I think you need to keep in mind that they did not come from the bottom half of Hockey East but the mid point of Atlantic Hockey. Until Year3 or 4 Cav didn’t even have a full scholarship load. So you need to kind of give him some slack in the first few years. He has taken a bit of a page out of Pecknolds book as far as recruiting. Where QU recruited Canadians who basically aged out of Juniors, Cav has substituted Eastern Europeans. But the concept is the same. Top US and Canadians are going to be a tough sell against BC, BU, Providence, even Cornell and Yale. Establish yourself as a legit program and you can compete for those guys. We are even getting one or 2. I like the Flynn kid from midway between Boston and Providence for example.
There are some things that concern me about Cavannaugh. He has never had an effective power play nor a really good pp defense. Relying on your goalie to stop everything isn’t a Power play defense. But his recruiting has absolutely been right on the money. For the first time we have a full complement of Hockey East players in 20-21.
I say this in jest sometimes but I also truly have a concern about the UConn basketball fans being both a drag on the program’s growth and an impediment if it gets too big. But I’ll wait and see how that goes.
