Nicole: Hi friends! Welcome to the first Wednesday Women of the 2022-23 hockey season. Arlan informed me at the end of last season that he was ready to fully retire, so these will have a slightly different look this season. But before I get into that, let me say a hearty and sincere thank you to Arlan for all he has done for me and for women’s college hockey. Not only has he been an amazing advocate for the sport with his coverage for so many years, but he has been a great mentor and friend to me who was always willing to answer questions and share his vast knowledge. Folks on the Fan Forum know he is always sharing what he’s learned and giving historical context. We’re all smarter about this sport because of him.
The plan for this season with Wednesday Women is for me to bring on guest writers every few weeks who can share some unique insight. I’ve always loved the ability to drill down into teams, schedules and stats through this column so I started off looking for people that could talk in depth about a specific conference.
Lindsay (Dellow) Glavan played in 139 games at Mercyhurst from 2001-2005. She’s an active Fan Forum poster, adding her unique perspective as a former player. It was a no-brainer to ask her to join me for a few Wednesday Women’s this season. The plan is to talk about whatever makes sense in the moment, but with a focus on the CHA.
Welcome, Lindsay and thanks for joining me! Is there anything you think people need to know about you?
Lindsay: Hi Nicole! Thanks for the welcome and the invite to participate. I echo your gratitude to Arlan for his contributions to women’s hockey coverage and encouragement to all who enjoy talking about the game.
I’m a women’s hockey fan based out of northeast Ohio. As a proud former Laker, I naturally follow the Mercyhurst Lakers and the CHA, but enjoy following the national scene as well. My ‘why’ for being a fan is simply that hockey makes me happy and is part of who I am. My playing days are long over but there is no need to leave the game. Thanks to coverage that has evolved over the years led by people like yourself and Arlan and technology to stream games it makes being an out of town fan possible. So here I am!
Being a fan is a way for me to celebrate something good in my world. I savor the chance to rest and watch a game, to take time to appreciate the opportunities the student athletes are getting, and to enjoy how they continue to push the upper limits of on ice skill and speed.
Nicole: Awesome! Let’s jump right in. Which CHA team has stood out to you so far?
Lindsay: Conference play has yet to start in the CHA so the focus has been on what each team is doing in non-conference play. Penn State’s start has been the biggest story so far.
The details of their 3-4-1 record reveal a program that is playing a challenging schedule and is on the rise. The losses are one each to University of Minnesota Duluth and Wisconsin and a pair to Colgate, all top ten ranked teams. The win over then ranked #3 Wisconsin and at St. Lawrence and the win and tie at then #14 Boston College were all program firsts for Penn State. Penn State has had non-conference success before under Coach Jeff Kampersal; what stands out this year is how quickly they banged out each of these milestones, the higher ranking of the opponents, and how they’ve continued to become a better skating team with better team speed.
In a crowded top ten it’s not clear where Penn State (or anyone) exactly fits in the polls, but the early results indicate the team is better than they were last year. For now they are ranked 12th in the USCHO poll.
I’ll get to Tessa Janecke shortly, but first want to mention Penn State’s transfer players: Courtney Correia from Boston University, and Eleri MacKay from Colgate. Both are fifth years and have assumed roles on the top two lines. Correia, who led BU in goals last year, scored a hat trick in the win over St. Lawrence. The experience of both players should help the Nittany Lions throughout the season.
Through eight games, freshman Tessa Janecke leads the team in points with seven, as well as shots with 31. Most recently, she had a two goal game against BC including a short handed goal. Junior captain Kiara Zanon is close behind Janecke with 6 points and 29 shots, second on the team in both categories.
The 4-1 season opening win against Wisconsin is in the rear view mirror, but Tessa Janecke’s first college game has to be the most impressive college debut I’ve ever seen. For starters, Coach Kampersal played her in all situations right from the first puck drop. Janecke scored Penn State’s first goal of the season, and later got a power play goal. Kampersal relied on her in the final minutes of the game to help defend the six on five when Wisconsin’s net was empty. Janecke responded by assisting Julie Gough on an empty net goal.
In her first ever college game, Tessa Janecke led the Nittany Lions in points, shots, blocked shots, face off wins, and even penalty minutes. All of this against a Wisconsin team featuring five players with senior US Women’s National Team experience, including two Olympians. Wisconsin resoundingly defeated Penn State the next day, but Janecke and the Nittany Lions shone on opening night.
I recall big season opening upsets in previous years; in 2008 unranked Robert Morris stole a win at Minnesota, and in 2017 unranked Merrimack did the same, also against Minnesota. What I don’t recall is a freshman making their college debut being the one to lead their team to victory against one of the best teams in the country. Since the Wisconsin series Janecke added four more points, all against ranked teams. It’s very early and undoubtedly she’ll experience adversity at some point this year but the future is bright for the freshman from Orangeville, Illinois. The challenge for the coaching staff will be to develop her game alongside the rest of the team so that she can elevate the play of those around her, helping the team be greater than the sum of its parts rather than a team that relies on a few players to carry the load.
Next up the Nittany Lions host the 1-2 Franklin Pierce Ravens. Depending on the outcome of game one of the series, I wonder if Penn State will start a goalie other than Josie Bothun in game two. Bothun has been critical to Penn State’s success in recent years, and has started 62 consecutive games for the team. I’m interested to see if Kampersal feels the team has progressed to a point where Bothun can get a rest.
I wrote a lot about Janecke as I’ve been watching her in the CHA. Are there other freshmen nationally that you’ve noticed are off to a great start?
Nicole: I’ve been really impressed with Penn State. I was amongst those that were sad not to see them carry over their pandemic year success last season. It seems they just needed a year to put it all together. I spoke with Kampersal after that first weekend on his philosophy with his non-conference schedule and I really like that he’s thinking about this and having a long-term plan. He absolutely wants the path of least resistance with a CHA tournament win and the auto-bid, but with the expanded tournament, there is an additional option and he wants to put his team in the best possible place for both. The tough non-conference schedule elevates their game early and should help them through the conference schedule and gives them some national clout when it comes to calculations and poll positioning.
I’m glad you went long on Janecke and how truly impressive her opening weeks have been. I think a few other U18 team players had some more hype coming into the season, but she’s done the best job of transitioning and being immediately impactful. I think her choice of Penn State might have surprised people, but it’s exactly this that shows why it would be appealing. She’s not on a third line. She’s not trying to scratch out a role. She’s the focus of the offense. Time will tell if that translates to end of season success.
It feels a little unfair to talk about KK Harvey (I know much of the international broadcasts were spent calling her Caroline, but she goes by KK) when we’re talking about other interesting and impressive rookies, since she just turned 20 and has two IIHF Women’s World Championships and an Olympics under her belt, but she is only eight games into her collegiate career. She leads the country with 11 assists and her 14 points are tied for second overall. Wisconsin’s early schedule has certainly helped, but for me it’s not necessarily the overall gaudy numbers, but the fact that she’s tallied points in six of the team’s eight games. She’s also scored in each of their last three.
Other standouts have included Josefin Bouveng at Minnesota and Thea Johansson at Mercyhurst (each with 3g, 4a), Madison Chantler at Quinnipiac and Reichen Kirchmair at Providence, each of whom have five goals, which is tied for 9th best in the country. I also want to mention RIT’s Lexi Sung, who’s tied for second in the CHA in assists per game.
One of my favorite parts of this conference is how close the teams have been historically and how no one can assume a weekend sweep. We’ve focused on how good Penn State is, but which team do you think gives them the most competition for the conference crown?
Lindsay: Right now I believe Mercyhurst gives Penn State the most competition for the conference crown because of the key players Syracuse lost to graduation.
Mercyhurst returned their top two point scorers in Vanessa Upson and Sara Boucher, and freshman Thea Johansson is making an immediate impact. The 5-3 Lakers look like a typical Laker team so far. They’ve won the games they should win, picked up a split with then #10 Clarkson, and took some lumps against Colgate. They play well positionally, play motivated, and will try to grind out wins. They aren’t likely to be prolific scorers, but historically Penn State hasn’t been either, which will help the Lakers contend if they can find a way to contain Penn State’s speed.
Meanwhile, Syracuse lost three of their top five point scorers at the end of last season, including two time CHA Defender of the Year Jessica DiGirolamo. You noted in your season preview that DiGirolamo led shots on goal for the Orange by a wide margin last year. Sure enough Syracuse’s shots per game this year have declined from 32.3 to 20.4. The Orange have faced quality opponents so far so their 1-6 record doesn’t faze me too much as it relates to conference play, but they’ll need to find a way to get more shots if they want to repeat as conference champions. On the positive the Orange have a power play clicking at 20.3% and have scored 6 power play goals, the most of any CHA team. While the team scored 3 goals total in their first 4 games, they’ve scored 7 goals in their last 3 games. It’s possible that the shots will resolve itself once they are playing in conference and as first year head coach Britni Smith gains experience each week, but the decline seems drastic enough that it might be a red flag.
What are your thoughts on which CHA team will challenge Penn State? Are you sticking with your prediction that Syracuse will finish second in the league for now? As you said the teams are quite close historically, so it’s hard to predict.
Nicole: I just really want to use your reasoning of it’s too early and we haven’t had any conference matchups to get out of this question, to be honest. I definitely don’t feel like I have a handle on any of these teams yet.
It has been a rough go of it so far for Syracuse, with their only win coming in overtime over Merrimack. They’re averaging just 1.4 goals per game so far, which isn’t really going to get it done no matter the opponent. Yes they’ve played some tough, ranked teams early on, but I have to rethink my rankings right now.
You’ll be happy to note that I basically never think we can count Mercyhurst out. But that feels especially true now that they’ve seemed to follow up one standout rookie with another in Thea Johansson. In addition, their sophomores have really stepped it up in their second year so far. I think we were all so focused on Upson that we didn’t appreciate the young group around her. Now they’ve got some experience and there doesn’t seem to be any transition for them to be comfortable this season. Most importantly, in my opinion, is that their production is spread out. There’s a depth that we haven’t seen from the Lakers in the past few seasons and that makes them much more dangerous. I expect we’ll become more familiar with Chantal Ste-Croix and Marielle Parks, among others.
You might be able to give more analysis here, but Mike Sisti seems to always have his teams peak at the right time. One thing I feel like I can count on from Mercyhurst is visible improvement from the beginning of the season to the end. The fact that I feel like I really like how they look right now bodes well for what they can accomplish come February and March.
Earlier we focused on Janecke and rookies, but have any other players stood out to you? Let’s ask specifically in the CHA and then also nationwide?
Lindsay: That’s the spirit Nicole! Never count Mercyhurst out. I smiled when I read that because never counting your team out is half the fun of this whole endeavor of being a fan. I also smile because I know come conference tournament time anyone can win, as we’ve seen with three different CHA tournament champions in the past three years.
Two other Lakers who have impressed me are sophomore defender Sydney Pedersen, and freshman Makayla Javier. Pedersen is offensive minded as far as Laker defenders go and she’s having a great start with six points in eight games. Javier is a freshman who is getting significant minutes on the blue line, something else we don’t always see with Mercyhurst rosters.
Morgan Neitzke of the Lindenwood Lions is a player I noticed within the context of that team. She finished third in points for the Lions last year as a freshman, and kicked off this season with a four point weekend at Bemidji. The Lions graduated their program all time points leader Sierra Burt last year, and will look to Morgan Neitzke to lead the offense this year.
RIT has picked up Amy Dobson as a fifth year transfer from Penn State. Dobson leads the Tigers in shots with 29, almost double the next highest player, and has 5 points in eight games. Dobson will play a role in any progress this team makes this year for sure.
Syracuse is still getting going as we discussed above, so we’ll see who breaks out on that team. Sarah Marchand and Madison Primeau were both on the CHA All-Rookie team, fifth year forward Lauren Bellefontaine and senior defender Mae Batherson are also ones to watch.
I don’t think there are any other surprises so far in the CHA. Kiara Zanon had a good start as expected, as did Vanessa Upson for the Lakers. Sara Boucher got going last weekend for the Lakers with two game winners at RPI. The next time you and I do this column there will be some conference play that has occurred and we can see which players are starting to separate themselves from the pack.
Nationally, I’ve been impressed with Colgate forwards Danielle Serdachny and Kristýna Kaltounková, and with Colgate’s team defense in general. I’m interested to see Colgate play Vermont this weekend to see how they look against Hockey East and to check in on Vermont’s Natálie Mlýnková, who I enjoyed watching play for Czechia in the World Championships.
What do you make of Quinnipiac’s start? I’m not too familiar with their program and am interested in any insight you have on them. I assumed they would regress this year after graduating goaltender Corinne Schroeder, the team’s MVP last year. They haven’t missed a beat though, starting the season 7-0.
Nicole: I feel like I’ve been higher on Quinnipiac than a lot of people over the past year or so. I have been voting them fourth in the polls this season and they’ve done nothing to show me they don’t deserve that respect. I liked the rookies they brought in last year and those players proved those instincts right.
I agree with you that I thought there would be more of a transition or growing pains at goaltender since Schroeder was just so solid and nearly unbeatable for them, particularly down the stretch and in that NCAA game against Ohio State. But when I asked Cass Turner about it, she pointed out that Logan Angers was the Bobcats’ starter before last season. Schroeder took the bulk of the starts, but Angers still played last season and having the competition for time only pushed her to become better. A ton of teams have goalie questions and are splitting time, but Quinnipiac graduated a great goaltender and had an experienced goalie to step into her place. That is such a huge advantage for them.
With the U18s in Madison and available for a lot of folks on TV, we got to know this year’s U18s a lot better than we’ve been able to in recent tournaments. But I think Chantler got a little lost in our excitement over some of these players joining the NCAA this season. She was tied as Canada’s top goal-scorer and was one of the best forwards in the tournament. You spoke well of how quickly Janecke transitioned to the college game and the same could be said of Chantler. And she’s currently only the fifth-highest scorer on their team.
The thing is, I feel like the ceiling is so high for this team and they haven’t really reached their full potential. I just think that there’s a lot of talent here that is still developing, meaning they’re only going to get better. They have a mostly intact roster from last year’s NCAA tournament run and then added an innate goal-scorer like Chantler.
It feels like a fool’s errand to make any definitive statements about the ECAC, especially since so many of the expected best teams haven’t even played a game yet. But I also feel like the Bobcats were long known for their defense and that’s a point of pride for them – they are so good at interrupting the flow of the game, stopping the puck in transition and not allowing opponents to get set up or take high-probability shots. And now they’ve shown themselves to be a top-tier offense, as well. They play a great possession game, making it really difficult to break them down in any part of the ice. Even if you can hold them to one or two goals, good luck getting any prolonged time with the puck to generate any offense of your own.
Of course, I feel like I could easily write as many fawning paragraphs about Yale, Princeton and Colgate, at a minimum. And Cornell this year reminds me of Quinnipiac last year. After my not-so-great preseason picks in the CHA, maybe I’ll leave the prognosticating behind and just wait until we see these teams play each other before I try to rank them again.
Is there anyone else who’s hot start has made you want to pay them some extra attention?
Lindsay: Thanks for the rundown on Quinnipiac. With Colgate and Quinnipiac having piqued my interest I’ll be sure to pay attention when they meet on October 29th. We’ve talked about a team that looks better than they were last year in Penn State, and we’ve talked about the best two teams in the ECAC this year so far, who may eventually be top five in the polls. We haven’t talked about the current top five in the polls.
These teams get a lot of attention generally so I don’t know that this is extra attention but I’ll note that Ohio State, UMD, and Northeastern, three of the four 2022 Frozen Four participants all have perfect records so far. They are beating teams soundly, and they’re taking care of business so I don’t have any reason not to consider them potential Frozen Four returnees at this early point. UMD and Ohio State meet up this weekend, so one of those perfect records will go away, and we’ll know more about both teams.
Then there’s Wisconsin. They’ve had an interesting start in that they’ve had a loss to Penn State and needed overtime to beat St. Cloud State, but they’ve also scored more goals in the nation than anyone with 48, good enough for second best goals per game in the nation. Despite the early loss and OT, with their deep roster it’s not a stretch to have them in the conversation for who may be in the Frozen Four.
Lastly, Minnesota. Nicole, they scored twenty goals in one weekend! Who does that? Teams with a hot start, that’s who. Similar to Wisconsin, Minnesota also gets the adjective of interesting because they let Minnesota State climb back into the 2nd game of the series twice, before finally putting the game away. But with the leading offense in the nation, averaging 7.5 goals per game through four games, with another roster so deep it’s absurd, they too are worthy of fans’ continued attention.
The last team to talk about is Stonehill. The Stonehill Skyhawks aren’t going to win a national championship this year, and they aren’t better than they were last year because they didn’t even exist last year. The brand new program led by Head Coach Tara Watchorn has gotten off to a hot start though, and the newest NEWHA team is 4-2 in its first ever season. Their roster has 18 freshmen and 4 transfers, and although they are picked to finish fifth in the NEWHA, I will not be surprised if they finish higher.
If I can end this on one final CHA note, I’ll say there’s something appealing to me about Tara Watchorn arriving as a new builder in women’s hockey the season following Coach Paul Flanagan’s retirement at Syracuse. There are programs that elevate to Division I from preexisting campus teams, and less frequently a new coach is tasked with building a Division I program from the ground up. Even more rare, the inaugural coach finds success and stays many years really building out the program. As head coach, Flanagan ushered the St. Lawrence Saints into the NCAA era, and later built a brand new program at Syracuse. He had success at both programs, leading both programs to NCAA tournaments, and twice left healthy programs when he said goodbye. He made a significant and unique contribution to women’s college hockey in western New York in both the ECAC and the CHA over two decades. For longtime women’s college hockey fans his retirement marks the end of an era.
I like to think of Tara Watchorn as picking up where Flanagan left off. She has joined the club of program builders and is doing the work of growing opportunities in women’s college hockey, this time in the NEWHA at Stonehill College in Easton, Massachusetts. We’ll see where the Skyhawks’ hot start goes from here.
