On the surface, the Carleton men’s and women’s hockey teams appear to be headed in two different directions—the men have completed a successful retool in less than a season with the help of contributing freshmen, while the women have slumped back to the basement of the tough Réseau du sport étudiant du Québec conference.
While the men’s team’s 14-5 record puts the women’s team’s 3-10 mark to shame, it hasn’t been all roses on the men’s side, nor has it been all negatives on the women’s side.
Men’s Grades
Team: The Ravens men’s team appears to have found its groove. A convincing signature win against No. two-ranked McGill Redmen solidified Carleton’s top-3 status in a tough Ontario University Athletics East division, and while Marty Johnston’s team will still be considered outsiders next to the Redmen and rivals Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières, the team hasn’t missed a beat in 2015-16 despite the departures of many key players.
Huge contributions from first-year forwards Brett Welychka and Brent Norris, paired with a deep blueline patrolled by first-years Jeremie Fraser and Connor Boland, have kept the Ravens in the CIS Top 10.
Flowery statistics—Welychka second in the nation in scoring as a rookie, sophomore Ryan Van Stralen’s emergence as a dominant force in the league—aside, the team has dropped bad points. Swept at home on Halloween weekend by the University of Ontario Institute of Technology and Queen’s, and earning only a split on the road at Lakehead. Consistency has been a battle at times for Johnston’s team.
That said, Carleton is 5-1 in its last six games and poised to be a threat in the playoffs yet again as a result of Johnston’s impressive recruiting class. If the team can keep its head and lower its league-leading penalty minute total, the near future is bright. Grade: A-
Women’s Grades
Team: It’s difficult to judge Carleton’s season against its peers, simply because the team is over 60 per cent first-year players. The Ravens struggle on most nights to put together a 60-minute effort—whether that’s the personnel itself or the team’s inexperience can’t be known at this early stage of the rebuild.
Second-year head coach Pierre Alain appears to have the team moving in the right direction as Carleton matched its win total from 2014-15 in the first half of this season. But getting swept on home ice this past weekend made the Ravens’ path to the playoffs an awful lot harder.
The Ravens lack any kind of offensive weapons. The team’s leading scorer, standout rookie Nicole Miners, has just seven points through 13 games. Captain Tawnya Guindon, often employed to check the opposition’s top line, has seen her numbers plateau just below 0.5 points per game.
The team’s young blueline, anchored by first-years Jennifer Semkowski and Sam Tayler, has impressed.
The goaltending has been good and certain rookies have stood out, specifically on the blue line, but the team lacks any kind of offensive punch. The rebuild is in full swing and the future is bright, but for now Carleton will be lucky to finish with more than five wins this season. Grade: C
