By John Lachmann
Miami was ranked No. 1 in college hockey entering the 2011-12 season. In the final U.S. College Hockey Online poll of the calendar year, the .500 RedHawks received just nine votes for the top 20.
So the biggest questions are: What happened and (more importantly) how can the team return to elite status?
The RedHawks have been disappointing in several areas. Here’s a look at some:
1) Too many penalties. Coincidentals are no big deal, but Miami leads the CCHA in power play chances allowed with an alarming 109. That’s 5.5 per game.
Eight players are averaging a penalty minute a game or more. The RedHawks have taken seven majors and eight 10-minute misconducts, and opponents have 25 more man-advantage chances than Miami.
And it’s not like the penalty killing has controlled the damage, which leads us to…
2) Penalty killing. Miami is ninth in the CCHA in PK percentage at 83.5, and parlayed with the number of opponents’ chances opponents has resulted in 18 power-play goals allowed. Only Michigan is worse with 19 goals against.
This had been a strong area for Miami teams in recent years – the past three season the RedHawks’ penalty killing percentages were 88.2, 86.2 and 89.7.
3) Power play. Yes, both facets of special teams have fared poorly. Miami is ninth in the CCHA at 14.3 percent on the power play.
With all of the new forwards, it was understood that it would take time for the chemistry to develop, and it appeared that would happen faster than expected when the RedHawks netted five power play goals in their first three games.
But they have seven in 17 games since, and by scoring at a league-worst 7.3 percent of their chances in conference play, the RedHawks should consider declining penalties.
4) Late-game woes. This has been documented before but bears repeating.
With four minutes remaining in regulation trailing by one, Miami is 0-3 with zero goals for and three against.
With four minutes remaining in regulation leading by one, Miami is 5-0-2, a blown-lead rate of 28.6 percent.
(And the killer stat)
With four minutes remaining in regulation tied, Miami is 0-5 with zero goals and six allowed.
To rephrase for emphasis: That means the RedHawks have lost every game when the score has been tied with four minutes left in the third period.
When Miami is tied or plus-minus one goal with four minutes left in regulation, Miami has scored one goal (an empty netter) and surrendered 11.
These stats could be written off as an aberration in a small sample size, but the RedHawks had similar struggles late last season.
At this point the team must be aware of its late woes, so perhaps the team’s confidence in those situations has taken a hit.
With so many seniors on this team it makes one wonder if the D.C. loss in 2009 didn’t shake those players’ confidence long term with the game on the line.
Either way, Miami has to get better in the clutch or the RedHawks will sit the NCAA Tournament out, and possibly a large portion of the CCHA Tournament as well.
5) Goaltending. This one’s a head-scratcher because Miami’s duo had logged 131 games entering this season.
Seniors Cody Reichard and Connor Knapp had a combined save percentage of .914 for their careers prior to 2010-11, but Miami is stopping just 89.6 percent of the shots its faces this season.
Both are having their worst seasons as Miamians in terms of save percentage. Reichard is 1.1 percent below any of his previous three seasons at .901, and Knapp is at .896, with his previous low being .904.
6) The defense. As with the goaltenders, this should’ve been a strength entering this season, with three seniors and three juniors returning.
And while it’s more difficult to quantify struggles in the blue line corps, the set of six experienced defensemen has to share in the blame for Miami’s goals-against rate being the highest since 2004-05.
One telling stat is opponents’ shots. Opponents are averaging 2.8 more shots on goal than last season and the highest shot rate than in any of the current seniors’ previous seasons at Miami (25.9).
Three shots per game might not sound like a lot, but since about 10 percent of shots in hockey result in goals, three shots per game allowed means an extra three-tenths of a goal surrendered each game.
That’s a ton in a sport where four goals in a game is considered a good offensive night.
And away from the raw stats, opponents have generated more quality scoring chances, which is obvious from watching games.
Which leads to the paramount problem with the team to this point: The veterans on this team have not played to their caliber.
In addition to Reichard and Knapp, senior defenseman Will Weber has not played as well as he has in the past two seasons.
Senior forward Alden Hirschfeld was expected to step up offensively, but his points per game have dipped slightly.
Senior forward Trent Vogelhuber has been banged up, but he’s still better than his team-worst minus-3 rating.
Few expected junior forward Reilly Smith to repeat his sophomore
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