More off-season hockey updates

Not so much Dartmouth news, but it will have an impact on the upcoming season.

Chris Higgins, who would have been a junior forward at Yale this coming year, has signed with Montreal and will be leaving college. As well, David LeNeveu, a goaltender from Cornell, has signed a contract with the Pheonix Coyotes. These signings are significant for several reasons. They were the co-players of the year in the ECAC last year. Their losses leave a huge hole for each school to fill. Consequently, it opens the door for Dartmouth to continue their upswing and grab second this coming year. With LeNeveu, Cornell likely would’ve been picked to finish 2nd in the conference. Without him, they likely fall to 4th or 5th in the preseason polls. Likewise Yale probably falls from a likely 3-5 pick to more of a 5-7 pick in the preseason polls.

Harvard will now be the prohibitive favorite to win the conference. But if Dartmouth can get any sort of consistent goaltending and this year’s freshmen can contribute even a fraction of what last year’s freshmen did, they could contend a year earlier than I was currently predicting.