trademark unbiased fashion, tweeted this at the time: "Oakley is hurt with 3:34 left after an elbow to head by Wagner. I like Don Vaughan a lot but I don't see how he can argue a major when a guy elbowed someone in center ice right in the head."
In reality, Oakley was never hurt. He did not miss a single shift according to those at the game I spoke to. One would think a solid elbow to the head would ring someone's bell a little more than that.
Of course, Carey made his true reason for disliking the hit known later when he tweeted, "I've said for a long time I don't see why hockey needs open ice hits." Well, despite what many ECAC refs might think and what some might want, there is no rule that makes an open ice hit a major penalty unto itself.
John McGraw, who calls the play-by-play for all things Colgate and was the only regular member of the ECAC media actually at the game, tweeted this the day after Wagner's hit: "Watched the Chris Wagner hit on Clarkson's Louke Oakley multiple times this morning on the DVR and I still don't see contact to the head. From what I can tell, it looks like Wagner catches him in the left shoulder and spins him around, the elbow doesn't appear either to be up. If anything, Wagner mistimed the hit and got there too soon. That said, not a good idea to try an open ice body check in the neutral zone when your team is already down one man and the game has been extremely chippy."
After the next night, when Wagner scored two goals and added two assists in his return against SLU to give Colgate the sweep, it all seemed a moot point.
Then, on Tuesday, Austin Smith himself broke news when he tweeted: "Lost my line-mate 4 the weekend? we need Shans to take a look, that hit wasn't that bad. Shame on #ECAC." He was of course referring to NHL Director of Player Safety Brendan Shanahan, who has revolutionized discipline in sports by presenting videos that explain the exact reasons for his decisions on a given play.
Kudos to Smith for having the courage to stand up for his teammate to the league. That's what real leaders do. I asked him after the Merrimack game to clarify his twitter comment. "I saw him coming back hard through the middle and I thought he was going to get him clean," he said. "There really wasn't much contact to the head. Really, more than anything, he missed him. I thought maybe two minutes for charging at best. I just thought it was kind of suspect and really absurd that the tossed him for this game after letting him play the next night. Especially because in that game I had two guys run at my knee and another hit from behind and none of them got a DQ. So, I was pretty fired up about that."
Smith's tweet came a full day before the league's official announcement and release the next afternoon, which came following what the league calls an appeal. According to a source close to the situation, Colgate learned Tuesday that the league had made the decision to suspend Wagner and an appeal was scheduled for Wednesday morning. As part of that appeal, Colgate presented the league with a tape of other hits which they felt were equally or more egregious and which of course had not received supplemental discipline. The appeal was then summarily denied and the press release issued.
The appeal in this case is made to the original adjudicators rather than to a neutral decision-maker. In the law, we call that a violation of due process. It makes the accused guilty until proven innocent because there is no public accountability placed on the accuser, who is simultaneously acting as judge and jury. What reason could the league office possibly have for offering no explanations for such rulings other than there being no good explanation? They merely refer to having done things "in accordance with procedure." Rubber stamps for whatever league executives decree are all such processes seem to amount to.
At this point, I had to see the hit for myself. The game had been on TV, but not where I live. So the best I have is a tiny video someone took of the replay on their own TV. I have watched it over 100 times at this point. The slow motion replay is definitely better than the live action in the beginning as far as getting a good close look at impact (33 seconds in is the money shot), even though Wagner and Oakley cut off the left side of the shot at an inopportune time. You have to watch the live action a few times before you get a feel for the whole play.
Feel free to disagree, but I just don't see any contact to the head at all. In fact, Wagner's body looks to have gone completely beyond Oakley's head at the point of contact. It looks as if Oakley had passed the puck off to the player on his left wing about a second earlier and Wagner came in way late and stuck his elbow out to get a piece of Oakley's upper left arm at the last second. As Smith said, Wagner probably intended to hit him cleanly as the puck carrier, but after Oakley dished it off, Wagner opted out of the direct hit and almost missed. If anything, Oakley was not expecting a hit at that point which is why he lost his footing and spun around.
It's definitely an interference and a charge. I would not even make a big deal out of the match penalty, though it should not have been for contact to the head. But tacking on another game? Overruling the on-ice officials for the first time? You better have a good explanation for that.
I emailed Assistant Commissioner Ed Krajewski, the league's media contact, to ask for clarification on the reason behind the suspension. Just so there is no confusion or speculation as to my tone, here is exactly what I wrote:
"Can the league offer any further explanation as to the aspects of the hit that led to the decision to suspend Wagner? I am wondering what in particular the league saw as the deciding factor and/or what rule this falls under. The call on the ice was for contact to the head. Upon my review, I did not see any head contact so I wanted to know if the suspension was a result of the lateness of the hit or some other aspect. I happen to feel that Oakley was in a particularly defenseless and unsuspecting position, so I would think that along with the lateness was the factor in question. So I don't necessarily disagree with the decision. But any clarification would be appreciated so I don't have to speculate."
Krajewski replied that, "After the appropriate steps and review of the hit the League office and Executive Committee came to its decision. The League is only releasing what we placed in the press release."
Feeling the need to press it further, I wrote back. "I hate to sound antagonistic, but I just wonder what the league has against greater transparency regarding this kind of thing. Especially given what the NHL is now doing. It would seem to make sense that if you want to prevent something from happening, it would make sense to say "this is what the problem is so don't do this."
The response was again brief. "Not a problem. Internally these type of issues are dealt with."
Vaughan provided the only glimpse into the league's reasoning. When asked if they had offered him some explanation to differentiate from the call on the ice of contact to the head, since there appeared to be none, he said no. They had continued to maintain that Wagner made head contact in the face of video evidence to the contrary. That probably sounds familiar to some RPI fans out there. Vaughan's issue, justifiably, was with this being the first supplemental discipline of the season given some of the other hits he had seen.
Reached on his cell phone, Clarkson coach Casey Jones said it was an unfortunate situation but very politely declined any comment on the play. It is not believed that Clarkson initiated the supplemental discipline process in any way, but I wanted to offer Jones his fair say.
So, the question remains, why was Chris Wagner targeted as the first and only player this season for supplemental discipline on the eve of such a game? Obviously, the league doesn't intentionally pick and choose which games to suspend players for. They wanted to set an example. But, for what? If you don't tell us, we can't know. How can players alter their actions on the ice if they don't know what it is they should not be doing? That's the precise point I believe Smith was trying to make with his tweet about Shanahan and the point I was trying to make with my email to the league. If this was the worst hit in the league so far this season or the one attempted with the most malicious intent, well then I don't know what sport I'm watching.
Right now, all this ruling should mean to anyone is that any open-ice hit that appears to be high impact anywhere near the head is fair game for suspension. And that is highly ambiguous and vague and doesn't help anything. I guess we will just have to wait for the next suspension and analyze the similarities before there is any clarification.
If you want to set an example that contact to the head won't be tolerated by suspending the first guy to get a major penalty for it, you better make sure there was contact to the head. And if you suspend someone an extra game for a play that was called on the ice as contact to the head when video shows there was no such contact, you sure better offer an alternate explanation. Especially when the suspension is for such a tremendously big game. I feel the ECAC league office clearly did neither of these things.
Like Smith said, it is highly inconvenient that the ECAC suspended Wagner for such an important game for the league after letting him play the night after the hit occurred. I am in no way saying that the commissioner or his associates wanted Colgate to lose to Merrimack, but suspending such an important player for such an important game is, for lack of a better word, a bone-head move of the highest order. What does the league want more, to take its sweet time before setting an example no one understands or to do things in a timely fashion and work to get more teams in the NCAA tournament?
If a hit is so bad that a player needs to be suspended, why does it take more than three days to review the tape and make a decision? The league knew Colgate has Merrimack as it's next game after SLU, right? If you want to suspend the guy then request video of the hit that night, stay up late, and figure it out. That way you send the message that such and such won't be tolerated and you still get the guy back for the important non-con matchup. If I was commissioner, I know that's what I would be thinking because if I was a league coach, that's the kind of person I want running my conference.
But this hit wasn't even that bad. Anyone who watches the tape can see that. No one was calling for Wagner's head. I didn't hear a single person say he should have been out the next night. No one has called him a vicious or dirty player as far as I know, even since he was suspended. Everything I have read has just reported the suspension verbatim from the press release without ever bothering to check the tape and follow up. That's exactly what the league seems to want even though that makes no sense to me.
And that's not how people act when they want to see the institutions they oversee improve. I think the league should want to show people the tape, explain precisely why they came to a conclusion, and answer questions about it until everyone, most importantly the players, understand. That is how legitimacy is fostered.
I fail to see how the teams in the league are willing to put up with a system that is so lacking in transparency. If it were me, I'd ask for more forward-thinking leadership. Until then, they can just wait for the next time a team, or the whole league, gets arbitrarily screwed over again.
