Colgate finished in third place in both the ECACHL regular season and in the conference tournament; the Raiders made the NCAA tournament for the first time since the 1999-2000 season, and lost 6-5 to Colorado College in the semifinals of the NCAA Midwest Regional.<\/p>\n
Much of the team’s success was attributable to the stellar play of departed goaltender Steve Silverthorn, who finished the year with a 24-10-3 record, including five shutouts, a 1.88 goals against average, and a .921 save percentage.<\/p>\n
Colgate coach Don Vaughan’s first task for the upcoming season, then, is figuring out how to replace not only Silverthorn but his eight classmates who also graduated.<\/p>\n
“Obviously it’s tough to replace nine seniors, and they were all very good players,” Vaughan acknowledged. “But we feel we have a good nucleus coming back, especially at the forward position.”<\/p>\n
The core of that nucleus is the tandem of sophomore center Tyler Burton and senior forward Jon Smyth, both 34-point scorers last season. Among Burton’s 34 points were eight power-play goals and four game-winning goals, and Smyth was similarly clutch, coming through with six power-play goals and six game-winners.<\/p>\n
The Raiders’ strength is along its forward lines, because the graduation losses hit especially hard behind the blue line.<\/p>\n
The defensemen will be led by returning junior Mike Campaner, and Vaughan expects sophomores Mark Dekanich and Justin Kowalkoski to compete for Silverthorn’s spot between the pipes.<\/p>\n
“We’re certainly going to be young on defense,” Vaughan agreed. “We’ve got five freshman defensemen coming in, and our goaltending — though we like it — is still unproven.”<\/p>\n
“There’s definitely still some questions that need to be answered,” Vaughan added.<\/p>\n
Some of those answers may come at the start of the season, when Colgate opens its season at Starr Rink against Massachusetts-Lowell, a team that Vaughan called “maybe the toughest team we faced last season.”<\/p>\n
After that the Raiders embark on a grueling — and that’s just the trip up there — pair of games against Lake Superior State, which should provide a good early-season test.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Colgate finished in third place in both the ECACHL regular season and in the conference tournament; the Raiders made the NCAA tournament for the first time since the 1999-2000 season, and lost 6-5 to Colorado College in the semifinals of the NCAA Midwest Regional. Much of the team’s success was attributable to the stellar play […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":140328,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[322],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n