After the conclusion of both teams' end-of-season banquets, we have the final tally of awards and honors for the Engineers this season:
Chase Polacek
First Team ACHA All-American (East)
Hobey Baker Award Finalist
ECAC Player of the Year
ECAC Media Player of the Year
First Team All-ECAC
ECAC Media First Team All-ECAC
Second Team CHN All-American
Second Team USCHO All-American
Second Team INCH All-American
Two-time ECAC Player of the Week
ECAC Points Champion
ECAC Power Play Points Tri-Champion
ECAC Shorthanded Points Champion
Team Most Valuable Player
Jerry D'Amigo
World Junior Championships Gold Medalist
ECAC Rookie of the Year
ECAC All-Rookie Team
ECAC Media All-Rookie Team
INCH Freshman All-American
National Rookie of the Year Finalist
Team Rookie of the Year
Brandon Pirri
ECAC Media Rookie of the Year
ECAC All-Rookie Team
ECAC Media All-Rookie Team
Two-time ECAC Rookie of the Week
ECAC Assists Champion
ECAC Power Play Points Tri-Champion
ECAC Rookie Points Champion
Allen York
Second Team All-ECAC
ECAC Media Second Team All-ECAC
Ken Dryden Award Finalist
ECAC Goaltender of the Week (1/11/10)
Marty O'Grady
ECAC Rookie of the Week (1/11/10)
Paul Kerins
Team Most Improved Player
Team Most Inspirational Player
Erik Burgdoerfer
Team Best Defensive Player
Mark Zarbo
Team Scholar-Athlete Award
Garett Vassel
Team Community Service Award
Laura Gersten
Patty Kazmaier Award Nominee
ECAC Student-Athlete of the Year
Third Team All-ECAC
ECAC All-Star
Bill Cahill Memorial Award
Robert Conway Scholar-Athlete Award
Game-winning goal in the longest women's ice hockey game in NCAA history
Sonja van der Bliek
Patty Kazmaier Award Nominee
ECAC All-Star
Two-time ECAC Goaltender of the Week
Allison Wright
ECAC Best Defensive Forward Finalist
Frozen Four Skills Challenge Alternate
Team Most Valuable Player
Bill Cahill Memorial Award
Whitney Naslund
ECAC All-Star
ECAC Player of the Week (11/30/09)
Kristen Jakubowski
Team Most Improved Player
Taylor Horton
Team Rookie of the Year
Allysen Weidner
Willie Stanton Award
John Burke
ECAC Coach of the Year Finalist
ECAC All-Star Team Assistant Coach
Showing posts with label awards. Show all posts
Showing posts with label awards. Show all posts
Friday, April 23, 2010
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
National Awards: The Last Pontification, Maybe
With our 5-for-6 record in the ECAC awards, we thought it was time to tackle the three major national awards - the Hobey, which is the Player of the Year award, the Penrose, which is the Coach of the Year award, and the National Rookie of the Year award, which we feel confident that we should not have to fully explain to you.
The nominees are...
Hobey Baker Award
F Bobby Butler, sr., New Hampshire
G Marc Cheverie, jr., Denver
F Blake Geoffrion, sr., Wisconsin
F Gustav Nyquist, so., Maine
F Mark Olver, jr., Northern Michigan
F Chase Polacek, jr., RPI
F Rhett Rakhshani, sr., Denver
G Cody Reichard, so., Miami
G Ben Scrivens, sr., Cornell
D Brendan Smith, jr.,Wisconsin
Most of these names should look familiar from our earlier Hobey primers. The only ones we haven't really mentioned are Olver, Reichard, and Scrivens. Olver and Reichard are both out of the CCHA and are solid selections - you already know Scrivens is a solid selection even if some of his success derives from the Cornell system.
At this point, it's not really about picking a winner as much as it is figuring out who the three finalists will be. We've already told you that Polacek's status as a top 10 finalist is about as much as we could hope for. The team's disastrous playoff showing meant he couldn't continue to grow his numbers as long as some of the other candidates.
We'll take a forward, a goaltender, and a defenseman here. Obviously, that means Smith, who's been a huge part of Wisconsin's success this season. The goaltender debate really boils down to Cheverie and Scrivens, and although he had a rough weekend last week in St. Paul, Denver is where they are today because of him, more so than Cornell or Miami with their goaltenders. The final choice is probably between Gustav Nyquist and Bobby Butler - we'll take Butler's more solid scoring numbers and his playing a bigger part in his team's greater success.
Spencer Penrose Award
Red Berenson, Michigan (1)
Enrico Blasi, Miami (1)
Danton Cole, Alabama-Huntsville
Mark Dennehy, Merrimack
George Gwozdecky, Denver (2)
Dave Hakstol, North Dakota
Nate Leaman, Union
C.J. Marottolo, Sacred Heart
Mike Schafer, Cornell
Tom Serratore, Bemidji State
Dick Umile, New Hampshire (1)
Wayne Wilson, RIT
Jerry York, Boston College (1)
Wow! What a list! Why so many? Simple - because the Penrose Award nominees every year are the coaches who either won their league's coach of the year award, or who coached their team to the tournament championship. This year, none of the six coaches of the year went on to win a league title (although Leaman and Marottolo had their teams playing for one), and on top of all that, Umile (1999's Penrose winner) and Dennehy split the Hockey East coach of the year award.
The national coach of the year practically always comes from a team playing in the NCAA Tournament, that leaves out Dennehy, Leaman, and Marottolo. Berenson (2008) helmed a very up and down Michigan team that is only in the tournament thanks to a scalding hot finish and their CCHA title. Cole's squad needed just a pair of wins to earn their bid, neither coming against the beast of the CHA, Bemidji State.
The favorites here are probably Serratore, whose Beavers made the tournament as a #2 seed with an at-large bid despite coming out of the CHA, York, whose only Penrose nod came in 1977 when he was at Clarkson, and Schafer, who seems to always be in the mix but has never won one himself.
National Rookie of the Year
F Stephane Da Costa, Merrimack
F Jerry D'Amigo, RPI
F Jordan George, Bemidji State
F Danny Kristo, North Dakota
D Chris Tanev, RIT
F Andy Taranto, Alaska
Given that none of the past three National Rookies of the Year failed to win their league's award, we can safely assume that these six players are the nominees (although we'd be hard-pressed not to mention Brandon Pirri, who still probably should have won the ECAC award).
We can definitively pick a winner here after welching out on the last two. Stephane Da Costa, more than any of the other winners, made his team a contender for his presence. The Warriors very nearly upset the defending national champions to earn their first ever trip to the TD Garden for the Hockey East semifinals, and if it weren't for Da Costa, they almost certainly would have been in their usual position of missing the playoffs. D'Amigo, George, and Taranto certainly made solid and important contributions to their teams - in the latter two instances, to the tune of NCAA Tournament appearances, boosting their odds - but in those cases they were merely important pieces of the puzzle. Da Costa took his team on his back. He's the deserving choice.
The nominees are...
Hobey Baker Award
F Bobby Butler, sr., New Hampshire
G Marc Cheverie, jr., Denver
F Blake Geoffrion, sr., Wisconsin
F Gustav Nyquist, so., Maine
F Mark Olver, jr., Northern Michigan
F Chase Polacek, jr., RPI
F Rhett Rakhshani, sr., Denver
G Cody Reichard, so., Miami
G Ben Scrivens, sr., Cornell
D Brendan Smith, jr.,Wisconsin
Most of these names should look familiar from our earlier Hobey primers. The only ones we haven't really mentioned are Olver, Reichard, and Scrivens. Olver and Reichard are both out of the CCHA and are solid selections - you already know Scrivens is a solid selection even if some of his success derives from the Cornell system.
At this point, it's not really about picking a winner as much as it is figuring out who the three finalists will be. We've already told you that Polacek's status as a top 10 finalist is about as much as we could hope for. The team's disastrous playoff showing meant he couldn't continue to grow his numbers as long as some of the other candidates.
We'll take a forward, a goaltender, and a defenseman here. Obviously, that means Smith, who's been a huge part of Wisconsin's success this season. The goaltender debate really boils down to Cheverie and Scrivens, and although he had a rough weekend last week in St. Paul, Denver is where they are today because of him, more so than Cornell or Miami with their goaltenders. The final choice is probably between Gustav Nyquist and Bobby Butler - we'll take Butler's more solid scoring numbers and his playing a bigger part in his team's greater success.
Spencer Penrose Award
Red Berenson, Michigan (1)
Enrico Blasi, Miami (1)
Danton Cole, Alabama-Huntsville
Mark Dennehy, Merrimack
George Gwozdecky, Denver (2)
Dave Hakstol, North Dakota
Nate Leaman, Union
C.J. Marottolo, Sacred Heart
Mike Schafer, Cornell
Tom Serratore, Bemidji State
Dick Umile, New Hampshire (1)
Wayne Wilson, RIT
Jerry York, Boston College (1)
Wow! What a list! Why so many? Simple - because the Penrose Award nominees every year are the coaches who either won their league's coach of the year award, or who coached their team to the tournament championship. This year, none of the six coaches of the year went on to win a league title (although Leaman and Marottolo had their teams playing for one), and on top of all that, Umile (1999's Penrose winner) and Dennehy split the Hockey East coach of the year award.
The national coach of the year practically always comes from a team playing in the NCAA Tournament, that leaves out Dennehy, Leaman, and Marottolo. Berenson (2008) helmed a very up and down Michigan team that is only in the tournament thanks to a scalding hot finish and their CCHA title. Cole's squad needed just a pair of wins to earn their bid, neither coming against the beast of the CHA, Bemidji State.
The favorites here are probably Serratore, whose Beavers made the tournament as a #2 seed with an at-large bid despite coming out of the CHA, York, whose only Penrose nod came in 1977 when he was at Clarkson, and Schafer, who seems to always be in the mix but has never won one himself.
National Rookie of the Year
F Stephane Da Costa, Merrimack
F Jerry D'Amigo, RPI
F Jordan George, Bemidji State
F Danny Kristo, North Dakota
D Chris Tanev, RIT
F Andy Taranto, Alaska
Given that none of the past three National Rookies of the Year failed to win their league's award, we can safely assume that these six players are the nominees (although we'd be hard-pressed not to mention Brandon Pirri, who still probably should have won the ECAC award).
We can definitively pick a winner here after welching out on the last two. Stephane Da Costa, more than any of the other winners, made his team a contender for his presence. The Warriors very nearly upset the defending national champions to earn their first ever trip to the TD Garden for the Hockey East semifinals, and if it weren't for Da Costa, they almost certainly would have been in their usual position of missing the playoffs. D'Amigo, George, and Taranto certainly made solid and important contributions to their teams - in the latter two instances, to the tune of NCAA Tournament appearances, boosting their odds - but in those cases they were merely important pieces of the puzzle. Da Costa took his team on his back. He's the deserving choice.
Monday, March 15, 2010
ECAC Awards: The Final Say
All of the categories for the various ECAC awards now officially have their finalists. Let's break down the list and see what we've got.
Player of the Year
F Sean Backman, sr., Yale
F Chase Polacek, jr., RPI
G Ben Scrivens, sr., Cornell
Color us surprised by two of the three nominees. Not as surprised by Scrivens, who was head and shoulders proven to be the top goaltender in the league by the end, but we just can't understand why it is that Sean Backman is getting so much of the praise on a Yale team whose best player, in our not so humble opinion, is Broc Little. We thought Backman stole a spot on the All-ECAC first team from Union's Mario-Valery Trabucco, and now he's stealing Little's spot as a POTY finalist. The fact that he selfishly ended his own season (and likely sunk his team this past weekend by being absent) in a foolish off-ice stunt doesn't even play into it here - he's an outstanding player, but he's just not on this level.
Given that these awards are based on regular-season play alone, we don't think we're being homers by going with Chase Polacek here. While RPI's dismal post-season fortunes may cost him a seat in the Hobey Baker Top 10 (we certainly hope not, those are announced this week), Polacek was a league leader in so many categories that it's hard to say that he wasn't the all-around best player in the league, especially when he's not being compared to Little.
Ken Dryden Award
Keith Kincaid, fr., Union
Ben Scrivens, sr., Cornell
Allen York, so., RPI
Really, really, really cut and dried here. Since the Dryden Award's inception, the All-ECAC First Team goaltender has won it every single season. Why wouldn't he? It wouldn't make any sense any other way. Not surprisingly, the two other finalists are the Second and Third All-ECAC team goaltenders.
Announcing finalists for this award is loopy. It's Scrivens.
Rookie of the Year
F Jerry D'Amigo, RPI
G Keith Kincaid, Union
F Louis Leblanc, Harvard
Uh, missing someone here? Equally as head-scratching as Backman's inclusion for POTY over Little is Jerry D'Amigo's inclusion for ROTY over Brandon Pirri. We have to assume that this is partially what we've been saying all along - when it comes to Pirri vs. D'Amigo, there's no question at all that D'Amigo is the rockstar of the two, and here it is again.
If Pirri had been one of the nominees, it would have been tough to go against him. With D'Amigo, we think this is more wide open. Kincaid, if a list such as this was going to be lacking one of the two RPI forwards, was the obvious third choice, as we've been a fan of having Leblanc in this discussion since the beginning.
Without Pirri, it's definitely harder to pick. One could say that Leblanc's goal scoring outburst would make him the front-runner. Others could say that Kincaid played the lion's share of the time in net for a team that earned a first round bye. If D'Amigo's exploits in Saskatoon earned him the nod over Pirri (which isn't supposed to happen, but it's by and large what made him a rockstar in the first place), maybe he's the one that gets the award practically on behalf of the stellar freshman class that rebounded the Engineers.
This one's so close, we're going to just go ahead and be unabashed homers and pick D'Amigo. If he didn't win it, though, he would just be the latest in a long line of Engineer freshmen to have gotten the shaft when it comes to ROTY - Joe Juneau, Matt Murley, Nathan Marsters, and Kevin Croxton all immediately spring to mind (and to a lesser extent, Marc Cavosie, but he was certainly overshadowed his freshman year). Pirri's already joined that group, too. No RPI freshman has won the ROTY award since George Servinis in 1983.
Best Defensive Defenseman
Derek Keller, sr., St. Lawrence
Justin Krueger, sr., Cornell
Mike Schreiber, sr., Union
Finally, one they might have actually gotten right all the way down the middle. Each of these candidates is very deserving, and the front runner is almost certainly Schreiber, who led the league in plus/minus with +23 (that's averaging just over +1 per game).
Keller and Schreiber both were among league leaders in defenseman scoring (not really what you're shooting for with a "defensive defenseman" award), while Krueger's style of play is better compared to RPI's Jeff Foss - defense first, but pitching in with the right pass or a well timed shot occasionally.
Schreiber seems like the sensible pick here, although if you want to discount scoring against a plus/minus count, Krueger might be a good choice, too.
Best Defensive Forward
Joe Scali, sr., Cornell
Travis Vermeulen, sr., St. Lawrence
Aaron Volpatti, sr., Brown
What this really is, it seems, is an award for the league's best penalty killers, and it's a halfway decent trio, although Volpatti finds himself in the box so frequently that it's a wonder he got any time at all to display his penalty kill ability.
Having seen only Vermeulen and Volpatti play, it seems that Vermeulen is definitely the better defensive forward of the two. Aside from his general lack of goon tactics, Vermeulen plays the puck smartly and has been a very, very valuable two way asset for the Saints this season, nearly leading them to the bye, leading the team in scoring and then hustling back on defense.
We're sure Scali is an excellent selection, forwards playing defense has long been a staple of the Cornell system and Big Red forwards have won this award a number of times in the recent years, most recently with Tyler Mugford last season. We just haven't seen him play. He may well be better than Vermeulen, but we're going to go with what we know and take Vermeulen for this one.
Tim Taylor Award
Keith Allain, Yale
Nate Leaman, Union
Joe Marsh, St. Lawrence
Don Vaughan, Colgate
Yup, the RPI curse rolls on in the Coach of the Year category. While we didn't think this was going to be Seth Appert's year, we didn't expect to find him outside of the top three, and we definitely didn't expect to see him outside of a field of four.
We're going with Leaman. The man's basically on the verge of finishing the task of cleaning the Augean stables in Schenectady. The team surpassed all expectations this season and although this doesn't count for the award necessarily, they're in the semifinals for the first time in almost 20 years of trying. We don't care who else is nominated, the man's a magician doing that with the only team in the league that doesn't offer either athletic scholarships or the Ivy League brand.
Allain? Last year he was a deserving winner. This year, Yale was supposed to come out on top, and they did - in the last weekend of the season. If the Bulldogs had blown the league away from start to finish, we might have considered him a worthy candidate.
Vaughan and Marsh, both past winners, come up just short to the job Leaman has done. Both teams finished better than expected, but Colgate's record against decent teams was atrocious, and St. Lawrence came up short in the dying weeks to end up in 5th. Leaman had his team playing solidly all season long. Advantage to the Dutch.
Player of the Year
F Sean Backman, sr., Yale
F Chase Polacek, jr., RPI
G Ben Scrivens, sr., Cornell
Color us surprised by two of the three nominees. Not as surprised by Scrivens, who was head and shoulders proven to be the top goaltender in the league by the end, but we just can't understand why it is that Sean Backman is getting so much of the praise on a Yale team whose best player, in our not so humble opinion, is Broc Little. We thought Backman stole a spot on the All-ECAC first team from Union's Mario-Valery Trabucco, and now he's stealing Little's spot as a POTY finalist. The fact that he selfishly ended his own season (and likely sunk his team this past weekend by being absent) in a foolish off-ice stunt doesn't even play into it here - he's an outstanding player, but he's just not on this level.
Given that these awards are based on regular-season play alone, we don't think we're being homers by going with Chase Polacek here. While RPI's dismal post-season fortunes may cost him a seat in the Hobey Baker Top 10 (we certainly hope not, those are announced this week), Polacek was a league leader in so many categories that it's hard to say that he wasn't the all-around best player in the league, especially when he's not being compared to Little.
Ken Dryden Award
Keith Kincaid, fr., Union
Ben Scrivens, sr., Cornell
Allen York, so., RPI
Really, really, really cut and dried here. Since the Dryden Award's inception, the All-ECAC First Team goaltender has won it every single season. Why wouldn't he? It wouldn't make any sense any other way. Not surprisingly, the two other finalists are the Second and Third All-ECAC team goaltenders.
Announcing finalists for this award is loopy. It's Scrivens.
Rookie of the Year
F Jerry D'Amigo, RPI
G Keith Kincaid, Union
F Louis Leblanc, Harvard
Uh, missing someone here? Equally as head-scratching as Backman's inclusion for POTY over Little is Jerry D'Amigo's inclusion for ROTY over Brandon Pirri. We have to assume that this is partially what we've been saying all along - when it comes to Pirri vs. D'Amigo, there's no question at all that D'Amigo is the rockstar of the two, and here it is again.
If Pirri had been one of the nominees, it would have been tough to go against him. With D'Amigo, we think this is more wide open. Kincaid, if a list such as this was going to be lacking one of the two RPI forwards, was the obvious third choice, as we've been a fan of having Leblanc in this discussion since the beginning.
Without Pirri, it's definitely harder to pick. One could say that Leblanc's goal scoring outburst would make him the front-runner. Others could say that Kincaid played the lion's share of the time in net for a team that earned a first round bye. If D'Amigo's exploits in Saskatoon earned him the nod over Pirri (which isn't supposed to happen, but it's by and large what made him a rockstar in the first place), maybe he's the one that gets the award practically on behalf of the stellar freshman class that rebounded the Engineers.
This one's so close, we're going to just go ahead and be unabashed homers and pick D'Amigo. If he didn't win it, though, he would just be the latest in a long line of Engineer freshmen to have gotten the shaft when it comes to ROTY - Joe Juneau, Matt Murley, Nathan Marsters, and Kevin Croxton all immediately spring to mind (and to a lesser extent, Marc Cavosie, but he was certainly overshadowed his freshman year). Pirri's already joined that group, too. No RPI freshman has won the ROTY award since George Servinis in 1983.
Best Defensive Defenseman
Derek Keller, sr., St. Lawrence
Justin Krueger, sr., Cornell
Mike Schreiber, sr., Union
Finally, one they might have actually gotten right all the way down the middle. Each of these candidates is very deserving, and the front runner is almost certainly Schreiber, who led the league in plus/minus with +23 (that's averaging just over +1 per game).
Keller and Schreiber both were among league leaders in defenseman scoring (not really what you're shooting for with a "defensive defenseman" award), while Krueger's style of play is better compared to RPI's Jeff Foss - defense first, but pitching in with the right pass or a well timed shot occasionally.
Schreiber seems like the sensible pick here, although if you want to discount scoring against a plus/minus count, Krueger might be a good choice, too.
Best Defensive Forward
Joe Scali, sr., Cornell
Travis Vermeulen, sr., St. Lawrence
Aaron Volpatti, sr., Brown
What this really is, it seems, is an award for the league's best penalty killers, and it's a halfway decent trio, although Volpatti finds himself in the box so frequently that it's a wonder he got any time at all to display his penalty kill ability.
Having seen only Vermeulen and Volpatti play, it seems that Vermeulen is definitely the better defensive forward of the two. Aside from his general lack of goon tactics, Vermeulen plays the puck smartly and has been a very, very valuable two way asset for the Saints this season, nearly leading them to the bye, leading the team in scoring and then hustling back on defense.
We're sure Scali is an excellent selection, forwards playing defense has long been a staple of the Cornell system and Big Red forwards have won this award a number of times in the recent years, most recently with Tyler Mugford last season. We just haven't seen him play. He may well be better than Vermeulen, but we're going to go with what we know and take Vermeulen for this one.
Tim Taylor Award
Keith Allain, Yale
Nate Leaman, Union
Joe Marsh, St. Lawrence
Don Vaughan, Colgate
Yup, the RPI curse rolls on in the Coach of the Year category. While we didn't think this was going to be Seth Appert's year, we didn't expect to find him outside of the top three, and we definitely didn't expect to see him outside of a field of four.
We're going with Leaman. The man's basically on the verge of finishing the task of cleaning the Augean stables in Schenectady. The team surpassed all expectations this season and although this doesn't count for the award necessarily, they're in the semifinals for the first time in almost 20 years of trying. We don't care who else is nominated, the man's a magician doing that with the only team in the league that doesn't offer either athletic scholarships or the Ivy League brand.
Allain? Last year he was a deserving winner. This year, Yale was supposed to come out on top, and they did - in the last weekend of the season. If the Bulldogs had blown the league away from start to finish, we might have considered him a worthy candidate.
Vaughan and Marsh, both past winners, come up just short to the job Leaman has done. Both teams finished better than expected, but Colgate's record against decent teams was atrocious, and St. Lawrence came up short in the dying weeks to end up in 5th. Leaman had his team playing solidly all season long. Advantage to the Dutch.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
ECAC Awards: A Not So Early Look at Contenders
With just three weekends left in the regular season, it's no longer too early to start pontificating about the yearly ECAC awards. While there's still plenty of time for the likely candidates to gain separation from each other, these are the candidates that we see as most likely to be among the favorites.
Player of the Year
Last RPI winner: Marc Cavosie, 2002
Last year: Zane Kalemba, Princeton
F David McIntyre, sr, Colgate
F Blake Gallagher, sr, Cornell
F Chase Polacek, jr, RPI
G Kain Tisi, sr, St. Lawrence
F Mario Valery-Trabucco, sr, Union
F Broc Little, jr, Yale
Always the most anticipated of the year's awards, the Player of the Year can be interpreted as the league MVP, and among the best six teams in the ECAC, there are fairly clear cut arguments for each of these guys as, at the very least, the MVP of their respective teams.
McIntyre is tied for fifth in the league in scoring with 8 goals and 11 assists. He plays on one of the most potent lines in the ECAC (alongside sophomore Austin Smith and junior Brian Day), and is the only listed candidate who was a consensus preseason All-ECAC selection.
Gallagher has 11 goals and 12 assists as the top scorer for league leading Cornell. He is part of a formidable one-two punch alongside fellow senior Colin Greening and has proven to be nothing short of deadly on the power play - 8 of his 11 league goals have come on the man advantage, by far the league leader in that statistic.
Polacek has scored in bunches all season long, leading the ECAC with 16 assists, 26 points, 13 power play points, and 5 shorthanded points. His 41 total points have him one point off the national lead in scoring.
Tisi has been the most important player for the Saints this season, establishing himself as the clear top goaltender on the team for the first time in his four years as the anchor of the 3rd rated defense in the ECAC. His 1.86 GAA and .934 save percentage are the best numbers put up in Canton since Eric Heffler and Derek Gustafson.
Valery-Trabucco leads the ECAC with 14 goals and is 2nd in scoring with 25 points. Along with linemate Jason Walters, he is on pace to finish his career in Schenectady among the top 10 point scorers in Union history.
Little, a Third Team All-ECAC selection last year, leads Yale's top rated offense in scoring with 13 goals and 6 assists despite the return of three other All-ECAC teammates from last season.
There have only been two forwards in the last six seasons to win Player of the Year - St. Lawrence's T.J. Trevelyan in 2006 and Princeton's Lee Jubinville in 2008. In both cases, the forwards in question topped the league in scoring. That would seem to put Polacek and Valery-Trabucco in the driver's seat. The recent goaltenders who have won - Yann Danis, David McKee, and Kalemba - led the league in GAA and save percentage. That would point toward Tisi. I'll go with the homer pick right now; with Polacek right at the top of the national scoring figures, he'd be a solid choice.
Rookie of the Year
Last RPI winner: George Servinis, 1983
Last year: Jody O'Neill, Dartmouth
D Nick D'Agostino, Cornell
F Louis Leblanc, Harvard
F Jerry D'Amigo, RPI
F Brandon Pirri, RPI
G Keith Kinkaid, Union
D'Agostino is pretty clearly the top freshman defenseman in the league - in fact, he's one of the top defensemen period on the team that sits atop the league standings (by winning percentage). Kinkaid has only one real competitor for best freshman goaltender in the league (Yale's Nick Maricic), and his numbers, across the board, have been better. Kincaid has also been a major part of Union's success this season, earning the lion's share of the time in net for the Dutchmen.
Then there are the three forwards who are, by far, the best freshmen in the league, both by numbers and by reputation. Leblanc is the league's only 1st round draft pick this season, and he's practically taken the Crimson on his back. With 10 league goals, he has 4 more than any other freshman in the ECAC (interestingly enough, 2nd place is RPI's Marty O'Grady), and is 2nd in freshman scoring. D'Amigo is the rock star of the group, having starred in the USA's gold medal victory in the World Junior Championship, and has the numbers to back up his star power in the ECAC: 5 goals and 10 assists, good for third in the league. Pirri, meanwhile, has 18 assists, which would be enough to put him in the league lead in freshman scoring on its own, but his 3 ECAC goals gives him 21 total points, which is good for 4th in overall league scoring. Nationally, his 35 points have him tops among freshman (by 3), a full 16 points ahead of Leblanc and 12 points ahead of his sometimes linemate D'Amigo.
This is an open race, but I believe it'll come down to D'Amigo, Leblanc, and Pirri. Based on the numbers, Pirri should be the favorite (and a potential National Rookie of the Year nominee), but he's not the "household name" that D'Amigo and Leblanc are. D'Amigo's WJC exploits and Leblanc's draft experience shouldn't play a role, but their numbers are significant enough to be legitimate candidates and the voters will probably consider those aspects. It's honestly a complete tossup.
Coach of the Year
Last RPI winner: None (first awarded 1987)
Last year: Keith Allain, Yale
Seth Appert, RPI
Joe Marsh, St. Lawrence
Nate Leaman, Union
Coach of the Year usually goes either to the coach of the most clearly dominant team or the coach of the most surprising or most improved team. With no clearly established dominant team this season, the likely candidates are those who have their teams on the rise. Appert, in his fourth year at RPI, has the Engineers contending for a first-round bye despite being selected 8th by the coaches and 10th by the media. Marsh, a four-time ECAC Coach of the Year, is in a similar position after the Saints were picked 7th by the media and 10th by his peers. Leaman has had the Dutchmen at or very near the top of the ECAC standings all season long for the first time in the history of the program after a predicted 6th place finish by both the coaches and the media.
Leaman's team combines the domination aspect with the surprising aspect. Barring a slow ending, I'd be hard pressed to say he wasn't the favorite at this point.
Best Defensive Defenseman
Last RPI winner: None (awarded from 1962-67 and since 1993)
Last year: Matt Generous, St. Lawrence
Corbin McPherson, so, Colgate
Nick D'Agostino, fr, Cornell
Alex Biega, sr, Harvard
Peter Child, so, St. Lawrence
Mike Schreiber, sr, Union
Jimmy Martin, jr, Yale
The name is partially misleading - quite often the winner of this award is among the best scoring - that is, offensive - defensemen in the league. But quite often, the two go hand in hand. In this case, one of the best defensive defensemen in the league also leads the league in scoring from a defenseman: Union senior Mike Schreiber. He's got 4 goals and 10 assists, but also boasts a +9 plus/minus (teammate Brock Matheson is +13, but he was +7 in an 11-2 pasting of Clarkson last week. Bit of an outlier). Alex Biega (+4, 7 points) is another solid defenseman with the ability to score, and the reputation to be a solid contender.
McPherson may be the best example of an outstanding purely defensive defenseman - he leads the Colgate blueline by far at +11 with only 4 points. Child is similar; +9 with 6 points. Sometimes, guys like this don't get noticed as much D'Agostino (+10, 9 points).
The situation at Yale is interesting here. Yale's most notable defenseman, according to conventional wisdom, is senior Thomas Dignard, who's 4th in the league in scoring among D-men with 12 points. That's pretty solid, but even with all those points, he's sporting a -4 rating, dead last among Bulldog defensemen. Jimmy Martin and senior Ryan Donald are paired with matching +8 ratings, among the best in the league. If we're going by the "defensive defensemen" name, they're better candidates.
By name, McPherson should be a very solid contender, but Schreiber's combination of offense and defense is likely to make him the favorite.
Best Defensive Forward
Last RPI winner: None (first awarded 1993)
Last year: Tyler Mugford, Cornell
Matt Firman, so, Colgate
Sean Collins, so, Cornell
Corey Tamblyn, so, Clarkson
Jacob Drewiske, so, St. Lawrence
Jonathan Lareau, sr, Union
I'm going to be brutally honest - this is a tough category to evaluate unless you've gotten a good, solid look at each team in the conference, which I haven't. So I did the next best thing. I took a quick peek at the plus/minus numbers for forwards and accounted for forwards whose high numbers came from their own high scoring or playing on a top scoring line, and these are the names I came up with. They could be off base, I'm not sure. Tamblyn is an interesting case - his plus/minus for the season so far as a forward is -2, but that is in stark contrast to most of the regularly playing forwards on his team, including a number of common linemates whose minus number is well into the double digits. Clarkson is dead last in team defense in the ECAC, but the numbers would indicate that it possibly could be worse if not for Tamblyn. The other nominees have put up solid plus numbers playing on second, third, or fourth lines for top teams.
Ken Dryden Award
Last RPI winner: Joel Laing, 2000
Last year: Zane Kalemba, Princeton
Ben Scrivens, sr, Cornell
Kain Tisi, sr, St. Lawrence
There really aren't any other good candidates for the top goaltender in the league. Kalemba and Harvard's Kyle Richter, the last two Dryden winners, are having miserable seasons. The only other two that I could consider adding to the list are RPI's Allen York and Union's Keith Kincaid, but neither are close to the standard that Scrivens and Tisi are setting. Quinnipiac's Dan Clarke was an early favorite, but his numbers have fallen along with the Bobcats. This is absolutely a two-horse race, and right now I have to give the slight advantage to Tisi given his superior save percentage. The knock on Scrivens is the same knock that several consecutive goaltenders at Cornell have had to endure - that his numbers are a function of the Big Red's system. If Scrivens' numbers pull past Tisi's significantly, he can take this, but if they stay as close as they are now, it should probably go to Tisi.
Player of the Year
Last RPI winner: Marc Cavosie, 2002
Last year: Zane Kalemba, Princeton
F David McIntyre, sr, Colgate
F Blake Gallagher, sr, Cornell
F Chase Polacek, jr, RPI
G Kain Tisi, sr, St. Lawrence
F Mario Valery-Trabucco, sr, Union
F Broc Little, jr, Yale
Always the most anticipated of the year's awards, the Player of the Year can be interpreted as the league MVP, and among the best six teams in the ECAC, there are fairly clear cut arguments for each of these guys as, at the very least, the MVP of their respective teams.
McIntyre is tied for fifth in the league in scoring with 8 goals and 11 assists. He plays on one of the most potent lines in the ECAC (alongside sophomore Austin Smith and junior Brian Day), and is the only listed candidate who was a consensus preseason All-ECAC selection.
Gallagher has 11 goals and 12 assists as the top scorer for league leading Cornell. He is part of a formidable one-two punch alongside fellow senior Colin Greening and has proven to be nothing short of deadly on the power play - 8 of his 11 league goals have come on the man advantage, by far the league leader in that statistic.
Polacek has scored in bunches all season long, leading the ECAC with 16 assists, 26 points, 13 power play points, and 5 shorthanded points. His 41 total points have him one point off the national lead in scoring.
Tisi has been the most important player for the Saints this season, establishing himself as the clear top goaltender on the team for the first time in his four years as the anchor of the 3rd rated defense in the ECAC. His 1.86 GAA and .934 save percentage are the best numbers put up in Canton since Eric Heffler and Derek Gustafson.
Valery-Trabucco leads the ECAC with 14 goals and is 2nd in scoring with 25 points. Along with linemate Jason Walters, he is on pace to finish his career in Schenectady among the top 10 point scorers in Union history.
Little, a Third Team All-ECAC selection last year, leads Yale's top rated offense in scoring with 13 goals and 6 assists despite the return of three other All-ECAC teammates from last season.
There have only been two forwards in the last six seasons to win Player of the Year - St. Lawrence's T.J. Trevelyan in 2006 and Princeton's Lee Jubinville in 2008. In both cases, the forwards in question topped the league in scoring. That would seem to put Polacek and Valery-Trabucco in the driver's seat. The recent goaltenders who have won - Yann Danis, David McKee, and Kalemba - led the league in GAA and save percentage. That would point toward Tisi. I'll go with the homer pick right now; with Polacek right at the top of the national scoring figures, he'd be a solid choice.
Rookie of the Year
Last RPI winner: George Servinis, 1983
Last year: Jody O'Neill, Dartmouth
D Nick D'Agostino, Cornell
F Louis Leblanc, Harvard
F Jerry D'Amigo, RPI
F Brandon Pirri, RPI
G Keith Kinkaid, Union
D'Agostino is pretty clearly the top freshman defenseman in the league - in fact, he's one of the top defensemen period on the team that sits atop the league standings (by winning percentage). Kinkaid has only one real competitor for best freshman goaltender in the league (Yale's Nick Maricic), and his numbers, across the board, have been better. Kincaid has also been a major part of Union's success this season, earning the lion's share of the time in net for the Dutchmen.
Then there are the three forwards who are, by far, the best freshmen in the league, both by numbers and by reputation. Leblanc is the league's only 1st round draft pick this season, and he's practically taken the Crimson on his back. With 10 league goals, he has 4 more than any other freshman in the ECAC (interestingly enough, 2nd place is RPI's Marty O'Grady), and is 2nd in freshman scoring. D'Amigo is the rock star of the group, having starred in the USA's gold medal victory in the World Junior Championship, and has the numbers to back up his star power in the ECAC: 5 goals and 10 assists, good for third in the league. Pirri, meanwhile, has 18 assists, which would be enough to put him in the league lead in freshman scoring on its own, but his 3 ECAC goals gives him 21 total points, which is good for 4th in overall league scoring. Nationally, his 35 points have him tops among freshman (by 3), a full 16 points ahead of Leblanc and 12 points ahead of his sometimes linemate D'Amigo.
This is an open race, but I believe it'll come down to D'Amigo, Leblanc, and Pirri. Based on the numbers, Pirri should be the favorite (and a potential National Rookie of the Year nominee), but he's not the "household name" that D'Amigo and Leblanc are. D'Amigo's WJC exploits and Leblanc's draft experience shouldn't play a role, but their numbers are significant enough to be legitimate candidates and the voters will probably consider those aspects. It's honestly a complete tossup.
Coach of the Year
Last RPI winner: None (first awarded 1987)
Last year: Keith Allain, Yale
Seth Appert, RPI
Joe Marsh, St. Lawrence
Nate Leaman, Union
Coach of the Year usually goes either to the coach of the most clearly dominant team or the coach of the most surprising or most improved team. With no clearly established dominant team this season, the likely candidates are those who have their teams on the rise. Appert, in his fourth year at RPI, has the Engineers contending for a first-round bye despite being selected 8th by the coaches and 10th by the media. Marsh, a four-time ECAC Coach of the Year, is in a similar position after the Saints were picked 7th by the media and 10th by his peers. Leaman has had the Dutchmen at or very near the top of the ECAC standings all season long for the first time in the history of the program after a predicted 6th place finish by both the coaches and the media.
Leaman's team combines the domination aspect with the surprising aspect. Barring a slow ending, I'd be hard pressed to say he wasn't the favorite at this point.
Best Defensive Defenseman
Last RPI winner: None (awarded from 1962-67 and since 1993)
Last year: Matt Generous, St. Lawrence
Corbin McPherson, so, Colgate
Nick D'Agostino, fr, Cornell
Alex Biega, sr, Harvard
Peter Child, so, St. Lawrence
Mike Schreiber, sr, Union
Jimmy Martin, jr, Yale
The name is partially misleading - quite often the winner of this award is among the best scoring - that is, offensive - defensemen in the league. But quite often, the two go hand in hand. In this case, one of the best defensive defensemen in the league also leads the league in scoring from a defenseman: Union senior Mike Schreiber. He's got 4 goals and 10 assists, but also boasts a +9 plus/minus (teammate Brock Matheson is +13, but he was +7 in an 11-2 pasting of Clarkson last week. Bit of an outlier). Alex Biega (+4, 7 points) is another solid defenseman with the ability to score, and the reputation to be a solid contender.
McPherson may be the best example of an outstanding purely defensive defenseman - he leads the Colgate blueline by far at +11 with only 4 points. Child is similar; +9 with 6 points. Sometimes, guys like this don't get noticed as much D'Agostino (+10, 9 points).
The situation at Yale is interesting here. Yale's most notable defenseman, according to conventional wisdom, is senior Thomas Dignard, who's 4th in the league in scoring among D-men with 12 points. That's pretty solid, but even with all those points, he's sporting a -4 rating, dead last among Bulldog defensemen. Jimmy Martin and senior Ryan Donald are paired with matching +8 ratings, among the best in the league. If we're going by the "defensive defensemen" name, they're better candidates.
By name, McPherson should be a very solid contender, but Schreiber's combination of offense and defense is likely to make him the favorite.
Best Defensive Forward
Last RPI winner: None (first awarded 1993)
Last year: Tyler Mugford, Cornell
Matt Firman, so, Colgate
Sean Collins, so, Cornell
Corey Tamblyn, so, Clarkson
Jacob Drewiske, so, St. Lawrence
Jonathan Lareau, sr, Union
I'm going to be brutally honest - this is a tough category to evaluate unless you've gotten a good, solid look at each team in the conference, which I haven't. So I did the next best thing. I took a quick peek at the plus/minus numbers for forwards and accounted for forwards whose high numbers came from their own high scoring or playing on a top scoring line, and these are the names I came up with. They could be off base, I'm not sure. Tamblyn is an interesting case - his plus/minus for the season so far as a forward is -2, but that is in stark contrast to most of the regularly playing forwards on his team, including a number of common linemates whose minus number is well into the double digits. Clarkson is dead last in team defense in the ECAC, but the numbers would indicate that it possibly could be worse if not for Tamblyn. The other nominees have put up solid plus numbers playing on second, third, or fourth lines for top teams.
Ken Dryden Award
Last RPI winner: Joel Laing, 2000
Last year: Zane Kalemba, Princeton
Ben Scrivens, sr, Cornell
Kain Tisi, sr, St. Lawrence
There really aren't any other good candidates for the top goaltender in the league. Kalemba and Harvard's Kyle Richter, the last two Dryden winners, are having miserable seasons. The only other two that I could consider adding to the list are RPI's Allen York and Union's Keith Kincaid, but neither are close to the standard that Scrivens and Tisi are setting. Quinnipiac's Dan Clarke was an early favorite, but his numbers have fallen along with the Bobcats. This is absolutely a two-horse race, and right now I have to give the slight advantage to Tisi given his superior save percentage. The knock on Scrivens is the same knock that several consecutive goaltenders at Cornell have had to endure - that his numbers are a function of the Big Red's system. If Scrivens' numbers pull past Tisi's significantly, he can take this, but if they stay as close as they are now, it should probably go to Tisi.
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